17

I have heard many references to "Miniland" scale. From what I have seen, this style of building mostly includes figurines that are larger than normal mini-figs.

What are some other characteristics of "Miniland" scale?

Ambo100
  • 17,591
  • 7
  • 78
  • 169
RedRiderX
  • 1,399
  • 9
  • 26

1 Answers1

9

Mini style {used in LEGO sets and by collectors, not Miniland}

Mini scale/style is typically much smaller than normal LEGO. In Mini scale/style, figures are formed with 2-3 blocks.

Mini scale/style {if I remember correctly} didn't gain popularity until recently. It's so far been popularly used in the LEGO Architecture sets, and in a few others of common landmarks.

It's also common to see three-to-five-dollar packages that contain buildable models {sold in the LEGO stores} in the Mini scale/style.

Examples of Mini sets include:

Miniland style {used by Legoland amusement parks and a few LEGO sets}

I believe that the LEGO amusement parks use something close to miniland scale. It is, however, much different than normal Mini style/scale. One notable fact is that the people have larger heads. I know this is true for the one in Billund, but I'm not sure about the one in California.

Here and here are the pages of Minilands Billund and California, respectively. The Billund miniland doesn't have its' own page, but it's on the interactive map at the link provided.

A Miniland Flickr group is here if you want to see what Miniland style/scale is.

EDIT! As Zhaph-Ben Duguid pointed out, the Legoland amusement parks are called Miniland, but do not use the Mini scale/style. They use a strange hybrid between DUPLO and LEGO Mini scale/style. It is actually not the more common Mini style/scale used in sets. I've updated this answer to reflect that.

Zhaph - Ben Duguid
  • 19,551
  • 6
  • 78
  • 151
JavaAndCSharp
  • 214
  • 1
  • 5
  • 4
    I'd suggest that Miniland is larger than standard LEGO - the figure's heads in the Minilands at the parks are made of a number of bricks alone - and are larger than minifig heads. – Zhaph - Ben Duguid Oct 26 '11 at 09:10
  • 1
    The Lego parks had the term Miniland first; can you cite its use outside the parks? – Erik Olson Oct 26 '11 at 20:56
  • 1
    I too would like a citation for LEGO Architecture being "miniland" - I considered it micro-scale. –  Oct 26 '11 at 22:27
  • Sorry, but your edit forces me to -1. As far as I know miniland scale is what is at the parks, and your first paragraph is about micro-scale. This answer is just getting wronger over time. –  Oct 27 '11 at 00:24
  • @Erik Olson and Joe Wreschnig: I've clarified that. You're right: The Architecture sets are not built in any form of Miniland. They're Mini style. not Miniland style. – JavaAndCSharp Oct 27 '11 at 00:28
  • @Joe Wreschnig: Nope. They're not called Micro at all, anywhere. They're called Mini. See here: http://search2.lego.com/exec/?q=micro&pt=&lang=2057&cc=US&u= and here: http://search2.lego.com/?pt=&cc=US&lang=2057&u=&q=mini&x=0&y=0 – JavaAndCSharp Oct 27 '11 at 00:30
  • @Java: Can you please find a citation for that? Micro-building is a very common Lego term; Lego themselves most recently used it in an MBA set, there is a micro-scale Flikr group at http://www.flickr.com/groups/microscale/; there is a micro-scale category on MOC at http://www.mocpages.com/directory.php/51; etc. –  Oct 27 '11 at 00:34
  • By comparison, your "mini" link contains only three relevant results. –  Oct 27 '11 at 00:35
  • @Joe Wreschnig: WTF are you talking about? I searched the entire LEGO.com for Micro and found nada. I searched the entire LEGO.com for Mini and found nine-hundred-fifty-seven results. Where'd you get "three relevant results" from? P.S. My official term w/957 results vs your 2 links: I believe the official term wins. – JavaAndCSharp Oct 27 '11 at 00:43
  • 1
    thanks for making it a bit clearer, i had also heard of micro-scale but knew that it was separate from this style of building. I know about the more official "mini" style too now. – RedRiderX Oct 27 '11 at 01:06
  • Ah, the joys of search results. There's a tab on the second of @JavaAndCSharp's links that contains 957 results, compared with the 4 models that were available in the GB shop - however most of those links do not talk explicitly about mini-models, but instead list the same 4 or 5 models. Poor indexing strategy really, they should be excluding the navigation from their crawls. – Zhaph - Ben Duguid Oct 27 '11 at 07:59
  • @Java: http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/20201_Microbuild_Designer Official set. Still waiting for the cite. Don't just read numbers, actually look at the results please. –  Oct 27 '11 at 08:43
  • @Joe Wreschnig: Yup. Looked at the results; they give 14 Lego sets in the 'mini' scale. As you pointed out, there is also a set {may be more than one} in the 'micro' scale. LEGO designers need to agree on one standard term. IMHO, these two scales are the same. Do you agree? – JavaAndCSharp Oct 28 '11 at 02:10