For £16:99, how could I pass it up?
I got the set with Rochelle and Venus, because that Rochelle is just so cute! curls, dark blue rings around her eyes? decorative cracks? yes please.
The back of the box gives some background about what on earth the zombie shake is. From what I could establish from the webisode that came with this, there was an accident and Monster High all turned into zombies for a bit. I dunno, it was random.
Venus and Rochelle's art is neat. Love the clawed hands and the deep rings around their eyes. Rochelle looks a little stoned here (hurr hurrr) but Venus looks quite gorgeous.
Shame the same can't be said of her doll. I'm not sure what it is but something about this doll just doens't work for me.
Perhaps it's her eyes being too wide and friendly, while her art she has her eyes narrowed into this sort of smouldering gaze.
I find Venus often suffers from her eyes being too wide and starey for my taste.
Rochelle on the other hand is ADORABLE. Her eyes are HUGE but for Rochelle that works, in fact, the bigger the better I think lol.
The box was a pleasure to open, and served to remind me of why I LOATHE the new plastic nightmare boxes. I HATE THEM SOOO MUCH *Cries*
I didn't cut myself on sharp edges here, the box came open pretty nicely and the card slid out without straining. Bam, done, open.
The backing card is interesting. There's Gilda front and centre, flanked by the triclops girl and a werecat boy. Behind them there's Deuce and a unicorn? (She has a horn)
Interestingly a unicorn also appears in the latest graphic novel... I wonder if we'll see a unicorn doll soon then.
Here's the girls freed from their box.
Venus's hair is pretty good straight out the box, but poor Rochelle is suffering a terrible case of "boxhair"
Let's look at Venus first:
Venus has her signature half flocked head sure, but black streaks have been added to her green and pink hair, and her hair is done in thick chunky streaks this time. It's quite striking.
It's all tied up in a high side ponytail with decorative vines sticking up like some demented crown.
Her face is covered in vine patterning and she's dressed in a tattered up formal gown (have you noticed how short MH formal dresses are? I mean woah... )
I like the thick streaks in her hair, black looks good on her.
You can see here there's a little chunk of hair that's all knotted on itself and needs to be combed out. I'll fix that in a bit.
her ponytail is held in place with an elastic band and then a decorative vine crown that sticks up in all directions. It's a bit crazy. It unclips like the monster high belts, with a little peg that slots into a hole. It's not too difficult to get off but it stays on nicely, unlike some of the belts *sigh*.
There is a problem with the hair crown though, which is that it tangles into her hair a LOT. Thankfully her hair fibre is pretty sleek and smooth but it's still a bit annoying when trying to get her to photograph. you have to untangle the hair from the vines.
Her left ear has no piercings and features the majority of her very OTT makeup.
Her eyes are ringed with dramatic black and very thick lashes, there's a pink line at the inner lid and then thick rings of green rimmed with a paler green to give the effect of sunken eyes.
From her eyes ornate vines trail. She looks kinda like she doodled all over her face, which I totally used to do in my freshman year.
She has wonderful deep mossy green lipstick which I think looks great with her skin tone. Her fangs really stand out against it.
The right side of Venus' face has a teeny bit of vine doodling, an ear cuff that follows the curve of the entire ear and her flocking. Her flock has a brain pattern in it, which is adorable!
Her dress is green and black, I think the pattern is meant to mimic her fangs or something, i'm not sure.
The top part makes her look pretty busty.
Over the top of this is a tulle frill at the waist and two pieces coming up over her bust to form sleeves.
Over this she wears a belt with those same "tooth" patterns.
She wears a spiked cuff and a vine on one arm, and two small green spiked bracelets on the other.
She also has a thorny vine necklace.
Her handbag also has a spiked handle and painted buckles, studs and zippers. There are little fangs on it too, though they're quite hard to see.
Venus' shoes are bright pink and have teeth, smiley little toothy mouths in fact.
The back is all spikes with studs on the heel. Vines curl around both her legs too.
These are some super cute shoes.
Venus' hands are unique to this release. While usually she has splayed out leafy textured hands, Zombie shake has that same leafy texture, but her hands curled into claws.
They're wonderfully expressive hands and the nails are far more prominent in this sculpt too.
I took her hair down to fix that knotted bit, and you know what? I actually like her hair like this.
It's rooted quite thickly so there's no reason you couldn't restyle it. There's no clear part-line like most of her releases, but I think that makes her quite versatile.
I can't help but feel this look is a little more glamorous.
The black in her hair really sets the rest of her dark makeup off nicely.
Her dress is very tight, it restricts her leg movement a bit. She won't want to be bending over any time soon heh... probably a good thing she has moulded panties huh?
All things considered, this Venus is very different to other releases. She seems to have dialled up the plantiness to 11. She rocks that green lipstick though I almost wish her eyebrows were a darker colour. They look out of place being so light brown when everything else about her is so dark.
Now Rochelle...
Rochelle is the reason I bought this set, I just really liked the darker colours on her. The pink with deep teal and somewhat morbid themes just really appeals to me.
Rochelle's hair is pulled up into a sort of high ponytail and curled, but being in the box has kinda smooshed them to oblivion.
holding all this back is a headband with a filigree pattern and a big blue brain with tulle in place of a facinator.
The headband is plastic tagged to Rochelle's head, I don't think it'll stay on if I cut those tags. *sigh* I wish Mattel would figure out a way to make headgear removable and reusable without having to resort to elastic bands.
The high ponytail as you can see is a bit of a mess. all flattened at the back.
Interestingly, while there's clearly some product in her hair, it's not as crunchy as I thought it'd be.
I fixed her hair to the best of my ability. Took it all down, brushed it out, fluffed it up, finger curled it again and then pulled it up into a messy sort of bun, which helped fan out the curls better than the ponytail did.
It looks fine from the front, a bit messy at the back but oh well.
Rochelle's outfit is a deep rich purple and black, made of some sort of foiled fabric. The pattern is I think achitectural as usual, lots of swirls and symmetrical patterns. over that is some sparkly net with little glittery bits encrusted.
The whole thing is shimmery and pretty and suits her. I tried to see what she'd look like in a regular Rochelle outfit but the pale pink she's usually in just didn't work at all with her deeper colour pallette.
Over her dress she wears a blue belt with swirls. for some reason there's some packaging between the dress and the belt, which I had to remove.
One wrist has a chipped looking cuff while the other has a black bracelet with swirls.
Like Venus, Rochelle's hands are moulded into claws.
Her handbag has a chain handle and a stained glass window in the middle. The pattern is on both sides but only one side has the detail painted.
There's a zipper moulded along the top.
Rochelle has cracks all over her body, on her face, her shoulder and her leg. I think they're kinda fun.
Her shoes are super detailed, but sadly that detail is rather lost by them being black.
They're covered in architectural patterns, windows and at the back there's even a little stone gargoyle... Roux her pet in fact. It's an adorable little touch.
Zombie Shake Rochelle has dark teal lips and matching dark teal around her eyes. Her eyes are actually painted larger than usual, and the blue around them makes them even more massive.
She has a crack down one side of her face.
there's a single black streak through her hair, the rest is as usual, mostly pink with dark teal streaks.
Zombie Shake Rochelle looks very very different to her usual releases.The dark makeup looks excellent on her and the curls are just too cute.
Venus and Rochelle make an interesting pair, both so different to their usual releases. The darker colours, the patterns drawn on their faces and bodies, the clawed hands, all work to make them quite unique.
Though they don't redress very well, as nothing of Rochelle's usual wardrobe seems to suit her makeup. Venus may be a little more vesatile.
It's worth nothing, the pack comes with two stands, a brush and a diary.
the diary is written somewhat like Meowlody and Purrsephony's original diary, with each character taking a turn and having a conversation through the text. I think it's actually supposed to be a series of notes.
It's nice to see stands and a diary in a two pack, stands seem to be a bit of a rarity these days and diaries even more so. In the UK at least, we're seeing more and more these "international" diaries, which aren't diaries at all, just the bio repeated over and over in multiple languages. They suck, they aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
Overall, a really nice set and an absolute bargain for £16:99. Rochelle is most definitely a keeper, I love her. And that's saying a lot as I usually don't much care for formal dolls. Perhaps i'll find something more casual for her to wear some day.
All in all, I give this set 9 juicy braaaainsssss out of 10. They're very detailed, well painted, well made little dolls. I just feel like Venus' outfit is maybe a little too um... grown up for a 16 year old to wear to prom you know? *putajacketongirl*
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