Mattel are suuuuper slow to release stuff here and I already bought Haunted and Exchange and that's all I really wanted. None of the other lines grab me and say "buy meeee". Sure a few are pretty, but the price is prohibitive and i'm seriously losing interest.
I'm kinda excited about Boo York and Freak Du Chiq, even though I only really want Luna and Gooliope (maybe Elle but her colourscheme is so like sooo many other dolls in the line, she doesn't stand out so much for me). But on the whole, i'm kinda going off the recent Mattel products with their shitty thinly rooted hair, lack of detailing and massive price tags. Also those boxes... I cannot forgive boxes that demand blood.
And there's not much else on the market really. I mean... the shelves are pretty sparse around here. There's Barbie sure, but i'm not a huge Barbie fan.
There are still some Moxie Girlz trickling into the country but we aren't getting every line, we only seem to get about 1/3 if not less of the stuff the US is seeing... and they're still over priced.
There's just not really anything new or exciting out right now. No competition to Mattel, no rival dolls on the shelves. It's pretty damn depressingly barren. Maybe it'll get more exciting toward the end of the year.
So what HAVE I been buying? uh... makies... lots of Makies lol. I'm up to 12 now with another on the way and even more on my wishlist.
they are awfully addictive. I'm really enjoying them, both designing them and coming up with characters for them all heh.
I also got a hold of some zelfs. I bought a few each wave since they were released, but I only seem to ever want 3 or 4 from each line, which isn't enough to send off for the LE one heh. I should have, I liked the cat one but by the time I worked out that I should just buy a few more zelfs I "kinda liked" to have adequate reciepts the time had almost run out. I'm pretty sure they must have run out by now. maybe next wave...
The skeleton one seems to be stupidly hard to find so i'm pleased to finally have her.
It amuses me to have Zelfs that thematically match Monster High dolls.
There's no weresquirrels sadly.
But I also bought this sea monster one a while ago. She's called "Oceana" and is a water dragon or something. they did do a loch ness one called Lochlan, which is a great name, but this one has more Lorna colouring.
they're fun, they're cheap, and I can't help myself when i'm at the supermarket. If I see one I like, at £5:99 they're totally falling into my trolley.
As for Makies, well, the makie team are NOT helping my addiction. They just finished a promotion offering 25% off AND free shipping within the UK and to the USA.
well, suffice to say, with money from ebay sales burning a hole in my pocket, more dolls "fell into my cart" *whistles*
The first to arrive was "Juniper", a Limited Edition Makie "character. This means she's not unique and one of the kind (despite what she says, clearly she's a liar) but rather printed in a limited run. There's an army of Juniper clones around the world bwhahaha. But the consolation for your doll not being one of a kind is that they are £20 cheaper than usual Makies. With the sale, she ended up an even more irresistible £36:75.
She came in the same boxes as the "made for you" Makies, which I already looked at in my last blog post. This is a better image of the random alcove you have to open to access the back of the ribbon to untie it.
She comes wearing a minecraft inspired dress which is a bit rough and stiff. And cotton leggings. She also has standard black slip on shoes.
Her skin tone is "cocoa bean" and one of my favourites. I love the richness of the darker tones.
Her face is lightly painted but it's pretty basic just like the premade and custom dolls.
Out of the box she's a cutie pie. She has really chubby cheeks, full lips, a teeny button nose and biiiiig black eyes. Her frizzy hair is tied into a side ponytail which honestly I feel makes it look a bit clumpy.
It's a lovely auburn colour. the wig isn't brilliant, you can see patches of wig cap through it if you aren't careful with the styling but that's fine to me. It's not massively obvious and it's worth it I feel for the fun of such tight curls.
I suspect this would frizz like hell if you put a brush near it.
I took her hair out of the ponytail and let it be freeee, but it stuck out in every direction so her box ribbon worked as a great little headband.
She got new eyes, which are Makie lab eyes I messed about with, and got a new faceup in coloured pencils and pastel.
I also glued in some lashes.
I love her.
they could be sisters! and in this household, that's precisely what I decided was the case.
Juniper has now, i note, sold out on Makies website. Her strawberry milk companion/friend however still has a few left. even at full price of £49 they're a great price.
Not sure if they just made less of Juniper, or she was the more popular, but i'm very glad I picked mine up when I did. She's awesome.
Then this arrived today... ahh familiar yellow parcels, you make me smile.
I've never seen a blue sticker before, I wonder how many different coloured ones there are.
I have green, purple, yellow, orange, red and now blue. Yay.
The box contains anniversary presents for husband and myself. Yes, we're getting his and her Makies for our wedding anniversary. What of it? lol. 6 years is the "3d printed people" anniversary i'll have you know!
In the tube... this cross dressing little mister.
Why is he in girl clothes? Because they only have three boy outfit options and that means I already have duplicates of each of them. So I asked the team if they could switch him into an outfit I didn't already own. If i'm going to get a free outfit with my Makie, better to be one I don't already have and can mix and match with another doll right? I kinda like the tights, one of my girls is bound to steal em.
And hey, at least I didn't give him a dress, bwhahahaha.
Don't let that smile fool you, he's already threatening me with bodily harm unless I give him new threads immediately.
I bought this for the boilersuit. None of the other stuff is Makie appropriate but I might find some use for it. never know. The gun is kinda fun.
The boots are Action Man, and slightly loose but look awesome. The coat is vintage Sindy.
The ridiculous glasses are Makie Labs, I knew he had to have these silly futuristic glasses when I saw them.
Now, he did actually come with shoes, but not the usual black slip ons. Apparently the lab have either run out, or are trying something new because he actually came with a pair of peg fit red trainers/sneakers. By "peg fit" I mean you have to pop the foot off and pop the shoe on instead, much like Bratz feet and shoes.
They weren't his look, but i'll probably find someone to wear them and it's nice to get a new pair of shoes. I have black slipons coming out my ears!
I named this boy Cassius, Cass for short. He's supposed to be August and Ig's other brother (they're triplets) and I AGONISED over getting him to look as much like August as I could. I didn't want to just print another August, I wanted Cass to have his own expression and personality but still look like he was August's identical twin. Maaaan it was hard. Particularly as because August wasn't designed by me originally, I have no access to his digital cartoon image.
So I had to hold the doll up to my screen and try my best to match it to the digital, which is never totally accurate.
I think I did pretty damn well. I purposely gave Cass narrowed eyes and differently shaped eyebrows, and a slightly less smiley mouth.
Face shape I got pretty spot on, noses are similar but not totally identical. But they're close enough. Cass' is slightly straighter than Augusts.
Also, Cass is a little darker skinned than any of my other Caramel toned Makies. He looks like he has a slight tan, which is kinda cute.
I'm very pleased with my new boy.
Now, while the sale was still going some more ebay sales cleared. So I scraped together enough funds to order one final Makie. This time a girl, and in "ice frosting" which is stark, undyed white. I've never handled a white makie, she'll be my first and i'm excited and anxious about it.
I'll share images of her when she arrives, she's still at the printers right now.
Sadly I couldn't afford any more Makies for the time being, but I have a long list of characters to be made real, and a lot of ideas. I'm really enjoying these little dolls, they're expensive, but I really do look at them and play with them ALL the time.
Totally worth the price to me.
Also this week....
Well, after months and months of waiting, my replacement from Tonner FINALLY arrived.
they're much more even, much shorter and they actually go across the top of her eye rather than only being in one clump to the side.
they look SO MUCH BETTER omg.
Amusingly, this one has relatively even legs but one arm longer than the other. I'm cracking up man, it's hilarious. I like to believe it's on purpose, because it's amusing to me and makes them feel so much like their vintage counterparts. I mean, perfection wouldn't be Sindy!
The lashes don't photograph well from some angles though, here she looks like she's having a seisure.
Still a beautiful doll, and i'm relieved to finally have my replacement. now I have to decide what to do with my extra.
So all in all, that's what i've bought the past month. Right now i'm slowly ammassing a collection of teeny accessories and outfits for dolls instead of actual dolls.
Now, I still have a few dolls from last year left to debox. Man, I really ran out of steam deboxing. I feel bad. But that might take a while to motivate me. I don't like opening dolls only to put them back into another box in the cupboard because I haven't got display space.
And I don't. Right now i've only got enough space for my monster high and Makie dolls to be out.
You did extremely well with making them look like brothers but not quite identical! That's a human level of family resemblance you achieved.
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