Animals

Animal figures are the cheapest way to make a build read as a place rather than a shelf. A street with eight minifigures is a diorama. The same street with two dogs, a horse and three birds on a roofline is somewhere people live. Every figure here is compatible with major brick brands.

What is in this collection

Mixed animal collections. Six assortments (I through VI), farm, wild and domestic. Buying an assortment beats buying singles on both price per figure and on variety you would not have thought to pick.

Horses. The Battle Horse Collection. A horse is the single biggest upgrade to a medieval or pre-1900 scene, because it turns a standing figure into a figure with somewhere to be.

Deer with molded antlers. Large rideable-bracket figures for woodland and winter scenes.

Mini dinosaurs. A separate size ladder running up to the larger buildable ones.

Buildable creatures. The Nightfire Black Dragon is a multi-part build rather than a single molded piece, so it is a display figure in its own right.

Choosing animal figures

Check the underside. A good brick-compatible animal has a properly molded anti-stud or a pair of studs, not a flat unfinished belly. A figure that will not lock to a plate slides off every time you move the build, and no amount of good sculpting fixes it.

Buy small ones in quantity. Birds, frogs and fish sit on a single stud. Ten birds across a build does more work than one expensive eagle, which is why the assortments are the usual starting point.

Printing, not stickers. Eyes and markings should be pad-printed onto the plastic. A sticker on a curved animal body lifts at the edges within months and never lies flat again.

Buy the batch together. Order six of the same brown horse and you want six horses in the same brown. Colour drifts between production runs and mismatched browns are very visible side by side on a shelf.

Building with animals

Give them ground. An animal on a smooth tile looks like a toy on a table. The same animal on a plate with a tile edge, a plant element and a texture change reads as standing on ground.

Use height. Birds on a branch, a cat on a wall, a horse on a slight rise. Animals at a different elevation break up a flat composition instantly.

Face them somewhere. An animal pointed at nothing looks parked. Facing a figure, a door or a food source implies a relationship, and it costs nothing.

Full detail in our animal figures and creatures buyer's guide, which covers the four size brackets and the checks that matter. For how animals sit next to figures and buildings, see minifigure scale and dimensions explained, and for staging them, building a display diorama for your best figures.

Pair animals with bulk bricks for the bases and terrain they stand on, and browse dinosaurs for the prehistoric range. Suitable for young builders and adult collectors alike.