Improving the Fashionista
Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2013 9:24 pmSo goes the age old saying: Why on Earth doesn’t a Fashionista Barbie body get the same amount of motion as her Pivotal cousin, Fashion Royalty rivals or even Monster High despite having a similar system of joints? Well, turns out the only reason why this is so is because there’s WAY too much plastic around the joints. This gives a smoother appearance but it definitely affects the play value of the bodies to me.
I’ve been meaning to test this theory for awhile but in between lacking a good carving knife, moving, and having a lack of test bodies I haven’t been able to properly put to the test.
But then I picked up a Fashionista body from Savers today before crashing at my boyfriend’s house, with the intentions of painting it to match my Wicked Witch doll’s head. But I realised with the current Fashionista joints it would chip really badly, so I figured i put my theory of expanding her motion range AND limiting how much joint friction there would be for this test body.
So I asked my bf if he had any sharp knives I could whittle my doll body with and he whipped out this crazy sharp knife cuz he’s into that kind of hunting biz.
I first turned her upper arm elbow socket from a U shaped socket to a completely straight line so her arm could turn inwards at a 90 degree. I then carved a crescent moon shape on her forearm following her elbow joint so the arm could in deeper. I whittled her upper arms to taper to her lower arms to look nicer aesthetically but to also minimise the amount of plastic between the joint so she could get the maximum fold.
I then carved the plastic around her wrist to expose as much of the hand post as I could without exposing her wrist post so she could get at least a 90 degree bend.
I left the arm on (our) left untouched to show how limited the range of movement is in comparison to what I did to her right arm.
And here are some photos of my Fashionista body with her arms modded. As you can see, she can actually touch her face, place her hands on her hips and in general has a better range of poses than the default Fashionista arms.
I’ve been meaning to test this theory for awhile but in between lacking a good carving knife, moving, and having a lack of test bodies I haven’t been able to properly put to the test.
But then I picked up a Fashionista body from Savers today before crashing at my boyfriend’s house, with the intentions of painting it to match my Wicked Witch doll’s head. But I realised with the current Fashionista joints it would chip really badly, so I figured i put my theory of expanding her motion range AND limiting how much joint friction there would be for this test body.
So I asked my bf if he had any sharp knives I could whittle my doll body with and he whipped out this crazy sharp knife cuz he’s into that kind of hunting biz.
I first turned her upper arm elbow socket from a U shaped socket to a completely straight line so her arm could turn inwards at a 90 degree. I then carved a crescent moon shape on her forearm following her elbow joint so the arm could in deeper. I whittled her upper arms to taper to her lower arms to look nicer aesthetically but to also minimise the amount of plastic between the joint so she could get the maximum fold.
I then carved the plastic around her wrist to expose as much of the hand post as I could without exposing her wrist post so she could get at least a 90 degree bend.
I left the arm on (our) left untouched to show how limited the range of movement is in comparison to what I did to her right arm.
And here are some photos of my Fashionista body with her arms modded. As you can see, she can actually touch her face, place her hands on her hips and in general has a better range of poses than the default Fashionista arms.
I can't even find a Fashionista Ken where I live! 