Another sketch influenced by my voracious consumption of YA paranormal lit, a bony little vampire chick. I usually like my girls with a little more meat on the bone, but there’s plenty room for every body type ’round here. Similar to the werewolf chick, Vampy here doesn’t have a name yet. Or even a story, actually.
She’s definitely inspired by one of my nieces Monster High dolls, though. I find it interesting that as a teen I had such a huge, huge problem with drawing very skinny waists, which were a pronounced feature of Barbie dolls (which I had in elementary school). Teens I have worked with these days grew up more with Bratz dolls (and now Monster High) and those ones all have super long legs. Coincidentally, the crazy long and skinny legs are a hallmark with the art of kids I work with now.
I’m not noting it as a judgement thing, just so many people argue that thinking dolls will have an effect on a girl’s self esteem and body image is unrealistic. Is it really? I know a lot of things shape our body image, and just one doll is a drop in the bucket, but kids project themselves onto their dolls. I can’t solely blame Barbie for my current body image issues, but I doubt she helped, and I certainly think the dolls impacted how I visualize and draw people. Of course, so did Disney movies, magazine covers, and all kinds of other things.
At any rate, I personally like Bratz and Monster High dolls, and a lot of the similar dolls, but I don’t let my kids play with them. And they make me uneasy as a child’s toy. They feel like cute little fashion dolls to me, the kind I like to have just sit on my desk and look pretty, and that’s exactly what I don’t want my daughter to grow up to be: something that merely sits around and looks pretty.
Of course, I’m also a little on the neurotic side, so whatever.
