It's roundup time!

Well start of May I put in payment for another bjd, which i'm not gonna tell you about till he arrives HAH.

But that coupled with the Beasts of the Mesozoic meant I haven't had much money for the past month or so that's not been earmarked for something else.

Of course, I have poor impulse control so that hasn't stopped me buying stuff. So long as i'm not in my overdraft it's fiiiiine, right?



So first things first, I finished painting my Xaveira at last.

She's a Doll Chateau doll, 1/6 scale so she's fairly small (about 10 inches tall) and quite complicated to put back together. I unstrung her to paint all her legs after failing to paint them with her intact.
She was strung WEIRD and so I took her completely apart and left her to one side while I worked up the courage to finish.

I finally felt guilty she'd been in pieces for months so I sat down, finished her blushing and put her back together.

It took SO LONG to do all those stripes omg. It's a bit messy in parts, especially near joints but eh, animals are never neat in their markings right? She's got such a freaking cool sculpt.

Because she's so absolutely tiny she fits Bratz tops (they're a little baggy in fact) but she has really wide uh.. hips?

As for the stringing, turns out that despite my worry she's actually not that complicated. Think of it like shoes, criss crossing the elastic through each leg hole like you'd lace shoelaces. My little cheap crochet hooks were very very useful for this.

Temporary clothing for now, just whatever I had that actually fit. I actually planned to have her dressed in something a bit more steampunky to fit in with Ludwig and Cree, but i'm lazy and sewing is something I hate doing.

I'm not sure if she needs a wig, her head is so tiny i'm not even sure where to start on that. Certainly she needs a hat or something to cover the head cap, but does she need hair? I dunno. I can't decide.

Anyway i'm relieved that she's finally back together. I was feeling super bad for having her on a shelf in a series of cups labelled "left" and "right" lol.

I also FINALLY gave this guy a face. I wiped him years ago, did a faceup, hated it and put him in the "box of shame" (failed customs lol)

He's a HSM Chad and I always liked his hair but not much else.

Anyway I had another attempt because a faceless doll is just a bit creepy.

I haven't painted a fashion doll in a long time and photos make him look shiny but that's my flash, not the sealant. (notice how his body looks weird and shiny too?)

I dunno what i'm gonna do with him though. If i'm honest, I just don't feel the same level of connection or care about Barbie-like dolls these days. I think i'm just bored of them. I still buy barbies sometimes because they look interesting but i've found I really struggle to bond with them once they're deboxed. I just... don't care any more.

So he might get sold, if there's anyone out there who wants one of my crappy repaints.

It's a shame because I used to have a large collection of Barbie dolls and I do still think a great number of them are beautiful, I just don't find them as engaging as vintage dolls who have all that history behind them, or more creative things like bjds or Makies who encourage a lot more hands on-ness.
Playline dolls in general have just lost their luster for me and maybe that's just a natural progression of the hobby, I dunno.

Not even repainting them makes me care enough about them. So hmmm.

That said, I did buy this girl on Amazon.

I never got around to buying a Made to Move barbie when they were first released, mostly because I still am not comfortable giving Mattel money, but the curvy mtm combined two of my favourite things, curvy body and apparently exceptional articulation. I figured I should take a look before she sold out and became impossible to find.

I preordered her, and waited... and waited.. and waited. Then she came into stock on amazon and they STILL hadn't dispatched my preorder! I waited for several more days, then got grumpy and emailed them all "why are you selling stock before fulfilling preorders?" and they investigated and found out my order had glitched out and ended up stuck. Somehow. I dunno how that works but they gave me a £5 voucher to say sorry.

I'd already used a voucher on the order so in the end she only cost me £11:99. Score!

Amazon's customer service was, for once, actually pretty good. Maybe they're finally bothering to train their staff. Or I just got lucky and encountered a guy who hadn't become utterly jaded yet.

Anyway, her outfit is... not very nice.
It's nice that her top is two pieces. The black boob tube thing I think will be a very versatile piece for people. The short football jersy is kinda cute but those trousers are just HIDEOUS. They're made of soft stretchy cotton stuff with printed on tears (lame) and an elastic waist band and super high waist. How... 80s. Does anyone under the age of 75 wear elasticated high waist jeans? I mean they are BAD.
Even if they'd been made of actual denim, the cut is so unflattering and just fugly.

I can't help but think the doll would have looked way cuter with maybe some short little denim shorts or something? Rather than fugly fake denim high rise granny pants.

The black top has velcro but the white top is just slightly stretchy. Not very stretchy, just enough to get over the bent arms of the doll. Putting this same top onto a non articulated doll is a bloody chore. I don't like this current Mattel trend of elasticated clothing. It isn't easier for a child to dress, it makes it all that much harder and puts a lot of unnecessary strain on the fabric and seams. Cut it out guys! Just use velcro like normal people or better yet, poppers! That don't snag other things in the toy box.

For days I tried to bond with Dancer's face but while I LOVE her hair colour (it's hot pink and a slightly pinker pink blended in) I just don't like open mouth sculpts. I never have, I never will. They always seem slightly psychotic to me and her face is just a bit too.. .generically Barbie.
I dunno, I couldn't bond with her.
Even redressing her didn't work.
I even tried restyling her boring as shit hairstyle (another thing I wish Mattel would stop doing. STYLE your doll's hair ffs, choppy cut just sort there hair looks unfinished and BORING)

Her trainers are boring too. And those pants are just... oh god... so ugly.

I ended up swapping her head out with the Daisy Fashionista I found in a charity shop a few weeks ago. She also has fun pink hair (albeit a pale baby pink shade) but has a closed mouth face which I find far prettier.

The MTM body is impressive. She can kneel, she can mostly fold her legs, she can touch her face and everything. She also has pretty good balance and can stand if you have a wall near her (just near her hair is enough to balance her lol). The big boots help a bit (they're slightly big but they fit her larger leg quite well)

(EEEP panty shot!)

The one big problem I have though is that the curvy dolls, while having a gorgeous body, have VERY limited clothing options. Mattel keeps releasing curvy fashionistas in boring as shit outfits, one piece dresses or ugly elastic pants or rompers, when really we need more mix and match pieces for them. Some shorts, some skirts, some proper trousers that aren't gross and old ladyish. Going through my doll clothing collection I could find very very little I could even FIT onto this doll (or any other curvy fashionista) and I find that quite limiting. The whole point of a fashion doll is FASHION, so to have bodies that are so hard to find anything to wear attractively is a massive negative.
Much as I love the curvy body shape, the fact it's so hard to find anything that fits means i'm unlikely to buy that many of them. Most of the time i HATE the fashionista default outfits (I mean honestly, rompers on full grown adults looks silly. I don't care it's fashionable, it looks dumb. You're not a toddler you shouldn't be wearing a sodding one piece)
But with no other options, what else do you do? It means all my curvy dolls are stuck either in their boring simple default outfits or wearing stretchy dresses like this one. While the stretchy dresses are okay and this particular one is quite nice (being full print and all), it's quite limiting and a bit boring to have EVERY curvy doll stuck with the same look.

The fact Mattel have given up on proper fabric and now everything is printed stretch cotton is also a hugely disappointing thing. The appeal of a fashion doll like Barbie was always supposed to be the CLOTHES. Mini versions of the sort of things you'd see on the high street right? Instead everything looks well, like a cheap costume with printed on collars and pockets and zippers and stuff. It looks crap and I refuse to believe any kid is truly happy with the laziness.
Sure the stretch fabric means they can make more clothing to fit all their 4 body types, but the cost is that half the time the clothing looks weirdly baggy on the smaller dolls and sinfully tight on the larger ones, way too short on some, way too long on others. Honestly I feel like, given they now have body variety, just making fashion packs for each body and clearly marking them as such would be more helpful. (I believe they DID when these new bodies were first released in the US, but the UK doesn't get fashion packs, so it's hardly a surprise fashionistas are languishing on shop shelves)
On top of that, all the new fashion packs are made from the shitty printable fabric anyway. Eugh.

At least the MTM dolls can wear both heels and flats. I never understood why Mattel did that with their dolls, the random flats or heels feet, it really limits options for individual dolls and honestly would have made more sense to just give them ALL the same feet and have fake sneakers like they used to do, where the pointed hoof-like foot just slots into a flattened shoe base so it looks like a flat foot.
It was another massive playability issue. You have one flat footed doll, all she can wear is trainers/sneakers while everyone else gets their choice of heels, boots and other glam footwear too?! The kid's gonna pick the doll that's easier to dress up in whatever they want right? which means a standard shaped one with the heeled feet, as that's where 90% of the clothing and shoes go.

Anyway, I won't go into too much detail about the MTM body because other reviewers have already done it to death. It's a very good body though, and well worth the £11:99 I paid lol. They actually retail at £21:99 which is a bit steep but at the same time, given the engineering involved, it's not too overpriced for what you're getting. The joints feel fairly firm and the doll, while light, feels well made. There's some obvious spots where the injection molding was injected and a few seam lines which you don't see on older barbies, but for a playline doll I don't think a few seams or little dots on the legs is that much of an issue.

The head also comes off pretty easily with a little heat applied (I use a hairdryer) and the skin tone looks to be standard Barbie "generic tan".
I had a look through my collection and yeah, only Daisy matched. Resting bitch face (Spring into style?) is a touch too beige and most of my other dolls are darker skinned (Zig Zag for instance) or super pale (LA girl).

The joints aren't overly attractive, especially the elbow joints, but they're effective.

Now a paler curvy is being released soon, as is a rather dark skinned regular MTM who i've preordered because you know, dark skinned doll with full articulation. That's really rare and much as I dislike Mattel, I hope that buying their darker skinned dolls encourages them to make more. If I end up not liking her head i'm sure I can find something to rebody onto it.

These MTM bodies I understand are very very collectable, kinda like the original articulated fashionistas ten years ago. Every doll collector I knew bought so many of those to rebody other dolls. MTM is better than those bodies so I think a lot of dolls are gonna get upgrades (hmm I wonder is My Scene Jai matches this new mtm.... )
The price of the mtm bodies is a bit steep for me (£21:99 instead of the £9:99 the original fashionistas were) so it limits the amount of bodies most of us collectors will buy, meaning we'll only upgrade the extra special heads, but they do make a great option for people wanting the "perfect" playline doll.
their poseability makes them excellent for photographs so I can see these being particularly a collector and older kid favorite perhaps more so than a young child's fave.
It IS nice to see variety being represented though, lots of skintones. Now Mattel, give us a mtm petite and tall body please.

Eldest went to came last week, so I was out early to see him off and as his school is close to the much posher town with the really nice charity shops I decided I may as well stay out after his bus left.

Also I needed distracting lol, my baby was going away for 3 days!

Anyway, first town I hit didn't have a lot. Fara Kids had some barbies and stuff but at £3:50 each it's always a bit steep and I seldom can justify it. They didn't have any particularly special ones this time and they hadn't restocked their doll clothing bin either.

they had some zelfs but I have waaaay too many zelfs.

As I was leaving I noticed a basket of Lego.

They had a bunch of bags like this for 50p which I thought was a bit weird. They looked pretty good though, so I bought the three Harry Potter ones just for the hell of it. They had Simpsons ones too, and some others I didn't recognise but a lot of them didn't look quite right.

As it turns out, the reason they don't look right is because they're ALL knockoffs. These are not legit lego minifigures, but damn they're close aren't they?

Harry has two faces, grumpy without scar and happy with scar. Random.

For some reason they come without their arms attached and wow they're a pain to get into the sockets.

also four hands. Why?

Hermione was even odder, her legs weren't even attached properly (interesting to see how this piece is actually constructed though) and she has THREE hands (what?) Hermione only has one face and is wearing her casual clothing.

I also got Ron, who has two faces. Happy and terrified beyond belief. They all come with "wands" which are really big staffs. lol.

They may be knockoffs (which I confirmed by opening them and looking for any logos, there are none) but they're pretty damn good ones. They plastic is slightly different to the regular lego plastic but it's a difficult call to make and the print on their clothes and faces is pristine.
So hmmm.

Ron's horrified by all the disembodied hands. WHY!? why so many random hands!?? I don't get it.

I had planned to let the kids play with these but being unsure of their origin and what sort of plastic they're actually made of, I think it's safer I hang onto them. They should make for some funny props and stuff for photos, especially Ron with his terrified face. He absolutely cracks me up.

But I now know there are fake lego minifigures out there. Something I wasn't aware of previously. So I guess that's useful info right?
beware of fake legos, they look VERY similar to real lego.

I then got on a bus to another town. In their Fara Kids they had a bag of Kidrobot toys for £5. I figured that was a great price for a big bunch of kidrobots and there were a couple in there I thought were cute. 

This girl was in the bag but isn't Kidrobot, she's a Mybu by Bubu co. She has the date 2008 on her foot.

From what I could find out, she's from a set called "perfect pair" which had boy and girl matching figures. I've never seen them before but looks like each was sold individually. 

What's interesting about her is that all her body comes apart and under her dress thing she has underwear. Wth?

She's quite hard to photograph because she's fairly small (about the same height as a regular zelf) but yeah, she has a painted on bra (weird as she has no boobs lol) and underwear.

She has "mybu" on her butt.

It feels like her hair might come off too but it's really stiff and I don't want to break her.

She's a weird little figure. A little playmobil perhaps, a little Trumpton or Camberwick Green and a little bit of What's the Big Idea

Oh Hugo... you freaky kiddo you. Seriously this show is messed up beyond all belief. Philosophy for toddlers, set in some sort of freaky ass dystopia.

Anyway,

Also in the bag were some "Dunnys" (Dunnys? That's aussie slang for toilet, i'm confused). This one is flocked and looks like the kid skinned Max from Sam and Max.

This one is green and is from a set called "I am French" but I couldn't tell you what about green splotches is french. Anyone?

And this one is called "Reach" (do they just pull words out a bag?)

It has another head thing on the back of the head. Weird.

Then there's these things which are er... anthropomorphic spray cans? They actually rattle like a spray can.

Not a clue what animal print has to do with New York. I'm just gonna roll with this. It's weird, these things are weird. Kidrobot is weird.

This one is freaky as all shit. It's the boobs, the spray can having teeth I can deal with, but boobs and fishnets is just a bit much.

She's uh... pink...

Also this thing, which is apparently a Kiiro chase figure called either Secret or Kiirex

It looks like a rubber ducky crossed with Woodstock from Peanuts.

Wtf?

And finally this guy, who is called Lancelot apparently. He's a Bamboozoo. I think he's adorable. He's basically why I bought the bag lol.

Familiar? Right?

I found ANOTHER wonderful wedding Polly Pocket in Fara kids too! It was £5:50 and rattled so I asked if I could open it up (it was taped shut) and sure enough, FULL of pollys. 7 of them in fact.

Seven pollies? Heck yeah!

First there's the ones that go with the set. What I find weird about this is that there's a Bride, a Groom, a flowergirl and a bridesmaid but no officiant to actually marry the couple. Wth? Is Polly supposed to marry them? She seems a bit too glammed up to be the officiant and the one with pigtails looks too young (despite being adult height lol) so... who's marrying them?

The bride has somehow lost an arm, poor girl.

There's also a carriage but it's broken.

A monkey, random. Maybe he's gonna marry the couple.

There were two of these, one with freckles, one without, otherwise both identical.

They, it turns out, are from the crystal ball set I already have (what are the odds?) so I took non freckles who had a stronger waist and put her into that set to keep.

and this girl who's from yet another set.

So there's 4 sets at least represented here. Wth? What happened to the other playsets? How'd they end up with two crystal ball ones? Is one a replacement direct from Bluebird? Is that why they're slightly different?
I'm so confused.

But hey, 7 polly pockets and a monkey isn't a bad deal for £5:50.

This guy came home with me a few weeks ago from the Fara Kids on the bridge heh. He's a tiny needle felted mouse. His body is a polystyrene egg and he came wearing these odd dungarees that were sewn to him. I redressed him. Pants are what remains of the dungarees and a little top that i'm not actually sure the origin of. He's cute. Not overly well made, but cute. Pretty sure he's a home made thing.

My last purchase is demostrating how small little mouse dude is.

This is Akemi, she's a Pullip.

She was... an impulse buy.

See, when i'm waiting for a bjd the long waits make me itch and I just can't help it, I crave a new doll. As playline dolls aren't giving me the same satisfaction, like the addict I am, I have to look for a stronger and stronger fix. It's terrible. I have a problem guys.

But I had some money put aside still and she was a really good price.

She isn't complete, she's missing her hat and her headphones, plus she's a little playworn but she's still one of the more popular Pullip dolls out there and stinkin' adorable.

and she has both hands! unlike my poor other Pullip who I still love despite her disability.

Akemi is unusual, she's one of the collaboration dolls Groove did so she was designed by a popular pullip customiser and that's pretty clear from how different to the factory pullips her face is.

She has one pink eye and one blue and very very soft makeup.

Her eyebrows are painted very softly as individual long brush strokes or hairs. God you'd need a tiny brush for that.

Like all pullips she can close her eyes, and they only close about 2/3 of the way, presumably this is because otherwise the whole thing sticks or the lashes get damaged, i dunno.

Her eyelids are painted blue gradating into pink. It's pretty.

Her wig is blue and pink and pretty similar to every pullip wig i've ever handled. The fibre isn't great but it's tolerable.

It looks more coarse in photos than it actually is.

Her outfit is weird. The hoodie unzips so the middle panel is completely removable, then you can zip the two sleeves together to make a smaller jacket. It's quite weird.

Sadly the middle panel is a bit stained with pink, though i'm not sure from what. So much of her clothing is pink, it could be anything.

Still, it's a bit of a bummer. Still for her price I knew she wouldn't be perfect regardless of what the seller claimed. Still, not sure if I can get the staining out, or even how to begin to try.

I think the jacket is cuter without the middle panel anyway.

Under that she has a dress on with a short skirt with a skull motif on it. Under that is a pink petticoat.

She has two long socks and then two legwarmers over the top with pompoms on them.

She's so dang cute.

I like that she has such a different face to my other Pullip, it makes them look nice and different.

This is my other girl, to remind you all.

She looks older to me.

And so that's my roundup of things I bought this month. I really need to do another purge. I have too much stuff but gosh it's difficult to chose what stays and what goes. I'm running out of room though, it's a genuine problem.