July dolly purchase roundup

So a little different this time around. I bought a LOT of dolls this month, because well.. birthday coupled with new stuff hitting. My poor bank balance took a pounding but I didn't really feel I had enough to say on each for a full review, particularly as a few are just another doll in a line i've already recently talked about.

So, what DID I buy that meant I got into my overdraft for in July?




Well, first at the beginning of the month my birthday happened and I ordered myself some cute plushies from Japan:

Alpacasso by Amuse:

HUGE box arrived after I paid Parcelforce their £13:50 extortion fee. -_- I hate parcelforce.

I got these guys from Tokyo Otaku Mode, shipping was pretty fast my only gripe is that parcelforce got a hold of it and slapped on their huge "handling fee" (read: ransom) which pissed me off a bit. I rather object to having to pay extra to have my damn birthday present delivered. Your handling fee should be covered in the bloody postage paid you jerks, otherwise what the hell am I paying for with postage? And how much work and effort really is it to rubber stamp a fricken box?
*sigh*

anyway, as well as my large and "regular" sized alpacas they gave me a badge, a postcard and the receipt held in a really nice plastic folder with a sexy anime girl on hahaha. Random sexy maid, why are you on my receipt?

Large Alpaca is fuzzy and giant and huggable, I love him immediately omg. I knew I wanted one this size but decided to get one of the smaller 16cm ones because shipping was the same anyway, also I figured it'd be interesting to see the size difference.

Little one is Alpacasso Wakuwaku or something, the bigger one is Cutie kids friends or something similar, I really didn't pay a huge amount of attention to the name of the series. I just knew I didn't want a boring white one or a pink one, and all the teal and dark brown ones were sold out.

Anyway, what the hell are Alpacasso you ask? Well, honestly I knew nothing about them till I saw some photos pop up on tumblr with these cute plushies and was all "eee those are cute! what the heck are they?"
Turns out, these things are made by a company called Amuse who make them for claw machines in Japan. They've become pretty collectable in the US particularly and there's a lot of places that now sell them as well as several places that sell bootlegs.
So off I went to find a legit retailer. Not that I minded much, but if I was gonna spend the money may as well see how much a legit one would set me back right?

Tokyo Otaku happened to be one of the many places Tumblr reccomended and happend to have two I actually really liked. As I said, I didn't want a white one or a pink one, and for most places those were the only colours still available. Several places also didn't stock the larger size which I knew I wanted most of all because I like my plushies big and squishable.

Honestly though, Otaku's website is a den of temptation. So many adorable and bizarre plushies! I'm a sucker for bizarre and/or cute plushies I have to admit.

I was strong, I only ordered two Alpacas despite wanting all the owls and such too hahah.

So my small Alpaca is a creamy brownish colour with a white face and little black button eyes. The fur on these is so soft and fluffy. This guy has a huge prize ribbon on his chest and a tag almost as big as he is.

His body shape is the more traditional Alpaca shape (more on that in a moment) and he even has a cute little stubby tail.

He's about 6 niches tall from foot to head and 5 inches long, so he's sorta well.. .in scale with my 10 inch dolls hah. John isn't totally sure what to make of this fuzzy newcomer.

Alongside a Barbie doll you can see how little the 16cm plushies really are.

And how big the larger sized one really is bwhahaha. His head's so giant!

Big Alpaca is a soft lemony yellow colour, my bedroom walls used to be this colour lol.
He's a "kid" Alpacasso which means he has this more rounded stumpy body with floppy ears. He has pink blush on his cheeks, in fact both do but Big's colouring and size is such that it's much more obvious on him.

Around his neck he has a ribbon and a felt pouch containing a little bird friend... or rather... the head of his bird friend ahem. Wonder what bird friend did to deserve decapitation but there ya go.

Both have a bum tag which supposedly should help verify they're real or something, if you're in a store and in doubt. Big's says "kids alpacasso" and is green. Little's tag is yellow and says "Alpacasso wakuwaku party", whatever that means. All the writing on the card tags is in Japanese so I have no clue what it says. There is a rather freaky photoshopped alpaca on the card, but i'll spare you that horror.

omg they're SO SOFT eeek.

Of course I had to find McKenna the sheep and Aloysius the hipster llama. Both are Build a Bear plushies that i've had a while, I NEEDED a plushie llama in my life when I saw them, I can't explain why heh.
He doesn't look happy about this new interloper, look how cranky that llama is!

The Alpacasso are, for the record, substantially softer than the BAB plushies, they're "can't stop rubbing your face against them" soft, seriously.

I thought I would be ok with just these two Alpacas... till I learned of another company who makes ZOMBIE ones and now... i'm aching for one of those too.

*gulp* Slippery slope...

Hujoo Minipin

One of my birthday presents was this little fellow. He's a Hujoo Minipin/rabbit. They actually arrive without eyes but I shoved some Liv eyes into this guy just so he wasn't super creepy heh.

So, the Hujoo dolls are made of plastic not resin, but otherwise are just like any other ball joint doll (BJD). This little guy is strung with elastic and has a broad range of motion in all his limbs and his little head. This is in fact the first fully elastic strung doll i've ever played with, i've had elastic strung vintage fashion dolls sure, but they're put together a bit differently with much thicker rubber bands, this little guy uses what looks like fabric elastic.

His head comes open at the back but it's quite hard to open. I had to pry it off with a sharp implement which left a few little scratches but I haven't the nails to slide into the teeny gap nor would I trust myself not to tear my nail OFF if I did.
once the head is open changing the eyes is pretty awkward. They need to be held in with putty (or in my case blue tac till I can get some putty) and the knot holding the head in place is directly behind the eyes, so you have to remove the whole head by carefully unhooking the elastic from a rod inside the head, then stick the eyes into a very narrow gap, squish the putty in good around them and hope they'll stay in, then rehook the head back in place and slot the cap back on (it goes on a lot easier than it comes off let me tell you)

He takes 12mm eyes which incidently seem to be the exact size of Liv eyes. I had some spare liv heads laying about so Sophie donated her eyes.

While  you can request a basic faceup, mine came blank so i got the fun of painting him up. I enjoy painting dolls but I wasn't really sure what direction I was going with this guy. He sorta took on a life of his own as the layers of pastel went on heh.

The sculpt of these things is adorable, they have egg shaped heads with little stumpy ears and big eyes. The smaller irises in the liv eyes make him look startled but I think it's cute.
The body has a round little belly and paws for hands and feet. There's even pads and claws on both feet and hands, eeee cuteness!

This guy is also TINY, he's only 5 and a half inches tall from his toes to the tip of his ears. But because of his size and the fact he's made of ABS Plastic instead of resin, these little things are one of the most affordable BJDs on the market, it also means they're a bit more robust. This plastic is pretty tough, and I like robustness in my toys.

They are a bit tricky to dress due to their size though. Apparently they fit Sylvanian Families father outfits but I haven't got any to test. I tried a tea bunny dress on him but it was a big wide. Likewise the Sylvanian grandma dress I had was way too big. He looked pretty cute in Pinkie Cooper's dress but it wasn't HIM lol. So I did some rummaging and came up with this outfit. The top and vest are Bratz, the jeans are Monster High 3/4 lengths (Operetta's I think) and the hat is from some generic army doll, I cut holes in it for the ears and rammed it on hah.

He's a super cute little bunny, I want MORE.

Monster High Gooliope Jellington and Luna Mothews

I should note, I also spent Inlaw birthday money on dolls hahah. Luna and Gooliope in fact, who I already blogged about earlier.

Ever After High Alistair Wonderland

Argh flash, I hate you.

Anyway, I also picked up Al when he popped up on Very for preorder. I got cashback for ordering through them, and obviously as my luck always dictates, as soon as he finally dispatched Argos got stock and put them all on sale. *headdesk*
Oh well.

His box should have warned me, the bio on the back is in lots of different languages.

So naturally, so is his "diary." I use the term "diary" loosely because a couple of paragraphs does not a diary make.
So sick of Mattel doing this, it's just so frustrating. Don't care if there's some stupid EU crap that means they omg haaave to do it, it's still super annoying to open a doll and excitedly open the diary to read some character development stuff and find... nothing.
Boo.

When Al was first revealed I was amongst those super disappointed by how BLAND her was. Alistair Wonderbread is a great name for him, because good god he really is just Ever After KEN.
Thankfully I rather like Ken, and because the EAH boys remind me a great deal of Bratz Boyz, I knew i'd need to get him anyway.

I had planned to make him a whole new outfit and restyle him completely. The frustrating thing is, his animated form is SO CUTE.

He's like... adorable and reminds me of Guybrush Threepwood (mighty pirate).

(Tell me you can't see it, man, now I need to custom one... ahem)

Sadly Alistair is rather er.. lacking in the accessories department. Compared to his animation, there's a lot wrong. his hair is wrong, his jacket is too short, his tee has no print, his bag is missing, his flask has lost the map holder loop thing, he's misplaced his necklace...

Christ Mattel, what the hell?

He has a kinda cute face though, even if he's a little wall eyed.

Frustratingly, his jacket isn't even a jacket. The tee and jacket are one piece, velcroed up the back. WOWZA that's cheap, even Dexter had a freaking jacket. And these new dolls aren't supposed to be cheaper than the older releases, they should have the same level of detail but nope, super cheap budgetified. Mattel really is raking in as much profit margin as they can on EAH aren't they?

It bothers me that his shoes don't close at the back.Slits in boots make sense sure, but usually those slits at least mostly hide themselves. this is just ridiculous.

The boots are pretty hot though. So much moulded detail lost by lack of detail painting.

same goes for the flask and compass, they're present and beautifully sculpted, but lost in a sea of brown plastic.

His pants are 3/4 length but honestly that doesn't bother me, it means his boots go on a bit easier and I think looks kinda cute and adventery/piratey when he's barefoot hahah.

He thankfully comes with a stand. At least they didn't screw us over on that front huh?

Anyway, I saw a few people online had taken it upon themselves to "fix" Al's outfit and make it more like his animation. I figured I may as well have a go, if I screwed it all up I would just go back to plan A and make him a custom outfit.

First I got out a watercolour pencil, which in hindsight was probably not the best tool for the job but I didn't trust myself with a paintbrush doing fiddly lines. With pencil in hand, I sketched in a map motif on Al's shirt.
It smudged a bit, because you know.. watercolour. But I was fairly pleased with the result so I forged on.

Next step was the paint in that sculpted detail on his accessories. His shoes and his flask got a lick of gold paint.
I then added the map loop with a scrap of vinyl I happened to have in the right colour (yay leftover from covering chairs! haha)

I also made him a belt using this vinyl stuff.

Finally I crafted his necklace vial using a teeny plastic tube from some packaging, the teeny spring from a broken pen and cotton thread.

Then I pilfered the Bratz box and found him a backpack. Bratz Boyz came with the best accessories back in the day man.

I also rinsed the gunk out of his hair and tried to ruffle it up.

Now, I couldn't lengthen his jacket, and I couldn't curl his hair into the webisode accurate waves, but i'm pretty pleased with the end result regardless.

This boy is ready for ADVENTURE.

The smeared part of the map kinda looks like the staining you'd get on an old timey map so it's ok hah.
I wish they'd just given him a map print shirt though, honestly how much more would that have cost mattel? JUST that single detail would have lifted a really bland doll to cute, and it's such a simple damn thing!

He still looks like a Ken doll but I can forgive him that.

And gosh handling my old Bratz stuff again reminds me of how damn awesome those lines were. Inside the bag is a teeny thermos with a removable mug/lid, a compass and a GPS unit, and all the pockets are real freaking pockets! Sit up and take notes Mattel ffs.

I even have a white rabbit for Al to encounter. I prefer my bunny, it pisses me off that EAH Bunny is inexplicably PINK because of COURSE she is, Mattel can't do any line without painting someone pink right? *sigh*

Bunny looks terrified hahahah.

The boys are ready for whatever Wonderland can throw at em.

I like Alistair, don't get me wrong, but it took me a whole evening's work to get him up to scratch which is utter bullshit on Mattel's part. I feel like EA

I feel like EAH is the unwanted child of the Mattel family, the one getting the least attention and love and kinda being tossed aside with "it'll do" releases. The irony is, this is the line Mattel SHOULD be pushing hard because next year Hasbro has the Disney license and mattel will no longer be able to settle back on the guaranteed sales of their crappy static princesses. EAH is the main rival for the Disney princess demographic, but it's not going to be much of a fight if EAH don't shape up.

I'm hoping Hasbro has managed to put the fear into Mattel and that we WILL see an increase in the detail and interesting designs and ideas for EAH. Much as the universe has more holes than a swiss cheese, the potential for interesting doll designs is there waiting to be discovered.

MC2 McKeyla and Camryn

I already talked about Camryn and the MC2 line previously, but I was impressed by Camryn despite her strangely lightweight body. So when Argos had 342 I picked up the only other one my local store had, which turned out to be McKeyla, the hipster. lol.

I was pleased when this box was hurled down the conveyer in the store, I had a momentary fear that after prepaying they'd send a second Camryn and i'd have to return her. I didn't really mind which of the other three I got, but husband really wanted this one and I have to admit, her owl shirt and hat are things that appeal to me a great deal.

Who the heck has effervescent tablets just laying about the house? Am i strange for not having those?

Also her name is stupid. McKeyla Mcalister? that's terrible, i'm glad she's fictional or i'd have to slap her parents. I keep wanting to spell her name McKayla because you know.. somehow McKEYla is more moronic. Argh, i hate surname first names, particularly on girls. Nothing screams "we wanted a boy" more than giving your beautiful daughter a boy name or worse, a name that includes any sort of patronym.

McKayla was a pain in the butt to debox, like.. oh my god.

So, she was sewn into the box like Camryn was, but her hat.. .oh god.. her hat. It was stapled into place in like 5 places, and really tightly too. I hurt my hand trying to get scissor blades close enough to CUT the stupid things.
thankfully they're all in her hairline and not in the middle of her forehead, but sheesh, MGA did you really need that many tabs holding a hat in place? Is there a problem with rampant doll hat thieves or something? Christ guys, chill on the impenetrable packaging.

Her hand btw, is totally sewn to her pants hahaha.

Her outfit is multiple layers just like Camryn, it consists of a jacket with leather effect sleeves and denim body. A tucked in tee with an owl wearing glasses (very hipster lol) and short denim jeans.
She also has a large square ring that says MC2 on it. It looks like a scrabble tile.

Removing the jacket reveals that the shorts actually have suspenders attached. Cute.

Her knee high socks are actually leggings and have numbers and letters all over them, and a few symbols. it's hard to make them out as they're white against a light grey background.

Her shoes are clompy red boots, like Camryn's shoes they're really soft and easy to get on and off her big flat feet.
interestingly, by some fluke I ended up with the two flat footed dolls. The other two characters have heeled feet. random huh?

The hat is made of cheap flimsy plastic and flocked, it will NOT stay on her head now i've cut the ties. It isn't actually big enough to fit over her huge mane of hair.

Mckeyla has a pretty rounded face with a pointed chin, full lips, a cute little nose and big expressive green eyes. She has a smattering of faint freckles across her nose and cheeks that are not very obvious unless you look closely. In fact from a distance you can't even see them, which I feel is a shame.

Her hair is long and black, and like Camryn's, a bit frizzy.

She has really round quite big ears, and like Cam, no earrings to speak of.

She has a unique face mould, quite a bit fully than Cam's, even the ears are a totally different shape.

McKeyla comes with a backpack, a book and a red tablet.

the book actually opens and has a slot to hide the tablet. Adorable! hahaha.

Annoyingly it doesn't fit IN the damn bag. *sigh*

Disappointingly the bag is actually just a recoloured Bratzillaz backpack. I suppose they gotta get some use out of that mould huh?

She also comes with this.. lava.. lamp thing. It's HUGE, like.. compared to the doll anyway which is a shame. one of the other dolls comes with a teeny volcano experiment that's in scale with the doll and it's adorable, this thing is just way too big to be in scale with anything. it has a light at the bottom that when you press the button flashes through a few different colours. the top is a lid that screws off so you can pour the oil and water and effevenscent tablet (what even IS that?) in and watch it fizz for a short while. Unlike cam's skateboard or Adrianna's volcano, this isn't an experiment that doubles as a doll accessory and that's disappointing. A dolly scale lava lamp would have been cute, though yeah, not sure how you'd get that to work with a "DIY" experiment. Maybe have her come with a small non working one of her own as well?

Anyway, it's a bit of tat to go into the "random tat" box.

I managed to get her damn hat back on btw. I threaded an elastic band through the holes left from the staples and looped that under her hair.

I should also note that my McKeyla had a gammy arm. Her right arm won't actually hold a pose, it seems really floppy and weak. I had to elastic band it to the other hand to hold this pose as it just wants to drop to her side. Bleh.

Still, she's gorgeous, they both are. I really like them but they're a bit overpriced. When there's another sale I might get the other two.

Bratz Hello My Name is Jade and Study Abroad Sasha

So already talked about Jade and the new bratz, but I had to go back and grab Sasha. She called to me, she haunted my dreams man!

Again Argos 342 meant I could justify the ouch price tag. (if you're wondering, the 3rd thing we got was a lego set for husband) so Sasha finally came home with me.

 

These dolls come with a LOT of tat.

So Bunny Boo goes to Britain, which this country is never called except by foreigners. it's the bloody United Kingdom or if you're feeling old fashioned, Great Britain man! Don't lose our GREAT, it's important, how else would you know we were better than you? hahaha.

Back of the box has an itinary of touristy things to do in London mostly, and stonehenge... ok then.

Her photo has her wandering around outside parliament and there's Big Ben (well, Elisabeth Tower to be pedantic but screw that)

Not sure if the UK = Posh stereotype is entirely helpful here, there's startling few actual posh people here but aren't foreign misconceptions and cliches about your home country really damn funny?

I really thought the keep calm trend had died, but it still shows up every so often and here it is.

So, you may notice my sasha has a wonky eye. *sigh* Such is the problem with Argos, you can't LOOK at the doll before you buy it unless you want to queue twice.
even then, they get cranky with you asking.

Now, I would complain that the umbrella and rain is an unfair cliche but then summer decided it was over and we got a month's rain fall in 12 hours... so uh.. carry on.

Sasha comes with a LOT of stuff. A hollow bunny ... thing (I dunno, it's supposed to dangle off something but i've no clue what. Bag?), a cup of tea (laughing so hard), some... cakes that I can't identify (scones would have been more appropriate surely? Or bourbons.. mmm bourbons.) some stickers that look to be the same for each doll in the range, jewellery, blue lip brush and a second outfit.

Oh and a handbag.

I really prefer these thicker eyebrows to Jade's arched bitch brows.

Sasha has orangey red lipstick, silver eyeshadow that doesn't photograph well and blue streaks in her stupidly overlong saran hair.
Her hair is pretty though, even if it is ankle length and thus stupid.

Ahh princess hair, just perfect for trudging through all those muddy puddles huh?

Under Sasha's funky red corduroy jacket she has a white short tee with a phone box on it. Her tarten skirt has suspenders on it, they're made of some sort of fragile feeling thin vinylly stuff.

She also has fishnet tights... or well.. leggings.

her hair shedded a lot out the box.

Anyway, the jacket has vinyl cuffs and gold braid trim. The sleeve edges are suffering some loose threads from pushing her hands through them, I always hated trying to get Bratz hands through narrow sleeves. The new hands are no easier here, in fact, because the fingers are SO long they're even worse! the thumb always gets caught, it's infuriating.
I miss detatchable arms already!

removable feet however are awesome for tight pants and leggings. Her fishnets are really nicely made and fit really well. Mattel take note, MGA can make their tights fit their dolls, why CAN'T YOU!!???

She also has a fuzzy bakerboy/newsboy style hat with a fuzzy body and vinyl brim. 

Upettingly, her tights and cuffs have stained her body. Thank goodness she's so dark skinned or those marks would be really bad news.

Her alternative outfit features some hideous gold pants made of some sort of crunchy glitter encrusted material of ick.. and a cute plastic feeling crop top with a union jack on it. And phew.. yes, it is the right way up hahahaha.

i like the top, I loathe the pants. they look like blinged out pjs.

Herhandbag is a simple heart shape with a union jack on.

Her earrings are phone boxes and kinda cute, though it takes a bit of force to get them into her ear holes as her head is SO hard and the earrings so soft and fragile.

Her bracelet looks like just generic silver chain.

I have no idea what the necklace is meant to be. It's totally 3d which means it doesn't sit nice and flat against the doll's chest, so it looks odd on. I don't much care for it, nor can I work out what the hell it IS.
it's an ugly gaudy shade of gold too.

the cup is adorable. the cakes? What the heck even ARE they? anyone know? It's killing me man.

I like her outfit like this, with the secondary top. The blue ties in with the blue in her hair.

She came with a wheely bag that's enormous and opens. It fits most of her random tat in it but it doesn't latch closed very well at all, it pops open as soon as you touch it. I had to elastic band it closed. A shame because the old Pretty N Punk and Tokyo a gogo cases all latched shut really solidly.

The guardsman bunny does rather remind me more of a chinese boy, I think it's the length of the jacket and the way the buttons are done. Still it makes a cute toy for the doll.

Sasha's shoes have a similar heel to Jade's but are a very different shape.

Jade looks MEAN, Sasha looks sweet and slightly worried. Love how much personality there is here.

I really love these two. Still not sold on half the Bratz stuff out, but i'm happy there's at least a couple of lines to get excited over.

SDCC exclusive Monster High Valentine and Whisp

yeah these also already blogged about. My bank account at this point is sobbing in a corner.

Vintage Sindy dolls

Popped into a charity shop and spotted this:

Eee a shoebox FULL of sindy and similar clothing and two vintage Sindy dolls!
£15 was a bit steep but I can't leave vintage sindys and the box included a couple of outfits I actually really wanted anyway.

Poor girls need TLC.

They cleaned up really nice actually. they're 70s dolls as are the clothes. there's a fair few authentic vintage sindy outfits and a few bits from barbie and faerie glen. Also three pairs of shoes. Honestly worth the money I think.

The brunette was actually a pigtailed/bunches sindy so her hair is supposed to be parted right down the middle from forehead to nape of neck. It took seriously hours to repart her hair omg.

The blonde is a ballerina and the pen mostly came off her face with just soapy water.

In summary

Man, I massively overspent in July. But look at all the pretty things! ehehehe.