Sites for Playscale Male Clothes

Need a Michael Jackson tee shirt for your male doll or action figure? What about Marilyn Monroe or Bruce Lee for that tee shirt? You can probably find a photo of any of those stars and then transfer that image to an iron-on transfer sheet. Do it yourself. Or you can buy a ready-made tee from a friendly online action figure shop.

Below are some sites I have shopped:

Tee shirts available at Cotswold Collectibles

Loose clothes at Monkey Depot

Fashions by Dreams and Visions at War-Toys

And here is a supermarket of fashions and accessories where I have NOT shopped yet, One-Sixth Depot. In addition to clothes, you can find other loose items.


Things to consider when shopping at action figure shops:

1. The market slant is adult collectors; female figures might have nipples.

2. Click links you think have nothing to offer you; just because the manufacturer and the seller intended a certain shirt as part of a uniform, you might look at that same piece for a civilian outfit or costume party.

3. Sometimes you can get a complete boxed figure with a full outfit at a reduced price. Instead of getting the clothes separate, see the clearance section. A dressed boxed figure on clearance could cost less than the sum of the individual pieces.

4. Even if you decide against buying anything, you can get male clothing ideas from the photos for your male dolls and action figures.

When you cannot find tolerable Ken wear, remember your options.

Re-dressed: Three Kens and an Allan

Left to right: Straight leg Allan in Takara premium male fashion, Earring Magic Ken in soccer outfit, Tango Ken in action figure top and Battlestar Galactica pants, and AA Skate Date Ken in Battlestar Galactica top and action figure pants

Four more Mattel men re-dressed. This time, I have 1960s Allan in an outfit for Takara Jenny's male friends followed by Earring Magic Ken borrowing the soccer uniform of Benjamin Lauth, and Tango Ken and AA Skate Date Ken splitting the Majestic Studio's Battlestar Galactica uniform with standard action figure tee and cargo pants.

Isn't Tango Ken just the dreamiest Ken ever?

Rousing myself from that reverie, I note that the Takara pants are a little long on Allan. Also, there are four distinct bodies here. Thin Allan, husky Earring Magic, lanky Tango, and middling Skate Date. The Keeping Ken website has photos of every Ken out so for more intensive information about individual Ken bodies, I would suggest that source. Jef of Keeping Ken provided this Ken Bodies link by a Polish doll collector named Olga.

Note: if you have Google Toolbar, you may be able to have the Ken bodies page translated from Polish to English. Or you can use Poltran free translation website to read and/or respond to that post.

Educational AND Fun - HIA Toys Action Figures

Want to interest your 7 to 12 year old in American History? One possible activity: introduce him or her to one or more of these action figures from HIA Toys. HIA Toys offers three well-rendered, poseable, 6 inch action figures based on African Americans:

Bessie Coleman,

Benjamin Banneker, and

Matthew Alexander Henson

I like the character in their tiny faces, their posability, and their exquisite accessories. Sigh. If only those accessories were available for playscale figures. In addition to the figures and their accessories, HIA provides a four-page Teaching Guide with ideas for lesson plans based on the action figures. Cost for each figure is $24.95 or $68.95 for all three figures.

Additional links about HIA Toys and their products:

Toy Directory

RTM news clip

YouTube news clip

Dolls Like Me products

Men from Mattel in Action Figure Garb

From left to right: Romeo Ken in Ken tee shirt and action figure jeans, Arabian Knights Ken in BBi Elite Force tee and shorts, Happy Family AA Grandfather in Power Team shirt and pants, Superman Ken in action figure shirt and Jakks Pacific Camp Rock Shane's jeans, and Cali Guy Steven in action figure shirt and pants. All footwear, Mattel Ken.

In a recent We Love Black Dolls Yahoo Group thread about Ken's clothes, someone called for "intervention" for Ken's wardrobe. So instead of dressing action figures in Ken wear, I've pulled these Ken and other Mattel men to show these guys wearing various action figure clothes. (Other exception is the Shane jeans - Shane is another fashion doll.) The clothes described as "action figure" were purchased from Old Joe's Infirmary and/or other action figure online shops.

In a future post, I'll do a photo comparison of the Ken body types. Ken has moved from thin to husky to lean to muscled. So collectors need to consider which Ken body they are buying for since all Ken wear is NOT the same. Information about the various Ken bodies can be seen in Keeping Ken news section.

Happy viewing.

Psst ... TNT Christie was a White Doll Painted Brown

Has anyone else seen the first Christie described as being a "White" doll painted brown?

Check this post by Charles of The Doll Diary and his link to an ABC news story that starts with this false statement. I submitted a comment pointing out the error, but so far, no one else has. Hmmm ... can this NOT seem a problem to others? Then there is this Barbie List that makes the same statement. What happened to fact checking?

I have NOTHING against "chocolate-dipped" dolls. Most of the "Black" dolls of my youth were "dipped" dolls. As I mentioned before, there are Black people who resemble such dolls. But reading that Christie was "essentially a white doll painted brown" according to the ABC article - annoys me; here we have the first Mattel ethnic-faced fashion doll stripped of her ethnic status. The first Christie is to Black as the first Barbie is to White.

In addition to the Barbie classic guide, The Collector's Encyclopedia of Barbie Dolls and Collectibles by Sibyl DeWein and Joan Ashabraner, here are some online articles on Christie:

Charles on Christie

Doll Reference

Master Collector

Katti's Dolls

So ... what do you think? Is she or isn't she?

Modern 12" Joe Online Reference - Yo Joe!

Have a newer G.I. Joe from 1991-2005 whom you'd like to identify? Go to Yo Joe! for photos and accessory descriptions.

For more information about Hasbro's G.I. Joe line see Big Red Toybox, eBay Joe Guide, or YoJoe FAQs.

Aside: while we collectors usually borrow Kenwear for our Joes to give Joes civilian looks, Kens do not fit Joewear as well. I refer, of course, to the recent 12" Joes, NOT the earlier barrel-chested Joes from the 1970s. Joe pants can be difficult to put on the Husky Ken figures or too short, above the ankles ("high waters", we called such fit in my youth) for the leaner, longer legged Poser Kens.

Kens can look dapper in My Scene guy clothes, Flavas guy clothes, or action figure clothes. But that's for another post ;-D

Wikipedia and Mixis Article

Fools dive in where angels fear to tread.

I've heard something like that, but being a fan, I tend to look for a likely soft landing spot and dive. So after editing one Wikipedia article, "Fashion doll" to add the Mixis dolls to that list, I placed an entry of my own on the Mixis dolls. There were no other Wikipedia entries for them. I mean, yes, there are photos of the Mixis and a few articles about them online, but I felt they needed some extra ... presence? referencing? online. How else will those other Mixis dolls be produced?

First step then was to create a Wikipedia user name. Then I should have edited a few articles BEFORE creating one. So I edited the entry on Fashion Dolls first. Easy to copy the formatting and paste the repeated text in the list and then to adjust the text to read "Mixis, etc."

My next step was to review the article copy I created to make it as neutral yet informative as I could. Think I succeeded there. Also, I had to make sure that I did not plagiarize text from the website. I think I did well there ... someone will let me know, if I didn't.

I need to fix the reference tags; I'll check on that tomorrow. Or maybe some kind, generous Wikipedia expert will correct the error. (Yeah right ... there are scads of playscale collectors just waiting for the opportunity to fix incorrect entries on Wikipedia. Sigh.)

Here's the link to the

Mixis article

Thanks for any advice, suggestions, etc.