04 September 2018

(CW:HP) LEGO® BrickHeadz: Harry Potter, Frozen and Star Wars

Posted by Admin
The LEGO® BrickHeadz theme continues its domination of all known and imagined universes by bringing us collectable characters from some of today's most popular franchises. Sven Franic sees how this latest batch get along, including its introduction of a new template for smaller BrickHeadz characters. Editorial note: Although views expressed by Harry Potter's creator do not align with that of New Elementary, we continue to cover HP sets. Read about our stance here.



I had the chance to review the first batch of BrickHeadz more than a year ago. I never would have guessed at the time that Marcos Bessa’s standard for chibi characters would gain so much popularity. There is a high standard of quality behind the sets, considering the price range. Despite their blocky outer appearance, it takes a lot of tiny slopes and tiles to capture the spirit of a character. All decorations are printed and applied generously, and the sets tend to come with a lot of freshly re-coloured pieces.



Let’s sift through the inventories really quick.






Harry Potter BrickHeadz

Harry Potter recently made a smashing comeback onto the shelves of LEGO stores, and BrickHeadz were some of the first tangible characters available from the franchise. 

41615 Harry Potter & Hedwig is also the first of the new format of BrickHeadz sets where one full sized character is paired with a smaller companion based on a 3x3 footprint rather than the original 4x4.



Some of the most exciting new elements of 2018 for me are the 1x1 bracket (Design ID 36841) and 1x1 inverted bracket (36840). It just so happens that Mr. Potter and his owl are the first to find their way to me with a sample. The set comes with the inverted version of the 1x1 bracket (Element ID 6234695 | Design ID 36840) in Black, shown on the left below.


The set is also home to some new recolours of existing elements.
 1x3 Jumper (6195371|34103) in White, Brick, Modified 1 x 1 x 1 2/3 with Studs on 1 Side (6228987|32952) in Black and the 4l Bar (6238014|30374) in Dark Brown.


41616 Hermione Granger shares the wand with potter, 4l Bar (6238014|30374) in Dark Brown and her printed skirt piece (Element ID 6237035) looks like it has good potential to be used for other applications.


Frozen BrickHeadz

41618 Anna & Olaf (Amazon USA|UK) are another 4x4 & 3x3 pair and the set is a gem in terms of newly recoloured pieces.



The set comes with:

  • Brick 1 x 1 with Studs on 2 Adjacent Sides (6224811|26604) in White,
  • Plate, Modified 1 x 2 Rounded with 2 Open Studs (6210272|35480) in White,
  • the “coffee filter” Bar 1L with 1 x 1 Round Plate (6233909|32828) in Reddish Brown,
  • the “pizza tile” Tile, Round 1 x 1 Quarter (6228968|25269) in Dark Orange and (6228968) Bright Reddish Violet [TLG] / Magenta [BL], 
  • and also shares the Brick, Modified 1 x 1 x 1 2/3 with Studs on 1 Side (6228987|32952) in Black.

41617 Elsa (Amazon USA|UK) is home to another colour of the new 1x1 inverted bracket, now in Cool Yellow [TLG] / Bright Light Yellow [BL].

Her Cool Yellow hair can be thanked for two other recoloured elements, 2x4 plate (6109926|3020) and Tile, Round 1 x 1 Quarter (6228969|25269).  The 1x2 inverted bracket (6236033|99780) is now available in Aqua [TLG]/ Light Aqua [BL], and Brick, Modified 1 x 1 x 1 2/3 with Studs on 1 Side (6216967|32952) in Spring Yellowish Green [TLG] / Yellowish Green [BL] - still one of the most underrepresented LEGO colours.



Star Wars BrickHeadz


41619 Darth Vader (Amazon USA|UK) is bit low on new recolours, but his decorations have potential for reuse.


Shown are the 1x4 Tile with belt instruments (Element ID 6236405), 2x2 Triangular Tile with Vader’s Mask (6236402) and Brick 1 x 2 x 2 with Torso Instruments (6236403).



41620 Stormtrooper (Amazon USA|UK) shares the 1x3 Jumper (6195371|34103) in White with Harry Potter & Hedwig and Plate, Modified 1 x 2 Rounded with 2 Open Studs (6210272|35480) in White with Anna & Olaf.






Most of the new BrickHeadz sets use “filler bricks” in the recently returned colour of Bright Bluish Green [TLG] / Dark Turquoise [BL] which is either a nice gesture from the designers or a way to optimise the production price of certain elements. 




The addition of the new 3x3 standard makes the BrickHeadz more scale-dynamic. Uneven stud counts usually require more complex constructions which means more variety of parts.


Here is a comparison between a regular Nonnie (the "blank template" for BrickHeadz) and a 3x3 version.


I am not sure about the ears since all the 3x3 characters so far are non-human creatures.

Come back next time for an exclusive in-depth interview with BrickHeadz designer Marcos Bessa.


Products mentioned in this post were kindly supplied by the LEGO Group. All content represents the opinions of New Elementary authors and not the LEGO Group. All text and images are © New Elementary unless otherwise attributed.

5 comments:

  1. Good review!

    While I'm still only a casual collector of BrickHeadz (largely due to them tending to be associated with licensed themes I don't collect), I love the format and it has already become a great source of useful new building elements. I've also found them incredibly fun to design on LDD—I've got quite a selection ready to be made physical, from additional figures for themes like The Lego Batman Movie and The Lego Ninjago Movie to characters from cartoons and video games. I've found the 3x3 format slightly harder to work with than the 4x4 ones, due to many Lego parts favoring even-numbered lengths, but it's nevertheless a great option for smaller characters.

    As for the parts of these figures, I'm a sucker for colors like Cool Yellow. The printed parts in these also seem surprisingly useful—the brick from Anna's skirt looks like it'd make great wallpaper, while Darth Vader's "mouth" seems like it'd pair well with parts like the 3x3 45° angle plate to add visual interest to a platform or sci-fi structure.

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  2. What about the Stormtrooper decorations? Are they printed?

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    1. Hmm, either Sven didn’t photograph or I failed to add haha. All BrickHeadz decals are printed. Marcos Bessa explains why in our interview with him coming later this week!

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  3. 1. Dude, that's excessively cruel to tease a nugget of info like "special element batches" and then say not to ask about them. If that's not part of the interview, you will not be forgiven.

    2. White long-jumper!!!!!!! Sorry, I really wanted one of these back in May/early June. Still need one, so I'll definitely be snagging a few of those on Bricklink at some point.

    3. I bought the Brickheadz Gamora back in early June just to get four 1x1 quarter-round tiles in magenta (it was the only pink-ish color they made, which I needed for the inside of cat ears), so that's definitely not new for Anna.

    4. Those 1x1 quarter-round tiles work shockingly well for capturing Elsa's braid.

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  4. I do hope the BrickHeadz line continues into the future and delivers more sets that are as awesome as the Ghostbusters BrickHeadz (that and the Mickey Mouse are the only 2 I own so far)

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