Girl Talk
I’ve always wanted to have more female characters in “Minions at Work,” but while fashion dolls are a dime a dozen, they LOOK like fashion dolls, and are poorly articulated. Actual female action figures are difficult, and often expensive when you come by them, and many of them look like strippers or porn stars. Some of them are MODELED on strippers and porn stars. The first female Minion, Number 67, came from the same Chinese-made Power Team line that provided the bodies for many of my Minions at Work characters. She isn’t as well articulated, and she’s boyish enough that I have to careful to make sure people KNOW she’s female, but she’s useable.
Late in the first run, I added a second female, #6, seen in the attached cartoon, and she’s a bit of a Frankenstein. I used the body from a Liv fashion doll. This was kind of knock off of those big-headed “Bratz” dolls that terrified parents a few years ago. Like Bratz, these dolls had oversized heads, but the bodies were nice. Fairly well articulated, not overly sexualized, and small in stature (unlike Barbie and many high-end female action figures, which are often taller than my already tall Minions). So I started picking them up, taking the heads off, and replacing them with heads from more traditional fashion dolls and other types of figures. The result is fairly articulated, feminine without looking like a Playboy centerfold, and much closer to the size of an average woman relative to the Minions. There are problems. The arms aren’t THAT well articulated, heads that don’t have the exaggerated proportions of Barbie and many other fashion dolls are still scarce, and the hands are open and rubbery, unable to hold or grasp anything, but again, I can work with it.
I’d like to add some minority females too, but those are even harder to come by. I do have a darker skin-tone Liv body here though, waiting for a proper head, and then, perhaps it will be time to add another Minion, and a little more diversity to the group.
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