Mini-doll legs 1: layered mini-skirts

Female, Hip with Skirt 1 was used on three of the five Friends girls' signature outfit: Andrea's, Emma's and Stephanie's. It is one of the leg parts with the most color & print variations.


2012











2013

The ones on the left and in the center below have appeared only once so far.




No new color & print for this mold was seen in 2014.


2015

The Pop Star sub-theme brought us the rare silver and gold skirts!





2016

The medium azure skirt with matching shoes was added to the collection in January.

Here's a photo of all the mini-dolls with this leg mold in my collection. Duplicates of the same mini-doll are not included.



Stephanie's basic magenta skirt is the most common piece. While it is very cute, it's been used a little too frequently in my opinion.

Introduction to the minidoll legs

When I discuss the mini-dolls, my focus is often on what their face prints are or what they have on the torsos, and I may even forget to mention the legs.

But actually, it is quite fascinating to see how many different kinds of leg molds mini-dolls have!

As you may have noticed, every official mini-doll character is basically stuck with one type of torso.

It may look like there is a wide variety of upper body options for young female mini-dolls, but they are all made from the one and only girl torso mold.

What makes these torsos look different is just the colors and the prints, and not the variety in torso molds.



By contrast, the leg parts do not rely on the colors and print details alone.

It's amazing how many different shapes there are!



In some of my future posts, I will talk about some of these individual leg mold.

My review on Friends Bricks: 41117 Pop Star TV Studio

My new review is up! It's 41117 Pop Star TV Studio!



The Pop Star sets may not be everyone's favorite, but they certainly add variety to the world of LEGO Friends.

This has been the fourth and last set for me to review from the recent shipment from TLG.

It has been so much fun photographing and writing about those four sets for the past two weeks.

Thank you again for the wonderful opportunity, LEGO and Susan at Friends Bricks!

But actually, I'm not quite done yet; I have just been notified that a few more sets are coming my way next week. 

I can hardly wait!!

Mia (2013)

In 2013, Mia was seen wearing some clothes not typically found in a high school girl's closet.





1) 30108 Summer Picnic (promo/polybag)
2) 41001 Mia's Magic Tricks
3) 41015 Dolphin Cruiser
4) 41006 Downtown Bakery

In 2012, Mia seemed quite busy going to Heartlake Stables and helping Dr. Sophie at Heartlake Vet while practicing her drums.  But in 2013, she somehow managed to find time to practice her magic tricks and learn to bake professionally for the Downtown Bakery.

Mia #1 has the familiar outfit on from the previous year, but the other three Mias are sporting some brand new articles of clothing.

Two of them are wearing the long pants and a long-sleeved top. That combination is quite rare for the female characters outside the horseback riding sets.

It is worth mentioning that Mia's new outfits have no paw print designs. All the other four Friends kept their signature motif in 2013, but Mia simply called it quits!


The reason?

It's just my guess, but perhaps the paw print isn't quite like a flower, a star or a heart, and it may be a bit harder to make the paw print fashionable.

Mia decided that she didn't have to advertise her love of animals on everything she wore.

So outside the updated version of her signature top, she has not worn another shirt bearing a paw print since 2012.

Mia #3 is wearing a striped shirt with a small butterfly, and some may argue that the butterfly is Mia's secondary signature motif when the paw doesn't look cool enough.

That may be the case, but as I have said before, the butterfly doesn't just represent Mia; it's been used on Andrea and Emma's alternate top from 2012.

Andrea (2013)

In 2013 Andrea was back with brighter green eyes than the year before.





1) 30107 Birthday Party (promo/polybag)
2) 41008 Heartlake City Pool
3) 41009 Andrea's Bedroom

Andrea was the first of the five Friends to get a bikini top, as well as the brand new leg piece wearing a pair of shorts. Kate also wore the shorts in blue that year, but the light skinned girls didn't start wearing shorts until Emma got her pink pair in 2014.

Actually, no one else seems to love wearing shorts as much as Andrea does. She owns them in 3 different colors. She has also appeared every year since 2013 wearing shorts at least once.

Andrea got new tops with her signature motif again in 2013, just like Emma, Olivia and Stephanie did.



The bikini top has large and small hibiscus flowers all over, and if you look very closely, you will see a couple of inconspicuous musical notes designs.

The other new top is a simple white sleeveless shirt adorned with a double-strand necklace. The musical note charms accentuates the otherwise plain chain necklace.

My review on Friends Bricks: 41110 Birthday Party

Here's my 3rd review for Friends Bricks this year: 41110 Birthday Party.

My party set collection is now complete, and you can now meet all those who attended Daisy's birthday party!

My favorite piece of this particular set is Violet the bird! 

She is one of the two newly introduced birds from 2016.

Meet all the six friendly birds that have befriended mini-dolls:

The eye shape has been redesigned this year. I personally like the simpler look of the old eye design, but they are all cute anyway.

Emma (2013)

Today let's look at Emma mini-dolls from 2013!

It was the year we got the least number of mini-dolls overall. There were only four Emmas.





1) 30106 Ice Cream Stand (promo/polybag)
2) 41007 Heartlake Pet Salon
3) 41002 Emma's Karate Class
4) 41013 Emma's Sports Car

Emma #1 was from a promo set, and as with all mini-dolls from polybags, it consists of parts previously seen in some other sets. She is just like the signature style Emma from 2012, but the only difference is that the 2013 Emma has brighter green eyes as I have previously discussed.

The other three Emmas each got a newly designed torso, and they look quite distinct from one another; both of her tops from 2012 were both purple and looked a little similar, so this is a nice change in her wardrobe.

The most unique of all the above four Emmas is #3; neither her black belt karate gi top and her white cropped pants have been used again.

As she did in 2012, Emma proudly wore her signature flower design in every occasion.



The tops seen on #2 and #4 were later used on other characters, mostly Stephanie, even though this particular five-petaled flower was originally meant to represent Emma. I will discuss this trend in detail on another occasion.

My review on Friends Bricks: 41111 Party Train

My second Friends set review for 2016 is up!

This time I played with and wrote about 41111 Party Train.

Some of you are probably interested in that yellow bike and the new hamsters.

Have a close look at them in my review!

Stephanie (2013)

As I said in my post about Stephanie mini-dolls from 2012, she desperately needed to change her wardrobe after being seen in the same top all the time (except once).

Here's the result:





1) 41011 Stephanie's Soccer Practice
2) 41004 Rehearsal Stage
3) 41005 Heartlake High
4) 41016 Advent Calendar

In 2003, she made sure to wear a brand new top and bottom for every possible occasion. All of the above torsos and legs were newly designed for those particular versions of Stephanie released in 2013.

Stephanie suddenly became the fashion leader; many of the pieces that she wore in 2013 were later borrowed by Mia, Olivia, Emma, Naya and Sophie. Even boys like Andrew and Noah wear the navy blue cropped pants which originally belonged to Stephanie.

Three of Stephanie's 2013 tops are decorated with her signature star motif.



In 2012 and 2013, the main five girls often wore those wonderful character-specific tops.

As you are probably aware, it's no longer so.

To my disappointment, random clothes sharing among the characters started in 2014.

My review on Friends Bricks: 41114 Party Styling

On Monday I received four new sets from Billund, Denmark!

The LEGO Group kindly sent them to me so I can write my reviews on them for Friends Bricks.

I feel very honored to be asked to do set reviews for the largest online LEGO Friends community, and I am really thankful to Susan (aka LegoMyMamma) for giving me such a special opportunity.

If you care about mini-dolls enough to come check out my blog, I'm sure you have visited Friends Bricks before.

I have just posted the first of my Friends reviews for 2016.

I hope you will get a chance to read my coverage on 41114 Party Styling.

Mini-dolls with Emma's face design (2012 & 2013)

There was only one additional character from 2012 who had Emma's face design.

Yes, that's right; only one.

But still, it's more than Mia's, which did not get used on any other character until 2014.

Anyway, Christina is basically the blonde version of Emma; even the wig is Emma's hair style. But the totally different hair color is enough to convince us she has nothing to do with Emma.





She is an exclusive character to the following set:

3316 Advent Calendar

Emma's wig in blonde was also used on Marie from City Park Cafe in 2012, so it's not unique to Christina.

What makes her special is her red Christmas sweater. It's very cute, but it keeps her in an eternal Christmas mood; she is not likely to be seen at the camp or on the beach.

The legs are unique to the first three advent calendars so far, used on Christina in 2012, on Lily in 2013 and on Ewa in 2014.

Within four months of Christina's appearance, a brand new character was introduced.

She is an exclusive character to the following set:

41008 Heartlake City Pool

In 2012 and 2013, there weren't quite as many mini-doll part options to make new characters like in 2016. So it's understandable the design team selected the combination of the Emma face and the Emma wig in blonde twice, both of which were readily available at the time.

What I don't quite get is why those two mini-dolls with seemingly identical face and wig had to be two different characters.

Did they think Christina sounds Christmasy while Isabella sounds perfect for the bathing suit mini-doll?

Or did they simply forget they had designed Christina with the same face & wig combination when they made Isabella?

I don't know.

But actually, Christina and Isabella are not exactly identical.



If you compare Emma's face print from 2012 and that from 2013, you will notice the difference in the green shades of the eyes. In the 2012 version, the green was painted quite dark, and it is rather hard to tell the color. I suppose that was why it was changed to the lighter shade with the 2013 version, and the green is more visible now. Andrea mini-dolls also underwent this eye-color enhancement.

Mini-doll heads 3: boys (2012-2015)

Continuing on the topic of the mini-doll heads, today I will talk about those with the part names starting with 'Head, Boy 1'.

Interestingly, the head mold itself appears to be the same as the female head.

The three prints currently available for the Heartlake City boys show the same facial expression. Unlike the girls' face prints, they don't have lipsticks and long eyelashes. The boys' eyebrows are somewhat thicker and not arched like the girls'.





Fans were hoping for other male mini-dolls besides Peter when the first two boy faces were introduced in the second half year of 2013.



Left: Dec. 1 (Matthew)     Right: Dec. 2 (Andrew)

Both of the above designs have been used on additional characters as well. Matthew's face has been used for the character named Robert. Andrew's face design can be seen on Julian, David and Daniel.

Both of the above designs have been used at least once every year since their introduction.

In 2015, the design which mix the features of the above two was introduced: brown eyes on the light-skinned head.


Above: Dec. 5 (Noah)

Dec. 3 and Dec. 4 are missing.

Noah's head was also used for Nate, the hotel bellboy. This design will appear on Nate again in the second wave 2016.

These smiley face prints combined with the delicate, smaller head mold, give the impression of sweet teenage boys. They are perfect for most of the boy characters in Heartlake City, but I personally think the Peter head mold with Peter torso mold might have worked better for David, the pilot character in Heartlake City Airport. Don't we all want our pilot to be someone with many years of experience?

Mini-dolls with Stephanie's face design (2012)

Stephanie's is by far the most frequently used face design of all. But in 2012, there were only two additional mini-dolls besides Stephanie herself who had this print.





Katharina: 3189 Heartlake Stables
Sophie: 3188 Heartlake Vet

Katharina has not appeared in any other set. While her black jacket is exclusive, its design is just like Sophie's shirt with the addition of the white shirt details below the neck.



I would hate to tell this to Sophie directly, but no part of her is special. All parts are shared with at least one other mini-doll from 2012.

Sophie made her second appearance in a hardly recognizable state in Heartlake Shopping Mall in 2014.



She is expected to return in a new set to be released in summer 2016. It's interesting Olivia's aunt is seen more often than her parents. I suspect part of the reason is it does not require a special mold to make Sophie unlike Peter or Anna.