LEGO BAM Minifigures and Others

Ever since the beginning of the year, we don’t get a lot of BAM parts in the Antalya LEGO Store here. I almost lost my mind when the store opened last year in April, there were so many parts! I bought everything I saw – within reason and budget, of course. The following months weren’t too bad either. We got the parts that were found in stores abroad, but separately. I don’t know if it was some kind of sales strategy, but it was unpleasant. Get the hat and the head of the wizard, torso of the knight, legs of the pirate… and two more random figures. Next month get the wizard’s torso, knight’s sword and helmet, pirate’s… I mean, just send them all at once! Like I said, if it was a strategy, it was very successful, because the collectors get them either way, but it was an epic failure in terms of customer satisfaction.

The last parts that arrived on time came last year, just before Christmas. We were able to get Santa Claus, the girl holding a snowflake and the Chinese New Year minifigure. I’m not sure what happened this year, whether no BAM parts came to any LEGO Store in Turkey or just in Antalya. I have waited and waited and waited for the pink brick costume for so long. Thankfully, when my friend Yiğit went abroad, he got one for me. I visited Istanbul in October, and saw the Kanyon LEGO Store stacked all the “new” BAM minifigures, all built and ready to buy. I got a few for myself and for my friends. The BAM section was really poor, though, I appreciated my local store more after seeing it. After that, I moved to Ankara, and visited the store in Kentpark. It wasn’t very different. I was able to find a few parts, but not whole figures. If I didn’t have the ones I got before, I would have had a meaningless collection of parts.

But isn’t that what BAM means?

Yes, in a way it is. You build-a-minifigure with whatever parts you have available, it doesn’t have to resemble anything specific. However, lately the LEGO Group started to make parts specifically for BAM sections, and they represent certain minifigures. The torso and legs match, the torso print even continues on the legs sometimes. The LEGO blogs and social media pages display the BAM minifigures like this, too. And we’re like “Wow, I wonder if I’ll ever see it?”. If we do, it’s months later and only to specific stores (we still don’t have the pink brick suit here). If you have someone living abroad, or going for a trip, you’re in luck. If not, you can only look at their pictures.

To be honest, I’m one of the lucky ones in this regard. Thanks to my friends, my BAM minifigures of both this year and the previous years have become very rich. I was able to get so many figures with either their help, or from resellers for a reasonable price (stuff that don’t arrive through official channels are way too expensive here). When my Bricklink order with missing BAM parts arrived today, I decided to write a few words about the minifigures. Like I said, I lost my mind after the store opening, so I have collected enough to have various categories :)

Before moving on, I’d like to thank a few people for helping me add the hard-to-get pieces to my collection. Yigit (pink brick costume), Nikki (unicorn knight) and Anna (dark blue spaceman torso). These three prevented me from worrying whether the part will ever come here for months, and enrichened my collection. However, there’s one person who pushed the limits of my sanity by getting me every figure he got for himself: Alan. I thank them all once again.

Right, let’s take a look at some LEGO BAM minifigures, then.

 

Please note that not all parts shown in the images are BAM parts.

Costumes

I don’t know why, but I really like costumed minifigures. There are those from CMF series, those from regular sets, and the BAM ones. I have quite a collection, too, it wasn’t easy to pick the BAM figures from the others.

The brick-costumed minifigures entered our lives in 2018 with the CMF 18 series. They started as red and blue, and continued with bright green in 2020. Bright light blue, dark turquoise, orange and dark pink were released as BAM parts. The difference between the BAM bricks and others are the hands – the BAM bricks have yellow hands while the others’ hands match the brick’s color. There’s a new one just released in green.

There are a lot of animal-costumed minifigures as well. You can find different colors of animal costumes that appeared in the CMF series before. The penguin and polar bear parts released early this year were previously seen in City sets.

Last but not least, food and flower costumes we know from the CMF series, again with different colors and/or prints.

Pirates, Knights and Spacemen

To honor the 90^th birthday of LEGO, old themes started to surface in 2022. 80s kids got their spaceships, pirate ships and castles. I don’t know how it was before, but after 2022, we started to see more pirate and knight parts in BAM sections. Spacemen are new for this year, and their parts have a more modern design, reflecting the spacemen from this year’s sets. The best surprise of 2024 is the dark blue classic astronaut torso that came with the LEGO Dreamzzz BAM collection. Even though we don’t have a helmet or an oxygen tank with the same color, I think it’s safe to say we’ll get them soon, based on our experience from previous years.

Ninja!

Ninjago is one of LEGO Group’s most successful original themes, and they had their share of BAM parts, too. We were able to make Nya, Lloyd and Kai. There were also parts for new members of the group, Sora and Arin. In addition, there’s a torso and leg piece for a Ninja-to-be.

All my colored Ninjas are girls. When I first watched the series, the lack of girl characters bothered me, so I wanted to make up for it with my minifigures.

The Clown and the Mime

I like the clown figures because of their colorful appearance, but the mime? For some reason, I really wanted to get it. Then it hit me. A photographer I look up to took this great shot of the mime minifigure. If I didn’t see that, I may not have wanted it, but her “advertisement” made me want to get it even more. I was lucky to find the torso and the head. The legs were easy. I purchased the head of Rococo Aristocrat from CMF 24 and used it for the second mime. When I look at these two, I think of her and can’t help but smile.

Girl Power!

There are a few things I take into consideration when I go BAM shopping. First, I check if I have the part. If I don’t, I think about whether I want it. Like in my minifigure and animal collection, I don’t buy everything. Do I like it? Do I think it will enrich my collection? If so, then it can join the family. I don’t buy something just to complete the series.

If there are no new head pieces, I get what I already have. I recently realized that the ones I have doubles of are mostly female heads. Growing up, my minifigures were mostly boys, because they didn’t “look like” girls (until Paradisa). Afterwards, there were more, but never in the spotlight. I know this has been changing a lot, but it’s hard to change the way you think after 30 years. I think I’m trying to break the idea of “a toy for boys” that have been engraved into my mind when I was a kid. Any psychologists in the house? :)

Finishing up

There are so many BAM parts to mention, but let’s cut it short to not bore the reader to death. My “unofficial” minifigure collection have been growing lately, thanks to the BAM parts from the local store and the spare parts I have lying around. I’ve had a lot of fun with some of them, trying to break my taboos as I build. Like I said, it’s not easy to change one’s way of thinking, but I know my favorite toy has a huge part in my change and to be honest, I’m really proud of it.

I’d like to hear your thoughts about LEGO BAM parts/minifigures or your self-made minifigures, too. Meet you at the comments?

 

Unless mentioned otherwise, all images used belong to the author.