Monster High - Viperine Gorgon

Oh heck yes Viperine.

So I ordered a bunch of dolls from Amazon US, because the UK was being slow getting stuff and was asking a staggering £20 for each of the new stars and Jane Boolittle which I felt was more than a little excessive.
Importing from the US, even including import and postage fees, still worked out cheaper. That's just silly right?

Anyway, amongst the dolls I ordered was Viperine. And believe me, I hoped and hoped i'd get lucky and not have any errored dolls.

They arrived this morning in a giant box and I eagerly got to pawing over them. Jane, Elissabat and Clawdia all seem fine but I wasn't certain about Viperine. Her glasses made it hard to figure out if she was errored or not and her placement in the box was messing with my perspective.

So I deboxed her to find out for sure.

I'm happy to report, she's got a slight error but it's nothing major like the eye wonk I thought I was seeing. Phew!

Anyway, let's get to that review shall we?

The Frights Camera Action boxes are ok, though they're not as striking as some of the other boxes Monster High has released.
The box itself has a sort of old movie billboard to one side with the MH logo, and a digitally painted image of the doll that I suspect is airbrushed over the CGI model. There's something very 3d animation about the art here. I don't like the 3d art on the boxes, I much prefer the 2d art style but oh well, cheaper and quicker to do it this way I suppose.

the backing card is a red carpet (Black carpet?) with cameras flashing and such forth. It's very appropriate for the theme but there's no hilarious little easter eggs that I could see (No teeny Deuce riding a far too small scooter at night for instance hahahaha, oh Scaris. Ahem.)

Anyway,

Here's that art work, it's not bad but believe me when I say Viperine has the best artwork of the bunch.

On the back of the box there's a full body image of Viperine on the black carpet, and an edited down bio, along with the blurb for the special this line ties into.

I like that they included a pronouciation guide for Stheno, because I sure as heck didn't know that was how you said it. I also love that they made another Gorgon as the daughter of one of Medusa's sisters from the myth, Stheno and Eurayle aren't exactly as famous as their little sister.

I have to admit, I laughed for quite some time at the "I'm a biter" comment here. Ooo errr Viperine, that's a little personal isn't it? *snicker* Methinks she's been hanging out with the Bratzillaz or something, coming out with that sort of remark. Hey girl, what you do in the bedroom is YOUR business ok?

Viperine really does stand out against this rather dull backdrop. All pinks and blues. She's hardly innovative in her colour scheme alongside all the other pink mh characters, but she looks good on the backing card, nice and bright.

That's a very uncomfortable way to hold a makeup brush though Vip.

She comes with this odd little horn brush and a makeup pallete, both of which can go into her little makeup case:

Which has adorable little fangs ahahaha. Omg it's so stinking cute, I feel like at any moment it'll sprout legs and toddle off.

Out of box, Viperine is pretty damn awesome. Her skin tone is very much that of an albino snake, a sort of pale peachy tan, and her hair falls in lovely thick curls at the front.

It's not quite so tame at the back. It's a bit frizzy at the ends but that's pretty normal for "box hair".

Working from the bottom, her shoes... they have this sorta mesh platform on them, fangs on the front, then they lace up and have snakes crawling around the tops of them. They're very cool boots, though it might have been nice if the laces had been painted as well as the fangs.

The dress is seriously 70s, made of cotton with a little pleated hem and an empire waist (that is, under the bust). The fabric has all these flowers and a very funky gorgon head printed on. I love that gorgon head. It's awesome and being sideways it's not immediately obvious what it is.
The top section is more a paisley fabric in a pretty purpley blue to match the hem.

The dress actually fits really nicely, no wierd fat belly like the promo images seemed to have at all. It's also made of nice fabric and feels like a proper dress, I want one in human size hahah.

The necklace she's wearing doesn't actually come off. It's moulded as one solid piece, presumably due to the weight of the snakes and the issues of keeping it ON if it had a slit like normal doll necklaces do.
I wonder why they didn't just give it a little clip latch like you sometimes see, seems an odd design choice and makes redressing her even more difficult. Her snakes already make it a pain to get her dress on and off, the necklace getting in the way just adds to the issue.
It also limits what you can put her into, it needs to be able to work with the snake necklace.

Of course that's not to say the snake necklace isn't freaking awesome, it's moulded to her bust so sits really nicely in place and just helps complete her outfit.

Viperine's snakes are two pieces. This part which is a removeable headband

And this bit which I believe is glued into her head.

The headband has a little peg that clips into a hole in Viperine's scalp. The hole is actually quite hidden when you remove the headband and brush her hair out, but I can see her being a nightmare for anyone hoping to reroot her with all these holes in her head.

Thing about this little peg hole though, is that it's really quite an elegant solution to the slipping headband issue. Once clipped in, it stays in position tightly and solidly, holding her hair in pace and even allowing for the little snake head to cheekily peer around her curl.

You can see here she has quite elongated ears, which is interesting. no earrings though, they'd just get in the way of all the other stuff she's got going on.

Her glasses have snakes twisting all around them. Sadly without the plastic packaging piece to keep them in place, they have a tendency to slip and fall off Viperine's face.

I'm not sure if she's pretty or creepy, or a bit of both.
Her forehead scales are lopsided, printed a little too much to one side but oh well.
her eyes might also be a little too low, not sure.

Anyway, she has somewhat narrow lips, little fangs, a very flat nose and a cleft chin, have we had a girl with a cleft chin before? Nice touch, her jaw line is quite squared and reminds me of her cousin Deuce.
Her eyes are pink with silvery flecks in, and she has silver eyeshadow which is nice and subdued, working great with her pink hair.

According to her diary, Viperine doesn't have a stone gaze. Only Medusa and Deuce can do that, but most monsters don't realise this. She wears glasses because they look cool, that's it. I like this touch, it fits with the legend and that kind of thing makes me happy.

Speaking of Deuce, it's cool to have a family member for him where it actually makes sense for them no to be mentioned earlier. I see no reason you'd never mention a sibling, but a cousin? I can believe that.

I also really do like that she's not just "Deuce but a chick", she's distinctly her own monster.

Deuce is a LOT more human than Viperine. I wonder if that comes down to their father's heritage? Viperine doesn't mention a dad in her diary, nor does Deuce but I always assumed his dad was a normie or something. Perhaps Viperine's dad was a more serpentine monster, or it's just one of those odd quirks of genetic throwbacks heh.

Viperine has a whole new sculpt. It's similar to the Gorgon cam, but it's been beefed up and made even more insanely detailed.
Viperine has shaped segments across her torso and "soft underbelly" effect on her inner arms and legs, along with all those scales.

 

This level of detail is crazy and awesome. I can sort of see why they've upped the price point if Mattel are going to be pulling hidden detail like this on a regular basis, because wow. 

As a final note, yes she came with a stand. At first I was thinking "ok, how do I get this on with the snakes?" but actually, the snakes have a convenient "parting" that's just the right size for the stand. Nice. 

 

 

So there she is, Viperine Gorgon. She's one heck of a doll.

Much as her colour scheme has disappointed a few, I actually quite like it. She's obviously inspired by albino snakes, which is a clever way to get around the "looking like Deuce too much" issue had they gone with green. She may be "yet another pink character" but her 70s Farrah Fawcett hair and boho clothing is something unique we haven't seen before. Her sculpt is remarkable and I honestly can't find any real legitimate faults with the doll. She's beautiful and inhuman at the same time, she's suitably weird and I still want her dress in human size damnit. Human ADULT size at that. You listening Mattel?

I give Viperine 9 inconsiderately placed love bites out of 10. She's awesome and well worth getting.