LEGO had over 100 ideas for Series 26 – including a full line-up of Classic Space remakes
The LEGO Group brainstormed more than 100 ideas for 71046 Series 26 Space – including a full line-up of Classic Space remakes.
Arriving on shelves officially in May (but already starting to appear in some stores), 71046 Series 26 Space collects together 12 brand new minifigures anchored around one common theme. But choosing exactly which dozen characters to include was no mean feat – especially because the design team responsible for putting them together had so many ideas on the table.
“I never calculated all of them, but there were many – I would say above 100,” LEGO Minifigures Creative Lead Esa Petteri Nousiainen tells Brick Fanatics. “We usually take a group of designers and ask for ideas. One aspect was that we really wanted to explore the full breadth of new opportunities within space, and anything even remotely related to space, like a shaman witch doctor who reads from the stars.
“We wanted to get it listed on our board of ideas so that we can really find the right ones and also know the areas where we shouldn’t go.”
Throwing absolutely everything at the wall to see what sticks is usually the first step in any creative process, but even while tossing around zanier ideas to see what might work and what definitely wouldn’t, Esa and his team knew there were a few characters that absolutely had to make the final cut.
“We knew that we needed to have an astronaut because that is aspiring for the kids,” he adds. “We needed to make it different and really cool and something that we have never seen before, so that it earns its place in the Collectible Minifigures line-up. That was one, then of course we had some themes that came out really fast when we talk about space and sci-fi: we knew that we needed to have aliens, we needed to have astronauts, and we needed to have robots. Those were the three themes.”
While those sci-fi tropes would inform the wider direction of 71046 Series 26 Space, there were a few more direct moments of inspiration for the finer points of its 12 characters – one of which had been bubbling away for more than a decade.
“We always have a big bank of ideas, and some designers will come to these brainstorms and pitch the same character every year, because that’s the one they wanted for 10 years,” says graphic designer Tore Magelund Harmark-Alexandersen. “I personally had one, the UFO costume, [which] was quite an early idea based on the first LEGO out-of-work Halloween party I joined 15 years ago.
“There were three designers dressed up exactly like that UFO costume with little hands inside their own head painted green, and it just stuck with me for all those years. So that one came earlier. Ice Planet has always been to me a very striking colour scheme and unique space theme, so I think that one was also on the table early. I think I had a whole line-up of classic remakes.”
When rumours of a LEGO Collectible Minifigures series anchored around space first surfaced in 2023, plenty of adult fans began dreaming up what might make the cut. Twelve new colours of the Classic Space astronaut? Direct remakes of minifigures from Blacktron, Futuron, Insectoids, UFO, Ice Planet 2002, M-Tron and countless other LEGO Space themes?
In the end, 71046 Series 26 Space nods to four different classic product lines in Blacktron II, M-Tron, Ice Planet 2002 and Galaxy Squad. But even devoting only a third of the collection to retro references took some restraint from the designers, and a keen working relationship between Esa and Tore.
“Esa was like, ‘Hold your horses, maybe we should also have something relating to a star sign or something,’” Tore recalls. “And I [said], ‘Ah, a star sign? Lame.’ And then he was like, ‘Yeah, but as a transparent figure,’ and I said, ‘Ooh, that could be interesting.’ So I think there’s a good dynamic between us where Esa has the reins, and I have my very strong fandom, which sometimes pollutes my judgement!
“I really appreciate the back and forth, because I think in general the characters that are sometimes the best are when we are sitting together in the early phase talking about it. And all of a sudden one of us will have an idea and the other one will say, ‘Oh, and that character will be like this; this is his motivation.’”
The final selection of 71046 Series 26 Space characters ticks all the pair’s boxes of robots, aliens and astronauts – and plenty more besides. You’ll be able to get your hands on each of the new LEGO Collectible Minifigures from May 1 (unless you find them on shelves sooner). Don’t forget to download Brick Search beforehand so you can use the app’s minifigure scanner to find your favourites.
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