Well, it happened. Rarely does the UK get something earlier than the US but sometimes we get lucky.
Nefera came into stock on amazon via a third party seller in Belfast of all places, and she was retail price so I figured "yeah, let's go for it."
Amazon's own listing has an uncertain shipping date of "any time within the next 3 months" which I just can't with. I don't like uncertainty like that. ESPECIALLY as several times i've had Amazon forget about my preorders and not send stuff for weeks after they've gotten stock in regularly.
anyway,
she took about 4 days to get here but she's here safe and sound so let's take a look!
Honestly doll boxes these days really aren't very interesting, they're all the same. I just take the pictures out of habit at this point.
I still don't like how shiny the art is, it makes everyone look greasy and I find it quite off-putting.
anyway, blah blah blah box.
Only interesting thing here was that there was no tape holding the box closed, so it was super easy to open.
Now I will admit, I don't watch the show and I have no intention of doing so. I used to watch the old g1 one including the movies but at some point I just got old and grumpy and watching cheesy kids media started to irritate me more than entertain. I dunno what happened. I think I just got old.
anyway,
I do know they've changed a lot of the characters a LOT but this one is the most obvious to me. Nefera in g1 was an antagonist. Vain, arrogant, selfish. So it's funny to me to see her described as a "heart of gold" mummy lol.
Also i'm not sure why they changed her pet's name. She was called Azura in the original, perhaps they couldn't copyright that? But i'd have thought Lavish would have been even more difficult given it's just a word. I dunno. Feels like a pointless change but there must have been a reason.
I prefer the name Azura so I shall just be calling her that anyway.
Because of the way her head is tilted in the box I was concerned she had some wonk but her eyes look mostly even when you straighten up her head. It might be slightly off but it's certainly nothing awful. Thank goodness. Because I was worried when i first saw her.
She wasn't too difficult to get off her backing card. One tie around the knees, one around the waist, one single plastic tab in the head (YAY, is Mattel finally cutting back on that nonsense?) and two elastic bands holding her hair down.
I definitely appreciate not having to cut a load of plastic tabs out. I find it stressful as i'm convinced i'll accidentally snip the hair.
Like all the other dolls, she comes with the requisite assortment of plastic crap.
Glasses, two food items, a phone, a drink, a bag, a pet and this time a laptop.
I like the bag, pet and laptop but I really do find the foods kinda exhausting. I just shove them into the doll's bags and forget about them. I don't really think they add anything and i'd rather they spent the money on upping the budget of the doll itself. But ho hum.
I also hate the way these are packaged, the items are SO tightly wedged into their little plastic alcoves that many of them are extremely difficult to remove. I ended up sending her phone flying across the room trying to get it out and I nearly cave up on the bloody laptop.
There has got to be a better way to package these.
Anyway, out of the box Nefera is quite striking with a lovely shimmery bronze skintone (it's metallic like Cleo's but because it's darker it's far more obviously metallic. It reminds me a bit of Robecca's original skintone actually. It photographs a lot duller than it actually IS, it's quite shimmery in real life and very beautiful) and a lot of black in her outfit which I love. I like that Mattel is warming to the idea of black in their dolls because it's such a good base and allows a far more visually appealing pop of colour against it.
She is, as I said, darker skinned than her sister. She makes Cleo look really pale.
She's also taller, but not nearly as tall as I had anticipated she might be when she was first teased. I was expecting something like the Abbey body which is around about as tall as the g1 "big sister" body but instead Nefera uses what I think might be a unique combination.
She is also significantly darker skinned than her g1 dolls. I really like this. Whitewashing of the De Nile sisters was a major issue toward the end of g1's run, so it's nice to see Mattel actually committing to a dark skin tone here.
Like most of the g3 dolls, you can see where they took heavy inspiration from the original molds. Both Neferas have this very pronouced v shaped nose bridge and full lips with high cheek bones and a sharp chin.
Of course g3 is quite a bit softer in her features with rounder cheeks, a wider head and much bigger eyes. But you can see how one became the other.
Both have purple eyes and I do find it interesting they didn't go with the same effect of the blue pupils they did with Cleo. Instead Nefera has normal black pupils. I wonder why.
They've also used a very similar teal colour for her lips which is beautiful and always one of my favourite features of Nefera's signature doll.
And like her original doll she also has a head full of tinsel.
The g3 doll incorporates purple in the colour scheme alongside the original teal and black which looks nice and is something they did with her g1 Gloom and Bloom doll as well.
I think her hair is saran, but i'm not totally sure. It's soft and sits nicely though, so it probably isn't polypropylene. It lacks the stiffness of poly.
Nefera has a larger bust than her sister and unlike Cleo who uses a cinched curvy hip torso, Nefera appears to be using the standard body like Frankie.
She does however have curvy legs and while the lower legs appear to be the same as Cleo's in length, the upper thigh is elongated, rather like how Frankie's legs are done.
This makes Frankie and Nefera very similar heights to one another.
Meanwhile Abbey is not only significantly taller, she's also a lot broader.
Another detail I thought was cute is that Nefera's bandages are on the opposite sides to Cleo's.
Her arm one also extends all the way up to her shoulder while Cleo's arm bandage is only up the elbow.
Venus' body is actually the closest I could find to Nefera's body and even then, i think Nefera is using different legs.
Venus' lower leg has differently shaped calves and her upper leg is slightly shorter and rounder.
So I think Nefera is actually using Cleo's legs, just with the upper leg elongated to give her some extra height.
Which makes this yet another unique combination.
I do like when they do this. they have enough bits at this point that they should be able to do quite a few variations of body shape by just switching around the limbs and torsos.
There's also the added advantage that because they share a leg sculpt and the torso is the standard ones, Nefera can share clothing and shoes with most of the other dolls. Something Abbey and Catty can't do.
I think this is a good idea from a play perspective, I mean these ARE "fashion" dolls after all and if they end up doing fashion packs, having most of the dolls able to share pieces makes it a lot easier for everyone.
Much as I love Catty's body shape, she is rather restricted by being so unique.
Nefera's shoes are pretty nice. I like that they're predominantly black, it makes them versatile. They're little open toed shoes with ribbons tied up around the leg.
The heel is a snake, I think a cobra in fact. Which is very cool.
Her two bracelets are different to one another. one has a scarab beetle on, the other is pyramids.
She has a gold hair cuff around her ponytail too which I didn't get a photo of. It's got a scorpion on it.
She has a snake shaped upper arm cuff which is helped to stay in place by the mesh sleeve.
Her necklace is also a snake, this time in purple. It's kinda rubbery plastic which is a bit unusual so it wraps around her neck rather than clipping on like most doll necklaces do. It doesn't seem to have a face....
And finally her earrings are scorpions!
She's stealing Gigi's motif! The fiend! lol.
Though they stick out a bit strange, they are pretty neat earrings.
Her outfit is surprisingly detailed with a black underskirt covered with a layer of egyptian motif fabric and then a sash of tulle over the top of that.
The shirt is much the same, a bandage motif fabric with a sash sewn over the top and one mesh sleeve with a ribbon bandage effect at the cuff.
On her other arm she has a mesh arm cuff.
And here's all her plastic crap.
Her food appears to be a tub of hummus (the container looks like a sippy cup to me lol, but I assume it's some American brand that would be familiar to Americans) and some chips called "scarab puffs"
She also has what looks to me like a Stanley cup. it's branded "Horus" so is that a Horus cup then? It doesn't seem to open.
Her phone case is another Scorpion and is a similar bronze colour to her skintone which is a little... odd I think. It makes it feel like a skin toned phone which is... ick.
I think it would have been better black or purple or something.
The extremely pixilated screen shows she's chatting to her sister with a bunch of emojiis.
Meanwhile her gold coloured laptop has a screen of selfies and what might be photos of Cleo too? So is Nefera an Instagrammer? That feels on brand to be fair.
Do we have a canonical name for this tech brand? Like the "Icoffins" is this a "Doom book" or something?
The glasses are purple and like many of the Monster High glasses, they look good in isolation but don't really work when put ON the doll.
These also have a scorpion motif.
They're awkwardly wide and don't sit evenly on her ears.
Her bag is really nice. it's a large handbag rather than the backpack of the other dolls which makes sense for an older character. It's a teal colour with gold details and purple gems.
I really appreciate that the detail continues onto the back.
However, the latch is tiny and doesn't hold so the bag keeps falling open. I ended up wrapping elastic around it to keep it shut.
Azura/Lavish, whatever you want to call her is a teal coloured scarab beetle and she's a fairly faithful update to the original pet. She's a lot cuter sure, but I am glad Nefera got to keep her beetle and she wasn't turned into a kitten or puppy like so many others.
The detail on this pet is nice too. Her wing cases look like bandages and she even has texture on her belly.
Overall i'm very pleased with my girl.
Though I DO think she has eye wonk. You can see it here. One eye is bigger than the other. It's subtle enough that it's fine though. I'll take mild eye wonk over pixelated faces any day thanks.
Overall I think she's a very beautiful doll and like so many of the g3 dolls, I find her expressive face has a lot more life than her g1 doll ever did. Much as I like g1, alongside g3 they do look quite well... dead eyed honestly. G3 just have this personality to them that I really do enjoy.
Ultimately all I think i'd change here is designing the earrings to be a little less sticky outy. They might have worked better as actual dangly earrings but those tend to be quite fragile. Or just a bit longer or smaller so they could sit closer to her face.
The way they flare out looks odd to me.
But i really like her outfit, the little splashes of teal and purple work really well without feeling tacked on like some of the previous dolls (like Cleo's random pink earrings and shoes with her Skulltimate secrets doll).
And I love her face.
She still looks like Nefera, she's still very recognizable as the same character despite her complete personality overhaul.
I'm also absolutely in love with her skin tone. It's such a rich copper colour and the gold undertones look gorgeous when the light hits her. I wish it photographed as true to colour, but my camera wanted to make her several shades lighter and duller.
It's always nice to see another character added to g3, they've been surprisingly slow to add new characters and i'm honestly getting bored of yet another Frankie/Draculaura doll.
Will Nefera get a second doll or will she end up like Spectra, a one and done? Time will tell.
I do hope we see both of them again soon enough.
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