If you’ve been following along, you know I’m a big fan of custom pad-printed parts. I’ve covered custom pad-printed minifigs and accessories before: True Red Studio and Brickrock Press both were reviewed on my blog. This time, we’re going medieval.
And if medieval is your thing like it is mine, you’re in for a treat because we’ve got 3 small printers to be spoiled by. The custom printing scene has matured to the point where the best producers aren’t just matching LEGO’s print quality, they’re often surpassing it.
Small shops, some of them run by one person, are churning out crisper lines, more complex artwork, and details that LEGO’s mass-production pipeline simply doesn’t prioritize. Ktown Bricks, Cultbricks, and Yellow Brick Head are three shops doing exactly that, each with their own take on what a custom minifigure part can be.
Ktown Bricks
Ktown Bricks is the most established of the three and also the largest. Based in the US and run by Ethan, they pad print on original LEGO parts and have ventured into injection moulding, which sets them apart from most custom shops.
I have several older Ktown Bricks parts, but today I’m focusing on my most recent order which is mostly minifig torsos. But that’s not their entire catalog: Ktown sometimes designs torsos and legs as matched pairs, with print details that flow from the torso onto the hips or legs like on the Woodland Elf Body below. It’s a great look if you like that cohesive style or are a collector, though I tend to prefer mixing and matching parts myself.
The designs are great and the print job is fantastic. The registration is on point; there’s no spatter or spiderwebbing effect that you will find even on official LEGO parts. You can tell that Ktown is serious about getting their designs perfectly printed.
Something you don’t often see in the minifig world is printed shoes or feet on legs, but Ktown makes them from time to time. Some leg prints include side printing too like these Barefoot Peasant Legs. The small coin purse on the left leg and rip on the right make a big difference. You’ll notice design elements like these reused on other minifig designs: the same coin purse appears on the Rustic Peasant Tunic torsos, for example.
Note: The yellow torso below is an official LEGO part, not Ktown Bricks.
I also picked up some of their injection-moulded staves, which are fantastic. They fit perfectly into clips and minifig hands, though the bottoms don’t fit into open studs. Ktown makes weapons too, though I haven’t picked any of those up yet.
Their printed tiles are worth mentioning as well: a Bounty for Wolfpack sign and Potions for Sale shop sign from my last order are exactly the kind of accessory that adds storytelling to a scene. I used the bounty tile as the driver of the story for the photo that leads this review.
While Ktown is firmly in the medieval period, they’ve recently expanded into pop culture territory with Fallout and The Last of Us characters, plus some medieval fantasy ones they brewed in-house. These tend to come as matched bodies or complete minifigs rather than individual parts, so mix-and-match DnD types may find the selection a little more limited.
Cultbricks
Cultbricks has emerged over the last few years out of Germany, headed up by Ferdinand who runs it like a small workshop. For European customers wary of customs duties on US imports, the fulfillment location alone is a significant plus.
Cultbricks is focused exclusively on the medieval themes that already exist in LEGO: Ferdinand’s catalog covers official LEGO Castle factions including Wolfpack and Black Falcons, alongside a few Lord of the Rings-inspired designs.
Like Ktown, Cultbricks offers individual parts alongside complete minifig designs. The monk torso pictured above is supposed to be part of a whole character: the rope belt is intended to continue onto a matching dress slope, but I didn’t get that in the order.
He also adds printed details to monochromatic helmets around the visor or as battle damage that give them the extra dimension official parts often lack.
Cultbricks’s tile and shield selection is equally strong. The pieces of meat and the Freelance for Hire sign are exactly the kind of thing that adds a story to a scene without any effort, and the shields do a lot of character work. The wooden ones suggest a fighter on the lowest rung of the ladder, not yet worthy of a metal shield.
Print quality is consistently excellent across the Cultbricks range. As a one-man operation, Ferdinand’s drops take longer to come around than Ktown’s, but he gives plenty of notice ahead of time on Instagram. Loyal customers tend to clear his inventory within days so if you’re keen to pick up some of his goods, you have to act fast.
Yellow Brick Head
Yellow Brick Head is a French one-person outfit run by customs hobbyist Christophe. Christophe designs everything in-house but unlike Ktown and Cultbrick, he outsources the actual printing to professional pad printing companies.
The newest of the three, Yellow Brick Head produces medieval designs that align closely with what LEGO offers, but the print quality isn’t quite at the level of Ktown or Cultbricks. There’s some unevenness in the solid colors, and the torsos have a slightly rough texture. These torsos were listed as B-grade though so I imagine the A-grade stuff offers more opaqueness.
The print job doesn’t ruin the pieces, but it’s noticeable if you’re looking closely. Still, it’s good quality that even LEGO can’t consistently match.
Stock runs out quickly given the small quantities produced per design—I was only able to get two torsos myself—and because this is a side project rather than a full-time operation, drops aren’t as regular or predictable as the other two shops.
Who custom minifig parts are for
Customs make the most sense for a few different kinds of collectors and creators. If you’re deep into character-specific builds, custom printing is a path definitley worth wandering down. For army-builders, custom minifigs add bits of variety or subtle unit differentiation that official sets don’t provide. And for toy photographers especially, a unique figure is a gift: something the viewer hasn’t seen before.
Who this isn’t for
If you consider yourself a purist (someone for whom the value of a minifigure is tied directly to its official provenance), custom prints won’t satisfy you or may even repel you, and that’s a completely fair position. Equally, if your benchmark for a torso is what you’d pay parting out an official set, the pricing here is going to feel steep. A custom printed torso typically runs around $6-8, while an official LEGO one from a set or on Pick a Brick, LEGO’s platform for buying loose parts, might cost a fraction of that.
It’s the cost of small-batch production and a design that couldn’t exist otherwise that marks customs as premium.
Conclusion
The case for custom-printed minifigs is about filling in the gaps: the characters LEGO won’t make, the details that don’t exist at retail, or the subject that turns a good photograph into one people actually stop to look at. Ktown Bricks, Cultbricks, and Yellow Brick Head are each doing something slightly different within that space, and the right choice comes down to what you’re building and how much the finish matters to you.
If you’re not quite ready to take the plunge, mixing and matching official LEGO parts from across several themes is a really good option. I’ve created lots of customs this way and have seen some incredible minifigs made by the community too. Although sometimes those official parts can run double-digit on BrickLink if they’re locked in large, expensive sets.