u/Catlady5000

I saw The Toybox Philosopher's review on the new playline Kpop Demon Hunter dolls, and was instantly interested in them as a potential body donor for Barbies. (Also they're really cute on their own, but anyway!) Have a look at her review for a more detailed breakdown of their articulation and so forth, but here are my thoughts on bodyswapping:

First of all, Jinu makes a great body donor for playline Allan! I did a seperate post about that, so check it out if you're interested! 

For the girls: lets go through the good and bad points!

GOOD:

Skintone: they are very similar to Tennis Player (etc), that paler skintone that's so hard to find, which is the thing that first sparked my interest! Especially that Zoey is shorter than regular Barbie, and petite articulated bodies in this tone are hard to get. The skintone is slightly more yellow than the pinker Tennis Player - see pictures. I think it's still pretty good though, and matches my Holiday Redhead very well!

Body: the body is very similar to regular articulated Barbie, like the Deluxe style sort of Barbie, (apart from the feet), but is about 5mm smaller in the bust and waist. This means that not only can she wear regular Barbie clothes, she can also fit into Model Muse clothes!!! So she fits perfectly into the Holiday Barbie dress, which doesn't close at all on the back if I put it on MTM Barbie. So this is a good option if you want a Model Muse type body with articulation (but don't want to pay Silkstone prices!) It's a very nicely shaped and elegant body, in my opinion. Also the hands come on and off, which is useful for tight fitting clothes, although it's a bit of a struggle, I don't think I'd want to do it all the time, they feel a bit fragile. The hands are really elegant though and I really like them! 

Height: Rumi (with the purple hair) is about regular Barbie size, although I should note that she has purple "demon" markings on her arms and neck, which works for her character of course but isn't great for a body swap. Mira is the one I chose: she's a bit taller than a regular barbie but not quite as tall as a Tall Barbie. Zoey is a bit shorter than a regular Barbie but I'm not sure how she compares to Petite.

Articulation: This is my favourite form of articulation: like the Extra or Deluxe style, she has the extra wrist, elbow and knee joints, but not full MTM. For me, I much prefer the elegance of these types of joints, I think the MTM joints are kind of ugly, and also I absolutely suck at posing my dolls so they're wasted on me anyway, lol!!! There is no other similar option in this skintone for regular Barbie that I can find, so this is really filling a gap for me - Tennis Player and Model 6 (etc) are available for MTM, but not the simpler joints, so this is great!

Clothes: the clothes are beautifully made and so detailed, much better than most Barbie clothes, and even the gloves come on and off?! (but don't fit Barbie, sadly). The clothes fit Barbie just fine though, and you can see who stole them in the last pic! Also the accessories for each doll are really cool weapons, which are very impressive! 

BAD:

And now for the bad points!

Feet: the feet are far bigger than barbie feet so they can't share shoes. They are almost, but not quite, the same size as Dream Besties feet, so they can't even use most of their shoes! This is honestly my pet peeve: why can't Mattel make consistant size feet so the dolls can share shoes?! I'm particularly annoyed that Curvy feet are a different size than regular, so they get a very poor shoe selection in comparison. Infuriating! Anyway, apart from the (really awesome) big boots she came with, I've discovered she fits into at least some of those sort of generic fashion shoes available on Aliexpress and the like, so all is not lost. Annoyingly, they come in a pack of 4 and she only fits one type, but they are cheap and come in a range of colours, so that's something. If anyone is interested I can do a shoe fit post, I have some more potential shoes on order. Oh and her feet are high heel feet, no ankle articulation by the way.

Neck: her neck is far shorter than a Barbie neck, which is weird. Maybe because the heads are kind of a different scale? I didn't notice this for a while, but now I can't un-see it! Tbh it bothers me a bit, so I am currently dithering over whether to leave Holiday on this body or put her on a spare MTM Model 6 body. Maybe this body would look better with a smaller head? The Daya sculpt is pretty wide. Not sure! 

Articulation: Obviously she's got less than MTM, so that's a minus for some.

...And that's pretty much it! I really like this body, it's mainly the neck and foot size that's putting me off a bit, other than that it's a really nice new option! Apologies for the giant wall of text, but I always like to read other people's thoughts so as to know if a hybrid will work or not, so hopefully that helps someone else! Also I'm pleased my Holiday doll now has a body!!! I'd better get on to making her some clothes so she can give that dress back to the one she stole it off!

Yes!!! Finally a readily available body to fit Playline Allan! And he looks so good!!!

Okay so I forgot to take before photos in my excitement at trying this (sorry) but here’s the play line K-pop Demon Hunters Jinu body and clothes with the Allan head!!! The skin tone match is damn near perfect, and the clothes are so great - actual pants with working belt loops?! And I love the pink top, sunglasses and belt!!! There’s also a shirt, which I didn’t photograph. The articulation is good (not full MTM but that’s fine by me!) and he also comes with an extra hand if you want a regular hand instead of the “heart” one (which I thought was a finger snapping pose but apparently not!)

I am SO pleased with this and I love how he looks now so much!!! I’ve decided the other two girls are his sisters - Basics Model 4 is his little sister, and on the other side is this years Holiday Redhead on the K-pop demon hunter Mira body - who I will do a separate review of! I just love red hair so I’m excited to finally get a few red headed dolls - Mattel just don’t make enough of them!

I love this girls purple eyes, so I thought I’d go with it and make her a purple floral dress to match! I’ve also been gradually altering my vintage Barbie patterns to fit modern Barbie - this is Simplicity 4510, although I more or less ended up drafting it from scratch in the end. But I’m pleased I’ve got one more dress pattern that fits in my collection now!

I made these matching dresses as I love that 1950s matching mother and daughter dresses look - I’ve seen a few vintage Barbie examples so I decided to make my own! I also wanted to use this cute icecream print ribbon I’ve had for ages!

This is theoretically for the “summer” theme but it’s actually winter here so I couldn’t take any pictures outsid, it was raining. So they’re having a picnic at the sewing machine and my bookshelf I guess?!

Also really loving the pink hair mermaid Odile, finally got her! I put her on a Dream Besties body, I think she looks really cute!!!

The sewing pattern for the curvy girl is Mcalls 9993, a vintage Barbie pattern, which I modified to fit curvy, and the other is a vintage skipper pattern, also slightly modified, but it fits pretty well as is!

Question: which Barbie’s have this vintage body type (apart from the actual vintage dolls)? These are two 90s reproductions - are there any others?

I'm looking for dolls that have this particular body type - that is, the recreation of the first vintage Barbie body (not the twist and turn or later 80s one!) Why? Because I absolutely adore the vintage 50s sewing patterns and this is the body they fit!

So these are the 90s reproduction vintage Barbies - as far as I know, the Enchanted Evening, Solo in the Spotlight, Silken Flame, the stripy bathing suit and I think the Wedding Dress one all have this body - but correct me if I'm wrong!

From what I've read, the articulated Silkstone have a different body, and the other Silkstones ale have a different body, with a slightly smaller bust and hips. But...are all Silkstones a different body? Even the repro ones? 

And what about more recent repro ones that aren't silkstone - I'd particularly like to know for Miss Astronaut!

Is there a list somewhere of all the dolls that have this body type?

Anyone have any idea? I'm very pleased with my two lovely ladies, but now I'd like to get them a friend, particularly a redhead!!!

If anyone can advise me, I'd be so grateful!!!

…yes, it was fiddly. Shown next to a roll of thread in the second picture to show the scale! She’s only 10cm tall. I drafted the pattern myself, and was intending to do little ribbon straps but the bodice seems to be staying up on its own. I might still add some, or some ribbon around the waist just to make it less plain.

The back is a bit of a mess, I don’t know how they sew the Velcro on so neatly in their actual clothes!!! Still, I’m pretty happy with it for a first attempt!

I’ve bought six dolls so far and only had one double up - I have an extra blonde girl in the bikini. Slightly disappointed that the roller skate girl is also the same blonde doll - I wish they’d done a redhead for one instead!

Here they are in my Rolife Super Creator kits - the farmhouse kitchen and the afternoon tea one. They look so nice in there!!!

I’m nearly finished making new clothes for my double up one too, so she has a different look and can join the gang!

I don’t actually have many of these 2000s era Polly Pockets, but here goes anyway! Basically I just wanted to know if there might be more options for the tiny 10cm tall Minnee Fashion dolls? My thoughts:

- Minnee dolls are a lot slimmer than the Polly Pockets and are shaped differently. They‘re also taller, although that won’t change the clothing fit much.

- The Polly Pocket clothes are a lot looser in the bust and waist, but they sort of fit okay? The green sleeveless one is a not so good fit as it shows how loose the dress is. The pink one covers it better. So I think dresses with more coverage like that is a pretty decent option!

- The feet are surprisingly similar! The Minnee shoes fit on Polly Pockets fine, but unfortunately I don’t have any PP shoes to try on the Minnee. I think they might be worth tracking down to try though!

- I didn’t try the Minnee clothes on PP as I was afraid of breaking them - they’re a very thin rubber so I didn’t want to risk it!

Anyway - not a very detailed review sorry, but food for thought! Hopefully that’s helpful to someone!!!

VERY excited to get my tiny (10cm tall) Minnee Fashion dolls today - I was really hoping they’d work in the Rolife kits, and they do!!! They’re fully articulated so you can pose them to sit or stand or whatever, and OMG they’re so cute!!! Bad news for my wallet, as now I want to get all the dolls and all the Rolife kits too!

The Minnee dolls are now available at Kmart and Target in Australia, but haven’t been released elsewhere yet as far as I know (except New Zealand.) All I’ve heard is it’s a July release. So lucky us to get them early!!! 😍

EDIT: They can now be ordered, as of 25th June!!! Instructions how below!

It looks like Target (Australia) is showing the Minnee dolls as being in stock in some stores tomorrow, and Kmart is listing them as in stock in Sydney!!!
Hopefully this means the rest of Australia is soon? They‘re not listing as in stock in Victoria for either. You can bet I’ll be checking again tomorrow though!!! 😍

EDIT: okay, so they're listing as click and collect only at various stores at the moment, and not available to order online elsewhere through both Kmart and Target - HOWEVER, they can be ordered! (For Victoria, anyway?)

1. Go to the Kmart site
2. Search Minnee fashion doll
3. Two options will come up: the Target or Kmart one. (Yes, they're owned by the same company now, so the Kmart site list Target stuff too).
4. Click on the "Target" option.
5. Go ahead and place your order!!!

It says they will arrive by July 6th, so maybe that's the official full role out date?

Completely baffling that you can't order from Kmart OR Target, but only by the secret Target option WITHIN Kmart, but there you go. Now I just have to wait and see when they actually show up!!!

So this is going to be (hopefully) an ongoing project for me, that I've been planning for a long time! I really love sewing historical costumes for dolls, but I really don't love the pattern drafting, or endlessly altering things to fit. However, I came up with a cunning plan! :D I have a costume making book called "The Evolution of Fashion", which has 1/6 scale costumes which you are supposed to scale up to human size. (See last few slides). The costumes are gorgeous and I love them all! But I got to thinking...what if, instead, I made them just as they are and found a doll to fit them?! So my steps were as follows:

1. measure the actual patterns and do a whole lot of maths and testing to find what size doll would actually fit.
2. My results: Disney Descendants dolls (not the current lot, the older ones), and Asleep Eidelon/Xagadoll 27cm mature 1/6 dolls with the "Type A" body (this type: https://www.acbjd.com/mini-ted-p-10368.html?cPath=566_574)
3. I chose the Xagadoll Cordelia! Isn't she cute! She took 9 WHOLE MONTHS to arrive!!! Aargh!
4. Choose your pattern and trace it out! I chose 1340. (Incidentally, this book is out of print but I've found it pretty cheap second hand on Ebay.) Add seam allowance, facings and an overlap at the back for the fastenings.
5. Make a test fit - see the blue dress in the picture - to see the fit. The bodice fits amazingly well! The alterations needed were to make the skirt 5.5cm longer (I think it will be the same with all the patterns, doll legs are longer than human legs!), and to alter the sleeves if they are tight, like the first try - they wouldn't fit over her hands. I decided to make hanging sleeves instead, and later I will make some "inner sleeves" that are just lycra armbands, so they stretch to fit over her hands. Once I find some fabric.
6. Sew your pattern!!! (Uh, there's no actual step by step instructions in the book, so you're on your own there!)
7. Lament that you haven't yet found a male doll that looks like it will match her and also fit the male patterns. (Still looking for that).

So there we go! There are so many great patterns from so many eras in that book, I plan to make her many more - probably not in any particular order, just whatever takes my fancy. The other book in the picture - Patterns for Theatrical Costumes - is also great, and the patterns come in three sizes. So I might try them at some point as well!

I hope you enjoyed seeing the start of my ridiculously complicated project! :D

My latest doll sewing! Up the top: My petite redhead in a gingham sundress (pattern is Raddollclothes Country Classics), My curvy girl in a nautical dress (pattern vintage McCall 9993, altered for curvy), and at the front, on the Bo Peep body, a Hankie Chic pattern that fits her surprisingly well?!

So there’s some casual weekend looks for my girls!

I bought the pink haired girl in the middle secondhand, so I don’t know who she is exactly - she came on a curvy body but I put her on Replay the Classics Enchanted evening. However! I think she really suits a curvy body but I just can’t find an articulated one which matches!

Shes darker than Rhythmic Gymnast (on the right, on an Extra 9 body), and similar to Fashionista 10 on the left.

I feel like this should be such a common skin tone but I just can’t find any articulated curvy bodies - doesn’t even have to be mtm! All I could see on the charts was maybe one of the Basics kits with the 3 bodies, and that’s far too expensive for me!

Anyone have any suggestions?

I bought this “Yuge” body on Aliexpress to try and get an articulated body for Allan, since the BMR manbun body is so hard to find. It’s…. not bad?
It’s a lot smaller than his regular body and the head is too big for it in all honest, but once he’s dressed it actually looks pretty good! And at least he has articulation now!!!

I had to wrap a rubber band around the neck peg to make the head stay on, and his feet are bigger so the Allan shoes don’t fit, but the body came with a pair of nice black shoes.
You can buy those bodies at lots of different Aliexpress store, just look for one on sale and with good reviews!
Anyway - I thought I’d post the det in case it helps anyone else, I’ve been very frustrated trying to find a body for him, so I think I’m happy enough with this one!

I was delighted to recently get hold of Ligaya, one of the Team Stacie dolls - I wish there were more Stacie’s!!!! But I wanted an articulated body.

Here she is on the Unicorn Academy Sophia body I took a chance and it worked!!!

The skin tone match isn’t perfect, but it’s surprising good! The body is a very similar size but looks more mature, but that can be hidden under clothes. The feet are a similar size to curvy/tall Barbie feet, but wider, so shoes are a bit of a problem.

The head is REALLY hard to get off the Unicorn Academy body - just look at that crazy neck peg!!! The plastic is a lot thicker and doesn’t go nearly as squishy when heated. I was so afraid I would break it!!! I trimmed that anchor bit when I got it off, just leaving the knob. The Ligaya head is wobbly on this neck, so I fixed it by putting a few clear rubber bands around the neck peg. Now it looks fine!

Unicorn Academy have a few dolls, including a lighter skin one that apparently works with regular Stacie - not sure what the skin tone match is like though. Theres also Layla, a darker skin girl, which might work with the AA Team Stacie doll (if you can find her, that is).

Anyway, I thought I’d post about it here, as I know a few people, like me, are always on the lookout for articulated options!

I asked yesterday how to fix her hair and here’s the result! (see the last photo for how she was when I got her!) I’m not sure whether to put her hair in a ponytail or style it further, but here it is for now, not in clumps anymore at least!

I also put her on the articulated Twinning Looks body, and put her in a new dress I made. Very happy with her now!!! Also here she is with her daughte, who’s a Skipper on a Dream Besties body. I think they look very cute together!!!

I just got this lovely girl, but it looks like her hair has been parted in the middle and then only one side braided into pigtails?! I undid the pigtails but now I don’t know what to do! I’ve done boil washes before for straight hair but I don’t want to loDr the nice texture. Should I wash and comb it? I don’t mind if it looks different than her original styl, I just don’t want it to be a mess!!!

I’m beginning to think I should have paid a bit extra to get one NIB instead! 😭

Any advice greatly appreciated!!!

I’m talking about the pre-1990s era patterns, I just love the 1950s and 60s ones, but the dolls of that era had a very different shape!

First picture, left to right: petite Barbie, curvy Barbie, Worldbox at210 with Barbie heads, Stacie on the end.

Second picture: petite, curvy, dream besties, Stacie.

HOW TO:

Petite, Skipper and Dream besties: Print vintage Skipper pattern at 100%. Tops: Add 5mm to the top length (as in just make it 5mm longer) and it should fit fine, although I’m not sure if long sleeves will be the right length. Bottoms: pants and fitted skirts won’t fit! Gathered skirts like this are fine, I just made it a bit longer so it went to the knees.

Stacie: Use a vintage Skipper pattern. Print tops at 85%, bottoms at 100%. I haven’t tested pants to see how they fit yet. I also made the bodice 5mm longer.

The same dress pattern is on the petite, Dream Bestie and Stacy here! It’s McCalls 7716. It’s just printed at different sizes and the length adjusted slightly. The jacket on the petite is also vintage Skipper at 100%. I did make the sleeves slightly longer to hide her elbow joints though!

Curvy: use a vintage Barbie pattern at 100% but make the bodice pattern 1.2cm shorter. Yes, that’s a lot, but curvy really is that much higher in the waist than a vintage doll! She also has bigger arms, so a tight fitting sleeve might need adjusting - I make it 5mm bigger each side, and the armhole 5mm lower. Only a gathered skirt will fit, not a fitted one or pants! For a fitted lower half, best to use Raddollclothes patterns instea, save yourself the hassle of adjusting them!
Note: I haven’t tried heaps of different patterns yet, this is what I’ve found so far. She’s wearing McCalls 9993.

Lastly: Worldbox at210, the “wasp waist” body - included because the fit Barbie heads nicely, and fit the vintage Barbie patterns well too! The bodices mostly fit well as they are, but the arms are bigger so do the same 5mm arm and armholes adjustment as Curvy. Again, only a gathered skirts like this fits! The lower half is a similar size to curvy. The last picture is my two Worldbox girls, one in McCalls 9993 and one in Simplicity 4510.

Regular Barbie: okay, I haven’t worked that out yet, they need a fair bit of adjusting as they’re a lot smaller in the bodice - I’ll do another post when I work it out!

The vintage patterns are readily available as pdf downloads on Etsy.

I hope that’s not too confusing and is helpful for others who like to sew - feel free to ask me any questions !