A question to female AFOLs

[SheepEater]

Does it bother you that every single female minifig face (that isn't the generic classic smiley) has lipstick in one way or another?

I have seen a girl on youtube complain about that, actually. I can't find it anymore though so I can't provide a link to it.

What about the painted-on hourglass shape on torsos?

Me, it doesn't bother me (of course) but I was curious.

Edited July 2, 2012 by SheepEater

[ACWWgal2011]

i HATE it. I"m sick of the girls always getting lipstick and almost always hour glass figures. The hour glass torsos don't look that good. One of the reasons i passed on the car/caravan set is the female torso looks so skinny.

It's hard finding good heads that work for minifigures w/o using the exact same ones over and over again.

[SheepEater]

If they didn't have lipstick, or eyelashes for that matter, what would be your idea to replace it with, to differentiate them from male minifigs?

[Algernon]

I don't think that's actually true. I feel like there have been quite a few female minifigs without lipstick. I could be wrong though.

Either way... I can almost promise you that LEGO is not sexist, so maybe we should direct all of the forthcoming negative energy towards more deserving matters yes?

[gedren_y]

I have two female heads that don't have lipstick: this and this.

[seawideyp]

Does it bother you that every single female minifig face (that isn't the generic classic smiley) has lipstick in one way or another?

I have seen a girl on youtube complain about that, actually. I can't find it anymore though so I can't provide a link to it.

What about the painted-on hourglass shape on torsos?

Me, it doesn't bother me (of course) but I was curious.

I am just starting LEGO bricks,only perchased one set(4635 fun with vehicles)for my son,we have not female minifigs,but i do not think my son will like the girls getting lipstick or eyelashes.^v^

my English is not good,if something i spelled is wrong,i am so sorry

Have a nice day!!!!!!!

Edited July 3, 2012 by seawideyp

[horizon]

Hi,

I don't see anything wrong with. Daughter neither, she has with & without minifig heads. Plus the standard ones always do as well. :)

Here is Nya's double face:

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=3626cpb681

with & without. ;)

[CopMike]

Just to add some ifo, BL lists 115 minifig heads using the search word female - link to the results.

[Clone OPatra]

I think LEGO is becoming better about it. Personally, most of the female faces now don't scream lipstick to me, they just have lips. So you could ask why they get lips and the male figures don't, but LEGO has to differentiate somehow. With the variety of expressions available (although still not nearly as many as 'male' faces), LEGO female faces aren't just the docile-looking girls they used to be.

The Paradisa female face that was around for a long time was absolutely horrible, and as stereotypical as you could get with a female look. Maybe stereotypical isn't quite the right word, maybe just flat-out sexist.

The hourglass printing is a different issue. I find it very annoying and completely unnecessary. Perhaps if it was very, very subtle it would be fine, but the way it is done now on the whole just looks stupid. You can't force a different shape onto the minifigure torso shape with printing. It doesn't work. Just a little breast printing would let you know that it's a female torso, and I don't think it would come out looking 'fat' or anything like that.

[Graysmith]

I'm not female so maybe I shouldn't say anything, but I personally don't see anything wrong with the heads having lipstick and eyelashes to identify them as female. It's a fact of life that women generally wear makeup and as such it's the easiest way to clearly show that this is a female character. Of course you can get into an even bigger debate about why women wear makeup and that girls at an early age feel pressured to do so by society, etc. but out of all the things that factor into that, I'd say LEGOs female minifigure heads are pretty harmless by comparison. I definitely don't think every single female minifigure needs to have a head with obviously female features, though.

The torsos are a whole other ballgame though, as far as I'm concerned. Not only does it send the a far more dangerous message, but from a strictly personal viewpoint it also renders a lot of torsos unusable for male figures. Take this one for example, which could've just as well have been used for female or male characters if only it didn't have that hourglass-shaped printing. But even when it's obviously female clothing it's really just completely unnecessary and it just kind of looks stupid to be honest.

[Legogal]

I have two female heads that don't have lipstick: this and this.

The Katara head you mentioned is by the far the most beautiful head ever produced by Lego...male or female. It is stunning in the way they used her gorgeous eyes and a few strands of hair to make her look very female, and yet not Dolly Parton-ish with huge red lips and gigantic eyelashes.

When I began collecting for just me 4 years ago, I monitored Katara head prices on BL and bought quite a few; I cherish those pieces now and use them with every torso built as a female.

I wish they would make a Katara like head with other eye colors....light and dark brown, hazel, green, black, gray, etc., so we could have more faces resembling Katara. I love the large colored eyes because they are much more expressive than the little slit mouths. It would be great to see other hair colors in Katara's bangs so we could more easily use our flock of female hair with the Katara like heads.

I like having all of the different female Lego heads because it gives me more variety in building City scenes, but a few more females without large red lips would be nice. How about more of the medium large natural flesh lips used in HP Hermione sometimes? Not all women wear lipstick, so larger natural looking lips would be fine. Same thing with eyelashes....some could be dark and thick, and others could be lighter and less heavy as not all women wear mascara.

The heads and the hair are the main way I differentiate the Lego ladies I build, so the more female options we have as to these parts would be wonderful.

This is a valid topic, so please don't feel you need to justify discussing it. Lego has made tremendous strides in offering female minifigs during the past twenty years, and we gals appreciate all of the options they have given everyone for building females. Please keep up the good work, Lego!

[Pigbrick]

To be honest, I'm not against the whole lipstick and eyelash details on the faces nor am I too against the female torso designs. The main reason is that when you are working with something this small that shares a silhouette to it's male counter part you have to give attributes to it that will read "female" instantly. That's why we have lipstick mouths and eyelashes. They may be stereotypical but they read female to the person looking at them. I don't think LEGO is making these details as a way to say all women should look like this but as a quick and easy readable way to differentiate the male and female minifigure. After all, the designers are working on limitations here: stylized faces (no ears, noses) and very small details. As for the "hourglass" detail on the torso, I can see the dislike but at the same time I like the obvious female design against the male one. And to be honest, I don't see the torsos having a Barbie thin waist, I just see it as "female body". Is it necessary for every female design to have them? No. But I'm not against to what we have now either. What I just see it as is that it's just a easy way to read "female" for such a small toy.

Now what I do not like is that there isn't a big library of female faces that look dramatically different from one another like the male faces we have. To me, most of them look the same. I want to see bigger eyelashes or sometimes none, I want lips that don't always look like lipstick, I want high cheek bone details, and etc. The males have so much detail that I just want to see the same for the female ones as well.

[Cammy]

I personally never wear makeup unless I'm at a wedding or wearing a costume and it's required, but I have no problem with female Minifigs having lipstick and eyelashes to differentiate them from the males. It just gives them individuality and is a pretty realistic representation of real life. There are a few female minifigs without makeup, where it's appropriate. One of my favourites is the new Safari girl from the Bricks & More Safari Building Set. She's out on Safari, so she doesn't need to wear makeup, it doesn't impress the giraffes and elephants much.

My very favourite Minifig seems to have lipstick on, which matches what she's wearing. Luna is my favourite Harry Potter character. :)

[TheLegoDr]

I don't have a problem with the lips/lashes on female heads. I think it does add some individuality to those figures, which isn't bad. TLG could certainly come up with more variety without those key characteristics and still have some beautiful looking heads. For years (like in the Modular series) I only used different hair length to distinguish men/women, so for them to have their own heads works nicely. Although, I actually don't mind having the classic smiley (without eyebrows thank you) to work for both genders.

I agree that the hourglass figure isn't necessary. Not every woman has an hourglass figure, so why does every lego female need one? It doesn't bother me so much because I actually like hourglass figures on women, but it isn't necessary on the Lego figure. The main thing that bothers me is being unable to use certain torsos that could work as either masculine or feminine. I probably don't notice it too much in reality. I would want to incorporate more torsos together in settings without all having hourglass figures though.

[badboytje88]

I prefer my female figs to have distinct girly girl faces since there are already so many guys in the LEGO world. If you have a problem with lipstick on LEGO minifig heads, then just don't use them. There are enough 'male' heads without facial which are more than suitable for a female figure.

[Ash]

The do seem to go a bit overboard on both the make-up and the waist-line thing at times. It doesn't really seem nescessary, but I guess some people prefer them like that.

My favourite recent female minifigure is Helena from Pharoah's Quest (http://brickset.com/minifigs/?m=pha010). Minimal naturalistic make-up, freckles and a slightly cinched waist without going overboard. In terms of detail it fits both the theme and the character and is about the same level of detail and customisation as the male characters in the line without going out of their way to make sure it's clear to everyone that THIS IS A WOMAN.

There's a bit of Marion Ravenwood from Raiders about her. Same minimal natural makeup etc. Which is kind of ironic because Marion's minifigure looks like she's been shot with the makeup gun out of the Simpsons. I mean I'm not losing sleep over it or anything, but given they made the effort to match the costume pretty well you've got to wonder what they were thinking with that face.

[Legogal]

The do seem to go a bit overboard on both the make-up and the waist-line thing at times. It doesn't really seem nescessary, but I guess some people prefer them like that.

My favourite recent female minifigure is Helena from Pharoah's Quest (http://brickset.com/minifigs/?m=pha010). Minimal naturalistic make-up, freckles and a slightly cinched waist without going overboard. In terms of detail it fits both the theme and the character and is about the same level of detail and customisation as the male characters in the line without going out of their way to make sure it's clear to everyone that THIS IS A WOMAN.

There's a bit of Marion Ravenwood from Raiders about her. Same minimal natural makeup etc. Which is kind of ironic because Marion's minifigure looks like she's been shot with the makeup gun out of the Simpsons. I mean I'm not losing sleep over it or anything, but given they made the effort to match the costume pretty well you've got to wonder what they were thinking with that face.

Ash,

i like both of the figures you mentioned above. The Marion head is easily recognizable as a woman while the Helena takes a bit more effort without her hair.

We need all kinds of female heads as mentioned above; waiting for more at this very minute!

I also adore the HP Luna head! It is so expressive that I wish I owned 50 more. Wild new designs like Luna's head are just what we need to add some life to our ladies!

[gedren_y]

This IMHO has to be the most gratuitous and extreme use of the hourglass figure printing. The dimensions are grossly rediculous for a woman who is supposed to be a warrior.

Since then TLG has gotten better at portraying women, but there is still room for improvement.

To ash's point about Marrion Ravenwood, this from the white oufit version works for minimalist makeup.

[Vindicare]

I don't see what the big deal is? They want to give details to the figs faces, so they give guys beards/mustaches and they give females lipstick.

[SheepEater]

The Paradisa female face that was around for a long time was absolutely horrible, and as stereotypical as you could get with a female look. Maybe stereotypical isn't quite the right word, maybe just flat-out sexist.

There are two Paradisa faces. Which of these two do you deem horrible? Only the second one, named "standard woman pattern" on bricklink, was around for quite a long time. The first one was quite short-lived and only appeared in two non-Paradisa sets (and one of which, Aerial Acrobats, I got MISB with the standard woman head in its place.)

Edited July 3, 2012 by SheepEater

[Brickity]

*snip*

There are two Paradisa faces. Which of these two do you deem horrible? Only the second one, named "standard woman pattern" on bricklink, was around for quite a long time. The first one was quite short-lived and only appeared in two non-Paradisa sets (and one of which, Aerial Acrobats, I got MISB with the standard woman head in its place.)

Hahaha, I think he's talking about the first one.. cause that's some serious heavy make up (And that head was mostly exclusive to Paradisa sets) I think TLG found that head too vulgar, so they replaced it with the standard one. The "take-out" of that heavy make up face was a huge mess made by TLG, they started mixing both heads in the sets..

I'm personally fine with the amount of heads with make up... though there are some (for example the bride, hula girl, etc) that gross me out!

Edited July 3, 2012 by Otherworld

[Alasdair Ryan]

This lego girls head look's weird,It looks like someone put there hands in gold paint and pressed them to her face.Which then made her hypnotized? (judging from the eyes)

Edited July 3, 2012 by Alasdair Ryan

[Cammy]

This lego girls head look's weird,It looks like someone put there hands in gold paint and pressed them to her face.Which then made her hypnotized? (judging from the eyes)

It does look a little funny, but she's meant to look like this character: http://potterincantatem.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/luna-lovegood-principe-mestizo-promo.jpg

[Clone OPatra]

Which of these two do you deem horrible?

Both. I don't have one of the first one myself, but that second one was THE female face for a long time and it majorly sucks. The lips are too much, being just red, and the eyes still have extreme eyelashes. Most female minifigs might still have lipstick now, but at least many of them also have classic LEGO line mouths in the middle, making the lipstick a little less extreme on the eyes.

[Lego Ghost]

I wander if lego will ever release female torso. I dont mean prints, i mean with proper breast shapes.