LEGO minifigure keychains are basically regular LEGO minifigs with body-parts glued together (so they don’t come apart), and a keychain-loop attached through their head via a long screw. It’s a fun way to keep your favorite minifigure with you at all times. I don’t recommend adding them to a large number of keys, as the printing will get scratched up and the plastic marred pretty fast, but if you only carry a couple of keys, or you attach the keychain to your backpack or purse, they will happily follow you on your adventures for a long time. 🙂
There is however something I like even more than regular LEGO minifigure keychains. They are the LEGO minifigure key lights. These are larger versions of LEGO minifigures with a keychain-loop attached to their head, and LED lights in their feet. A barely visible button on their chest turns on the lights (you have to hold down the button – there is no permanent on position).
These LEGO key light minifigs are fully functional. In other words, their head, wrists, arms and legs rotate just like on regular LEGO minifigs. So if you want to have some giants in your LEGO dioramas, you can just remove the keychain-loop. While they can’t hold regular minifig accessories as their hands are too big, some LEGO elements do fit in their hands, as you can see on my picture below.
The LEGO key light minifigs are made of a more rigid plastic, so they don’t get damaged as easily as the regular LEGO minifigure keychains. The key lights work with two cell batteries, which can be replaced easily via the panel at the minifigs’ back (attached with a couple of small screws).
The lights are very bright with standard LED bulbs. An interesting feature is that because the lights are inside the feet of the minifigs, and because the legs can be moved just like on regular LEGO minifigs, you can aim the lights in different directions. Very handy when you want to illuminate two different things. (Picture below: regular minifig, key light minifig, LEGO DUPLO figure.)
LEGO has been releasing these LEGO key light minifigs in pretty much every theme, and recently they added some new ones. My favorite is the LEGO Spaceman Key Light – especially the blue Benny one. It is also available in red and white.
I also really liked The LEGO Movie Unikitty key lights, which came in at least five different versions; regular Unikitty, Angry Kitty, Astro Kitty, Bizniz Kitty, and Queasy Kitty. For these key lights it’s the little unicorn horn that lights up.
There are also LEGO Ninjago, LEGO Legends of Chima, and LEGO Nexo Knights key lights, with many of the main characters of each show.
The LEGO Super Hero Key Lights include characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Catwoman, Robin, The Flash, Green Lantern, The Joker, Harley Quinn, and more.
The LEGO Star Wars Key Lights feature Darth Vader, Kylo Ren, Rey, Poe Dameron, Captain Phasma, Stormtrooper, First Order Stormtrooper, Captain Rex, Boba Fett, Jango Fett, Han Solo, Admiral Ackbar, R2-D2, C-3PO, BB-8, Chewbacca, Yoda, and more.
Also, the LEGO Friends characters are available in key light form. This includes all five of the main friends; Andrea, Emma, Mia, Olivia and Stephanie. They also have the light in their feet, but as LEGO Friends characters don’t have independently moving feet, the lights can’t point in different direction.
Which minifigs are actually available as a key light is a bit hard to track down, as they are not well documented, and some of them only get released in certain regions, or as store exclusives. Neither Brickset, nor BrickLink are keeping an accurate catalogue of them. I mostly find the key lights by accident at places like Toys’R’Us or Target. Amazon also has a pretty good selection, if you search for “LEGO Key Light”. Here are some of the results I could find: LEGO KEY LIGHTS ON AMAZON
The LEGO minifig key lights are very cute, functional, practical, and hold up better than regular LEGO minifigure keychains. If you would like to add something unique to your LEGO collection, or you are looking for an interesting gift idea for a LEGO fan, check them out. I’m certain that you will be very pleased.
What do you think? Do you have any of the LEGO minifigure key lights? Which one is your favorite? Feel free to share your thoughts and own review in the comment section below! 😉
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Thanks for the comparison pictures. I looked at these before online, but wasn’t sure how big they are. So they are basically just big minifigs! Great! I will try to get some. Benny is my favorite.
Benny is one of my favorites too! Yes, they are big minifigs, with everything rotating and moving, just like on regular minifigures. They are very awesome. I like them much better than regular keychain minifigs. 🙂
Are you sure it’s Benny? He looks too serene and composed, and his chinstrap isn’t broken…
I have an old “ambassador” keychain in my collection… Alas, one leg has a broken foot, but they still seem pretty rare…
http://www.bricklink.com/v2/search.page?q=key%20chain%20ambassador#T=A
Well, it’s technically not Benny from The LEGO Movie, just a regular blue spaceman, but since The LEGO Movie came out a lot of people refer to any blue spaceman as Benny. My entire space-crew is made of Bennys… okay, the spell checker doesn’t like that… is it Bennies?… that worked. Yours is a pretty rare one! 😀
Wow! These look great! I need some giant minifigs in my life! I guess you could remove the keychain part if you wanted to?
Yes, they screw is similar than in the regular keychain minifigs, just larger. You could pull it out with a soldering iron, but then there is going to be a hole in the head. I would suggest to just cut it at the top of the head/helmet, and maybe even paint over the metal that’s left. Or just leave it. It doesn’t really show that much.