♁ Groups, Sites & Info: The Daughters of Barbie

Gymnast Barbies...

This is a list of 1990s Barbie lines that used the fully-articulated Bend & Move body:

Toy Story 3: Groovin' with Ken!

Why Barbie is So Thin

There are many Barbie-bashers who are critical of Barbie's measurements, claiming they promote a standard of beauty that is impossible for healthy/real women to attain. This, in turn, leads to a poor self-image of their own bodies, further leading to self-esteem issues. This criticism bespeaks a lack of understanding of the realities of scale miniaturism and why "her" creators gave "her" the measurements they did.

TUTORIAL: Tightening Loose ArtiBabs Hips

ArtiBabs' hip tightness is maintained by an elastic strap or a rubber "dog bone" that draws the tops of the thighs together through the pelvic piece. Sometimes, this strap, especially when elastic, gets stretched and loses the ability to maintain a rigid pose at the hip. This procedure will allow you to replace the old loose strap with a new tighter one. And, if and when that strap wears out, you can do it again. [Caution: try at your own risk; no method is 100% foolproof.]

TUTORIAL: Recapitating Babs to Non-Mattel Figures

Head swap picture tutorial (long)

As promised, I am laying it all out for you to explain my method of adapting various heads for swapping. About the only thing I am not covering is Jane figures and Power Team female figures.

Basically, I am covering any type of Barbie head on Svetlana, Joanna Dark, and Cy bodies, and any of their heads on each other's bodies.

So without further ado, lets start by looking at what we're dealing with here...

First picture shows representatives of each style of head we are covering, and their neck hole sizes from smallest to largest. (Note: the Svetlana head has Aki Ross' hair on it)

TUTORIAL: How I Restored a ''Trake''

What is a "trake?"
When the neck joint breaks in Mattel's Barbie, an inner pin (in the neck) usually pulls out leaving a hole in the throat that looks like a tracheotomy. The appearance of the neck usually remains intact except for cracks. A trake is a figure in this condition. It is necessary to fix this problem when a suitable replacement is not easily available, such as Mattel's discontinued articulated body. To reduce the chances of breaking the neck joint, in the first place, see my article, "Saving Barbie's Neck..."