Custom Ice Cream Mermaid Minidolls or Why Vidiyo Should Have Featured Minidolls

I'm still bitter about LEGO Vidiyo not having any minidolls. Not even for the Genie or the Cheerleader. I think that was a huge missed opportunity and I'm determined to prove it. By painting the dolls myself.

More precisely, I only dollified the minifigure "Candy Mermaid" which I hoped would serve as a great example for my hypothesis. Furthermore, as I think "Candy Mermaid" is a misnomer, I will call all of the minis here ice cream mermaids.

Originally, I only wanted to paint the tiny microdoll mermaid. But as the first layer of paint dried I got inpatient and added a bunch of minidoll parts to my to-paint pile. Which I now realize was what I should have done from the beginning.

Minidoll Painting in ProgressMinidoll painting in progress

13 hours of painting (or a whole audiobook) later, I was ready to prove my point.

LEGO Vidiyo with Microdolls

This is not really a thing I believe had any chance of becoming a reality, yet it's fun to look at.

Microdoll Ariel turned into an Ice Cream Mermaid Popstar
Microdoll Ariel before and after her transformation into an ice cream mermaid pop star

I believe the microdolls are the cheapest minis to produce, so if LEGO ever made a blind bag/box series with them, they would come with a whole bunch of accessories. Maybe even with one or two animal background singers. And the small singers could be sisters, or at least friends.

For me, that would increase the desirability of the boxes. I would probably buy multiples of each character just for the interesting animals. A lavender baby dolphin with a star around his eye would be inevitable in such a series. 

LEGO Vidiyo with Minidolls

This is what I thought Vidiyo would be. This is what LEGO has led me to believe Vidiyo would be by putting the Vidiyo advertisement next to the Dots sets. They were marketing it to girls and they know girls like the minidolls. For me the match was obvious. For LEGO apparently not.

And now it's up to me to show you what the theme could have been. On the one example. I have my limits.

Custom Minidoll Ice Cream Mermaid in a LEGO Vidiyo BeatBox
My custom minidoll ice cream mermaid in a LEGO Vidiyo BeatBox

The BeatBox in which the minifigure mermaid came in would not need to change. It holds the minidoll well. The only small issue I could find is that the dolls right hand presses onto the BeatBits when the sides are "closed". Rotating the arm to point forward or back solves this.

The design of the minidoll could have stayed very faithful to the figure's. At least in the torso department.

The tail would have probably been all one color. Or, if LEGO decided they really care, it would have had the part connecting to the torso in one color and the rest in the ice cream cone color with the melting ice cream printed on. In any case, the diamond pattern would only be printed on the doll's right side, like it's the case with newer Ariel minidolls.

Hand Painted Ice Cream Minidoll Mermaid
Only a partially realistic recreation of what an original LEGO ice cream minidoll would have looked like

While I think the hair piece is gorgeous, it has all of the typical markings that it was made for the figs. The hole around the minidoll's head is simply gigantic. Therefore, I would propose either changing the current hair piece to a more minidoll friendly version or using a different hair style altogether. As long as it still has some pink in it.

Possible Minidoll Ice Cream Mermaid Hair Pieces
Possible alternate hair pieces

The biggest two reasons I could think of for why Vidiyo doesn't feature minidolls are because they want see if girls are "ready" to embrace minifigures yet, and they didn't want to decide what skin colors the characters would have.

I would have loved all the wacky minidoll designs this theme would have given us. All skin colors would have gotten some unusual clothes as well as new facial expressions. For LEGO knows we need them. At least, I hope LEGO wouldn't just reuse Stephanie's face for all of these characters.

LEGO Vidiyo with Minidolls and Microdolls

If Vidiyo using minidolls was improbable and using microdolls was inconceivable, then using both was as likely as, well, those two chances combined.

Mother and Daughter Ice Cream Princess Pop Star Mermaids

Mother and Daughter Ice Cream Princess Pop Star Mermaids

I still think it could have worked. And I think it could have worked well. You could have had whole families making music together, given some of them royal status, let them have a battle of the bands...

In the end, I don't hate or even dislike the Vidiyo theme. I'm just disappointed by it. Yes, I would have preferred dolls to figs. But I also feel the characters have been chosen only for their wackiness, without any effort to create a cohesive narrative to bring them all together.

 

Watch the video if you're interested in how I created the microdoll after a year and a half long painting hiatus and what the microdoll looks like with different hair styles on.

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