Novi stars - 2015 - Frostina Sprinkles and Carmela Sweet

INVASION!

Yes, these two new Novis are part of the Invasion line like Ina Ferna and Anne Arctic. But while they were elemental themed, this time we have um... sweet/candy themed ones?
Sweet Screams, novi style.

Carmela Sweet

Carmela Sweet, who is gummy soft and bendy... ooo er.

Her body is clear while her head is pink and shimmery and reminds me of bubblegum.

Being part of the "invasion" line, means these two girls have different boxes to Doe and Justina. ANNOYING boxes.

You have to untape both sides and the bottom, then fold the entire front of the box back to get access to the doll. Eugh. At least no razor sharp plastic tags though, just annoying having to cut so much tape and it means the boxes don't go back together afterwards.

The back of Carmela's box shows her prototype who has slightly different facepaint to her production doll. Her skirt is a different colour as well but on the whole she's pretty close to what actually got released... so huh... cool?

Her mission is to um... "pop, lock and gum drop it" is that street slang for something?
She does go on to claim she can get into some "sticky situations" so i'm going with the assumption this Novi is a bit of a young offender. Chewing gum and giving intergalactic cops attitude.
Don't let her candy looks fool you, this girl's a stone cold criminal man. (of course it helps her name makes me think of a certain lesbian vampire so um... yeaaah.)

The top of the box has cut out candies. cute.

Her art is quite cute. She's slightly see through and gummy looking with drippy icecreams in her hair and candy for eyes.

Carmela's actual doll is as insane as her artwork. She has huge poofy pigtails in blue and purple (very Maddie Hatter lol), ice cream barrettes, green and pink eyelashes and swirly candy eyes.

She has a bright orange brush though I don't think you want to brush that hair, it looks like it'll frizz as soon as you look at it.

Her lashes are acid green and tipped with pink glitter. her eyes are blue and pink swirls with lollipops? in them. She has no pupil.

She has a pale blue eyeshadow and then coloured blobs above her eye and under the other. The orange and yellow one looks like a sweet/candy but i've no clue what the yellow is.
Her dots are blue ringed with yellow on one side and yellow ringed with blue on the other.
She has yellow and orange freckles and her lips are pink.

Her dress has a black and silver striped one sleeved top, a big vinyl looking bow and a poofy skirt made of the same vinyl stuff. It's mostly pink with two panels of aqua and blue at the front.

  She has wedge heeled boots with a candy painted on the toe.

Her legs are soft and bendy but they don't bend too far and they always spring back into position. So yeah, they're bendier than normal Novi legs, but they're not exactly amazingly poseable or anything. It actually requires a fair bit of force to bend them much at all.

Carmella is packaged with her ice cream clips not actually in her hair, and they're a bit of a pain to be honest. the clip part looks fragile (mine have white wear already and that's just from opening them once) and they need to be clipped into only a section of her hair because she has TOO much hair for the clips. She really has loads of hair. It feels like nylon, it's curly and a bit frizzy ut it works for her. She's crazy looking, so crazy hair makes sense heh.
The clips themselves are melting icecreams with.. I don't even know what jammed into the top. Some sort of alien fruit? 

Her antennae are the same as Mae Talik's  but in blue. They're little bows.She is, to my knowledge, the only Novi with coloured antennae.

She is a similar colour to Ari Roma and in fact, she looks a lot like Ari.

They could be sisters... or indeed Carmella could be a candy themed Ari Roma.

Overall, Carmella is crazy and I rather dig it. I didn't think i'd like the candy girls but actually they are quite fun. They're nuts, but that's the appeal.
Her lack of pupils is a bit creepy and her gimmick is pointless and doesn't really work but I really like those crazy lashes and all the clashing colours.

I kinda want to make her MORE insane. Some fluro coloured leg warmers, some bracelets and so on.

I give her 8 sticky hair pieces out of 10. She's not as beautiful as Doe, but she's pretty full of character.

Frostina Sprinkles

I dunno about you, but "sprinkles" seems an unfortunate surname.
Frostina isn't a great first name either. But hey, she seems to be an icing themed Novi.

Frostina comes with a bright pink hairbrush and is "filled with sprinkles" which you can see inside her clear legs.

The back of her box again shows a prototype but like Carmella, here not a lot has changed. There's less detail painted onto things (no glitter on her top for instance) but on the whole, even the face markings seem to be the same. She's lost her odd bangs though... least I think those are bangs.
I think she looks better without them.

Apparently she's 17 shelf lives old... um...ok?
She wants to make life a little sweeter.

She also points out what's the point in having cake if you can't eat it, and I totally agree.

Her personality describes her as "happy as a rainbow". I wasn't aware light refraction could have moods... so there ya go.

Like Carmella, the top of Frosty's box has cut out sweeties. They're the opposite way around.

Her art is a bit confusing. Her body being entirely transparent I think just confuses matters.

Her actual doll actually only has clear legs, the rest is white.

Frosty's face is shiny, like.. really shiny.

Her eyes are orange and pink swirls like Carmela's, again no pupils and this time there's a.. cupcake? I think symbol.

Her lashes are pale pink with aqua glitter at the tips.

Her eyelids have stripes of purple and blue, that same purple and blue is used for her dots.
Under each eye there are symbols. Three random.. blobs on one side and a dot. And dots and a heart on the other.
I have no clue what these have to do with anything.

Her antennae are stars, just like Ari Roma and in metalic purple (So Carmella and Frostina both have coloured antennae instead of the usual silver)

Her hair looks like green cotton candy. It has the same texture as cotton candy/candy floss, kinda frizzy. It's all twisted up into a high updo (again, much like cotton candy) and wrapped with a white and pink plastic ribbon.

Her hair is actually stitched in place, and I haven't the courage to take it down and see how terrible it is. It feels wretched, like really cheap nylon and given how frazzled it looks, i'd say it'll look pretty attrocious in any other style.
But, that said, the texture works in it's favour for this style. because it honestly looks just like candy floss, just entirely the wrong colour.

Her outfit is erm... interesting?
She kinda looks like a go go dancer. *cough*

She's wearing hotpants, super short shorts with these interesting flap/tiers. The glitter er.. .rather draws the eye to her groin.

Her top is just a plastic uh.. well honestly it's a necklace. It's a giant plastic necklace. She isn't wearing anything under that. She is effectively topless.

But going topless seems to be nothing new for Novis. I suppose it's not like they really have anything to conceal. Mae Talik and Roe Botik are both topless as well (as is Tilly Vision but she has a tv for a chest so you know... )

But coupled with the hot pants this ensemble really feels a bit um... strip club. Well I suppose if you got the confidence right?

Bootilicious.

Her legs are clear and filled with plastic sprinkles. The problem is, the sprinkles are a bit too large so they get stuck in her upper leg section and won't come back down without some careful tapping and shaking. It takes a while.

Her shoes are chunky heeled pink shoes with sprinkles painted on the front.

They are in fact exactly the same shoes as Mallie tasker's.
I dunno, it seems a bit extra cheap to use the same shoes as the doll who's body sculpt you were also using.
At least they made them a different colour.

Frosty has four arms, just like Mallie and is even the same colour (well, she's a bit more pure white than Mallie). Perhaps they're from the same planet and Frosty just has a cake fetish.

I actually... I really like Frostina. She's utterly bizarre but her colour combos are striking and I think I actually prefer her to Carmella. There's something about that candy floss hair that appeals to me, and the hoochy outfit kinda... well... suits her?
I can't really imagine her in a pretty little dress or anything.

I give her 8 and a half short shorts out of 10.  Again, I still think Doe is more striking and gorgeous, but Frostina comes a close second. Which is interesting because I really didn't think i'd get the two candy girls, I didn't much like them from promo images.

Funny how that happens huh?

So here's all four of the new Novis, and they are so much fun.
Yes, they come without stands. Yes, they have the same problems Novi Stars have always had. Terrible hair fibre, loose limbs and falling off arms (actually, only Carmella's arm has fallen off so far, the Super Nova bodies are a bit sturdier) but I like the Novis. They aren't really play toys, they're more there to display I feel. They're small, they're fragile but they're so visually appealing that I can't help but enjoy them. They brighten up a shelf with their crazy designs and it's clear a lot of inspiration was thrown at this line.

It's sad to see the end of the Novi Stars, but at the same time I get why they didn't do so well.

But i'm very glad I got all four of these new girls. The candy ones surprised me with how cute they actually turned out the be. Their gimmicks are mostly pointless, but that's the case for ALL the Novis. Despite this though, the variety and variation in gimmicks was impressive.
Perhaps they'd have done better had more effort been put into making them more robust and less time was spent thinking of strange gimmicks to wedge into them.

Final thoughts? For £5 these were an absolute bargain. For £20 they're a ripoff. About £12 would be where i'd think a comfortable price point would lie, but MGA has never been good at judging price points.

now I need to clear some shelf space. these girls demand display time.