Yes, It's Really LEGO: The Belville Witch

The concept of "LEGO for girls" has always been fraught and I think that can be a big blinder obstructing some really interesting toy design. So what if I told you a girl LEGO happened to be one of the best-articulated tiny figure designs I've encountered?

With the "LEGO for girls" concept, many hold that such a thing creates gender divisions and that LEGO appealing to girls by reinventing its system of figures and sticking to stereotypical girly subject matter has always been sexist and limiting. I myself am open to innovation and new toy designs, and I enjoy classic femininity as long as it's not used as a restriction, but I'm also a proponent of desegregating the gendering of the toy market. I like seeing new takes on an established toy and girly isn't bad, but I totally understand the desire to not stereotype in the attempt to grab an audience. On the other hand, LEGO has historically been a "boy's toy" and there was enough evidence to suggest that LEGO output which wasn't actively pandering to girls wasn't enough to bring in that audience.

LEGO themselves have also cited rigorous focus testing with children to develop a wider appeal, which did include changes from the LEGO System and subject matter. And beyond all that, many LEGO fans are men and old-head collectors who reject anything not in the classic LEGO System. (In the most basic terms, "LEGO System" refers to standard brick sets of the type most commonly populated by minifigures, though brick builds sans minifigures or in scales larger or smaller than minifigure scale can still be System.) While LEGO fans can come across as very stodgy and there may be reason to side-eye the reaction to girl-targeted themes, there's some fairness in that the traditionalist vitriol doesn't only include girl's offshoots--kiddie Jack Stone figures have been maligned, and I don't know if the attempt to design figures for LEGO Technic sets was well-received either.

A figure from the Jack Stone sets--this is the eponymous character. Jack Stone sets used the classic LEGO System, but the figures did not disassemble. These were for much younger builders and the sets had many large single-purpose parts to create constructions with fewer pieces. I had a set and didn't like it or the figure, so I agree with consensus here.

Technic figures from the era when the theme's sets were younger-targeted and had characters in them. The legs are made like Technic beams. These could be very close size and articulation counterparts to the Belville dolls, though they look much more "LEGO". I'd love to look at one in the future.

LEGO's did have one attempt at a targeted "girl" theme in classic System with classic minifigures in the way many critics argue is the best approach--the Paradisa theme from 1995-1997.

Paradisa set 6414, "Dolphin Point".

Paradisa was a fairly egalitarian theme, with male characters having a good presence, but female minifigures were in every set, and the relaxed pastel vacation aesthetic of the line was a far cry from the bustling Town theme or adventurous Pirates or Castle lines. Paradisa ticks the boxes for what LEGO purists say "girl LEGO" should be, but successors did not emerge. This was also not their first "girl outreach" attempt.

LEGO was already branching out to two degrees of radical reinvention during this same time. The most amusing and extreme departure (as far as showing friends--"hey, this is actually LEGO!") was LEGO Scala, which went all the way into dollhouse play with oversize pieces to assemble room sets and articulated figures which were just plain dolls with rooted hair and fabric clothing, a la the Barbie template.

This is LEGO!
(1997 Scala set 3290 "The Big Family House")

Very, very many parts were exclusive to Scala due to the unique scale and aesthetic of the Scala theme, and interaction with the classic LEGO building system appears extremely minimal. Only a few product images clearly show pieces with classic studs or pieces I can identify as being able to interact with studs. I can't imagine many, if any, pieces that were developed for Scala survived past its end in 2002. This feels more like LEGO reversing its identity back to the days when its first toy was a wooden rolling duck! 

But once LEGO became the building brick company and the champion therein, they kind of forfeited their claim to make other types of toys. Scala is an anomaly.

[Also, just to note: Scala in this uncanny dollhouse form emerged in '97, but the label existed as far back as 1979 for a bracelet-kit system using links 2x2 decorated LEGO tiles could attach to.

This concept has since been loosely revisited in the early-aughts Clikits theme, which is just as unLEGOlike as dollhouse Scala in its attempt to find a girl audience:

We don't talk about Clikits.

The concept was revisited once more as a subset of the more recent LEGO Dots theme. Dots is all about using 1x1 tiles in patterns on different human-scale accessories, and the Dots bracelets scan as a more intricate revival of the Scala bracelets.

Aside over.]

Before and during the run of dollhouse Scala, LEGO also ran a more moderate girls' theme--Belville. These sets were further on the "LEGO bricks" side of the spectrum than the "dollhouse" side, with mostly-plastic doll figures and a majority of the pieces being LEGO System-compatible, though still at a larger scale and with a dollhouse look.

Belville set 5805- "Princess Rosaline's Room". The witch I'm spotlighting appears in silhouette in the sky in the background art.

For a good while, Belville was the secret formula to girl-LEGO success, running from 1994 all the way to 2008! Scala's doll theme ended in 2001. Belville is still the longest-running "girl LEGO" theme, but given how LEGO Friends released in 2012 and never disappeared since, it's sure to be surpassed within a few years. Then again, Friends' most girly era is now past, so who knows if it would even count as the longest girl theme once it hits those few more years it would need?

Friends set the new standard with its closest adherence to classic LEGO building yet--it's almost pointed how the build level and inventory is the same as standard System sets--while the theme introduced a new type of "minidoll" figure much more akin to classic minifigures in size while having a unique style that has been adopted for all other girl-targeted LEGO themes so far. Friends animal pieces are also not the same as their System equivalents, having a cutesier, rounder look. 

Minidolls and minifigures have only mixed within sets in the LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part theme as part of the movie's framing narrative of a boy and his younger sister conflicting during LEGO play. The only character designs to be adapted as both minidolls and minifigures are select Disney characters who have had versions as both. The prime Disney theme is a minidoll theme, but there are several licensed minifigure Disney sets and three Disney Minifigures mystery series have been made, providing overlap for several characters. Other licensed characters have distinct designs as both minidolls and minifigures, but not both as the same character design. DC Super Hero Girls got a minidoll line, and many of those characters also have minifigures, but the minifigures have never adapted the same specific DCSHG look. There's also minidoll Elphaba from the new Wicked movie sets and a minifigure Wicked Witch of the West from the MGM classic Wizard of Oz film--same character, technically, but different source works, actors/likenesses, and very different portrayals.

Back to LEGO Friends.

2012 LEGO Friends set 3061, "City Park Cafe".
The core cast is illustrated in the top corner--left to right: Mia, Emma, Andrea, Stephanie, Olivia.

Friends introduced a set of core female characters with distinct interests and appearances, and showed slice-of-life scenes in Heartlake City. The brand was defined by rounded cardboard set box contours (those purple curves on the sides were sloped) and pastel colors that expanded the LEGO palette. Early Friends figures all had soft-plastic hair. Friends underwent a slight reboot changing the designs of the core characters (Olivia became Latina with darker skin), and then had its second reboot depicting the next generation of kids in Heartlake City, some of them kids of the original cast. The newer Friends is less stereotypically girly, with a teal brand color and boys being core characters.

Set 42604, "Heartlake City Shopping Mall".

This core group is also more diverse still, with Autumn (daughter of OG Friend Mia) having a congenital limb difference and sometimes wearing a prosthetic hand, Olly seeming very gay-coded, Nova seeming autistic-coded, and Paisley and Liann depicting anxiety and ADHD, respectively. Maybe in time the gendered targeting will erode even further and we'll get back to LEGO Paradisa, but I have no gripes with the minidoll style myself. I prefer minifigures aesthetically and functionally, but I'll go in for a Friends set if the build is good.

So that's the state of girl-LEGO today. Less gendered and divided from main LEGO than it's ever been, but the figures are still separate. Friends today is the most widely respected "girl LEGO" has ever been, too.

But let's back on up to Belville, the unloved long-running trooper of this girl-LEGO saga. I was so so curious about the figure articulation because it looked remarkable. I know most LEGO fans would disdain Belville as uncanny and bizarre and "not LEGO", but maybe this would be a good toy on its own.

Of course, there was a specific hook to this. I was less likely to go in on any old Belville figure, but wouldn't you know, there's a fairy-tale witch?

Well, I simply couldn't say no.

This set was a 1999 release called "Witch's Cottage", but I got the figure herself solo with a pack of her accessories. I didn't get the cat or book, which appear to be more unique pieces, but the rest of the special parts were included. While this witch also appeared in the set "Enchanted Palace", the accessories mark this copy as being from this set.

A spooky bat was also included, but not in this photo. Oops.

I actually got this witch some ages ago (I think early 2024, and definitely before March 18 this year when my old phone broke and ate my photos, including the first I took of her!). I never made her a feature because I was entertaining a Halloween LEGO spotlight this year until I did Living Dead Dolloween instead. But it's a slow time right now and this is a fascinating piece, so I put her up to give this blog some activity! I also just love any chance to talk about LEGO and dip into my years-honed knowledge about the brand. My December plans are nebulous and have to stay loose to see how things will work out within my concept, but regardless, they're for a little later in the month.

I had thought this would be a quick feature; it's one figure, but trust me to pull out several lengthy conversations and a big-picture topic from a tiny toy!

The witch doesn't stand very easily on her own. Her hip and knee joints aren't wobbly or free-swinging, but they're not stiff enough to feel secure, and her center of gravity seems off when her legs and feet are straightened the way that looks correct.

Fortunately, her feet are functionally 1x2 LEGO plates, so any studded surface is a doll stand for her!

I will not be able to overstate how tremendous of an asset this one feature is. This doll benefits so massively from being in the LEGO system because her feet can connect stably and display her freestanding in any number of dynamic poses, even one-footed! Seeing this in practice, I feel like the LEGO system may be the most elegant solution for displaying a highly-articulated figure on foot. Other toys have stands that grip their waist or ankles, or have jointed clear poles that plug into their backs. This lady? She genuinely and truly stands on the actual surface of LEGO studs because her feet truly connect. No props or poles necessary. Nothing you'd have to edit out of staged photographs. I can't even begin to imagine the stop-motion potential these figures have in animation sets constructed of LEGO, because not only is their articulation high, but they stand secure on studs! The only thing more seamless would be a flat magnetic surface and strong magnets in the feet.

This is sheer brilliance. I think you'll understand in later photos.

We'll take her back off the base for a moment while we compare scale with other small figures. First, LEGO minifigure witches. I happen to have both the oldest and the most recent releases of spooky witch minifigures on hand--Willa the Witch from Fright Knights (1997), and a 2024 witch exclusive to the LEGO brand store Build-a-Minifigure stations. She's made of entirely unique prints and is the first Halloween "hag" witch since 2015's Wacky Witch nearly a decade ago!

There hasn't been a minidoll witch in this tone. Elphaba is closest, but is a pretty, friendly-looking, youthful character. Minidolls have never looked traditionally "ugly", but a wicked older witch with a pointy hat is possible if they'd ever go there in a minidoll theme.

The 2024 witch is a bit shorter than Willa due to using the newer dress-legs piece, while Willa sports the older solution of a sloped brick replacing the lower body, which was taller than minifigure legs by a smidge. The 2024 witch is holding a classic broom, but wasn't designated one in the Build-a-Minifigure station. I gave it to her for this photo, borrowed from the Series 2 Witch minifigure. This broom may be on the outs, since the current Harry Potter theme introduced a separate broom head that attaches to pole pieces for more variable custom broom builds. I wanted the broom on hand to compare to the Belville piece.

Stylistically, Belville is closer to modern LEGO in terms of print graphics, though it's still a separate design from minifigures and has hallmarks of its time in LEGO overall. LEGO minifigures from the same era were actually closer to Willa than to Belville. The witch is also a little bit cherry-picked since the Belville witches have the most caricatured cartoon faces in the entire line. Most other Belville dolls had more pretty doll-like face designs and maybe one non-witch had a clear expressive mouth design not following the sculpted shape and that's it.

A generic Belville civilian woman, with a pretty face like most Belville figures.

Belville is much closer to classic LEGO than Scala dolls, with Belville dolls having bodies, heads, and hair made of the classic LEGO ABS plastic material and using a blockier sculpting style. I think Belville might be slightly smaller-scale than Scala, too. 

Belville dolls typically had just one fabric piece for a skirt or cape, if at all, which is more like a minifigure, whose outfit is mostly printed-on. Belville figures had fabric skirts before minifigures, and their articulation entirely justifies it. Minifigure fabric skirts, debuting in 2008, wrapped around the minifigure leg legs before the legs connected to the torso. The first skirt was cut into shape and easily dropped around the leg pegs, while the skirts from 2010 on were flat strips with multiple tabs that wrapped around the leg pegs to form the shape, more like minifigure capes. 

Render of the first minifig fabric skirt shape, for Stars Wars: The Clone Wars character Asajj Ventress.

Render of the newer skirt system. The tab with two holes goes over the leg pegs, then the side tabs bend around 90 degrees and double over the leg peg they're next to, creating the full wrap with a gap in the back.

There's actually an even less intuitive version of this setup which has coexisted with the easier one. I couldn't diagram the skirts in this style from memory!

What the hell is this??? I remember this being very confusing, especially since Minifigures collector sheets when these debuted didn'd have skirt instructions on the back side.

I think the middle tab went on the left peg (when the legs are viewed facing you), the tab next to it bent around 90 degrees and fit on the right peg, and the tab on the far end wrapped around the back of the skirt and bent to double over the left peg so the two tabs faced opposite directions.

These fabric skirts were never super common and have always been close-fitting shapes in cases where they wrap around all sides. Hard-plastic, shaped minifigure skirt styles which fit between the legs and torso emerged after and have reduced the need for fabric options further, though they still appear sporadically. The plastic skirts that exist now are a ballerina ruffle tutu...

The Lego Ninjago Movie N-Pop Girl, from the movie line's minifigure series.

...a flowy, flouncy shape that's been used for the likes of Minnie Mouse and Alice....

Disney Alice.

This piece has had a fabric equivalent for Minnie in sets targeted for younger children, among other fabric skirts which attach in the same uncomplicated way.

...and there's a short triangular skirt shape debuted for the DreamWorks Trolls that changes the silhouette of the figure and only really suits short-legged minifigures.

Minifigures Series 25 Mushroom Sprite.

I think this skirt could be a good flared coat hem on a full-height figure, though.

Minidolls have had fabric skirts that don't have intricate wrapping because the peg is one piece the skirts just slot over.

That's that for skirts. Back to the witch and other toys.

Here's all of my significant artiulated brand toys below the height of five inches.

Left to right: LEGO minifigure, LEGO minidoll figure, Playmobil figure, Monster High Mega Bloks figure, LEGO Belville figure, Living Dead Dolls Mini.

This is not at all a linear scale of articulation. The LEGO minifigure has hand rotation (and legged figures have individual hip swivels) that the minidoll does not. Playmobil does step up from the minidoll by adding hand rotation, but has the same one-piece leg hinge that minifigures outperform. Playmobil necks also have stoppers that restrict the head to a realistic range so the heads don't turn 360 degrees. Then the Mega Bloks doll drops hand rotation, adds ball-jointing to neck and hips, and has rotating knee hinges. The Living Dead Doll Mini has swivels at the neck and hips and rotating shoulder hinges. Belville is by far the most articulated out of all of them, as we'll soon see.

Mega (formerly branded as Mega Bloks) has soft-relaunched their Monster High line of late, and its doll figures are clearly not the same as the original run, so it'd be interesting to see what changed on the technical sense.

The Living Dead Dolls Mini is on the low end of 1:12 dollhouse scale, and fits most furniture in 1:12 but is rather short next to 1:12 dollhouse doors. The Belville witch is adult-proportioned and is also smaller than the Mini, making her fall just out of 1:12 scale--the witch is definitively too small for 1:12 while the Mini squeaks by and is compatible. The Mini's proportions and size in 1:12 are a bit strange in places, but the witch can't get the same pass because she's too short for a doorknob while looking like a grown woman.

And here's all of the little ones with a certain Monster High fashion doll for scale.

"Ohh my ghoul, who dares exclude the stunning Amanita Nightshade from the conversation when she's like, the conversation?!?"

Back to the witch alone. 

The witch's hat is a characterful rough-finished piece that sits on top of her head. It has a crooked backward point and a sculpted, unpainted buckle strap around the cone. The right side has a stud on it which can be decorated--here, it's with a light grey classic LEGO spider, which is a color for the piece I've never encountered elsewhere.

The stud is a "hollow stud", meaning any standard LEGO bar can be plugged into it.

The hat plugs into the top of the head with a small pin, but this piece broke off the hat when the figure tumbled off the counter onto the floor, so I replaced it imperfectly with a metal pin superglued in, which also discolored the top of the head a little as I tried to use the glue to tighten the peg hole. It wasn't too successful, and the hat is loose, so I may look into getting another copy of this hat.

I hate when LEGO breaks. It's so so rare to occur.

The pinhole system seems to be the same size as pinhole accessories which have carried on to minifigures and minidolls. Belville tiaras are the same as the ones minifigures wear, though I think my attempts to tighten the hole for the repair pin were successful enough to prevent another LEGO pinhole piece from fitting into this head. If I get a new hat, I'll have to try reopening the connection.

Not every Belville hairstyle accommodates every Belville pinhole accessory. Some dolls with done-up hair couldn't wear this hat, for instance.

This hat would be used for the next two wicked witches in Belville, as well as one apparent good witch or fairy godmother known as Stella, whose hat was cast in a translucent clear tone.

I would have adored Stella when I was little, and I still like her!

The cottage witch's hair is a messy short style flipped outward, and is cast in classic LEGO primary red. The shape has a bit of an undercut look in the back and is clearly a separate piece, but does not appear to disconnect. While hair swapping is trivial and a core mechanic for minifigures and minidolls, it doesn't appear to be modular for anybody but the manufacturers with Belville.

One later Belville witch, known as Madam Frost, would use this same hair shape in orange.

If she'd had grey or white hair instead, maybe we'd be talking. I prefer the unnamed witch design much more, and choosing which one to get was easy for me.

The witch's skintone is a tanned shade used by most Belville figures, which is the color referred to as "Nougat". This is still in the LEGO palette. 

This color predates the "Light Nougat" pale flesh color used for most White people depicted in licensed LEGO themes, and during this stretch of Belville, this was the only lighter flesh tone LEGO had. (The earliest licensed themes used standard yellow figures until Lando Calrissian became the first Black minifigure with brown skin among yellow. LEGO rethought their strategy and started coloring all licensed figures with flesh tones to walk away from the awkward exceptionalism of the first Lando and also the unwanted implication that yellow minifigures were all meant to be White based on the optics of that Lando. Today, unlicensed yellow minifigures are obviously multiracial and all races are visible while all sharing the universal yellow color.) 

Belville continued after Light Nougat was introduced and became prevalent, but the Belville dolls stuck to this color, likely as a stylistic choice. Conversely, this Nougat tone wasn't used at all for licensed minifigures initially, with Light Nougat being the default White tone and Nougat coming in eventually only for darker skintones that suited it. Part of that may be blamed on the casting of the actors in the licenses LEGO adapted. Recently, LEGO has pushed further for skintone diversity in original releases, with recent color additions to the palette that serve this goal, unlicensed flesh-toned minifigure sets with many skintones included, and skintone diversity within the Friends line, which has always used flesh tones. 

I can't definitively say that every full Belville doll was the same Nougat skintone, but unless I see all of them next to each other in the same lighting, I'm assuming they all are. None of them seem conclusively to be a different color from this. There were a few fairy-tale Indian characters in the line (albeit with stereotypical names derived from spices) but no Black characters. I'm unsure if any of the dolls were meant to be East Asian. Belville wasn't super diverse.

The witch's eyebrows and mouth are very cartoony, with curved harsh thick black brows and an open mostly-toothless mouth in a smirk. The mouth paint counteracts the more realistic lips of the head sculpt, but it's not distracting at all from a distance. The eyes have a detailed look close to some Mattel fashion dolls, with a defined iris and pupils and eye shines, as well as lashes and eyeshadow. The eyes are not fully outlined, and have wrinkles on the bottom in a gleeful squint. I don't know how many head sculpts were used for Belville, but it couldn't have been many. I'm guessing there was probably just one man, woman, and child sculpt and everything else was paint and hair. The printing is good for the size of this face!

I love the personality of this witch. I can't help but think Belville would have been better if the heads had a flat featureless sculpt for the mouth region so the mouths were always fully-printed and cartooned more like a minifigure. It'd feel more LEGO-like and make the figures all-around more expressive and charming.

The witch's torso costume appears to be a shade of LEGO purple that is no longer in production, which is very blue-toned. The current standard LEGO purple is more red or neutral between the two temperatures. The torso, through printing, depicts a tattered greenish shawl and bone toggle buttons on the shirt. Around the waist, the witch has a fabric skirt of forest-green felt. It has a jagged-cut hem and a jagged-cut red gingham apron on the front with another piece of forest-green felt as a dimensional pocket. At the waist are two strings of cord, which are long and stick out a little in a slightly distracting way. I know they weren't ever tied in a bow originally. I am glad to see the gingham fabric has not frayed.

The witch has some back printing, too, which would have certainly been a rarity for minifigures of the same time. This continues her shawl and shows an indistinct spiraling white design underneath, possibly as a stylized cobweb pattern? Another bone is on the back, either as an ornament, or perhaps to suggest it is a pin holding the shawl on? The whole shawl has a gradient effect where the green fades into the base torso color, making it look very sheer.

The skirt is not stretchy elastic at the waist, but it easily slides down and up the legs to be removed and replaced. Here's the unadorned base doll.

The lower legs are cast in red to depict stockings, while the upper legs and waist section look like black shorts. I think the witch could have had entirely red legs  and looked fine, but this is more appropriate if a child wanted to have her display without the skirt.

The witch's articulation was a major curiosity, and having tested it...it's nothing short of astounding to me. Proportionally grading size to joints, this is the smallest highly-articulated figurine I have, or the best-articulated small figure, with very few deficits compared to a much larger fully-jointed fashion doll! 

The head and neck are one piece, like Living Dead Dolls, and, also like LDD, the piece is ball-jointed where the neck pops into the torso, allowing full head rotation and tipping in every direction. 

This is a really good range.

The arms have rotating shoulder hinges that work just as well as Monster High ghoul shoulders. 

The elbows are rotating hinges that bend to a proper 90 degrees.  The witch can easily fold her arms across her chest or bring her hands to her face with her proportions, and does everything you need to with elbows.

I fully expected the hands to either be static or to have only rotation, but the hands are ball-jointed at the end like the neck, offering some wrist bend!

The hands are a sculpt unique to Belville, and have a more humanoid thumb and fingers, but they still form a clip shape that grabs onto LEGO bar pieces and accessories. The cup of the Belville hand does not face directly forward like a minifigure hand, but the effects of this limitation are minimal. Most objects she'd need to hold out directly in front of her on an outstretched arm can rotate back and forth in the clip of her hand or would be held upright, rendering the direction of the clip moot. There are exceptions that really can't be held forward due to the shape of the clips and her hands, but not many. The ball joints are a great nuance for her to hold accessories two-handed.

I love the expressive poses these arms are capable of.

While the waist merges two plastic assemblies of different colors, there is no waist swivel joint.

The hips are rotating hinges, while the knees bend to 90 degrees but do not swivel. The feet are ball-jointed like the hands. She cannot do splits in either direction due to the way her hip sockets are made.

Here's the knees bent.

She'd easily sit in a chair of the right size.

With her feet connecting to LEGO studs, it feels like there's nothing she can't do!

The doll's foot ball joints allow her feet to touch and connect to a 2x2 square of studs on a surface, though I think she'd look a bit more natural with 1 row of studs between her feet. The widest stance she can connect her feet with is eight studs from foot to foot.

Widening her stance isn't good for all that much, but she can do a nasty little crouching jig!

Incredible energy. She's such a gremlin. I love this more than I can say.

The LEGO baseplate connection is such a superpower with this doll. I've met many dolls who could pose this way, but none who could so elegantly be displayed standing this way!

Here's some other poses I liked.

The witch cannot cross her legs, but dolls struggle to look good doing so even when their knees do swivel. She could kneel on both knees, but it wouldn't be very graceful and she couldn't be secured that way since her feet wouldn't be attached on the base. You'd have to have her holding her broom while it was attached standing up to the studs, or contrive a wall behind her with studs on the side that a foot could connect to.

In all, that means this figure has a nearly identical articulation scheme to a Return Living Dead Doll--she just lacks a torso joint, knee rotation, and moveable eyes. 

Return of the Living Dead Dolls Sadie's joints. 

On a doll as prestigious and large as Return LDD, the articulation scheme is nothing spectacular and could even seem underwhelming to a degree. On something as tiny and inexpensive as this witch, it's mind-blowing. Monster High Mega Bloks recreated the legs and head of the adapted dolls, but was too small and skinny to copy the rest (and their rubber skirts restricted their hip motion). Maybe Belville scale is the minimum practical size for a figure with this kind of jointing, and it's a wonder the only real restriction compared to Monster High is the wrists, which are still more mobile than they had any right to be! It's also an incredible flex, because these small pocket-size LEGO dolls were far more articulated than the era's standard fashion dolls they were designed to evoke. Monster High was a bellwether for higher jointing being a common expectation, and that was after Belville was using these highly-articulated dolls.

There is one thing I know which would be this articulated but even smaller--a Belville child figure!

It looks like every joint is built the same. Belville children aren't as interesting and fantastical as the witch, but I probably want one just to have that even tinier super-jointed figure. There's one young Belville boy wearing a shirt with the LEGO logo in an entertaining way, so maybe I'll find that one.

Belville men have a different torso and face than the women, but might share multiple other parts. I can't tell if there's much height difference.

There are some corporate office-worker Belville dads I find oddly amusing, so maybe I'll get one of them.

One other Belville doll I'll have to look into is their resident evil monarch. She has some wicked camp Disney-villain glam that puts the queen in "queen". She'd work great as a fellow fairy-tale villain to the witch.

The Belville dolls interact with the LEGO System a little less than a minifigure does, only having clips for hands and 1x2 "antistud" connections for feet which fit onto studs. A minifigure has many more interactions with the system. Minifigures have stud connections on their heads, on the top of their hands, and even the tops of their neck pegs if you want. Their legs have two rows of antistuds on the back, letting them sit securely, and antistuds on the feet, letting them stand securely. Their torsos can also attach to 1x2 rows of bricks, as can their separated heads.

Minifigures demonstrating several System connections which the Belville doll lacks.

It looks like the Scala dolls had similar rotating elbow hinges and knee hinges to Belville, but I bet their heads only rotated, and their hands and feet are visibly static. I don't think the Scala dolls had a single System connection unless their hands were able to clip in the same way--judging by the sculpt, I doubt it.

Here's the Belville doll with the next girly figure that could--the minidoll.

Minidolls are much closer to minifigure height, though a bit taller, and have much lower articulation. They have only swivels at the neck and arms and hinges at the hips which move the entire lower body in one.

Minidoll hands do not swivel. Like Belville dolls, the legs only interact with the LEGO System with antistuds on the bottom of the feet (a 1x2 footprint), but minidolls actually ended up creating a System connection with new panel pieces that had dividers to fit between the legs and stabilize minidolls in a seated position--and these are compatible with minifigure legs too.

Minidolls also have two more System compatibilities than Belville dolls. 

First, their hands are based on the standard minifigure shape, which includes the ability to use them as a stud connection to put pieces on top of. Belville dolls' inability to do this takes some handheld accessory options off the table for them.

Minidoll necks are also the size of a standard LEGO bar, allowing you to put the heads on bar connections or clip things to a headless minidoll neck.

All of LEGO's divergent girl-line character figures have a more realistic shaping and face design than minifigures, suggesting that classic minifigures with their blocky simplicity and cartoony faces don't test as well with young girls. They all also use humanlike skintones in the same vein. In all the years minidolls have prevailed, there's never been a minifigure-yellow one, and I think that would be fun to see. Perhaps that would be too weird and uncanny given the gulf in art styles.

From 2004 on, the Belville figures lost some articulation (travesty!), with no mid-arm joints, and it seems, no wrist balls either. The two figure types coexisted and were both released during 2004 depending on the set, until 2005 cemented the end of the original figures, and every Belville figure until the end of the theme had no mid-arm joints. There was one last Belville wicked witch, but she was cursed to be in this era of arm joints. 

Even if her hands do rotate, it's not as good. Though I wonder if the heads can safely pop out and swap--if so, this head would work well on the Madam Frost body.

Now for the cottage witch's accessories.

First is her broomstick, which is the older version of brown before LEGO changed to the more reddish tone. I think even non-nostalgic people might have wished LEGO stayed with the original brown because the reddish brown plastic was a menace for being very weak and brittle and subject to damage. I don't know if it's been totally confirmed to have been fixed in the current day, but it was a plague.

The Belville broom is much larger than the classic minifigure broom and is more textured on the brush, but the majority of the handle is a simple LEGO bar.

The end of the handle is topped by a hollow stud, letting you put an ornament on the end. The official ornamentation includes two actual minifigure parts--a white head with the classic LEGO skull print wearing a minifigure-size witch hat!

The broom could also be topped with a bat or any other kind of decoration.

The hollow stud also accepts bars, like the one on the hat. The gemstone in the picture above used this connection. You can also connect the two broom types together.

The minifigure broom is closer to the size of a duster or whisk broom for the Belville witch.

The witch holds her own broom easily with either one hand or two, and also straddles it perfectly for a flying ride. She's the only one of my small witch figures able to pose like she's properly flying on it.

Her arms are just long enough to realistically reach above her head, so she can also hang from her broom.

She'll only just barely balance if hanging the opposite way--from her knees.

I was also very pleasantly surprised to discover an antistud connection on the brush, allowing the broom to stand on a studded surface!

This could conceivably add a lot of support to the witch when displaying her by letting the broom take some of her weight while attached to the stud plane, but it's also good for standing it up in the corner of a diorama.

The brush is very cleverly sculpted with full clearance in the stud grid--while the broom is connected, you can turn it in a complete circle without the brush sculpting getting stuck on any of the surrounding studs. 

Next is her yellow ladle.

I haven't encountered this piece in System sets, but it might have been adopted into them. I think it debuted in the earlier Fabuland theme, which was it own whole spinoff with unique animal figures, though more for a younger demographic rather than specifically girls. We don't have time to get into Fabuland, but a good amount of accessory parts it debuted survived into Belville and were also absorbed into System sets with minifigures.

The ladle's only System connection is the bar handle, but the scoop can hold small parts like 1x1 round studs or one of the two apples the figure includes.

The apples have bar connections for stems. The witch's apron pocket can be used for her ladle or for one of her apples.

She also came with the cauldron, also a Fabuland original, and a piece which was adopted into System like the apples. The cauldron connects on a 2x2 stud footprint and has two horizontal bars for handles, but no connections inside the bowl. The witch can hold the cauldron two-handed, but it's not the most graceful with her articulation.

Then again, this is relatable and quite realistic--you'd be apt to walk like this lugging an iron pot around!

Otherwise, she can hold it up and turned outward.

The biggest thing the figure is missing is her spell book, but I can demonstrate with another copy of the mold. The old LEGO books debuted by dollhouse-Scala and Belville were single pieces of soft plastic that folded on a hinge, like the classic LEGO briefcases, and could hold a 1x2 tile loosely inside when closed.

This could theoretically be used to represent book pages, but the most relevant this feature ever became was in the original Harry Potter sets, for the key plot moment of Harry tricking Lucius Malfoy into giving Dobby clothing (a ritual that breaks his enslavement) by hiding a sock in the book Lucius passes off to Dobby. The sock  was represented by a printed 1x2 tile inside such a book, and this was repeated for the second incarnation of the theme that started in 2010. 

These books could only be held by a clip-handed figure clipping onto the thinner half when open, but it never felt like a LEGO connection and could have been serendipity. The plastic is soft enough to get scarred by the clip hands. The other half of the book is too thick and sloped for a hand to grab it.

You can still plausibly pose the book as if it's being held two-handed, though.

The books could hardly feel less like they were intended for minifigures, because they weren't, but they were awkwardly adopted into System sets with minifigures for a long time. The Belville figure works a little more elegantly with this book, and it's a less monstrous tome on her, but she's still only able to actually clip onto the thinner half. Her arms and hands just pose better around the thicker half.

This book system was finally replaced with a proper hard-plastic minifigure book. This has a separate piece for the cover, which hinges open to whatever degree you like, and has a vertical 1x2 stud connection that a printed tile can attach to to represent the contents.

I got this from the Moaning Myrtle mystery Minifigure the actual week before I committed to swearing off Harry Potter for good. (Haven't looked back.) It's my only copy of the new book type at this moment.

I replaced the internal page. This doesn't make any sense inside a book, but it works form a distance.

This book type is much more versatile and sturdy. For one, the cover as a separate piece has a bar connection on the spine that lets it function as its own holdable accessory, say, as a tablet or piece of paper.

The book has another bar connection on the edge of the thicker half, meaning a figure clips on in the exact same spot as the older book.

The new cover more elegantly poses with its smooth hinge. A minifigure can also easily grab the book and hold it while closed, letting them hold it forward on its side, or down by their hip.

The Belville hand shape gets in the way, and forces the cover open a little when trying to do the same.

The back of the spine cannot be held by a LEGO clip, which is a little disappointing, since that's how people grab books off shelves, but it's okay.

The Dobby's-sock gag has been repeated with this new book style too, now with the printed tile more secure. It's hard to remove a tile from this book, actually--the best method is to use a LEGO crowbar, which is a minifigure accessory, but is also designed to wedge under the lip of tile pieces to remove them from a surface.

I had briefly entertained building the Belville witch a whole diorama set, but I wasn't really feeling it. Turns out, who needs it? Just give her a small baseplate and her accessories and she's dynamic enough as a diorama all by herself!

I then pulled out my other LEGO accessories to test with this figure type.

First, I grabbed a two-piece candle and a jack-o'-lantern piece, both post-Belville. The pumpkin is actually a minifigure mask as well as an accessory, and requires a 1x1 round brick or a minifigure head inside to be placed on a studded surface.

She's also able to hold a classic LEGO round-top trunk two-handed, though the hinged lid can't open with it pressed against her body.

There's now a flat top compatible with the trunk, which might be able to open more in this same position.

Then, of course, she needed the classic magic wand piece.

The figure never had this piece in her original set, but it really feels like she ought to have. She's keeping it.

Then I tried a dish and some savory foods.

The pretzel only clips around the middle--the edges are thinner.

The dish is a Belville original that got adopted into System. It has one raised antistud in the bottom center letting it attach to a studded surface while the bottom of the dish is above the other studs, and the rim is a bar connection.

As for drink, any option works. She plays well with the classic mug...

...a classic goblet...

The rounded goblet often cast in translucent green (which her original set included) also works.

...and a potion-y Erlenmeyer flask!

The flask is post-Belville. She'd also work with the (also post-Belville) cylindrical totally-not-wine bottle piece.

She gets to keep the flask in her assortment too.

And of course, the post-Belville minifigure tea pieces work with her too!

The teapot has a pinhole that accepts plume pieces that could simulate steam or liquid, but LEGO haven't made an ideal brown piece for flowing tea yet. This is the best I could manage:

The teapot and cup have bar handles that can't swivel around the side of her hand, so they can't be faced directly forward in the Belville hand with the arm totally straight--you can see what I mean with the cup. Another piece limited this way on Belville figures is the modern "blast effect adapter" which is essentially a 1x1 hollow stud with a short bar stuck to the back like the teacup bar. 

This piece came to prominence for creating hand-blast visuals on magical/superhero minifigures with attached pieces, but couldn't face fully forward in a Belville hand. But classic LEGO magic lightning, with its wider gap above the bar, would easily work for facing forward.

Here's the witch using a black blast-adapter to show the default direction of her hand clip with the arm fully straightened.

The pose can be adjusted to put it forward, but it's less direct.

A minifigure (the Series 11 Yeti demonstrating here) holds the piece directly forward.

Minidoll arms are sculpted with a wider outward curve away from the torso, but their hands also face forward. 

The old magic-lightning piece mentioned before can rotate around the outside of the witch's hand and face forward when the arm is fully straight.

And it's all in the pose. The witch could fire magic with the blast adapter stud in other poses that would look good.

I imagine the angle of her hand clip is truly a subtle asset for realistic posing with accessories two-handed, just like her wrist joints. A handful of LEGO pieces designed years after her being a little at odds with the hand is a fair trade.

As for other kitchen paraphernalia, she uses a whisk and a pot (I know the former is post-Belville) well.

Minifigure musical instruments aren't large enough or sculpted well for her.

She tried to rock, but a guitar isn't the right size.

I think she rocks anyway.

And the minifigure bagpipes (only released once on the Series 7 Minifigure Bagpiper) are too small and don't come in contact with her face the right way. These only functionally suit a minifigure, which is a shame because they're stylistically perfect for this witch.

A minifigure cello is passable as a violin or viola for her, though the posing isn't super graceful. I used a short bar for a bow, forgetting that LEGO's own solution is a carved wand piece, which I could have used. I think the witch has a great vibe for a merry fiddler.

Like instruments, most transport accessories for minifigures (bikes, scooters, skateboards, etc.) are also too small--a bicycle makes her look like she's doing a clown act!

I'm impressed by how well she poses on it, regardless.

But I did have one surfboard which actually debuted for Belville--one foot attaches to studs while the other straddles the middle loose.

The studs are on the left side from this view (under her right foot).

This surfboard was actually adopted into System, but it never made sense anywhere except on top of a camper van build or a beachside rack assembly because the board was colossal next to minifigures and they didn't look right on it. The mystery Minifigures line finally fixed this by debuting a proper minifigure surfboard with two horizontal studs in Series 2.

A few other accessories worked nicely with the witch--a classic LEGO key, a newer watering can, and a classic magnifying glass.

This articulation also plays really well for combat poses with LEGO weapons. Bows and shields are tiny on her, but the dynamism is strong.

LEGO has done many large-scale action figure and mech-building systems for more articulated battle toys, with those concepts evolving and becoming more integrated with LEGO System and LEGO Technic pieces over time, but I'm shocked they never adapted the figure articulation of Belville or the Technic figures to an action theme of knights or pirates or cowboys. I think they could have easily marketed a figure design like this for a "boy's toy" theme focused on battles.

And like minifigures, Belville dolls can hold LEGO tile pieces, which are often decorated to serve as props depicting flat objects or documents.

I think this design deserves a trophy.

I'm so delighted with this figure. 

Even the small pack of her and her original accessories enchanted me with the incredible engineering and play value offered by the figure. The fun display, the flexible skirt with a pocket, and the truly impressive figure articulation blow me away, and the LEGO System is a truly brilliant integration. 

With readily available surfaces the figures can stand on in so many dynamic poses and a wealth of compatible accessories, inside and out of Belville, the display and play potential is through the roof. If I didn't know otherwise, I could believe the LEGO System was designed for this figurine style as an elegant way to make super-displayable articulated miniatures. Like, I'm astonished that nobody is talking about these Belville toys, and I think they could have blown up massively if the figure design was applied to a more collectible figurine/miniatures market...or if the figures had come from anywhere but LEGO and their expected precedent. They likely alienated just from their context making them unwelcome and out-of-place: "We don't expect or want this from LEGO!" But by designing a highly-articulated figure that works with the studs and clips of LEGO, the LEGO Group of 1998 inadvertently created something with modular dynamism on par with the finest Japanese display figurines and collectible kits! 

Sure, the Belville figures don't have the most advanced sculpting or pieces that swap out, but the charm and engineering and sheer wealth of interactive display possibilities provided by the massive medium that is LEGO makes a Belville figure an incredible toy for someone who can engage with one. I know I'd devour these utterly if they were sold in series of wacky collectible figures today, advertised as the super-articulated figures that can use your LEGO baseplates and accessories for advanced character display--or animation. I don't know if the rest of the LEGO community or the world would agree, but I can't ignore that there's something genius and absolutely wonderful about this strange little offshoot toy system.

My biggest takeaway is that the original Belville figures are massively overachieving for no good reason. They're more intricate and articulated and realistically poseable and dynamically displayable than they have any right to be, particularly for their size and for the build caliber and child target demo of the sets they were in. I truly have to wonder if LEGO even realized just how good these figures were and how next-level their LEGO compatibility made their display options. I worry that both LEGO and the kids who had Belville alike didn't fully appreciate how amazing these figures really were, because while LEGO designed the figures and posed them for set photos, they feel so oddly advanced for the application to which they were put, and then they got downgraded and rode out the rest of the line im a simpler form rather than the original design being kept and put in a more advanced context. And with the kids who interacted with the toys, I can imagine the articulation being either frustrating or just not fully utilized for intricate display poses on LEGO bases, which is where their truest superpower lies. I'm in such a weird place where I absolutely feel like I "get it" and see how interesting and fun these doll figures are specifically as LEGO pieces, but I don't even know if LEGO themselves "got it" in the same way...because I think if they had, they might have done much more with these figures than what they did. 

So maybe Belville figures underachieved in a way, too. But you know what, I'll take what I have! This witch has become one of my top three delightful-surprise toy posing experiences, alongside the 6-inch DC Super Hero Girls Harley Quinn action figure I got as a teen and Weird Barbie. There's a commonality of mischief to all three that likely contributed to the fun each brought--something to note.

There are minor critiques I have--I wish the hip and knee joints had more friction for more secure posing precision, and I think the clutch of the feet on a studded surface could stand to be a bit tighter. The doll is still absolutely capable, though.

LEGO fans weren't going for Belville for obvious reasons--the brand still struggles with a largely male and/or traditionalist legacy fanbase, and the theme was a huge departure from the typical formula and charm. I'll also grant that the majority of Belville may have been lacking inherent charm and appeal--the pretty-faced dolls can look a little bland or off-putting, and I much prefer those which broke from the face sculpt to have more cartoony mouth designs that felt more LEGO. In that sense, the witch has an artistic advantage that increases her appeal in ways many Belville dolls lack. But these toys were so well-designed on their own merits and had a compelling LEGO display synergy beyond any awkward visual aesthetics. And as someone always hungry for high articulation in small toys, this is a wonderful little treat. The witch won't be my last Belville doll, I can assure you. To BrickLink I go!

Belville wasn't a failure, even if it wasn't a darling either. Maybe the figure design had something to do with its 14-year long run...until it was kneecapped elbowed partway through with stiffer arms. 

An original-bodied Belville figure, however, is an absolute hidden gem.