LEGO Minifigures Series 26 walkthrough: Nurse Android and Retro Space Heroine

Find out everything you need to know about LEGO Series 26 Space’s Retro Space Heroine and Nurse Android directly from the designers responsible for bringing them to shelves.

Available from today in LEGO Stores and at LEGO.com, 71046 Series 26 Space marks the latest collection of blind-boxed LEGO Minifigures – and the first devoted entirely to the cosmos. Sitting among its 12 brand new characters are the colourful Retro Space Heroine and Nurse Android, both of which we quizzed the LEGO Minifigures design team on while discussing the series as a whole.

Dive in below to learn the secrets behind these two characters courtesy of LEGO Minifigures Creative Lead Esa Petteri Nousiainen and LEGO graphic designer Tore Magelund Harmark-Alexandersen, and don’t forget to check out our other deep dives into this series’ best and brightest minifigures using the links at the bottom of the page.

Nurse Android

“You could argue that the accessory here is the big figure, whereas the baby is the main character in terms of collectability,” says Tore. It’s probably what was on most people’s minds when first seeing the Nurse Android, which is accompanied by the first-ever pink space baby – and the only direct nod to the very first Classic Space minifigures in the entirety of Series 26. It was also on the cards from day one.

“We knew that we needed to have a space baby,” Esa says. “And robots was one big thing that we wanted to include here. We have very retro robots, but then going to the other end, very futuristic android robots. The archetype of a nurse and an android kind of married – it was like a baby and a nurse; that works.

“We also wanted to [make] most of these characters fun and light-hearted and not so dark, which space and sci-fi could be. So this is a nice angle of a nurse robot.”

While all eyes may be on the space baby, the team still paid close attention to the details in the Nurse Android – right down to the subtly transparent arms.

“I think whenever you do a non-human as something electronic it’s important to show that, because otherwise it has a really creepy dead face,” Tore says. “Having those transparent arms adds to that. And under the wig, there’s this little electrical plug, and you can see the power source – so it becomes a cool, attractive figure.”

Retro Space Heroine

If you’ve been in the LEGO Minifigures game for a while, you’ll probably have instantly recognised the Retro Space Heroine as a gender-swapped version of Series 17’s Retro Space Hero.

“[That’s] the obvious call-back,” Esa confirms. “That was such a strong icon from the movies from the ‘50s and ‘60s, like Flash Gordon. And as we have done the male version before we were like, ‘Okay, let’s do a female version.’ We really wanted to include the hair on the helmet and slightly different elements so that it’s not just a one-for-one copy.”

“I think it also ticks off another theme in Collectible Minifigures, when we almost pay homage to our own series,” Tore adds. “I think it’s nice when you have those characters that can exist in the same little universe.”

There are a couple of major differences between the Retro Space Hero and the Retro Space Heroine, though. The first of those is that this Series 26 minifigure also includes an additional accessory in the form of a robot dog – one of two sci-fi creatures dotted throughout this series.

“The little robot dog fits into that imagery of retro space,” Esa says. “In Collectible Minifigures, we always have some pet companions with the figures, so we were looking into where we could add some. And of course, there’s the penguin with the Ice Planet Explorer and then the robot dog here.”

Beyond her bonus animal accessory, the Retro Space Heroine’s outfit is a lot bolder and brighter than her male counterpart’s orange, green and grey, instead combining pink, purple and light blue with orange hair, gold details and a pearl gold blaster.

“One big reason [for choosing those colours] was that we always try to use a varied colour scheme across the line-up, and that was something that was missing,” Esa explains. “It’s always a back and forth. On the Blacktron Mutant, we were looking into different purples and pinks on the alien part. So we work to quite a late phase to balance the colours.

“Also, it just fits this character. It’s not like, you know, boys like blue and girls like pink. But still quite a majority, I would say, relate pink to the girls and then blue to the boys. And then it just worked.”

“In every line-up, there are certain groups of characters,” Tore says. “For example, the astronaut has to be white, the guy in the UFO costume has to be black, etcetera. So some of the characters that aren’t as founded in a certain reference are more free to be changed. And we really want this candy store experience when you get them – they need to be colourful.”

• Alien Tourist and Blacktron Mutant
• Alien Beetlezoid and Imposter
• Ice Planet Explorer and Orion

71046 Series 16 Space is available now at LEGO.com, in LEGO Stores and at all good retailers. Make sure to download Brick Search before you go hunting for yours, and don’t forget to watch the Brick Fanatics team collecting our own complete set (and some bonus Alien Tourists!) using the app.

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