Burning It Up: A Barbie Extra Minis Monster!

It's treacherous to shop with an algorithm.

I was looking through listings on Amazon for some such or other before I saw a suggestion for a Barbie Extra Minis doll. This one in specific:

Mattel stock photo.

I'd heard of these dolls peripherally, and initially had no interest in them, since I don't collect Barbie and I don't have much love for chibi proportions. The Minis are a spinoff of the bright and fabulous Barbie Extra line, which aims to be true to its title by providing more eye-catching and elaborate outfits. The Barbie Extra Minis are clearly detached from the main Barbie 'verse, however, due to their much more stylized appearances. Looking through the fairly small amount of Minis, the only other one that really caught my eye was this emoji-themed one, whose colors and styling felt unique and interesting:

Stock photo by Mattel.

And then I saw this one and I  really liked her lipstick-smooch ruffle dress..

...but I had to look twice, because I realized she was a different type of doll, with fewer joints and even chibi-er proportions! This kissy doll was actually from the Barbie Extra Mini Minis line!

I feel like this ultrasimilar branding and doll design
is a recipe for confusion and mistaken purchases.

I don't really think I have any use for a doll quite that small and unjointed, but the costume is pretty great.

So while I was fine ignoring these dolls before, looking at the punk girl's stock photo and seeing a better image gave me a different impression of the doll that made me like her a lot more. I was curious about checking out these dolls on a technical level, and I was struck by the idea that the doll would work very well in my existing collection if she wasn't presented as a standalone chibi character. I thought, based on her non-childlike face and her awesome style, that she could fit in--and I must emphasize that I mean this with no insults intended--within the MH cast as a little person with achondroplasia, a common form of dwarfism. I've been increasingly interested in disability diversity in the world of my favored doll brand Monster High, so I wanted to look at this appealingly edgy-styled small doll, check out her execution, and see if she could join the cast of my larger collection. 

Official MH material has already depicted physical scarring, wheelchair use, conjoined twins, limb difference, autism, and an exaggerated form of gigantism, so I thought a little person could fit in well. The alternative, infernal theme that already placed her more toward edgy horror territory was a bonus. I am not a little person, nor am I close to any people who are, so I acknowledge I'm in tricky territory by deciding to reframe a doll as one, but my intentions are motivated by what I hope is a spirit of respectful inclusion. 

Also, please note that I'm not exploring this reframing of the doll as some kind of callout or condemnation toward Mattel for not making a doll that depicts dwarfism. I have no authority to claim they're doing wrong by not having one, I am not demanding they make one, and this is meant as an exploration in transforming this doll to integrate into my collection, not as a complaint toward the doll industry.

Once I got the doll, I quickly held up the package to my doll shelf, and my impressions felt validated. The Barbie Mini fit in among the MH crowd and her proportions seemed believable for a little person in the art style of the brand. I think it'd be entirely feasible for Mattel to reuse these doll sculpts if they wanted to have a little person in the cast of Monster High, but I'm not going to be too surprised if they don't do so...maybe just on the basis of the fact that we've yet to receive news of one brand-new doll character in G3! I feel like Mattel's playing it super safe as far as not introducing cast members that could be seen as replacements for older ones, given how poorly the G2 new main cast was received...and yes, how much they absolutely seemed like they were treading on G1 characters.

The Barbie Extra Minis package is made to depict a rainbow arch with stars, and loosely silhouettes the figure. The logo appears right on the top and caricatured character art that matches the doll is in the corner.

The back of the package shows off the other characters in this wave of Minis. 

The packaging is a simple plastic bubble over card, and a shell the doll is attached to. She has a few tags in her head, which feel entirely unnecessary for a doll of her scale and this type of packaging. But don't listen to me; I'll complain about head tags in any doll's packaging. They were the hardest part to undo to remove her.

Here's everything unpackaged.

These dolls come with stands, which makes sense because they're already top-heavy before you take their outsized amount of hair into account.

The stands are similar to MH ones, but smaller and constructed differently.

The pole just fits into a T-shaped hole in the base rather than snapping in with a circular point, and the pole's flat side faces forward, unlike the old T-shaped MH stands whose poles' flat sides were at the rear. The other big difference is the logo on top of the pole, which means the clip is locked in once the stand is assembled because you have to slide it on before connecting the pole to the base.

It still moves up and down on the pole, but it can't come off without removing the pole.

I like how wide and sturdy and firm this stand is for such a small toy, since you'd expect it to be flimsier at this scale. The clip feels a little tricky to get around the doll's waist, though, particularly due to her belt and jacket, and she has to kind of slide into it sideways before being spun forward. Her dress then gets scrunched forward by the clip and it's hard to pull it back so it looks tidy. I also wish the pole had a proper snap in rather than just plugging in, because it feels too easy to take the pole out and harder to tell when it's securely attached.

Alright, let's give the character a name for ease. It's related to the monster character I'm turning her into so take it as a fun hint if you want. For now, though, just know her name is Aleka.

First, a size framing. Aleka is apparently precisely half the height of a standard teen female MH doll, standing at 5.5 inches to MH's 11.

Aleka's head isn't quite as tall as an MH sculpt, but it's pretty much as wide and doesn't read to me as a different scale.

I don't find it hard to believe these characters could belong to the same brand.

Here's Aleka on her own all put together.

Aleka's first piece is this pair of checked sunglasses, which has a very convincing tiny dot print effect to make them look like a translucent grids or mesh.

These glasses fit very easily onto an MH head despite the slight size difference of head sculpts. 

I think these shades would look really wonderful on Invisi Billy, since I've been entertaining the idea of getting him and restyling him more like his famous dad. These glasses would match the famous Invisble Man look, the checked patterns from his dad, as well as the illusionistic contrasting patterns Billy wears. I think Aleka's shades have finally given me the motivation to act on that plan!

I think this eyewear compatibility from the similar head proportions makes Aleka work even better in the MH cast. When paired with her Barbie main line, Aleka is clearly a different art style and doesn't match, but when paired with the more stylized MH, she fits in.

Aleka's hair is split down the middle between a pinkish-red tone that matches her stand and black, and is center-parted and very long on her. All of the Barbie Extra Minis seem to have dramatic "extra" amounts of hair. 

The fiber seems to be saran, and is the type used on G3 Ghoulia. This means it combs nicely, but also lifts up and out of tidiness with very simple touches of the fingers. The pinkish red color has been used by Mattel before for Scaritage/I Love Accessories Operetta, which I disliked because I love the boldness of her usual primary-red tone and I find Operetta's character horrendously matched with more pink and lavender tones. I don't mind the color as much on Aleka, but yeah, primary red would have still been better.

Mattel stock photo of Scaritage/I Love Accessories Operetta
and her unjustly pinkish hair.

Aleka's skin tone is a warm light brown shade, and she uses the same head as the other Barbie Extra Minis, and her face is similar. These dolls have wide heads with wide-set large eyes, very thick eyebrows, small smiling mouths, and pointed chins. Aleka has brown eyes, pink eyeshadow, magenta lipstick, and a beauty mark under her eye. The eyebrows have a few black lines of hair texture printed only on the inner ends, and are a dark brown tone that matches neither half of her hair.

What I hadn't noticed online was that these dolls' eyes were glittered-over, creating an unusual effect and slightly blurring the detail of the eyes. Here's a photo showing the light catching them.

I think the main reason these dolls visually read to me as stylish little people is that, unlike many MGA toys, they don't strike me as "sexy babies". I know, that's an extremely grotesque phrase to deploy, but I feel that those MGA toys can warrant it, as they've had a large amount of dolls with infantilized-feeling cartoon faces paired with adult-style bodies or clothing. Bratz, LOL, and the Na! Na! Na! Surprise lines are all MGA properties that have featured dolls that make me uncomfortable--dolls that simply don't look mature facially or body-wise, and yet wear clothes and makeup that strike me as extremely at odds with their body and facial designs. The Barbie Extra Minis may have chibi proportions and fashion faces, but they don't strike me as immature or age-inappropriate. When I look at them, I see more mature people with small bodies, not children dressing in scandalous attire or adults rendered in an infantile way, and that makes them easy to reinterpret as stylish little people in my eyes. Even though that's factually not how they're meant to be viewed, I think me interpreting them that way speaks as kind of a testament to Mattel for skillfully conveying a sense of genuine age-based maturity on a chibi doll rather than stepping into "adultified baby" or "babyfied adult" vibes.

The side profile of the head is fairly flat, as is the case for a lot of wide-headed chibi dolls. 

Aleka is wearing a pair of matching earrings shaped like flaming falling stars. They're a translucent yellow-orange.

I was perturbed to discover I could not pull these earrings out. They're separate pieces and rotate, but something at the end of their pegs was designed to catch inside the head so they can't come out. I guess this is because they may be marketed to a younger audience and don't want the earrings to be lost or create a choking hazard, but I don't like it, and I'm determined to heat her head up and get those earrings out and see what's going on.

Aleka's outfit is pretty impressive for its scale. She's wearing a leather shrug jacket, a red flame-patterned dress, a silver belt and bracelet, black mesh tights, and black boots.

The bracelet and belt are simple clip-on pieces. The bracelets have to be because Aleka doesn't have separate removable hand pieces, and the belt is probably a clip-on because using a pin and hole on something this scale would be tricky. 

The bracelet has the issue of the arm not being uniformly thick, meaning it can slide down to the narrow wrist and fall right off, and shoving it further up the arm just bends the shape wider and makes it looser. A similar issue happened with the ankle flower pieces from the Gloom and Bloom MH dolls. The belt clips on fine, but it fights with the stand clip, so you have to put the doll in the stand and then clip the belt on above it to make things tidy. 

The jacket is a nice faux-leather piece with a nice silver stud effect. It fits the doll nicely and slides over her hands easily.

To take pictures of her dress, I had to put Aleka's hair up. I couldn't find a rubber band, so I used a messier solution of a binder clip.

Not a hairdo to leave the house with.

The dress is a primary red tone with printed orange flame outlines that fortunately go all around it. It has two straps that cross over on the back. The lower edge isn't finished, so I'd be concerned about its longevity.

I was a little surprised and concerned to see the dress had no opening at the back, but the piece can be pretty easily removed by sliding the straps off her arms and pulling it down her body. 

Aleka's boots and tights feel very basic to me and don't really need photos. They're good pieces, though. The tights don't cover the feet, and I found the boots a little tricky to take off her feet. 

Aleka's purse is bright pink and shaped like a monster truck, which has a printed detailed design on the front. The color doesn't go well with her despite matching her eyeshadow, and I don't want to use it with her. 

Here's Aleka's body.

The size is a unique scale and I don't have smaller dolls close to her to compare her to. The torso has defined breasts and wide hips in a more pear-shaped form, and a slight sway back from the side. The body has sculpted underwear with a heart polka-dot pattern. Her feet are flat, unlike most fashion dolls. They're still tiny, though, so they don't help much in her ability to stand on her own.

Aleka's head can only really rotate in a circle, and I was frustrated that she couldn't look up. For a smaller toy like this, I feel like being able to look up to engage with the owner or interact with larger dolls is pretty important. You can see in the earlier photo next to Maudie that her gaze is firmly forward at her own level.

Aleka's shoulder joints are rotating hinges that are as good as the MH equivalent.

Her elbows are rotating hinges that can bend a bit over 90 degrees one way...

...and, notably, less than 90 degrees the "wrong" way.

I think this might be deliberate to compensate for her lack of wrist joints. With the elbows bending both ways, Aleka can do a bit of arm posing with her palm facing upward. I still wish her wrists were jointed, though, since I found myself wanting to lift her forearm up while her palm was up, and just couldn't due to the construction.

While the hands are narrow and have closed-together fingers so they can slide through sleeved clothing easily, I find myself disappointed by how inexpressive and non-functional they are. There's nothing Aleka can really hold or hold onto and the hands don't have much gesture to them.

Aleka's hip joints aren't the most wide in terms of range. They can't move too far apart and don't move backward much at all. 

Her hip joints don't move forward enough for her to sit flat on the ground. I'm holding her up by the hair here to keep her from falling backward. Her center of gravity isn't far forward enough.

Her rotating knee hinges do let her sit pretty nicely on a chair...

...but that chair is propping her head up to make this work!

For me, the mythical pose for any play doll to strive for is a one-legged kneel. The only doll I own that can come close to doing this gracefully is the Jakks Pacific China Girl.

And it's kind of all in the angle you photograph it from.

This pose's viability is determined by both the proportions of the legs (MH and EAH's are universally too long) and the flexibility of the knees or feet, so very few jointed toys can do this. I once owned a Made to Move Barbie whose body I was using for another doll, and that body could achieve this pose pretty well. 

Here's how Aleka's legs bend. She would not be able to manage this pose.

Here's Aleka next to Maudie for a body shape comparsion.

Because BEM is small and MH is skinny, a little clothes swapping can occur. 

I tried this ILF Scarah MH dress on Aleka. It's much longer on her and the cut obviously doesn't suit her well.

The colors and split theme work reasonably
well, though.

A shirt from the same doll's wardrobe suited Aleka's frame more as a dress, but this is actually a little too tight because Aleka's hips are wider than the narrow of the MH waist!

As mentioned above, the glasses swap easily between the two brands, which is great, and might be useful to remember for custom projects!

Aleka wearing G3 signature Draculaura's shades.

MH dolls can't really wear much of BEM clothes at all. The dress would only be feasible on a CAM body (which you can take apart) since it doesn't open down the back, and so I chose not to try it on Maudie because she represents the exception. I could get the shrug on her, though.

Not too bad, but it still seems clear it's not meant for her.

Okay. Monster makeover time.

It was important to me that Aleka's monster type had nothing to do with her size. I didn't want her body to be an allegorical case of dwarfism where her frame is explained by her monster type being folklorically tiny. I know G1 MH did a lot of representation through folkloric or cultural links, but G3 MH steps away from that and more often represents diverse groups more frankly without much fanfare or dressing up in the monster type. That more upfront, non-veiled form of representation (representation that isn't solely about the demographic or trying to be cute with the integration of the demographic), feels more realistic and respectful to me, so I wanted to avoid making Aleka into any creature that's known for being small. I also didn't want to do anything ironic by having her monster type normally associated with large size, since that would feel cruel and othering. Her body had to be incidental to the monster type. 

So where was her design taking me? The fiery punk theme was giving me strong demonic tones, but that wouldn't work so well to me because it'd be too easy to interpret her as an imp or a tiny conscience-devil because of her body, and size association was what I was trying to avoid. But when thinking about different sunglasses for her, I tried G3 Deuce Gorgon's snake shades...and there was the concept. 

And the name. Aleka is a Greek Fury.

A Fury depicted on Greek pottery (photo from theoi.com).

The Furies are most commonly known as a trio of monstrous ancient goddesses who live in the Ancient Greek underworld and serve as torturers and avengers who punish the wickedest souls in the afterlife. The Furies are iconographically similar to gorgons, having snake hair, and they have bat wings and carry weapons to harm their evil victims. With snake theming and a punk infernal look, Aleka fit nicely in the mold of a Fury. 

Aleka Infurino

Monster Parentage: The Fury Alecto
Killer Style: I keep things tough, snaky, and infernal. I won't be overlooked, and I want wrongdoers to fear me.
Freaky Flaw: I might jump a little too far into avenging mode when I get upset or when people get upset around me. I sometimes need to turn the temperature down and realize a situation doesn't require serious action.
Favorite Activity: I like investigating people's problems and grievances and tracking down the perpetrator to sort things out. Even if it has to get a little tense. For them.
Biggest Pet Peeve: It gets a little annoying that people don't seem to recognize my scaritage very often. No, I'm not a demon. No, I'm not a gorgon. Look it up!
Favorite School Subject: Philosophy and ethics. They've given me some important and helpful challenges on the concepts of justice and right and wrong. I've come to think that maybe my mom's approach isn't always how I have to do it today.
Least Favorite School Subject: Dead languages, which really embarrasses my mom. I say it's her fault for raising me speaking English.
Favorite Food: Grill-scorched olives.

Pet: Bullwhip is my pet snake. I didn't inherit Mom's snake hair, but she was really happy when I said I wanted one as a pet. He's more chill than I am, but he bites hard.
Best Friends: Heath Burns, Deuce Gorgon

I thought Aleka would look really good with some wings. I found a green Playmobil snake that could be her pet...

The large bend can clip around her neck or leg!

...and from that, I thought of the green CAM Dragon wings I had. If I bored holes in her back and cut out some in her jacket, Aleka would be able to rock the green wings! 

Here's the holes I put in her back, guided by the placement of her dress straps. I'm pleased with how even I got them.

I found a rubber band for her hair too late!

I had to trim the wing pegs a little to make them fit, but here they are in.

And here she is from the front, modeling Deuce's glasses and the wings.

These wings look far more proportional and functional on Aleka. Likely in a way to save on plastic, MH wings were either solid and comically tiny or large and full of cutouts that would render them useless in reality. 

I cut small holes in the back of her jacket so the wings will work with that, too.

I decided to keep the wings green because I thought the contrast with the red was fun and the addition of green steered her color palette away from classic Halloweeny or Christian devils and into a less typical direction that helped to indicate her as a Fury instead.

Then, I took her downstairs to change her faceup, investigate her neck peg, and remove her earrings.

Heating the head let it pop off easily, revealing a static neck peg with two stoppers. 

I also heated her head so I could pull out her earrings. Success. It turns out the earrings have a triangular spike flare at the end so they can't easily be pulled out.

Ear harpoon. Ouch.

Since I wanted to see if I could improve the neck articulation, I sawed off the first stopper of the neck peg. This did nothing to the motion, so I sawed off the second stopper and endeavored to DIY a new neck peg that could wobble and let her head pose more.

I strongly suggest you do not do this. 

After several failed neck assemblies and having to cut a hole in the back of Aleka's head to remove the pieces that got stuck inside (the hair covers it, but ugh), I got a sloppy fix that makes her head loose but more poseable. I'm not going to detail what I did because I don't want this folly to be repeated! What I ended up with is not as good as an 11-inch Mattel neck peg and I kind of regret destroying her neck, even though the wider range on the fragile mess I made is nice. Anyway, what I mean to say is I don't like how poorly the Barbie Extra Minis heads are jointed and that there's no safe easy way to improve it.

Debacle aside, I also changed the lip color of the doll to green so it'd match her wings, and I painted her right eyebrow a matching reddish pink to her hair to suggest the colors are natural. The glitter on her eyes kind of held me up and prevented me from repainting them, but I don't really think they need to be. 

And with her earring harpoons removed, Aleka could wear other ones. I gave her the silver tombstones from the disappointing G3 Ghoulia, and they fit easily in the piercings. 

Here's the first assembly of Fury Aleka.

After this, however, I decided to give Aleka a dramatic haircut. I like the proportions of her hair to her body, but the hair itself gets unruly and in the way, and I thought a shorter cut could suit her and show off her wings more. Her hair was also influencing the more wobbly motion of the modified neck due to its weight. Besides, if I didn't like the result, I could get a new copy of this doll so I'd have one without a messed-up head and neck mod and try again.

For the cut, I gave her an asymmetrical bob, with the black side shorter than the red.

I think it worked out pretty well. It might have heightened her punk attitude, and I think it conveys a sense of maturity even further than she already did. 

I also tried out Aleka with fewer pieces and her snake around her neck for a party look.

It's great that she can pose to pet Bullwhip's head in this configuration!

I think Aleka, now made over as a monster, works pretty well in the MH crowd!

So, what did I think of the Barbie Extra Minis? Well, I don't really know if I'm the best person to ask given that the source of appeal for me was in reframing the doll far out of its intent to depict it as new representation in a fantasy monster world! But as toys, the dolls seem pretty nice.

In many ways, the dolls are both better and worse than I expected. I like the clothing and the stand and the articulation in theory and they're nice pieces, but the earrings being designed as nonremovable and the dress not having a more easy velcro opening were disappointing, the body could have had improvements in the head, forearms, and hips, I don't love the functionality of the bracelet, and the stand clip is too tight at the front. I did like the styling of this doll, though, and I really appreciate the approach to the stylization that makes these characters feel like genuinely mature teens with stylized small bodies. Too many dolls feel like they blur the line of child and adult in an uncomfortable way, and these dolls genuinely don't in my eyes. As a transfer student to Monster High, I think Aleka works well, too, since her head is compatible with glasses from the brand and I think her body size and proportions work alongside the taller dolls as a plausible representation of dwarfism in the brand's art style. Working with her was a fun process and I like the monster type I envisioned for her, but the head articulation frustrated me so much I created my own frustrations in trying to improve it. Oh, well. In the end, I think I like these dolls. I don't imagine I'll be getting another one unless it really speaks to me or screams to join Aleka at MH...but you never know, and I at least had fun with this one.