Made to Move Curvy Barbie

In my previous post, I wrote that I had finally managed to grab one of these dolls at retail. When I first looked at her on Amazon several months ago, she was priced at about $45 by scalpers. About a month ago she went down to about $33. Last week I decided to glance at her listing again, and she was finally back at her original retail price! I had to wait for the doll to physically come back into stock so that she could be shipped. Amazon's last quote to me was the 14th to ship, but much to my surprise, I got a notice on the 9th that she had been sent out, and I got her on the 11th. Amazon seems to have been the only place to buy this doll, which I imagine is partially why the scalpers were trying to make a killing with her.

I bought one of the original Curvy dolls in February 2016 (wow, that's longer ago than I thought!) I've been waiting ever since then for a light skinned Made to Move Curvy body to be produced. I do have the the Made to Move Dancer Curvy doll, although purchased pretty late in the game, when I found her at Walmart around late August on clearance. But that first Curvy doll I bought has been waiting for a body since early 2016. Fortunately, I'm not particularly fond of the face that the Basic Made to Move Curvy Barbie comes with, so I only had to buy one. Here are the the two curvy girls standing side by side. More pictures below the fold.

Here's a view of the two side by side without clothes. I was surprised that MtM Curvy has arms that are noticeably longer. Otherwise, there doesn't seem to be a lot of difference in their bodies, other than the articulation. I didn't take exact measurements, though. I also didn't take any shots of the MtM doll's posing abilities; I assume they're about the same as the original MtM bodies. If you'd like to see any shots of the articulated Curvy poses, let me know.

Their hip joints look different, but in my post about my original Curvy girl, I pointed out that her legs really didn't have much movement at the hips. It's also amazing how much paler she looks in this picture.

This picture didn't make it to my original post.

Here's a shot of the two girls' upper bodies. I think you should be able to see in this picture that Blondie's head doesn't quite match her original body either, at least not anymore. I'm really shocked now that I'm looking at pictures of Blondie when I first got her. Although the lighting was different, there still seems like a big difference in skin color from then to now.

And now Blondie has her new body. Everything that fit her old body, fits now, although the shorts might be slightly tighter around the waist. I'm not fond of these shorts anyway. She's only wearing them now because she needed something that she could wear with the pink checked top that I made. Her head doesn't exactly match her body, definitely not as well as I thought that it would, but it's not horrible. Now that I'm using it, I kind of like the name Blondie for her, at least as a nickname.

Toe to toe, dancing very close...

I'm personally not fond of obvious, large joints in dolls, and of course since Curvy's arms and legs are larger in size than the regular body, the joints are larger.

That being said, I think that the MtM joints are some of the best around, even if they don't entirely appeal to me aesthetically. At least in the collector world, articulated dolls are certainly the name of the game right now, and very often, the more articulation, the better. They certainly make doll photography a lot more dynamic, so I can't really complain. I do find it interesting that Mattel seems to be making two kinds of dolls right now: barely-any-articulation, and Made-to-Move. I suppose the straight plastic legs will cause less concern in the future, than the old rubber legs with the three-click knees, as no one really knows how that rubber is decomposing, albeit slowly.

Anyway! I know Farrah Lily is upgrading her doll bodies to better articulated ones. Anyone else? I'm putting together plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas doll shoots, if I have time to get everything together, with all my re-bodied girls!