Scale wise, I think they are about right. 6 studs is good for larger cars, 4 is good for smaller cars. 6 studs for trains is good for toy scale and it has the flexibility for full scale detailed models. Boats can be reasonably accurate scale, similar to trains. Ships will be significantly smaller due to the scale of them. Even miniature scale models of ships like titanic can be huge and you need space for display. Lego is decent at accuracy, any but improvements to accuracy is always good, but accurate scale shouldn't be a primary focus.
To me, it depends. The Lego titanic comes to mind. That set seems very accurate scale wise, but sacrifices fun factor as it's focus on accurate scalling means that not only was it huge (and expensive), but it meant minifigs would look ridiculous on it. So I think with some sets, scale accuracy is going to be more important and on others, it's going to matter more that it's a fun set with cool minifigs. You really can't have both without a massive amount of real estate. So sets have to be somewhere on the slider with Fun minifigs on one end, and scale accuracy on the other. Because most Lego fans don't have the time, money, nor the space for a fig scaled replica of the Titanic. 😅
ahahahahahaha, exactly! Also in Minecraft, where if you build on a scale of 1:1, a problem appears in the form of meter-long walls (1 block equals 1 meter). Or, for example, ceilings a meter wide) Quite funny
@@Qoobon_i just build everything 3x3 and that scale works perfectly, a minifig is two blocks tall by half a plate thickness and the arms fit in a 3 wide space slightly lifted up, also easier to fit more detail into each block too
In-universe the first Death Star was about 100 miles in diameter, so would roughly match the size of Hawaii’s big island. A Lego minifig scale version would be much smaller.
Measures minifig height, ignores width because it's not to scale with height. Compares with car width. "Hey, car widths are not to scale with minifig height!" You sure settled it once and for all.
I was wondering why not go for height. So an average adult human* is 1700mm, a minifig is 40mm. Now 1700 divided by 40 equals 42.5 right? Therefore Lego Minifig Scale is 1 : 42.5. that or go for functionalism where minifig scale follows the phrase "if it fits it sits", two definitions that actually settle the matter and anything builds by their rules is minifig scale. *hypothetical, average male is 1750mm and female 1650mm, midpoint that 1700mm, furthermore this information is not universally global neither historically but only a good approximation on a not small number of countries
I have compeletely different logic for what makes something "minifig scale" compared to pretty much anywhere I've seen it talked about. In my opinion, minifig scale should be at a scale where it could be functional for minifigures, not scaled for a minifig like it would be to a person. The underlying point that led to it is so simple, that it bothers me to no end that people get so frazzled over what "minifig scale" should be, when, a minifig isn't minifig scale of a human. There's some chibification that happens because of the dimensions.
The simple fact is that Lego minifigures are not to scale. Scale models with distorted proportions (like "egg planes" or cartoonified vehicles) are not branded as 1/72, or 1/48, because their width and length are not consistent. A 'scale model' must be proportional to the real life object it represents. The height and width of Lego minifigures is so out of proportion, that the relative size of vehicle or buildings they use is all over the place.
If you are building a car to accommodate a minifig, you'll need to scale it for a SITTING minifigure. That comes to around 8-wide. But when the minifig dismounts, he is going to look very short and stubby. Which he is.
the problem with trying to find a scale is that people try to match the car size with the minifigures, but the minifigures are not the right shape to match a human scaled down, if you stick so closely to a strict scale, every single thing youd build would look off, also this guy cant do basic math lol hes getting stud numbers from the aether, the yellow four wide car is less than 6 studs with the wheels and fenders but he somehow manages to get 6.5 studs? this video is null of information 😂
There are two minifig scales based on character width and height since they're so disproportionate: 1/24 and 1/42 respectively. I like using 1/35 on somewhat bigger stuff for this reason.
Yah I'd love larger scale sets, but there's the problem of cost. Bigger boxes, bigger price, less likely to sell well unless it's based on something really famous like from another franchise.
1:50 I dont agree with your measurements. The lego car is clearly 4 studs wide as a base. Yes the wheels stick out, that doesn't make it 6.5 studs wide. More like 5.6 studs wide. Also when looking at mirrors. It ends up being more like 5.6 studs wide if each mirror is 0.8 studs... AM I WRONG??
@@ShootYourBricks I think the fenders are too small of a detail compared to the size of the whole car to count them in the measurement. fenders on modern cars are just a few cm if not flush with the body, so you obviously can't represent that small of a detail in lego, so they are stylistically oversized. I'd say a lego city car like that is 4 studs wide with just extra wide fenders.
Minfig scale is "does it accomodate a minifig." Its not an exact scale because lego isnt to scale with reality. The lego company realized this way back in the 70s when they created modulex, a smaller type of brick intended for home planning rather than being a toy, which has non-system proportions to scale better with the real world.
Minifigs don't have realistic proportions, so it's all pointless. 80s/early 90s city cars/trains are the appropriate size for minifigs, not those 6-8-stud monstrosities.
0:56 I think the Lego Mustang measurements are a little off. It shouldn’t be much wider than 7 studs since the base is 6 wide and the fenders add another 0.5 studs on each side.
When it comes to building my models I tend to use 1:45 scale which I have discovered looks the best as it uses the minifigure height in comparison to a human as long as you assume a person is 6ft (which feels about right) this means that 3 studs equals 1 metre which is really easy to build with an eventhough interiors for vehicles aren’t the best, the height and overall exterior size look accurate which is more important for using vehicles on Mocs
It's complicated to use minifig height as a comparison scale cause their heads are huge. For me minifig scale is a range. And that range is from using height as a scale to using head size as a scale. And minifig scale falls between any of those 2 scales.
yeah and it's totally the head and only the head that we should be basing ourselves on, which is what we do in life, and why we see midgets as short adults and not scaled-down adults. To me the minifig scale can go from 1:43 (the wrongest) to 1:25, IMHO 1:30 is best.
I always thought 8-stud-wide cars make sense for seating. An 8-studs-wide car can fit two side-by-side up front and THREE in the backseat, just like a real car. It might look wonky, but minifigs look wonky.
The issue with minifig scale is that minifigs don’t have human proportions. Their head is way too big and most importantly, they don’t have lower legs. Therefore, minifig scale actually varies depending on the context. If you have a Lego city with pedestrians, etc., then your calculation is correct. In that case, you look at the whole minifig next to a car for example. But once you put the minifig inside the car, the proportions of the minifig change everything. Now it’s basically only the upper body which you have to put the car in relation to. But if you compare a human upper body with a minifig‘s upper body, you get a different conversion rate. At that point, one stud per foot looks too small. In other words, if you want to populate a model city, the 6-stud car is the way to go. If you only want the car (without external context), then 8-studs look more realistic once a minifig is inside.
Well, there's some nuance to consider. Minifig proportions are... weird, too weird to just have a 1 foot/1 stud ratio. It's nearly impossible to have two Minifigs sit comfortably side by side, even shoulder-to-shoulder, without making the vehicle 8 studs wide. So the more "realistic" you want a LEGO car to be, the bigger scale you have to make it.
@@ShootYourBricks Oh good, my memory didn't fail me then. I recall the original version went a little bit deeper into the minifig proportions, discussing their width in comparison to a real world person's a bit more than you do in this version, pointing out that the car width would need to be greater to permit the level of "elbow room" we have in the real world.
Lego trains don't overhang the tracks by 1 and a half feet on both sides unlike real US trains. The trucks on the train (the wheel assembly) has large outside sections for the suspension.
I think 1/35th scale is a pretty good compromise. It's actually perfectly scaled to Mega Construxt figures, which have better proportions, but it will perfectly accommodate a Lego minifig! Usually... Also Brickmania uses 1/35!
I feel like a lot of people just spout "I want it minifig scale" without knowing wjat it means. Like Star Wars UCS sets aren't supoosed to be minifig scale. They're models, that's it.
I agree for all but one UCS set. The republic gunship is a troop transport, it has transparent cockpits, an empty hold and large bay doors that open to let the troops out. Every time you see it it's full of clone troopers, and that's what makes it cool. Displaying a troop transport completely empty because it was made too big for troops doesn't make sense to me. There's just nothing about the extra size that adds value, it's not like it's extra detailed. The AT-AT is completely enclosed and looks the same at any scale, yet they still gave it a full minifigure compatible interior, so it's not like they're strict about the "it's for display only" rule
I compared this as if Lego minifigs were at human scale (Thanks to one of Ninjago's magazines) which showed the height of the ninja, being 6 foot 4 (1.95 meters). The first thing I did was compare it to my 9.5-inch-tall Lego Ninjago dragon. Again, I put it on a life-sized scale. I multiplied 1.95 by 4.9 and I got 9.55. That put the dragon at 9.55 meters (31.3 feet) I tried something random. I decided to calculate the height of the Unikitty minifig. Including her horn, she got to at least 6 foot 5. (Remember, this is put on a life-sized scale) I did the same with the Ultrakatty figure I had lying around for five years. By multiplying 1.95 by 3, I got a total of 5.85, which would make Ultrakatty (If put on a real-life scale) 5.85 meters tall (19.1 feet). I still like your method, though the way I put it was on a real-life scale.
The problem isn't that the cars aren't to scale, the problem is that the minifigs aren't to scale. Minifigs are very wide for how tall they are. Meaning that if you measure the minifigs by their width the 6 stud wide cars are accurate
well the interesting thing is Lego figures don't have the same proportions, like they are way wider then us, so the scale isn't regular. which is where the major issues come in, some how you have to get the two weird scales to work together, like sure you could calculate height and width differently, --which does make the cars more accurate--, but then things look odd, as they are way wider then we'd expect, which is where you have to get more interpretive, how much can you fudge the measurements, and keep things working in a way that makes sense, and still looks nice? like you really can't make a car seat two mini figures side by side, with out it being really wide, or being a bigger kind of car where their arms can stick out, --like a jeep/buggy--, but if you can get one in off to the side, and have it kinda look like another could fit, then that's really nice, it looks right, its not to big, the form is right, sure its not wholly functional, but so long as you don't try to stick two minifigs in next to each-other its fine. so I'd say yeah six wide cars are ideal, sure they may be a tad wide, but Lego figures are also wide, but it still looks nice, so it works. now it gets really funny if you do try to build things to support Lego figures in the way real things do, like make a car that can seat three mini figures in a row in the back, but don't just scale everything up. that place would look so odd, it'd be funny, kinda wanna see that.
As kids my brother and I would use the old 10x20 thick baseplates to make motor homes, often overhanging both ends a bit. That was also the baseplate we used for our explorer battle cruiser ships but twice as long. 😁
The correct answer is it depends. The larger Speed Champions cars are great (although the classic Mini breaks that rule) but I like the smaller vehicles for a City build
So had to Google it. A cars length is easy; you measure bumper to bumper. A cars width is measured from its widest point on the body, excluding exterior features such as mirrors, mudflaps and tires. So generally fender to fender, front or back.
Building realistic cars at the scale of a minifigure is very difficult because the minifigures are not well proportioned. On the other hand, the last boat is wider than some... The arctic exploration boat, if I counted correctly, is 86x20 studs... That corresponds, right?
I also generally go with a 1 stud to 1 foot or ~1:38, but like.... yeah, you gotta be a little flexible with details like the fenders and wheels sticking out, since they all tend to do so much more exaggeratedly than real life. Speed Champions' 6-wide cars are all basically spot-on for that scale, taking that into account.
i think part of the wonkiness comes from how relatively wide minifigs are. using your scale, they’re about three and a half feet wide, which is not usually the case for actual humans. like, cars that should be wide enough for two people end up not being so, because each minifg needs at least three studs of width, and then you usually need to offset that on jumpers. the width also applies to vehicles, like, a car does not have a whole foot of depth to each door, but the lego system ends up usually necessitating it. basically, everything just ends up too wide for its own good in some capacity, and that really fudges the scale.
I think it gonna be better if you use doors like 2 meters, because lego minifigures haven’t realistic, i mean legs is to short, head is to big, if door have 2 m long and 6 bricks tall, 1m=3bricks tile=33sm and lego minifigure=133sm tall
The issue with Minifigure Scale is that we tend to use minifigures as stand-ins for adults. If we instead recognize that minifigures were designed when LEGO was exclusively intended as a children's toy, we could come to the conclusion that minifigure height is a child's height, and that most official LEGO sets depict said children playing pretend as firefighters, ninja warriors, superheroes, astronauts, or other movie characters. This is somewhat supported by the fact that a LEGO Yoda minifigure is barely shorter than a standard minifigure, which should otherwise be over twice his height. Even if you don't care for this interpretation, we could perhaps agree that minifigures should 'look right' and fit comfortably in MOCs and allow builders to include as much detail in their work as is reasonably possible. This means fitting two minifigures comfortably in the front of a standard car, and keeping the wheels at least 2.5x larger than a figure's head, this being the only portion of the figure visible once inside the vehicle. We could therefore base minifigure scale on the proportions of a minifigure head. This makes builds look the most accurate, and less cartoon-like. Personally, I have begun building my 'minifig-scale' UCS MOCs with extra leg room to accommodate adult-proportioned figures, while maintaining minifigure-compatible seating. I typically make the seating compatible with Shaun @brick.sheepa's figures, which are also matched to minifigure head scale. www.tipsandbricks.co.uk/post/2106-techniques-star-wars-midifigures-by-shaun-brick-sheepa static.wixstatic.com/media/2d1450_0b0ea743503d4bffaf31701300451730~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_740,h_740,al_c,q_90,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/2d1450_0b0ea743503d4bffaf31701300451730~mv2.png
I like the 8 stud wide vehicles more. Lets 2 sit side by side without issues like the 6 stud wide ones. The one exception is that vehicle piece they used for the Indiana jones Shanghai chase which was 6 wide and could fit 2
10-stud wide train is the most possible out of the three, since matching car scale would remove a lot of detail possibilities while matching boat scale takes too much space. The problem now is that if you do 10-stud wide trains, say goodbye to your standard Lego curve track as the train then can't run well on those without significantly shrinking the length and increasing gaps
minifigs are about 1/24 scale in width and 1/42 scale in height. so you can make a model that’s close to 1/24, where minifigs can sit comfortably side by side but will look cartoonishly short (because they are), or scale it 1/42 to match the height of the minifigs which results in their cartoonishly fat bodies not fitting side by side. or you could go somewhere in the middle and make neither of those things true, or make a mixed scale car that’s cartoonishly wide/short just like minifgures. it makes sense to make speed champions around 1/29 to fit more detail while city cars sit in that 1/40 to 1/45 range to be more parts efficient so you get more toy per part
There’s a guy on RUclips who makes actual minifig scale planes. They’re massive, they fill a room. Minifig scale has to be cartoony, with oversized cars and undersized buildings, planes and boats or else it becomes impossible to build most things.
The problem with minifig scale is that they’re very wide and quite short meaning you can either go for accurate height scale which would be closer the the Lego city cars or width scale which is closer to speed champions
I think the appeal of Lego sets that try to be realistic isn't simply how close they are to minifig scale, but the fact that they CAN be close to minifig scale, since Lego has such a rigid system when it comes to the size of the builds with studs. Sure the Speed Champion Lamborghini Countach isn't a 1:1 recreation of the car in real life, but having this one in my hands is impressive despite it being made out of a brick based building system.
Height is the least useful metric for minifig scale. I once saw someone say that Minifigs are built like a cartoon bully - squat. If we use '1 stud = 1 foot,' we end up with Minifigs that are 4 feet wide and a foot thick. The reality is that Minifigs are impossible to scale for with math - it has to be done by eye. When in doubt, smaller is probably closer to accurate than larger
The cargo ships one is a stretch, the Lego boat hulls are for playsets, if they made a standard sized cargo ship it probably wouldn’t fit in a small room.
Yeah, the "average human" doesn't typically have a waistline that's wider than their shoulders unless they're _severely_ overweight. Heck, I'm pretty sure I count as obese, and my waist is _still_ a little slimmer than my shoulders.
Lego modeling is always a conflict between size and detail fidelity. For example, this is why some Speed Champion cars are so long or wide - Lego chose to have detail/recognizable features over accurate size. I build 8-wide trains as a good compromise between scale and detail (and they can still run around the standard Lego R40 curves).
They seem to work best for me if you think of them like 6ft despite them being wide enough to be a costume for an amusement park worker…..but it works well with my halo mega blocks and transformers SS….that fit the road sheets perfectly.
When looking at scale I usually just use a specific ratio depending on what I'm building. I did quite a few calculations and found that a lot of the Speed Champions cars proportions are a bit off so going with an average ratio is a bit better. The scales I personally use are, Speed Champions at 1:29, Minifig Scale is around 1:42, and LEGO Trains I go for 1:48.
@@transponderings Totally agree, but building trains in 10 wide is very expensive and takes up lots of space, especially since coaches would be like 60+ studs long. Not to mention lego motors start to fail. 1:48 just ends up giving nice numbers for trains and is a good compromise. American trains come out to 8 studs wide, British trains to 7 studs wide. 20 foot and 40 foot containers work out to 6 studs wide and 16 and 32 studs long respectively. Lego city often uses this size container
Sadly this has always ben the big downside of Lego vehicles. IRL they can have much thinner spaces in the full frame, like doors. Also Humans cn adjust our positioning so we can sit even right next to each other, maybe not comfortably but we can like for compact cars. But for Lego a minifig can't adjust their body to sit right next to each other due to the arms unless you sit 1 fig further forward and the other flush against the back of the seat. This means a minifig sitting normally needs 4 studs wide of space, and we all know that's a lot fo space to take up. THis results in 2 options for vehicles, they either have to have it be 1 fig per seat row for smaller vehicles like Emmet's compact car fromt he Lego Movie, or they need to make the car much bigger and you get ones that look kind of rediculously large. Same for other kinds of vehicle sets like transports, you either make the set affordable and smaller in carry capacity then the canon amount of occupants, or you make it huge and more expensive. We can see this in passenger planes and the Lego Milenium Falcon sets. Goes to show Lego doesn't always do well with scale accuracy.
ok but it's a ridiculous thing to try and find a direct scale that minifig "scale" fits into, it just isn't possible that's what makes them unique. They aren't to human proportions, they are wider than they are tall. So any scale has to account for the "chubifying" that happens as things accommodate minifigs. You can only determine things like cars to minifigs in real scale if you REMOVE the minifigs from the equation which is also silly. So you just have to decide; accurate to real world scale in some way withOUT minifigs, OR slightly chubbier to accommodate minifigs' extra body width. You can't do all kinds of math and ignore that.
Pretty neat video, but the problem still remains in that the car is way taller than it should be. At about 5'6, the minifig should be noticeably taller than a mustang or any similar car
measuring 1 ft as 1 lego stud is most cursed american thing. Lego minifig is 5 studs height, average height in denmark is 180 cm (1 eagle, 4 burgers, 3 pencil). So one stud is 180 / 5 = 34 cm (1 turkey). We could include some tolerance and say it’s 34-36 cm. Not we can take real measurements of the car in cm, divide by 34-36 and get number of studs
You know, there are more accurate models: hobby-model kits. But you can't "play" with those! While Lego... I get haters whenever I bring up this point... Lego are toys, meant to be played with after building. So yes it has to look good and fit other models, but it also has to be playable.
The proportions of the minifig are just not ideal to build models for, that are to scale. The minifigure is a toy, is proportions are made so kids can play with it. If you hand a lego car to an 8 year old, his first thought will probably *not* be "This is too wide / too long in relation to the figure".
For example, lego trains in 6 wide look so small and you have barely space for a nice interior. 8 wide does look so much more realistic and then the cars which are usually 6 wide are in a good scale, i guess
This is the scale I use and it works good for me 6 stud wide body width for cars 7 studs for semi trailers, shipping containers, the sleeper of semi trucks, the box on box trucks and other stuff like that 8 stud wide for trains It works good for detailing models but using 7 wide for some things can be hard to work with sometimes
I make cars for minifigs to sit side by side. This just means the figures look cute and stubby since width matters most for vehicles that don’t need to fit on road plates (to me). This is all subjective and few people want to make 10 stud wide semis and trains lol
So in the end lego should fugure out how to make proper fenders on their car so that it can be just fight at 6 studs, until then i will be using mostky classic 2010 lego city cars
If you want to see what a full sized minifig scale ship would look like, there is a minifig scale titanic at a museum in Pigeon Forge TN. You can find pics online. It's pretty insane
Heres the thing much like minecraft you really cant get figure scale. Its because the walls we built with are very thick so you can either get minifigure scale but sacrifice interior or have minifigure scale interior and sacrifice accuracy. Yes minifigure scale is 6 studs wide however 2 of those studs are car walls. So you only get 4 studs of interior. So if yoy then instead have the 6 stud wide car interior you once again need the extra 2 studs for car walls.
Scaleing is a problem in pretty much every mini hobby. Sometimes you just gotta be ok with close enough. I think alot of my Lego Star Destroyer, and how inaccurate its interior is, but also, i think of the bigger ones that use the mini-mini figs that cost several paychecks and I'd need to reno my shelves to fit the thing, and honestly? Those aren't nearly as fun in my opinion. (Also, I feel like after a $200, my willingness to spend money one what is ultimately just plastic freefalls pretty quickly.)
on the plus side , if you buy a minifig scale star destroyer ... you could live in it - might be difficult to convince women to take you seriously though
As you mention at the start of the video: minifig proportions are way off; they are much too wide for their length. The reason for 8 stud wide speed champion cars is to accommodate two of these obese dudes side-by-side, as that is considered "realistic" nowadays (never mind the fact most normal cars also fit two full grown persons in the back)
actually the mustang is 1968 fastback not a 1970 like you thought, which the 68 mustang is smaller at 5.9 inches wide but fender flares shouldn't count to the proportions because they are fender flares which is a modification to the vehicle, and is like bodykits and stuff, now if a vehicle that has fender flares in real life is smaller than a lego car with fender flares then yes it would be too wide then, and also roughly 1;24th (; so it wont timestamp) scale for 8 wide
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Do you think LEGO sets should be more accurate?
YES, absolutely, Lego made a sorrowful attempt on the modified Pilatus P-2s seen in Indiana jones
Scale wise, I think they are about right. 6 studs is good for larger cars, 4 is good for smaller cars. 6 studs for trains is good for toy scale and it has the flexibility for full scale detailed models.
Boats can be reasonably accurate scale, similar to trains. Ships will be significantly smaller due to the scale of them.
Even miniature scale models of ships like titanic can be huge and you need space for display.
Lego is decent at accuracy, any but improvements to accuracy is always good, but accurate scale shouldn't be a primary focus.
To me, it depends.
The Lego titanic comes to mind.
That set seems very accurate scale wise, but sacrifices fun factor as it's focus on accurate scalling means that not only was it huge (and expensive), but it meant minifigs would look ridiculous on it.
So I think with some sets, scale accuracy is going to be more important and on others, it's going to matter more that it's a fun set with cool minifigs. You really can't have both without a massive amount of real estate.
So sets have to be somewhere on the slider with Fun minifigs on one end, and scale accuracy on the other.
Because most Lego fans don't have the time, money, nor the space for a fig scaled replica of the Titanic. 😅
Why the reupload?
No. 80s/90s cars/trains scale was the best.
The difference between an 8-stud Speed Champions and a car in real life is that actual cars don't have doors that are a foot thick
ahahahahahaha, exactly! Also in Minecraft, where if you build on a scale of 1:1, a problem appears in the form of meter-long walls (1 block equals 1 meter). Or, for example, ceilings a meter wide) Quite funny
@@klon_enWe don't even talk about Lego Minecraft scale because it doesn't exist.
@@Qoobon_i just build everything 3x3 and that scale works perfectly, a minifig is two blocks tall by half a plate thickness and the arms fit in a 3 wide space slightly lifted up, also easier to fit more detail into each block too
@@leonhadley21 no it doesn't fit perfectly, at some point it gets too big. I saw "the mine" replicated in 3x3 and it's even worse for scale
@@Qoobon_ big doesnt mean inaccurate, 3x3 is block AND minifig accurate
Minifig scale death star is the size of the entire state of hawaii
Is there research that can prove that?
It would actually be the width of Central Park
In-universe the first Death Star was about 100 miles in diameter, so would roughly match the size of Hawaii’s big island. A Lego minifig scale version would be much smaller.
Nah, it would be like 300m
@@rarewhiteape Honestly they act like the death star is the size of the moon. but it actually makes since if it could orbit around endor
Measures minifig height, ignores width because it's not to scale with height.
Compares with car width.
"Hey, car widths are not to scale with minifig height!"
You sure settled it once and for all.
I was wondering why not go for height. So an average adult human* is 1700mm, a minifig is 40mm. Now 1700 divided by 40 equals 42.5 right? Therefore Lego Minifig Scale is 1 : 42.5. that or go for functionalism where minifig scale follows the phrase "if it fits it sits", two definitions that actually settle the matter and anything builds by their rules is minifig scale.
*hypothetical, average male is 1750mm and female 1650mm, midpoint that 1700mm, furthermore this information is not universally global neither historically but only a good approximation on a not small number of countries
I have compeletely different logic for what makes something "minifig scale" compared to pretty much anywhere I've seen it talked about. In my opinion, minifig scale should be at a scale where it could be functional for minifigures, not scaled for a minifig like it would be to a person. The underlying point that led to it is so simple, that it bothers me to no end that people get so frazzled over what "minifig scale" should be, when, a minifig isn't minifig scale of a human. There's some chibification that happens because of the dimensions.
Thank you, same. It's ridiculous to ignore that minifigs are not humans and don't fit into anything like a scale equation.
Yes! This!
Thank you, this is exactly my belief
yes! Exactly when I build Mocs I don’t try to match to real life I try to match the Minifigs height and go from there
Yeah. Going by minifig height alone, 4-5 stud wide cars would be the norm. But going by minifig width, cars would have to be like 10 studs wide
The simple fact is that Lego minifigures are not to scale.
Scale models with distorted proportions (like "egg planes" or cartoonified vehicles) are not branded as 1/72, or 1/48, because their width and length are not consistent.
A 'scale model' must be proportional to the real life object it represents.
The height and width of Lego minifigures is so out of proportion, that the relative size of vehicle or buildings they use is all over the place.
If you are building a car to accommodate a minifig, you'll need to scale it for a SITTING minifigure. That comes to around 8-wide. But when the minifig dismounts, he is going to look very short and stubby. Which he is.
the problem with trying to find a scale is that people try to match the car size with the minifigures, but the minifigures are not the right shape to match a human scaled down, if you stick so closely to a strict scale, every single thing youd build would look off, also this guy cant do basic math lol hes getting stud numbers from the aether, the yellow four wide car is less than 6 studs with the wheels and fenders but he somehow manages to get 6.5 studs? this video is null of information 😂
There are two minifig scales based on character width and height since they're so disproportionate: 1/24 and 1/42 respectively. I like using 1/35 on somewhat bigger stuff for this reason.
I generally just add 1x1 studs to the bottom of my mini figures, as it makes them slightly more proportionate to 1:35-40 scale builds
Ngl a massive minifig scale cargo ship would go CRAZY.
Yah I'd love larger scale sets, but there's the problem of cost. Bigger boxes, bigger price, less likely to sell well unless it's based on something really famous like from another franchise.
1:50 I dont agree with your measurements. The lego car is clearly 4 studs wide as a base. Yes the wheels stick out, that doesn't make it 6.5 studs wide. More like 5.6 studs wide. Also when looking at mirrors. It ends up being more like 5.6 studs wide if each mirror is 0.8 studs... AM I WRONG??
The original tires plus the fenders are more than one stud on each side. The second set of tires is close to your measurements.
@@ShootYourBricks I think the fenders are too small of a detail compared to the size of the whole car to count them in the measurement. fenders on modern cars are just a few cm if not flush with the body, so you obviously can't represent that small of a detail in lego, so they are stylistically oversized.
I'd say a lego city car like that is 4 studs wide with just extra wide fenders.
This is the exact type of niche nerdy type of stuff I'm on RUclips for
Minfig scale is "does it accomodate a minifig." Its not an exact scale because lego isnt to scale with reality.
The lego company realized this way back in the 70s when they created modulex, a smaller type of brick intended for home planning rather than being a toy, which has non-system proportions to scale better with the real world.
Exactly! Why is that such a hard concept for people to grasp? That's all I really care about when I'm building a MOC.
Minifigs don't have realistic proportions, so it's all pointless. 80s/early 90s city cars/trains are the appropriate size for minifigs, not those 6-8-stud monstrosities.
Ikr
"It's all pointless."
"That's why it needs to be the way I'm nostalgic for and the thing you like is trash and you're a bad person for liking it."
@@mechadeka "I like to put words in people's mouths"
0:56 I think the Lego Mustang measurements are a little off. It shouldn’t be much wider than 7 studs since the base is 6 wide and the fenders add another 0.5 studs on each side.
When it comes to building my models I tend to use 1:45 scale which I have discovered looks the best as it uses the minifigure height in comparison to a human as long as you assume a person is 6ft (which feels about right) this means that 3 studs equals 1 metre which is really easy to build with an eventhough interiors for vehicles aren’t the best, the height and overall exterior size look accurate which is more important for using vehicles on Mocs
It's complicated to use minifig height as a comparison scale cause their heads are huge.
For me minifig scale is a range. And that range is from using height as a scale to using head size as a scale. And minifig scale falls between any of those 2 scales.
yeah and it's totally the head and only the head that we should be basing ourselves on, which is what we do in life, and why we see midgets as short adults and not scaled-down adults. To me the minifig scale can go from 1:43 (the wrongest) to 1:25, IMHO 1:30 is best.
I always thought 8-stud-wide cars make sense for seating. An 8-studs-wide car can fit two side-by-side up front and THREE in the backseat, just like a real car. It might look wonky, but minifigs look wonky.
I think the scale problem made me slightly perfectionist as a kid, which kinda defeated the point of lego.
The issue with minifig scale is that minifigs don’t have human proportions. Their head is way too big and most importantly, they don’t have lower legs. Therefore, minifig scale actually varies depending on the context. If you have a Lego city with pedestrians, etc., then your calculation is correct. In that case, you look at the whole minifig next to a car for example.
But once you put the minifig inside the car, the proportions of the minifig change everything. Now it’s basically only the upper body which you have to put the car in relation to. But if you compare a human upper body with a minifig‘s upper body, you get a different conversion rate. At that point, one stud per foot looks too small.
In other words, if you want to populate a model city, the 6-stud car is the way to go. If you only want the car (without external context), then 8-studs look more realistic once a minifig is inside.
Well, there's some nuance to consider. Minifig proportions are... weird, too weird to just have a 1 foot/1 stud ratio. It's nearly impossible to have two Minifigs sit comfortably side by side, even shoulder-to-shoulder, without making the vehicle 8 studs wide. So the more "realistic" you want a LEGO car to be, the bigger scale you have to make it.
I am a huge fan of the scaling of set 60367. I know it is not minifig scale but it looks so cool to me with all the seats inside.
Some Star Wars UCS sets are in the right scale I believe.
Official LEGO copyright designates the bumps on top of the elements as knobs. A stud is a LEGO element in and of itself. They are not interchangeable
Is this a re--post of an older video? I seem to recall watching this or a VERY similar video a year or two ago. Perhaps it wasn't one of yours.
Yes, it's a slightly updated version, but very similar.
@@ShootYourBricks Oh good, my memory didn't fail me then. I recall the original version went a little bit deeper into the minifig proportions, discussing their width in comparison to a real world person's a bit more than you do in this version, pointing out that the car width would need to be greater to permit the level of "elbow room" we have in the real world.
Yea same
Lego trains don't overhang the tracks by 1 and a half feet on both sides unlike real US trains. The trucks on the train (the wheel assembly) has large outside sections for the suspension.
I think 1/35th scale is a pretty good compromise. It's actually perfectly scaled to Mega Construxt figures, which have better proportions, but it will perfectly accommodate a Lego minifig! Usually... Also Brickmania uses 1/35!
I feel like a lot of people just spout "I want it minifig scale" without knowing wjat it means. Like Star Wars UCS sets aren't supoosed to be minifig scale. They're models, that's it.
I agree for all but one UCS set. The republic gunship is a troop transport, it has transparent cockpits, an empty hold and large bay doors that open to let the troops out. Every time you see it it's full of clone troopers, and that's what makes it cool.
Displaying a troop transport completely empty because it was made too big for troops doesn't make sense to me. There's just nothing about the extra size that adds value, it's not like it's extra detailed.
The AT-AT is completely enclosed and looks the same at any scale, yet they still gave it a full minifigure compatible interior, so it's not like they're strict about the "it's for display only" rule
EASY: 6 studs for cars, 8 studs for trucks and trains.
8 stud wide cars simply feel wrong compared to a minifig, no need to do math.
3:08 this is EXACTLY why i make all my lego cars five studs wide, it is a pain in the bum to do though
FYI, the standard gauge for american railroads is 4.8 feet wide.
I compared this as if Lego minifigs were at human scale (Thanks to one of Ninjago's magazines) which showed the height of the ninja, being 6 foot 4 (1.95 meters). The first thing I did was compare it to my 9.5-inch-tall Lego Ninjago dragon. Again, I put it on a life-sized scale. I multiplied 1.95 by 4.9 and I got 9.55. That put the dragon at 9.55 meters (31.3 feet)
I tried something random. I decided to calculate the height of the Unikitty minifig. Including her horn, she got to at least 6 foot 5. (Remember, this is put on a life-sized scale)
I did the same with the Ultrakatty figure I had lying around for five years. By multiplying 1.95 by 3, I got a total of 5.85, which would make Ultrakatty (If put on a real-life scale) 5.85 meters tall (19.1 feet).
I still like your method, though the way I put it was on a real-life scale.
The problem isn't that the cars aren't to scale, the problem is that the minifigs aren't to scale. Minifigs are very wide for how tall they are. Meaning that if you measure the minifigs by their width the 6 stud wide cars are accurate
well the interesting thing is Lego figures don't have the same proportions, like they are way wider then us, so the scale isn't regular. which is where the major issues come in, some how you have to get the two weird scales to work together, like sure you could calculate height and width differently, --which does make the cars more accurate--, but then things look odd, as they are way wider then we'd expect, which is where you have to get more interpretive, how much can you fudge the measurements, and keep things working in a way that makes sense, and still looks nice? like you really can't make a car seat two mini figures side by side, with out it being really wide, or being a bigger kind of car where their arms can stick out, --like a jeep/buggy--, but if you can get one in off to the side, and have it kinda look like another could fit, then that's really nice, it looks right, its not to big, the form is right, sure its not wholly functional, but so long as you don't try to stick two minifigs in next to each-other its fine.
so I'd say yeah six wide cars are ideal, sure they may be a tad wide, but Lego figures are also wide, but it still looks nice, so it works.
now it gets really funny if you do try to build things to support Lego figures in the way real things do, like make a car that can seat three mini figures in a row in the back, but don't just scale everything up. that place would look so odd, it'd be funny, kinda wanna see that.
As kids my brother and I would use the old 10x20 thick baseplates to make motor homes, often overhanging both ends a bit. That was also the baseplate we used for our explorer battle cruiser ships but twice as long. 😁
The correct answer is it depends.
The larger Speed Champions cars are great (although the classic Mini breaks that rule) but I like the smaller vehicles for a City build
So had to Google it. A cars length is easy; you measure bumper to bumper. A cars width is measured from its widest point on the body, excluding exterior features such as mirrors, mudflaps and tires. So generally fender to fender, front or back.
Used to build ww2 fighters and tanks to precise minifig scale including using plates instead of studs to extend.
Building realistic cars at the scale of a minifigure is very difficult because the minifigures are not well proportioned.
On the other hand, the last boat is wider than some... The arctic exploration boat, if I counted correctly, is 86x20 studs... That corresponds, right?
I also generally go with a 1 stud to 1 foot or ~1:38, but like.... yeah, you gotta be a little flexible with details like the fenders and wheels sticking out, since they all tend to do so much more exaggeratedly than real life. Speed Champions' 6-wide cars are all basically spot-on for that scale, taking that into account.
i think part of the wonkiness comes from how relatively wide minifigs are. using your scale, they’re about three and a half feet wide, which is not usually the case for actual humans. like, cars that should be wide enough for two people end up not being so, because each minifg needs at least three studs of width, and then you usually need to offset that on jumpers. the width also applies to vehicles, like, a car does not have a whole foot of depth to each door, but the lego system ends up usually necessitating it. basically, everything just ends up too wide for its own good in some capacity, and that really fudges the scale.
I don’t care about minifigure scale as much as I care about minifigure compatibility. Although the oversized AT-RTs are annoying.
I think it gonna be better if you use doors like 2 meters, because lego minifigures haven’t realistic, i mean legs is to short, head is to big, if door have 2 m long and 6 bricks tall, 1m=3bricks tile=33sm and lego minifigure=133sm tall
The issue with Minifigure Scale is that we tend to use minifigures as stand-ins for adults. If we instead recognize that minifigures were designed when LEGO was exclusively intended as a children's toy, we could come to the conclusion that minifigure height is a child's height, and that most official LEGO sets depict said children playing pretend as firefighters, ninja warriors, superheroes, astronauts, or other movie characters. This is somewhat supported by the fact that a LEGO Yoda minifigure is barely shorter than a standard minifigure, which should otherwise be over twice his height.
Even if you don't care for this interpretation, we could perhaps agree that minifigures should 'look right' and fit comfortably in MOCs and allow builders to include as much detail in their work as is reasonably possible. This means fitting two minifigures comfortably in the front of a standard car, and keeping the wheels at least 2.5x larger than a figure's head, this being the only portion of the figure visible once inside the vehicle.
We could therefore base minifigure scale on the proportions of a minifigure head. This makes builds look the most accurate, and less cartoon-like.
Personally, I have begun building my 'minifig-scale' UCS MOCs with extra leg room to accommodate adult-proportioned figures, while maintaining minifigure-compatible seating. I typically make the seating compatible with Shaun @brick.sheepa's figures, which are also matched to minifigure head scale.
www.tipsandbricks.co.uk/post/2106-techniques-star-wars-midifigures-by-shaun-brick-sheepa
static.wixstatic.com/media/2d1450_0b0ea743503d4bffaf31701300451730~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_740,h_740,al_c,q_90,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/2d1450_0b0ea743503d4bffaf31701300451730~mv2.png
I like the 8 stud wide vehicles more. Lets 2 sit side by side without issues like the 6 stud wide ones. The one exception is that vehicle piece they used for the Indiana jones Shanghai chase which was 6 wide and could fit 2
10-stud wide train is the most possible out of the three, since matching car scale would remove a lot of detail possibilities while matching boat scale takes too much space.
The problem now is that if you do 10-stud wide trains, say goodbye to your standard Lego curve track as the train then can't run well on those without significantly shrinking the length and increasing gaps
minifigs are about 1/24 scale in width and 1/42 scale in height. so you can make a model that’s close to 1/24, where minifigs can sit comfortably side by side but will look cartoonishly short (because they are), or scale it 1/42 to match the height of the minifigs which results in their cartoonishly fat bodies not fitting side by side. or you could go somewhere in the middle and make neither of those things true, or make a mixed scale car that’s cartoonishly wide/short just like minifgures.
it makes sense to make speed champions around 1/29 to fit more detail while city cars sit in that 1/40 to 1/45 range to be more parts efficient so you get more toy per part
Lego trains are technically narrow gauge for u.s. rail standards, and use European meter-gauge standard instead
There’s a guy on RUclips who makes actual minifig scale planes. They’re massive, they fill a room. Minifig scale has to be cartoony, with oversized cars and undersized buildings, planes and boats or else it becomes impossible to build most things.
The problem with minifig scale is that they’re very wide and quite short meaning you can either go for accurate height scale which would be closer the the Lego city cars or width scale which is closer to speed champions
I think the appeal of Lego sets that try to be realistic isn't simply how close they are to minifig scale, but the fact that they CAN be close to minifig scale, since Lego has such a rigid system when it comes to the size of the builds with studs. Sure the Speed Champion Lamborghini Countach isn't a 1:1 recreation of the car in real life, but having this one in my hands is impressive despite it being made out of a brick based building system.
Height is the least useful metric for minifig scale. I once saw someone say that Minifigs are built like a cartoon bully - squat. If we use '1 stud = 1 foot,' we end up with Minifigs that are 4 feet wide and a foot thick.
The reality is that Minifigs are impossible to scale for with math - it has to be done by eye. When in doubt, smaller is probably closer to accurate than larger
The cargo ships one is a stretch, the Lego boat hulls are for playsets, if they made a standard sized cargo ship it probably wouldn’t fit in a small room.
You never mentioned that minifigures are way wider than a typical human of that height.
Yeah, the "average human" doesn't typically have a waistline that's wider than their shoulders unless they're _severely_ overweight. Heck, I'm pretty sure I count as obese, and my waist is _still_ a little slimmer than my shoulders.
Lego modeling is always a conflict between size and detail fidelity. For example, this is why some Speed Champion cars are so long or wide - Lego chose to have detail/recognizable features over accurate size. I build 8-wide trains as a good compromise between scale and detail (and they can still run around the standard Lego R40 curves).
They seem to work best for me if you think of them like 6ft despite them being wide enough to be a costume for an amusement park worker…..but it works well with my halo mega blocks and transformers SS….that fit the road sheets perfectly.
When looking at scale I usually just use a specific ratio depending on what I'm building. I did quite a few calculations and found that a lot of the Speed Champions cars proportions are a bit off so going with an average ratio is a bit better. The scales I personally use are, Speed Champions at 1:29, Minifig Scale is around 1:42, and LEGO Trains I go for 1:48.
For trains, I’d go by the track gauge, which leads to a scale of 37.5:1435, which is roughly 1:38.
@@transponderings Totally agree, but building trains in 10 wide is very expensive and takes up lots of space, especially since coaches would be like 60+ studs long. Not to mention lego motors start to fail.
1:48 just ends up giving nice numbers for trains and is a good compromise. American trains come out to 8 studs wide, British trains to 7 studs wide. 20 foot and 40 foot containers work out to 6 studs wide and 16 and 32 studs long respectively. Lego city often uses this size container
Personally I liked the old condensed scale a lot more.
Sadly this has always ben the big downside of Lego vehicles. IRL they can have much thinner spaces in the full frame, like doors. Also Humans cn adjust our positioning so we can sit even right next to each other, maybe not comfortably but we can like for compact cars. But for Lego a minifig can't adjust their body to sit right next to each other due to the arms unless you sit 1 fig further forward and the other flush against the back of the seat. This means a minifig sitting normally needs 4 studs wide of space, and we all know that's a lot fo space to take up. THis results in 2 options for vehicles, they either have to have it be 1 fig per seat row for smaller vehicles like Emmet's compact car fromt he Lego Movie, or they need to make the car much bigger and you get ones that look kind of rediculously large. Same for other kinds of vehicle sets like transports, you either make the set affordable and smaller in carry capacity then the canon amount of occupants, or you make it huge and more expensive. We can see this in passenger planes and the Lego Milenium Falcon sets. Goes to show Lego doesn't always do well with scale accuracy.
What you missed to check is height. In terms of that, most lego models fail miserably, every single one of them is just too tall
ok but it's a ridiculous thing to try and find a direct scale that minifig "scale" fits into, it just isn't possible that's what makes them unique. They aren't to human proportions, they are wider than they are tall. So any scale has to account for the "chubifying" that happens as things accommodate minifigs. You can only determine things like cars to minifigs in real scale if you REMOVE the minifigs from the equation which is also silly. So you just have to decide; accurate to real world scale in some way withOUT minifigs, OR slightly chubbier to accommodate minifigs' extra body width. You can't do all kinds of math and ignore that.
Pretty neat video, but the problem still remains in that the car is way taller than it should be. At about 5'6, the minifig should be noticeably taller than a mustang or any similar car
measuring 1 ft as 1 lego stud is most cursed american thing. Lego minifig is 5 studs height, average height in denmark is 180 cm (1 eagle, 4 burgers, 3 pencil). So one stud is 180 / 5 = 34 cm (1 turkey). We could include some tolerance and say it’s 34-36 cm. Not we can take real measurements of the car in cm, divide by 34-36 and get number of studs
VERY interesting!
bro is doing gods work
You know, there are more accurate models: hobby-model kits. But you can't "play" with those! While Lego... I get haters whenever I bring up this point... Lego are toys, meant to be played with after building. So yes it has to look good and fit other models, but it also has to be playable.
Personally, i like to make my lego car 5 stud wide , truck 6stud, train 7 to 8stud wide.
Minifigs are basically shaped like a slightly taller fatter Danny Devito
The proportions of the minifig are just not ideal to build models for, that are to scale. The minifigure is a toy, is proportions are made so kids can play with it.
If you hand a lego car to an 8 year old, his first thought will probably *not* be "This is too wide / too long in relation to the figure".
You forgot to take steam trains into account.
For example, lego trains in 6 wide look so small and you have barely space for a nice interior. 8 wide does look so much more realistic and then the cars which are usually 6 wide are in a good scale, i guess
Bro that mustang is 7 studs wide
I'd like to see what happens of you adjust the vehicle width for minifig width.
Lego City cars illegal in Australia confirmed
Are the lego factory cars accurate? (Old theme, lego factory)
8 stud wide car Minifig scale is based on minifig width not height
This is the scale I use and it works good for me
6 stud wide body width for cars
7 studs for semi trailers, shipping containers, the sleeper of semi trucks, the box on box trucks and other stuff like that
8 stud wide for trains
It works good for detailing models but using 7 wide for some things can be hard to work with sometimes
I make cars for minifigs to sit side by side. This just means the figures look cute and stubby since width matters most for vehicles that don’t need to fit on road plates (to me). This is all subjective and few people want to make 10 stud wide semis and trains lol
Minifigs are much wider than a person. Theoretically LEGO cars should also be wider
So in the end lego should fugure out how to make proper fenders on their car so that it can be just fight at 6 studs, until then i will be using mostky classic 2010 lego city cars
If you want to see what a full sized minifig scale ship would look like, there is a minifig scale titanic at a museum in Pigeon Forge TN. You can find pics online. It's pretty insane
I got to see that
He’s 5’9 or sum, not 5’5
bro wants to settle something and uses height to compare width :v
Heres the thing much like minecraft you really cant get figure scale. Its because the walls we built with are very thick so you can either get minifigure scale but sacrifice interior or have minifigure scale interior and sacrifice accuracy. Yes minifigure scale is 6 studs wide however 2 of those studs are car walls. So you only get 4 studs of interior. So if yoy then instead have the 6 stud wide car interior you once again need the extra 2 studs for car walls.
The issue is the width of a lego minifigure not the car
the problem with minifigs is they are too wide for their height, that's why you can't fit them in a car
I guess, im too long for lego world, my height is 7 studs, if i were minifigure in lego city😅
There is one thing that destroys everything. Figure is 2 feet wide.
There is a also a problem regarding cars height in lego
I recommend checking out the 5 and 7 stud wide speed champions moc community. They’re sick
Interesting, will probably be the best scale to add. 5 and 6 for european cars and 7 for americans ans super cars. Leaving 8 for heavy stuff
5 wides go crazy
Scaleing is a problem in pretty much every mini hobby. Sometimes you just gotta be ok with close enough.
I think alot of my Lego Star Destroyer, and how inaccurate its interior is, but also, i think of the bigger ones that use the mini-mini figs that cost several paychecks and I'd need to reno my shelves to fit the thing, and honestly? Those aren't nearly as fun in my opinion. (Also, I feel like after a $200, my willingness to spend money one what is ultimately just plastic freefalls pretty quickly.)
on the plus side , if you buy a minifig scale star destroyer ... you could live in it
- might be difficult to convince women to take you seriously though
I want a minifigure-scale DS-1 Orbital Battle Station please (The Death Star).
As you mention at the start of the video: minifig proportions are way off; they are much too wide for their length. The reason for 8 stud wide speed champion cars is to accommodate two of these obese dudes side-by-side, as that is considered "realistic" nowadays (never mind the fact most normal cars also fit two full grown persons in the back)
Bruh... THE DUST!!!
How much glasses of wine is 1 foot?
Pretty standard that the minifig scale is roughly 35/1.
Speed champion cars are about 29/1 which is indeed a little big but they look great👍
35/1 does not equal 1/35!
Minifigures are not thirtyfive times larger than a human being!
easy 1/38-1/42 depending, I use 1/38 because roughly equals 1 stud = 1 foot.
Chase McCain mentioned rahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!
actually the mustang is 1968 fastback not a 1970 like you thought, which the 68 mustang is smaller at 5.9 inches wide but fender flares shouldn't count to the proportions because they are fender flares which is a modification to the vehicle, and is like bodykits and stuff, now if a vehicle that has fender flares in real life is smaller than a lego car with fender flares then yes it would be too wide then, and also roughly 1;24th (; so it wont timestamp) scale for 8 wide
Awesome. Now what about car height? Could be weong but your mock feels too tall to me