More than 150 new emojis expected to hit mobile phones this year

Emoji 11.0, the latest and greatest list of tiny characters that will define your online communications for the next year, has been finalised.

Internet arbiter of teen cool The Unicode Consortium has published the new list, which contains superheroes, red-headed people, and a brand-new party face.

Judging by the regular release schedule, you’ll see the new emoji on Apple's operating system shortly after the release of iOS 12, normally in the first or second point upgrade.

That usually lands in October, so iPhone and iPad users should get the new emoji before the end of 2018.

Android release dates are a little less predictable, but before the end of the year is a good bet.

Per Emojipedia, there are 157 new emojis in the list, bringing the total number of approved emojis to 2,823.

There are sample images for the new emoji floating around the internet, including those from Emojipedia and from The Unicode Consortium itself.

However, the emoji that you’ll actually see and use depends on what software you’re using.

Apple and Google make the actual emoji images themselves, leading to occasional controversies, such as Google’s inability to build a decent burger.

For the first time, Emoji 11.0 includes options for hair colour and style on different emoji.

You can add red hair, curly hair, white hair, or baldness to men or women of any skin tone.

Other notable new emoji include a hot face (to enhance the often-abused flushed face), a woozy face for when you feel like making your intentions particularly vague, and male and female superheroes.

Emoji have also been added for activities like softball, knitting, and lacrosse.

The Unicode Consortium has sample images for all those emoji on its website, or Emojipedia has released a video detailing them as well.