Apart from the obvious doll-like Barbie heads, Mattel makes some really pretty head sculpts.
I saw this Beach Barbie brunette in a bin of discounted toys at a local department store, noticed her lovely smile and big green eyes and was instantly smitten.
Actually there were two of these brunettes in the bin, each with a different but lovely expression so I could not resist getting both. I used the head of one for Sylvia and kept the other one original.
Mattel puts no names on the boxes, but there is an ad for the 'A Mermaid Tale' DVD on the box and after a bit of searching I learned her name was Hadley, one of the main characters in the Barbie 'A Mermaid Tale' movie.
Her head is a bit more doll-like than the true CG heads, it is slightly bigger (but at 27mm width and 40mm height it still is credibly sized for a 1/6 scale head) and her eyes and mouth are considerably larger but I consider that part of the charm.
Apart from the long legs and tall neck, the Beach Barbie body has fairly realistic proportions but unfortunately it is rigid, as are the arms which only move at the shoulders, the legs however are soft skinned and come with posable knees.
The feet are realistically sized and almost flat but also a bit floppy so she isn't really sure-footed.
I became convinced that her lovely head would look even better on a CG body as the slender Barbie body with its tall neck makes the head look bigger than it actually is.
A quick check of the skintones of the spare CG bodies I had revealed that the slightly orange tan of the cloned CG v2 type B bodies matches the Barbie tan fairly well. I double-checked by taking a picture as the camera often reveals skin tone mismatches that are hard to notice with the naked eye.
Just for fun I tried to put the Barbie bikini on the CG body, the velcro closures wouldn't meet but when viewed from the front it didn't look bad at all.
At first I put her in a tight white spandex jumpsuit, later I found her a lovely white 'mermaid' style evening gown.
Apart from the obvious doll-like Barbie heads, Mattel makes some really pretty head sculpts.
Her head is a bit more doll-like than the true CG heads, it is slightly bigger (but at 27mm width and 40mm height it still is credibly sized for a 1/6 scale head) and her eyes and mouth are considerably larger but I consider that part of the charm.
So I picked a CG v2B body, cleaned up the seams and 
Just for fun I tried to put the Barbie bikini on the CG body, the velcro closures wouldn't meet but when viewed from the front it didn't look bad at all.
