Doll blog is taking shape!

Over the last few weeks I've added several pages to this blog along with many new photos of dolls from my collection. There's still lots more to post so this is just a start. I have a bunch of Star Wars Hasbro dolls, Star Trek Playmates dolls, Marvel Heroes, Batman, talking dolls, and others to add which I'll get to eventually, but for now there's lots to see. For example, I've finally managed to get my entire 8 inch Mego collection posted! Hope you enjoy looking through the collection!

The Hero Puppets

Here's the cast of puppets (most of them anyway) that I made for my puppet show
 "Heroes Past and Present" that was first performed in 2006.

Many collectors who are into action figure dolls, such as the Mego 8 inch superheroes, are also into customizing dolls. They get the commonly available figures, then remove the outfit and head, make a new outfit, sculpt and paint a new head, and therefore create a completely new character. Often they make characters that they don't have in their collection, or which have yet to be marketed in the Mego 8 inch style. Sometimes the goal is to improve upon the designs of popular character dolls that have already be manufactured. In any case, to do a customized transformation of this type is a talent all it's own.

I've made a few pieces of clothing for my Mego dolls, such as Lizard's jacket (he's one of the Spider-Man villains), but always had trouble fitting the clothes on the dolls just right, so I never got the customizing bug. Instead, as I continued to collect Mego dolls, I started making my own original puppets and puppet costumes and have been doing so since I was about nine years old, back in the early 1980s.

Being a huge fan of the Muppets, I made mostly mouth puppets, up until around 2000 when I designed some original glove puppets of various heroic characters that I call (can you guess?) the Hero Puppets! Below are some of the Hero Puppets, which are all quite doll-like. Each puppet is about 21 inches tall. They are made out of fleece and then I soft-sculpt the features.

Here is Pythor the Barbarian with his mystical Dragon Axe.

Here is the ultimate Canadian superhero, the Canadian Crusader!    

Here's an evil demon that Pythor fights against in "Heroes Past and Present".

Each Hero Puppet character takes about two weeks to make. I'm currently working on a new show about the Canadian Crusader and am creating some new super villains. Some puppeteers don't like to think of their puppets as dolls, but puppets and dolls are certainly from the same family. I have no doubt that in addition to being inspired by the work of my favourite puppeteers, it was my enthusiasm for Mego collecting that lead me toward making the Hero Puppets!

To see more of my puppets visit my puppetry website: http://www.artellepuppets.ca/puppetgallery.php

Batman Art by Neal Adams

Here's an awesome classic DC Comics Batman and Robin image. I found a few different versions of this picture online. One of them (from the BatBlog) had been touched up a bit as the original source picture had some fading and creases. I did a bit more cleaning and added some touch ups of my own. So, now it's time to pass it on to the next Batman fan! I'm really glad to have found this picture online as it's an awesome image of the dynamic duo. If I'm not mistaken, the original artwork was created by comic book artist Neal Adams, which explains why it's so awesome!

1976 Mego Ad!

I recently found this awesome advertisement for Mego dolls in a 1976 DC Special Green Lantern comic. It's interesting as there are no Marvel Mego characters shown, and Supergirl is missing along with the four Teen Titans Mego dolls. Even though this is a 1976 ad, the dolls are drawn to look like Type 1 Megos, which had been replaced by this point with the updated Type 2 Mego bodies. There is also no mention of Mego in the ad, and the Mego logo is nowhere to be seen! Each Mego was a mere $3.39 and postage was only .59 cents! If only we knew then what we know now!

Welcome to "Mikey's Dolls"

The goal for this blog is to fill it with pictures of my crazy doll collection. I became a fan of Mego 8 inch dolls at the age of three (that would be 1976, during the height of Mego's popularity) when I got my first Mego... the Fonz from Happy Days! Since then I have always preferred "dolls" over "action figures". The idea of miniature removable fabric outfits on a figure that has multiple points of articulation has always been more interesting to me than just a standard action figure. Around the age of nine I started making doll clothes for my Megos (Batman, Robin, Lizard and Tarzan), which introduced me to sewing and pattern making, and ultimately to my main passion of making puppets. To see some of my puppet characters please visit http://www.artellepuppets.ca/ Without question, Mego dolls played a major role in developing my creativity as a child. 

The fact that doll clothing is made up of small fabric pattern pieces, that are sewn together to make a shape, has always captivated me. I always thought it was neat that someone was able to design the clothing just right, and in such a small scale, so that it would fit the doll correctly... especially as some of those pattern pieces were quite small. I also liked how the pieces of the Mego doll's body fit together so that the joints worked. Each standard 8 inch Mego has 14 points of articulation: wrists, ankles, knees, hips, waist, shoulders, elbows, and the neck. Although the Mego dolls were mass produced products that were not intended to be "art", they taught me at a very young age to admire the sculpting, patterns, creativity and ingenuity involved with doll making.