The position and future of Friends and minidolls in Lego?

[Lyichir]

8 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

I had vainly hoped in the past that would've been remedied by The Lego Movie 2 for the sake of more natural movement on-screen, but as we've seen from the teaser...

 

I find the hopping to be adorable, to be honest! Though I expect that’s also why Sweet Mayhem was given wings—it expands her potential for dynamic movement in things like fight scenes to not spend as much time rooted to the ground with both legs.

[fallentomato]

This thread is one of the few things that keeps bringing me back to Eurobricks. I am really excited to see how they handle the interaction of minifigs and minidolls in LEGO Movie 2. Seven years after the minidoll was first introduced, they will finally have to address it!

I know a few people who have created official stop motion animations for LEGO. One of the rules for animations that used both minifigures and minidolls (like the 3 in the very first post of the thread) is that they were never allowed to be on physically on screen at the same time. (I guess it was okay for Max to watch them through a monitor though) This is similar to an old rule that stated that yellow minifigures could never be shown to co-exist with flesh minifigures. The first LEGO Movie shattered that rule and the second LEGO Movie will shatter the minidoll rule.

Also, I hope we get a ton of different minidolls from LEGO Movie 2. We desperately need more variety of clothes/outfits/etc. I hope there are tons of random background minidolls of all kinds in the movie that wind up in the sets and collectible figures.

[Digger of Bricks]

10 hours ago, Aanchir said:

That said, I don't feel as though the lack of non-figure uses for mini-dolls plays much role in the opinion of most AFOLs who dislike the mini-doll. I've encountered many AFOLs who are perfectly willing to accept "bigfigs" like the Hulk or Thanos despite their much more extreme specialization and limited connectivity, yet refuse to allow mini-dolls into their collection.

Now in my opinion, I do think the current Lego "BigFig" is much more abominable than the minidoll. Their limited connectivity and specialization that you mentioned nulls any of my own nitpicking complaints I have for the minidoll. From the start, the "BigFig" should've been a double-sized copy of the minifigure, with a 2×2 footprint for a single foot as reference. But, that's a debate for another topic... 

10 hours ago, Aanchir said:

And I don't know why you've had any trouble fitting headgear on the mini-dolls considering the nose doesn't actually stick any further forward than the front edge of the forehead. 

There are probably other headgear parts that I haven't experimented with that would share the same problem, but for instance, none of the three Batcowls we have so far can fit over a minidoll head correctly due to the head's geometry. And that's the thing, it's not so much about compatibility that concerns me, but the overall geometry of the minidoll that does. It is funny that The Lego Movie 2 should portray the minidoll as an extraterrestrial, because their geometry is very foreign to the brick.

9 hours ago, Lyichir said:

I find the hopping to be adorable, to be honest!

Oh sure, I did get a good laugh from that little detail!

But, ironically, there is one thing I see that animators did cheat with regarding their legs, and that is that they swing backwards just a little, which isn't technically possibly in actuality. Now granted, I do remember the same was done for the minifigure for The Lego Movie, when Emmett stretches back in his apartment.

[dr_spock]

Minidolls have their own headgear.  They should fit minifig heads without any nosy problems. 

41351-20 by DrSpockFriends, on Flickr

 

[Digger of Bricks]

1 hour ago, dr_spock said:

Minidolls have their own headgear.  They should fit minifig heads without any nosy problems. 

I will say this though, upon seeing the side profile of that new helmet, at least minidoll headgear parts like that are also designed with consideration to compatibility with the Lego minifigure. But, you can't quite say that it works the other way around. 

[x105Black]

On 6/9/2018 at 8:15 AM, Digger of Bricks said:

Now in my opinion, I do think the current Lego "BigFig" is much more abominable than the minidoll.

I love the bigfigs, though it did take me a bit to fully accept them.  Now that they have standardized the concept, they work for most of the characters done in that style.  Most of them are bulky characters, so there is a reason they don't match minifigure proportions and that's OK with me.  I'd like to see a little more done with them, though.  Maybe allow their heads to accept helmets or hair (even if they are in special bigfig sizes).  Still better than the minidoll, which is more of an attempt at making a better minifigure (a failure in that aspect).  The worst is the lack of interchangeable parts.  The best example comes from Pirates.  A minifigure can lose a single leg or a hand, and you can swap it with a peg leg or a hook hand.  That can't be done with the minidoll (ironic, since dressup and accessorizing is a big part of "traditional girl" play).

But more than that, I hate that LEGO is differentiating on the gender lines and introducing more gendered play rather than reinforcing the elements that both genders share.  This is because it reinforces gender stereotypes while also creating themes that are at the ends of the spectrum rather than the middle.  Nexo Knights and Elves are the prime example here, being the extreme "boys" and "girls" versions of the classic fantasy setting most commonly seen in Castle.

[Digger of Bricks]

13 minutes ago, x105Black said:

Still better than the minidoll, which is more of an attempt at making a better minifigure (a failure in that aspect).  The worst is the lack of interchangeable parts.  The best example comes from Pirates.  A minifigure can lose a single leg or a hand, and you can swap it with a peg leg or a hook hand.  That can't be done with the minidoll (ironic, since dressup and accessorizing is a big part of "traditional girl" play).

So, in your opinion, the minidoll is worse than the BigFig, and one of the worst aspects of the minidoll is its lack of interchangeable parts? In terms of interchangeable parts, the BigFig is actually worse in those respects, right? 

[rodiziorobs]

3 hours ago, x105Black said:

The best example comes from Pirates.  A minifigure can lose a single leg or a hand, and you can swap it with a peg leg or a hook hand.  That can't be done with the minidoll

While it's true that the hands themselves cannot be swapped, the arm can. Honestly, I feel like the actual dissembly/reassembly of the arms on minidolls is much easier--I worry I will break arms, hands, and torsos on regular figs, but not on minidolls. And I haven't encountered a minidoll with a loose arm connection, which I can't say for 'figs (especially the recent CMFs).

I have come to terms with minidoll poseability. There are some things 'dolls can do that 'figs can't, and while I wished the hands rotated, I found a cheat using flesh-colored 'fig hands. Here is a pic from a build I did for AG last year:

The 'doll is holding the staff at an angle, but actually the hands you see are loose. You can tell from the 'doll's right hand (the one "attached" to the upper torso), where the stem is visible. It's not perfect, but useful.

This also shows the two torsos connected, but rotated slightly to each other. You can do this with some regular 'figs, but the fit is tight and when you rotate them the boxy torsos look odd unless aligned. Because 'dolls are curved this kind of sci-fi/fantasy character works better than with 'figs. There are more pics in my Flickr photostream that show this character off better.

My biggest gripe now is that we need a wider variety of doll parts for customizing, but as @fallentomato said, hopefully TLM2 gives us a plethora of new torsos and leg assemblies that will address that issue (hopefully lots of sci-fi/space ones!) I for one, am already loving what we have seen from the trailers and teasers, and can't wait to give TLG all the moneys for more.

Edited June 11, 2018 by rodiziorobs

[Aanchir]

@x105Black, it's kind of surprising to me that you think Elves is at the "extreme girl end" of the spectrum. It's always seemed to me like a theme with a lot of cross-gender appeal, what with having plenty of things boys and girls alike get excited about like dragons, fantasy vehicles, magic, adventure, and epic good vs. evil conflicts, not to mention having a gender-mixed main cast. I've heard from many parents whose boys love LEGO Elves, as well as from many male AFOLs who enjoy the theme.

Ultimately, I think this is a trap many people fall into — assuming things that are largely preferred by boys (like classic LEGO themes, classic movie franchises like Star Wars or Ghostbusters, etc) are still at least mostly gender-neutral in their appeal, whereas anything that's preferred even a bit more by girls than by boys is firmly in "girls only/no boys allowed" territory. Whereas really, you look at many classic Castle sets and they have very little design that caters overtly to the tastes of girls. They skimp on the kinds of beautiful or playable details that themes like Friends or Elves embrace to the point of barely having anything inside besides places to throw prisoners or clip weapons — often, not even a throne room, let alone places for their inhabitants to eat or sleep. Until the 90s there were hardly even any animals in Castle sets besides horses. Very few characters had any recognizably feminine characteristics to their dress or appearance. Very few activities besides fighting are depicted or implied. Etc.

I suspect if LEGO DID actually make their classic themes "gender-neutral", a lot of fans of their traditional incarnations would be flummoxed by how vastly different the gender neuttral versions are than the themes they knew and loved as kids. Certainly it's a mistake to assume that an ideally gender-neutral theme would even continue to use the traditional (boy-preferred) minifigure, considering that's one of the things that LEGO found was decisively alienating a large number of girls.

And anyhow, I don't see how you can complain about the mini-doll's worst drawback being a lack of customization potential when you're quite vocal about your preference for molded LEGO animals, dragons, and monsters over their much more varied, more customizable, and usually better articulated brick-built counterparts. Clearly, in that instance, you've decided that the molded LEGO creatures' smoother, more lifelike aesthetics are worth the sacrifices in posability and customizability. Can you really not understand how a lot of kids might feel the same way about their molded LEGO people?

@Digger of Bricks I think it really depends on what sort of customizability you're talking about. With the mini-doll, it's much easier to mix and match the parts to create totally new characters, but harder to swap individual body parts for parts that aren't designed to be part of a figure. Whereas with a bigfig, you can give Thanos or Red Hulk or Bane a robotic hook or an octopus tentacle or a machine gun for a hand/arm, but short of non-purist customization you're going to have a much harder time making them no longer look like Thanos or Red Hulk or Bane, because most of the characters' most identifying characteristics are molded into the torso assembly.

Edited June 11, 2018 by Aanchir

[x105Black]

23 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

So, in your opinion, the minidoll is worse than the BigFig, and one of the worst aspects of the minidoll is its lack of interchangeable parts? In terms of interchangeable parts, the BigFig is actually worse in those respects, right? 

In those respects, yes.  But I find that the bigfig fits better next to the minifigure.  If I had to choose which 2 worked best together, between the minifigure, bigfig, and minidoll, it would certainly be the minifigure and bigfig.  I wish that the bigfig was more versatile.

5 hours ago, Aanchir said:

@x105Black, it's kind of surprising to me that you think Elves is at the "extreme girl end" of the spectrum. It's always seemed to me like a theme with a lot of cross-gender appeal, what with having plenty of things boys and girls alike get excited about like dragons, fantasy vehicles, magic, adventure, and epic good vs. evil conflicts, not to mention having a gender-mixed main cast. I've heard from many parents whose boys love LEGO Elves, as well as from many male AFOLs who enjoy the theme.

Maybe using the word "extreme" was a bit extreme in itself, but Elves is clearly and definitely on the female end of the spectrum.  There is some cross-gender appeal (with everything).  The dragons and animals have a cutesy and feminine appearance, as does the color palette.  It has been discussed that the majority of parts are not in the 'feminine' color palette, but looking at the sets most people detect a decidedly feminine feel to the sets.  The main cast is split, but overall the cast is predominantly feminine in nature.  Honestly, I didn't think this was anything that needed a debate, because it is so clearly designed to appeal to a female demographic.

5 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Ultimately, I think this is a trap many people fall into — assuming things that are largely preferred by boys (like classic LEGO themes, classic movie franchises like Star Wars or Ghostbusters, etc) are still at least mostly gender-neutral in their appeal, whereas anything that's preferred even a bit more by girls than by boys is firmly in "girls only/no boys allowed" territory. Whereas really, you look at many classic Castle sets and they have very little design that caters overtly to the tastes of girls. They skimp on the kinds of beautiful or playable details that themes like Friends or Elves embrace to the point of barely having anything inside besides places to throw prisoners or clip weapons — often, not even a throne room, let alone places for their inhabitants to eat or sleep. Until the 90s there were hardly even any animals in Castle sets besides horses. Very few characters had any recognizably feminine characteristics to their dress or appearance. Very few activities besides fighting are depicted or implied. Etc.

While this is true, there is much more to the theme that is gender-neutral.  The basic color schemes of the old sets can be appreciated by both genders.  Of course, a little more from the 'feminine' color palette here and there could help to draw in more of the female demographic, but overall the colors are fairly neutral.  You mention horses, and while more animals would be nice for both genders, horses have always been among the favorites of many females.  There have always been plenty of females in Castle sets throughout the years.  Most of them have been royalty, but there have also been peasants, and the occasional knight.  But you are right in that this balance is more male heavy, and that is a point that I have always wanted to change as well.

5 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I suspect if LEGO DID actually make their classic themes "gender-neutral", a lot of fans of their traditional incarnations would be flummoxed by how vastly different the gender neuttral versions are than the themes they knew and loved as kids. Certainly it's a mistake to assume that an ideally gender-neutral theme would even continue to use the traditional (boy-preferred) minifigure, considering that's one of the things that LEGO found was decisively alienating a large number of girls.

While I agree with the first point here, I disagree with the second.  There are certainly some men and boys who would shy away from more positive female representation and play features that are suited more to female play.  I think that would be a small group, personally.  But I think adding in some livable spaces would help the theme as a whole, regardless of any attempt at appealing to females.  On the other hand, I do think that a successful gender-neutral theme should use the classic minifigure rather than the minidoll.  If not that, then something in between that appeals more evenly to both genders would be necessary, but I don't think many would accept a new type of figure.

5 hours ago, Aanchir said:

And anyhow, I don't see how you can complain about the mini-doll's worst drawback being a lack of customization potential when you're quite vocal about your preference for molded LEGO animals, dragons, and monsters over their much more varied, more customizable, and usually better articulated brick-built counterparts. Clearly, in that instance, you've decided that the molded LEGO creatures' smoother, more lifelike aesthetics are worth the sacrifices in posability and customizability. Can you really not understand how a lot of kids might feel the same way about their molded LEGO people?

This is a good point.  I can definitely see how some would prefer minidolls, and there are some great prints and parts available.  However, while the minifigure is not perfect, it has been established as a fantastic standard with a multitude of variations that appeal to just about any demographic.  The minifigure is celebrating 40 years of this success, and is growing more and more versatile and diverse every year.  Still, there have been times when I wish that female minifigures had a molded torso that differentiated them a bit from the standard (a waistline, for example).  Ultimately, I accept and appreciate the beauty and simplicity of the original minifigure design, and I love the wealth of different characters possible from the mixing and matching of so many different colored and printed parts.  I find that many molded creatures adhere to the look, feel, simplicity, and posability of the standard minifigure.  They look vastly superior to brick-built creatures, in my opinion, even with molded heads (which just look inconsistent with the creature in my opinion).  The creatures created for the minidoll themes feel more at home with the minidolls than with the minifigure, and the same works in reverse.  Having said that, I would really appreciate more versatility in the bigfigs.  A separate head would be a start, as would headpieces to top them off.  Removing the torso from the legs would be great as well.  But these gripes are minor and more about customization than about appearance, and while the minidolls may be slightly more customizable, they lack an appearance that I can appreciate.  And like I said above, the bigfigs look much better next to minifigures than they do next to minidolls, and better than minidolls do next to minifigures.

Anyways, sorry about the long-winded reply, but there was much to reply to.

[Aanchir]

Not disputing that Elves is aimed primarily at girls… just that I think you'd find that it's no more "extremely" aimed at girls than traditional castle is at boys. After all, do the dragons of Fantasy Era Castle not themselves have as much of an 'edgy and masculine' appearance as the dragons in Elves have a 'cutesy and feminine' appearance? (I'd also dispute "cutesy" a bit there; that certainly applies to the baby dragons, but I'd sooner describe the grown-up dragons and elemental creatures from the Elves theme as "majestic" or "elegant").

Of course to a boy who grew up primarily enjoying boy-targeted products, girl-targeted stuff of any sort will feel more extreme in its gendering than boy-targeted stuff, because they've been conditioned to believe that those boy-targeted colors, designs, etc. are the norm or baseline. But in practice even if certain sorts of "neutral" color schemes and subject matter could theoretically reach boys and girls equally, if they don't do so in practice then I think it's a mistake to confuse them for being truly gender neutral. If the targeting of girls with eye-popping floral colors like oranges and azures and pinks and purples is pervasive, the targeting of boys with intensely rich reds, blues, and greens and steely greys is just as much so.

We've already seen "many people" accept a new type of figure with the mini-doll. It's just that those "many people" are primarily girls. I think if anything this further reinforces that the traditional minifigure has engendered a kind of loyalty among many boys and men that it lacks to the same extent in girls. And the idea of not wanting to "mess with success" with boys is a big factor in why the designers of LEGO Friends and the mini-doll, instead of trying to replace their successful existing slate of products with more gender-neutral ones, focused on creating new themes that could appeal to the huge audience that the minifigure and the themes that use it weren't reaching.

That said, we have also seen LEGO design for the "boy-oriented" themes start to embrace some more feminine design characteristics. Ninjago and Nexo Knights, despite having extremely masculine-coded colors and a lot of very aggressive vehicle sets, have also done a pretty decent job giving some of their castles and other locations like Destiny's Bounty the kind of interior details and play features like places for people to eat and sleep that girls had called out previous Castle sets for lacking. Ninjago has devoted much more screen time and story development to characters like Nya and Pixal in recent seasons than it did towards the beginning of the show, and giving female characters increased prominence in the sets as well. This summer's Throne Room Showdown set exemplifies this, with four female characters driving the main conflict and Lloyd assuming the role of "damsel in distress". City has gotten better about showing women in all kinds of different jobs from environmental researchers to astronauts to truckers to construction workers. I hope to see this trend continue! So much of LEGO's success with girls has come from identifying their design and marketing teams' previous blind spots, which is bound to be a continuous learning process.

[Digger of Bricks]

9 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I think it really depends on what sort of customizability you're talking about. With the mini-doll, it's much easier to mix and match the parts to create totally new characters, but harder to swap individual body parts for parts that aren't designed to be part of a figure. 

Like I had initially said, minidolls are in my opinion vastly superior to BigFigs for their ability to be mixed and matched, but neither of them come as close enough to the minifigure in terms of System compatible aesthetics and parts reusability beyond minifigures themselves.

10 hours ago, Aanchir said:

Whereas with a bigfig, you can give Thanos or Red Hulk or Bane a robotic hook or an octopus tentacle or a machine gun for a hand/arm, but short of non-purist customization you're going to have a much harder time making them no longer look like Thanos or Red Hulk or Bane, because most of the characters' most identifying characteristics are molded into the torso assembly.

...which is just a shame, as I think such identifying characteristics should always be printed as opposed to molded whenever possible, as to increase a mold's lifespan beyond its originally intended purpose. 

[MAB]

On 10/06/2018 at 11:12 PM, x105Black said:

Still better than the minidoll, which is more of an attempt at making a better minifigure (a failure in that aspect).

2

No it isn't. It is an attempt at making a more realistic looking minifigure (a success in that aspect). More realistic doesn't necessarily mean better for all. It is better for the group that weren't interested in minifigures due to the strange body shapes.

9 hours ago, x105Black said:

The basic color schemes of the old sets can be appreciated by both genders. 

 

So can the colours in Elves and Friends sets.

Edited June 12, 2018 by MAB

[x105Black]

39 minutes ago, MAB said:

No it isn't. It is an attempt at making a more realistic looking minifigure (a success in that aspect). More realistic doesn't necessarily mean better for all. It is better for the group that weren't interested in minifigures due to the strange body shapes.

Semantics.  The point is the same.  It may be somewhat more realistic, but in many ways it is less realistic (unless you tie your legs together and keep your arms and wrists straight).  It is also a gendered representation, one that works to feminine sensibilities.

39 minutes ago, MAB said:

So can the colours in Elves and Friends sets.

Sure, they can.  But are they?  Elves and Friends have color schemes that are much more tailored to the feminine.  This much is obvious.

[MAB]

10 minutes ago, x105Black said:

Semantics.  The point is the same.  It may be somewhat more realistic, but in many ways it is less realistic (unless you tie your legs together and keep your arms and wrists straight).  It is also a gendered representation, one that works to feminine sensibilities.

1

It is more realistic looking, rather than realistic for action playing. Which is the point of it, often girls (and especially girls that were not into playing LEGO minifigures) want smooth curved dolls rather than the square edged, blocky, almost robot like minifigures. They tend to play by story telling without necessarily much action, moving a character is as easy as picking it up and moving it, pretending a character is doing something is as good as getting them to do it. The minidollis better than a minifigure for people that want those qualities. Whereas the minifigure is a better option for those that want to be able to pose figures in action. Minidolls were not meant to be better, they were meant to appeal to a different group of people.

 

15 minutes ago, x105Black said:

 

Sure, they can.  But are they?  Elves and Friends have color schemes that are much more tailored to the feminine.  This much is obvious.

 

Yes, some males like Elves and Friends colour schemes, just like some females like the bold red, blue and green of "boy" sets.

 

Personally, I think it is a shame that Elves doesn't have more male characters. If that was roughly 50:50 I think more boys would see it as a set they can play with too, just like increasing female characters in minifigure sets is meant to attract more girls to them.

 

It will be interesting to see how minidolls are accepted after TLM2, if there are boys wanting to get the minidoll characters from that.

[x105Black]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

It is more realistic looking, rather than realistic for action playing. Which is the point of it, often girls (and especially girls that were not into playing LEGO minifigures) want smooth curved dolls rather than the square edged, blocky, almost robot like minifigures. They tend to play by story telling without necessarily much action, moving a character is as easy as picking it up and moving it, pretending a character is doing something is as good as getting them to do it. The minidollis better than a minifigure for people that want those qualities. Whereas the minifigure is a better option for those that want to be able to pose figures in action. Minidolls were not meant to be better, they were meant to appeal to a different group of people.

Yes, some males like Elves and Friends colour schemes, just like some females like the bold red, blue and green of "boy" sets.

And that was my point, really.  Minidolls were created to appeal to females.  This gives them soft curves.  I don't find them to be more realistic than minifigures, just a different take on realism.  Minidolls have cartoonish and exaggerated proportions in my eyes.

As for the colors, yes, there will always be some males and females who appreciate the color schemes aimed at the opposite gender.  The point is, though, that those color schemes are aimed at and predominantly appeal to particular genders.

And I'm not entirely opposed to individual colors, it's just that girl oriented themes use them heavily.  Having spoken to some girls and women about this, these colors can often alienate females as well, making them feel condescended to and patronized, like all girls must love these colors, when many many girls like standard colors schemes.

[Itaria No Shintaku]

We did a contest yesterday, and gave minifigures/minidolls to all partecipants.

ALL boys wanted a minifigure. NO boy wanted a minidoll.
ALL girls but one, wanted a minidoll, only a girl wanted a minifigure.

Usually, I don't hink there's much gener-neutrality, at least in Italy where I live. Maybe in other countries the story is entirely different, but here ELVES/FRIENDS are for girl and even if there are dragons or goblins they're too "cute-looking" to be loved by boys. On the other hands, it's more common that girl like normal "City" sets instead of friends one, but they're a small minority. 

As a toy seller I am usually asked "is there something for a boy" or "is there something for a girl?" 
Proposing friends/elves for a boy is suicidal, the buyer will go to another shop.

[anothergol]

Minidolls really remind me of these.

Around '95 I was chatting on The Palace, where these ugly things were born as avatars. And boy they became popular outside The Palace, unknown in Europe but famous in North America.

 

I've only toyed with my first minidoll for a recent contest, and I found them fine. They could have used more, not less articulation than minifigs, though.

[rodiziorobs]

On 6/12/2018 at 7:58 AM, Itaria No Shintaku said:

ALL boys wanted a minifigure. NO boy wanted a minidoll.
ALL girls but one, wanted a minidoll, only a girl wanted a minifigure.

And this is why the minidoll was born. TLG doesn't care who buys their stuff, they just want as many people as they can get to do so. If half of the population prefers (as evidenced by test groups, sales, and Itaria's anecdote) a different product to what you're selling, you make a new product to sell alongside it that appeals to them. Then you can get everyone's money. All this is to say: the minidoll isn't going anywhere, folks.

On 6/12/2018 at 7:58 AM, Itaria No Shintaku said:

As a toy seller I am usually asked "is there something for a boy" or "is there something for a girl?" 
Proposing friends/elves for a boy is suicidal, the buyer will go to another shop.

I agree completely with you. Not to stir the pot too much, but this is why 'gender-neutral' tends to be a myth in practice; the older generations want (unknowingly, perhaps) so badly to reinforce it, it will take a long time to see any real change, a proverbial 40 years in the wilderness. And its not just buyers of toys, either; it's producers also, TLG included. Not that it's a problem per se, but it is reality, all idealism aside.

12 hours ago, anothergol said:

Minidolls really remind me of these.

See, and these remind me a lot more of the Monster High dolls, or perhaps a less chibi version of Bratz dolls. I can see a lot of similarities with minidolls, though. When this kind of image has been popular with girls for at least ~20 years, it's no wonder TLG returned to this well (having visited it before with their Clikits marketing).

Minidolls tend to be less sexualized then that picture (and MH and Bratz) though, meaning while minidolls are more anatomically defined than regular minifigures, their proportions and hemlines aren't pushed to the extreme like those other examples. I think that's a good thing.

[Grover]

On 6/12/2018 at 3:47 AM, MAB said:

It is more realistic looking, rather than realistic for action playing.

I disagree.  I think that the minidolls are just as unrealistic as the Lego minis, simply in a different way.  Whereas the traditional minifigures are somewhat blocky and pixellated (kind of 8-bit looking), the dolls look like extra long, extra-tall heroin addicts.  In my opinion, they are both as unrealistic as the other at different ends of the spectrum.  Which is more realistic?  Sponge-bob squarepants or Gumby?  Neither if you ask me, but as people are pointing out, they appeal to different target audiences.

[Aanchir]

7 hours ago, rodiziorobs said:

Minidolls tend to be less sexualized then that picture (and MH and Bratz) though, meaning while minidolls are more anatomically defined than regular minifigures, their proportions and hemlines aren't pushed to the extreme like those other examples. I think that's a good thing.

Yeah, I think it's interesting to compare that with how a lot of AFOLs' idea of minifigures with more molded bodies begins with molded hourglass waistlines for women (like Arealight Customs' curved torsos)… yet one of the traits that sets the mini-doll apart from female minifigure graphics is in fact that their sides do not have much of an hourglass shape, and instead form a fairly straight vertical line from the hips upward for boys, women, and girls (the sides of the man-style torso are wider towards the top). I think if anything this reinforces that the mini-doll is designed based on what girls related best to, and not based on male expectations of what girls/women are supposed to look like.

3 hours ago, Grover said:

I disagree.  I think that the minidolls are just as unrealistic as the Lego minis, simply in a different way.  Whereas the traditional minifigures are somewhat blocky and pixellated (kind of 8-bit looking), the dolls look like extra long, extra-tall heroin addicts.  In my opinion, they are both as unrealistic as the other at different ends of the spectrum.  Which is more realistic?  Sponge-bob squarepants or Gumby?  Neither if you ask me, but as people are pointing out, they appeal to different target audiences.

They only look extra-long or extra-tall if you're conditioned to expect the preposterously wide and stumpy proportions of the classic minifigure. Proportionally, the most unrealistic aspect of the mini-dolls are the traits they share with the minifigure for functional reasons — their exaggeratedly large hands, feet, and heads (the third of which makes up about 1/4 their total height). Aside from those things, neither their waists nor their arms nor their legs are unusually long or thin. If you shrink the head to a more typical real-life size like around 1/6 of the total height, their bodies do not look very tall or skinny at all — in fact, their bodies look a lot less skinny than the actual human women we frequently see in media and advertising:

This is also why I crack up laughing any time I see people describe mini-dolls as Barbie-like. Barbie's proportions ARE exaggeratedly tall and skinny — she's typically about 8 heads high. The dwarfish 4-head-high proportions of the mini-doll are nowhere close!

[x105Black]

9 hours ago, rodiziorobs said:

See, and these remind me a lot more of the Monster High dolls, or perhaps a less chibi version of Bratz dolls. I can see a lot of similarities with minidolls, though. When this kind of image has been popular with girls for at least ~20 years, it's no wonder TLG returned to this well (having visited it before with their Clikits marketing).

Minidolls tend to be less sexualized then that picture (and MH and Bratz) though, meaning while minidolls are more anatomically defined than regular minifigures, their proportions and hemlines aren't pushed to the extreme like those other examples. I think that's a good thing.

Minidolls are slightly less sexualized, but in the same vein as The Palace, Monster High, or Bratz in my eyes.  But I'm not in the target market for minidolls.  My girlfriend is, and she says they look like Polly Pocket, which is to say that they don't look like LEGO.

6 hours ago, Grover said:

I disagree.  I think that the minidolls are just as unrealistic as the Lego minis, simply in a different way.

I agree with this.

[dr_spock]

2 hours ago, x105Black said:

Minidolls are slightly less sexualized, but in the same vein as The Palace, Monster High, or Bratz in my eyes.  But I'm not in the target market for minidolls.  My girlfriend is, and she says they look like Polly Pocket, which is to say that they don't look like LEGO.

 

Minidolls are pretty similar to the small Polly Pockets of the 1990s.  They bend at the waist and not the legs too.  They came in a pod like those new Friends pod sets.  Then Mattel came out with Fashion Polly Pockets that didn't look like Polly Pockets.

Like them or not, minidolls helped expand LEGO's reach (revenue) into other market segments.  As long as minidolls keep making money, they'll be produced.

[Aanchir]

For all the claims that the mini-doll is just as unrealistic as the minifigure, there are very few particularly "unrealistic" aspects of mini-doll anatomy I can think of that don't also apply to the traditional minifigure.

Things that make both minifigs and mini-dolls unrealistic:

• Oversized heads, feet, and hands
• Claw-shaped hands
• No ears, fingers, or toes
• No molded muscle definition
• Non-posable knees, elbows, ankles, and waists

Additional things that make typical minifigs (but not mini-dolls) unrealistic:

• blocky foot, leg, and torso shapes
• oversized waist and hips
• short, stubby legs
• no nose, chin, sclerae, or irises
• torso contours printed rather than molded
• bright yellow skin

Additional things that make typical mini-dolls (but not minifigs) unrealistic:

• Exaggeratedly large eyes
• Legs and hands don't move independently
• Kids and adults are the same height
• That's basically it?

[x105Black]

On 6/16/2018 at 10:45 AM, Aanchir said:

For all the claims that the mini-doll is just as unrealistic as the minifigure, there are very few particularly "unrealistic" aspects of mini-doll anatomy I can think of that don't also apply to the traditional minifigure.

...

Not all minifigures are yellow.

Minidolls lack wrist articulation.

While they don't specifically articulate at the elbow, minifigures at least have an elbow.

I also find the minifigure to be more versatile in its simplicity, while still consisting of specifically molded parts to make a humanoid, but I suppose that's a different discussion to the post I'm quoting.