In the late 1950s, just as the doll Barbie was making her debut as a teenager with unrealistic physical dimensions, Neil Estern invented Patti Playpal.

Where Barbie stood less than a foot tall, Patti, measuring 36 inches head to toe, was life-size, as far as a 3-year-old was concerned. And unlike Barbie, an idealized plastic figure of young female beauty, Patti looked like most any toddler girl — an all-vinyl companion who could share real clothing and imaginary adventures with a human playmate.

The Playpal line proved enormously popular; today collectors buy them for hundreds of dollars and even more.

Within a few years, Mr. Estern had turned from toymaker to full-time professional sculptor of monumental works, working out of a studio in Brooklyn Heights. But as he did so he maintained his commitment to verisimilitude, whether depicting a charismatic President Franklin D. Roosevelt or an effervescent Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia of New York, his impetuosity in full flower.