So, flush with Christmas money and kinda in that post holiday season come down, what better way to get a little shot of happiness than by splurging on some small plastic people?
Also, sales. There's a lot of sales.... January sales, Easter sales.... all the damn sales. And some pretty nice ones for once.
So, I did a thing. Well... several things. From multiple places.
Amazon US
Amazon JP
Amazon UK
Very
Ebay
Vinted
Aliexpress
I.... might have gone a little mad.
but in my defense, SALES!
so let's take a look at all the things I splurged on and feel kinda a little bit like I need to justify shall we?
This won't be quite as in depth as some of my individual reviews but i'll try to be detailed without this ending up too long. I intend to split this into a few posts too. Just for you know... my sanity.
So here's part one!
So let's start with Aliexpress.
I haven't ordered much from them for a while because recently it seems a lot of search terms have been blocked in my region. "BJD" for example returns "no matches" when it usually would give me a load of wigs and clothing to browse. Same goes for other bjd terms like "msd wig" or "1/4 wig" "1:4 wig" "6-7 wig" and so on. When i set my shipping region to the USA things appear, so it looks like it's a region block and I don't know why.
anyway, this is somewhat a moot point anyway as what i'm talking about today isn't a bjd or bjd related anyway.
It's a Bratz doll.
See, back when Pretty N Punk repros were released I was eying up the new Sasha. However, she only came into stock ONCE on Amazon that I ever saw, and sold out quickly. I was so sure she'd restock because all the others did, why wouldn't the brand new release restock? But it never happened. And by the time I came to accept Amazon (the only supplier who seem to be stocking new bratz in any sort of quantity here in the UK) weren't restocking, the US stores had stopped stocking her too.
*SIGH*
I've been annoyed about it ever since.
and then I came across an aliexpress listing for her jeans, which surprised me because you don't often see such new bratz stuff on ali, it's usually old old 2000s stock or maybe some modern shoes. Anyway, that got me wondering "if they have this piece, do they have other bits?" and lo and behold, i found her head from one seller and her skirt, trousers and second top fro a second. I also found her jacket/vest but I didn't much care about that piece. I couldnt' find her primary shirt unfortunately, or her shoes but her shoes weren't particularly interesting, they're just silver versions of the standard pointy Bratz boot.
I had a spare Sasha laying around anyway, so I figured I could use her as a body donor.
yeah it wasn't cheap, cost me about what it would have cost to get the doll new back when it was released, but I really did want her and i've been grumpy about missing out for a while now.
It took a couple of weeks, aliexpress shipping is slow as shit, but the pieces all arrived neatly bundled together in one envelope. The clothing immaculate, her whole second outfit in fact still tabbed to the plastic torso shape used in the packaging. Which makes me think these were surplus that never made it to the final stage of being put into the box, but nearly got there.
I can't see any flaws, so i'm not sure why these were rejected. Perhaps they just made too many?
the head is equally perfect. Again I can't see anything obvious that would lead to it being a factory reject head. So I dunno.
Of course, I was too excited to get her all put together to take "before" pictures.
First thing I did was restyle her hair into something that read more "punk" to me.
Here is her actual stock image, showing all her pieces and her original hair.
The white streak is a sort of yarn material, rather like the stuff used for the coloured streaks in Tokyo A Go Go. It feels a bit out of place in this line because no other doll uses it. It does add a nice pop of contrast, but it does have the issue that because it's a lot thicker and more rigid than the saran that makes up the rest of her hair, it sticks out strangely. I feel like it would have worked better as white saran, it also would have been more in keeping with the other dolls in the line.
Her outfits are also a bit out of place.
The spangly almost a union flag top works fine, but the very complicated trousers are far too modern to blend into a line from the early 2000s. The whole second outfit doesn't scream "punk" to me either, rather that skirt feels quite gothy with the mesh and lace. It's a gorgeous skirt, I absolutely love it, but it looks like it'd fit far better with a line like Midnight Dance which was very dark and gothy, rather than the punk line. Sure there's a degree of Vivienne Westwood in the shape, but it still doesn't quite read punk to me, it looks like something i'd have worn as a Camden goth kid in the early 2000s.
The second outfit stands out especially compared to the secondary outfits of the other dolls. I mean i'm not convinced all these pieces are very punk on the other girls either, but at least they feel in the ballpark. Also the girls all having matching black boots helps tie them together as a group. Sasha's inexplicably silver boots stand out and single her out.
Now, I do know a lot of people really didn't like this Sasha, pretty much for the reasons I just went into. Her design didn't feel in keeping with the other dolls she was supposed to share a line with.
On top of that, apparently Sasha DID have a Pretty N Punk design in the animation, she just never got a doll.
And a lot of people wanted this but i'm gonna be honest here? I'm actually glad we didn't get this version.
She's kinda boring.
Straight center parted hair, like most of her dolls of the era. A fairly plain black tank style top (probably in pleather) and a plaid skirt.
I feel like all of her pieces just aren't distinct enough, i'm pretty sure you could cobble together a doll that looked pretty much exactly like this from existing pieces.
Sasha so rarely gets releases with properly textured hair so i'm just delighted that they went that route with her instead of the easy option.
Now that said, perhaps they could have appeased both camps but giving Sasha this as her secondary outfit? But then we wouldn't have this incredible mesh skirt so... hmm.
I also really like her bronze toned lips and honey brown eyes. I know green eyed Sasha is her "original design" but I do appreciate when they don't try to "soften" her blackness by giving her straight hair and light eyes, you know what I mean? Yeah green eyes pop nicely against the dark skin tone, aesthetically it looks nice, but from a cultural and political perspective giving dark skinned characters more ambiguous features is often used as a way to make them more palatable to a white audience and that makes me a bit uncomfortable.
I appreciate that this design for Sasha wasn't forced to minimize her ethnicity.
But that's enough about colourism and politics! You're here for the DOLLS!
Sasha also has a painted undercut on both sides of her head. it does sort of read more as "we rooted her hair too high" but no, that's what it's supposed to look like. As others have said, perhaps flocking it would have made it look more intentional.
I had originally intended to use more of her original pieces but I found that her secondary outfit, while I really like it, just isn't giving "punk" to me. Also the material the caution tape top is made of is a thick vinyl sort of material that fits a little strange. It reminds me a lot of the material used to make those rubber fetish outfits. I think I can style it well, but it sits a bit awkwardly on this doll and I preferred the clear line of this (I think) OMG top.
These trousers are beautifully made, but they're also a very strange design. They're micro mini shorts with mesh that then attaches to the rest of the leg.They also have these pleather? Vinyl? straps that i'm terrified are going to tear every time I pull them up over her shoulders. It's a bit odd and I didn't like them much in promo images, but styled on the doll they just work for me. Go figure, sometimes a strange piece is just what a doll needs.
Her hair is beautifully soft and thick.
The rest of her outfit I cobbled together from parts in my stash. A jacket that's probably from a rock angel or something. A black and red version of the pointy boots, a little bit of ribbon for a choker, a repainted 2016 Bratz necklace (it's a pair of lips. I painted it a pewter colour rather than the dull grey it was originally), some glasses and asymetrical earrings (one is a flower made of bones from a Monster High doll, the other is a pair of safety pins repainted silver which I think came from one of those flat Style Bae toys)
I think higher boots would have looked a bit better but I didn't have any in black.
That said, I love this doll and I think she reads far more punkish now. I'm glad I finally have her in my collection.
and I look forward to finding a doll for her incredible skirt because that piece is going to be gorgeous to restyle.
Right, NEXT THING!
I got this little YMY11 body from a recent doll meet and was pondering what head I could put on it. I'd seen a couple of other people put Skullpanda figure heads on random bodies but none this teensy tiny, but I felt like the proportions would work really well.
This particular figure is the "Mare of Animals" unicorn who came to me damaged anyway. So I didn't feel overly guilty tearing her head off, drilling the hole bigger and ramming it onto the YMY body.
Finding clothing that fit this really little body was difficult. I cobbled together some bits. The undershirt is from a Cave Club doll, the jacket from a LOL Tween and the trousers I think came from a Lil' or mini Bratz and needed a little slit cut in the back to fit over her thighs.
the shoes I think might be from a mini sindy but I can't remember. they're actually too big but they're close enough.
I adore how she came out. I made a bit of a mess drilling the head hole but you can't see it with the head on and she can tilt her head and look up and down absolutely fine.
As for how big she is, she fits in the palm of my hand.
Wild Hearts Crew
How about a blast from the past?
Wild Hearts Crew were a short lived Mattel line that came out back in 2019. you can read my original Review of two of the dolls here
At the time I expressed regret I hadn't also ordered the others, but as they were exclusive to walmart and never came to the UK, I couldn't be bothered going through the hassle.
until I found out that Amazon had a load of dead stock.
for the past couple of years i've been watching that dead stock, umming and ahhing over whether to order but with shipping and customs as high as it is, it's never felt viable.
This christmas there were other things on Amazon I wanted and some really really good deals to be had so I could get the overall price down to something I was actually willing to pay.
In my first review I snarked a lot over their bios. One of them literally has the personality trait "likes pizza" and the other is "music, I like music, I do music" which felt pretty (forgive the pun) one note.
Kenna is the photographer character, she really likes photography. And while it never says it on her box, the addition of the little aliens as well as her name lend a little "cryptid hunter/conspiracy theorist" vibe for me.
Her booklet states that she's "good at photography" (duh) and can't go anywhere without her camera (yeah yeah) but her needs practice section is actually kinda interesting. For some reason I didnt get a photo of that page but it says ""needs practice taking some things at face value, i've been told that sometimes, it's actually the case" which, if i'm reading that rather awkward sentence, means she's a bit of a skeptic rather than a believer?
I don't know. Maybe i'm just not understanding that awkward wording.
This section also adds a little science nerd to the whole thing.
And then it's back to the photography.
So... a skeptic truth seeker with a camera? Yeah, that tracks.
Despite the box damage, the doll is absolutely fine. Thankfully. I always really liked the faces on these dolls, their extremely over the top lashes are really distinctive.
Kenna's outfit is cute, even if her trousers are typical Mattel printed bullshit. Even the CUFFS are printed, which is a level of cheap Mattel really excels at. But whatever, they're well sewn and this was a pretty low cost line when it was released.
she wears a mesh top over a black sleeveless tee, a pair of sneakers and a black plastic beret.
the pants have suspender straps made of ribbon. They're a little awkward and slide off her shoulders a lot.
Her undershirt features a foil print of a cow getting abducted by an alien. A cute detail and nod to her name.
Her hair is kinda wierdly cut. It's choppy and all different lengths with a bright blue and then black underneath. I am pretty sure this is polypropylene, something the whole line seems to use. Which is a pity. It's stiffness is most obvious with this doll because of the style and length. The shorter bits stick out strangely and the ends look a bit frazzled.
I don't think I really understand WHAT this style is supposed to be. A really poorly executed wolf cut? A really badly cut bob?
I might cut it so it's at least even.
Her outfit is all separate pieces which I always appreciate, and they're all fine. Nothing amazing, but fine. I do wish her pants at least had real cuffs though, would that really have taken that much more work? I can deal with printed on stitching and printed on decals, but cuffs? Come on!
Her trousers look like she's written/painted over them. There are stars and hearts, a pyramid, "believer", what looks like either crop circles or the Nazca lines, hello?, spaced out, a little alien saying "who are you?" (I think), several aliens, a rocket, lips?, a cat face, a couple of eyes, a lightening bolt, UFO, earth with "ur here?!" and an arrow and the number 51. There's also what looks like a map or something, it's little dots and what looks like a mountain range. But it could just be artificial distressing. It's really hard to tell. Some of the print is a bit blurred and hard to make out.
Her hat has a silver safety pin with a heart charm painted on. It's a very different shape to the g3 monster high berets but it does fit Monster High very well, which is cool.
I mention Monster High because the Wild Hearts Crew line reused several Monster High pieces and symbols as well as a few Barbie bits and bobs.
Kenna's earrings are big hoops that don't fit her properly, they stick out too far and look strange. I suspect they're a reused sculpt from another doll line, I just don't know which one.
Charlie is the animal lover, because every doll line has to have an animal obsessed character. In fact i'm actually surprised Mattel didn't go with the typical cliche of having "the sporty one" "the musical one" "the fashion one" and "the animal lover". We only got two of those. So uh... kudos I suppose?
Charlie is an odd one actually because her personality is actually "the rocker", but her bio focuses far more on animals than it does music.
She's very disorganized and girl, I relate.
I really want to know what genre of music sounds like "a brass band leading a tornado through a windchime factory". MCR maybe? lol. I'm leaning toward Emo anyway.
Her pinkie pact tracks with Kenna being the sort of go hunting cryptids.
I dunno what it says about me that I rolled my eyes at this affirmation crap. I dunno, it's very "the shit boomers on facebook post on a decorative background thinking they're oh so deep"
Charlie has darker blue hair than Kenna,It's a sort of teal blue actually, there's a definite greenish tinge to it.It's styled into this twist... thing. It's just two twists tied together, but because it's poly it sticks straight out to the side rather than laying naturally.
She has bright red lips that photograph more coral for some reason.
her tee also has a foil decal on it, this time a pegasus in white and silver with a barbed wire? garland. It's hard to see, the foil is really shiny and my camera hates it.
Her outfit isn't quite as interesting as Kenna's, but she does have much cooler shoes. They look a bit like motorcycle boots, with a flame motif and lots of buckles.
Her denim skirt is asymmetrical, being longer at the back than the front which makes it a little more interesting than it would otherwise be. I mean it's still a pretty boring skirt but it's serviceable. It has a guitar, a star, a lightening bolt and the flaming heart logo printed on it.
Like Kenna, her shirt is a stretchy polyester material. It has an unusual collar and I think it's maybe supposed to look like a tee she's modified herself.
Her vest is really shiny plasticky pleather/vinyl and i'm not convinced of its longevity. That said, it's survived 6 years in the box so it might be okay. It actually has real stitching, though not real pockets.
She also comes with a cap that doesn't like to stay on her head and a purse in the shape of a guitar which may be reused from Barbie but I can't find the exact same type with a quick search. (it actually has a slit in the top so you can put things in it. Thin things, but still... things)
Her earrings are reused Monster High earrings, specifically from Frankie. She also comes with a silver bracelet cuff thing which is probably Barbie but I don't know for sure.
The back of her vest, in case you hadn't got the memo yet, says "rocker" because remember, she's the ROCKER!
*snort* I admit, I find this a little tacky. Perhaps it would have been cuter to have used the Wild Hearts Crew logo, like one of the other characters has.
The Wild Hearts crew bodies are unique, in that Mattel hasn't used them since as far as i'm aware and had never used them previously either. They have fully molded undergarments which is quite unusual, as well as having very cinched waists and long long necks.
I think the arms are just reused Barbie arms but the legs are more shapely.
and their articulation SUCKS. Like a very old gymnast Barbie, they can't pose that well and while they can almost sit, they do lean backwards quite heavily. I went into more detail about their articulation in my first review, so check that out for more details if you're interested.
There was some body variety in this line, with one character being significantly more robust than the rest but she was the one I never much liked. Her outfit is not my taste and her very thick neck makes her head look strange to me.
the other dolls I think all use the same body, just in different skintones.
Kenna is very very pale while Charlie is more typical Barbie tan.
I don't know if their hands come off. I tried, and it felt like they MIGHT but it also looked like the hand was going to tear away from the peg so I stopped trying. So i'm going to err on the side of "not designed to be removed".
I did feel like Charlie's outfit was a little lacking so I added some fishnets from my stash which adds some much needed texture to her look.
I love the faces on these dolls, they are really really unique and characterful and i don't hate their outfits. There's some fun pieces in here, particularly the shoes and the hats which are really nice. Kenna's hat fits really well without the need for ties, i wish Charlie's would do the same.
You can however really see where the budget was cut. The skirt and trousers, the poly hair, there's even a lot of flashing on the elbows of both dolls where they weren't fully cleaned up in the factory. Back then we suspected these were rushed to market and I still believe that to be the case. I've seen people say they were created specifically to take up space on the shelf, to keep other lines from gaining it. I'm not sure how shelf space works in the US, but rushing a line out to screw over a competitor is very on brand for Mattel.
But whatever they were made to counter, these were very much a flash in the pan line that reused a lot of bits from other lines and never quite managed to gain an identity all of their own.
Mattel didn't really give the line much of a chance anyway. They rushed them out with little fanfare, they were store exclusives which is a death blow for a new line and despite a few fashion packs and accessories being shoved out alongside them (all of which were pretty minimal. Not so much complete outfits but more a shirt/jacket and some plastic accessories to go with it. Oh and a bunch of stickers to bump the piece count), they never got a second wave and sort of whimpered out.
And it's a pity because with a slightly higher budget these really could have scratched that itch for an alternative feeling line that wasn't monsters.
Perhaps at some point i'll reroot these girls so they can have nice hair, but for now their hair is tolerable. I mean don't get me wrong, it's poly and that means it always sits poorly, but it doesn't feel too awful and it's not frizzing like some poly hair does. Yet... anyway.
but the thickness of the fiber and it's tendency to dry rot makes me well aware that at some point in the near future, i'm gonna have a whole lot of dolls who need new hair. But i'm hoping I can put it off for a while.
so...
NEXT!
It's Monster High time!
I started with Oasis Draculaura. She's one of the "let's shove this into a completely blind plastic box for no reason other than because deboxing shit is big with teh kiddies, what do you mean you want to be able to see the doll's face to make sure she isn't wonky as all hell? Fuck you." releases.
The key at least doesn't feature the stupid "put it in water for no real reason other than to make MORE waste!" gimmick. It's just a key. It goes in the lock and unlatches the box.
I appreciate the lack of pointless messy gimmick.
Now we're inside the box we can see the doll and thankfully her face looks to be good and wonk free. Phew.
on the left side of the box you have snapshots of the characters and on the right, behind Drac there's a scene which I can't quite make out yet because there's too much stuff in the way.
curiously, the doll is packaged barefoot.
She has striking dark makeup done to resemble bat wings and chunky black streaks in her otherwise dark pink hair.
This is, I think, one of my favourite Draculaura faces that they've ever done. She's gloriously gothy.
Her top is a foil print with a high collar that feels very Chinese maybe? It's a nice little nod to her heritage if intentional.
her skirt is two layers, the underneath being a sort of dull puce/purplish colour with a near burgundy tulle ruched overskirt. It's designed to have a dipping waist line and judging by the placement of the velcro, is supposed to be worn with the dip toward one hip rather than in the middle. But it could be worn either way.
Peekaboo! Look how useless the case becomes without the card. I just have to hope nothing really heavy gets dropped on this and damages the cardboard. *sigh* But a solid plastic case would have actually been really nice. I know I bitch about Mattel and their plastic waste a lot, but this particular case is a really useful size and shape. You can fit about 3 dolls inside of it, or a heck of a lot of doll clothes and accessories for storage. It could be perfect for taking dolls places or just for storing additional bits for them. It would be a whole lot MORE perfect if it was more solidly built. But the card is at least "okay" for now. It's about the same thickness as a regular doll box so it's not the thickest of card but it'll be fine for my purpose, that is, storing clothing and accessories and sitting on the top of my bookshelf.
It's far more useful than the usual coffins so I give Mattel props at least for that.
If you're gonna give us plastic cases, at least make them useful plastic cases.
Her little instructions leaflet tells me what's in both blind bags, which kinda feels like it's spoiling the surprise there. Then again, I don't quite understand the POINT of the paper bags for accessories that are pictured on the box in the first fucking place. These aren't blind bags Mattel, it's just more excess packaging. Now if there was some variation, some assortment of things you COULD get, it would make sense like maybe different colourways or a different piece of jewellery or you know.. SOME surprise element. But I feel like companies have become so obsessed with the "deboxing experience" they've forgotten that a large part of that was the SURPRISE aspect, not the opening of endless little baggies.
The instructions also tell you how to open the case, you know, in case you uh... couldn't work out how to open the case to retrieve the instructions inside said case that tell you how to... open... the case.
uh...
But yeah, looks like we've got more keys to find.
So we have two utterly pointless paper baggies. At least they're paper. And I mean they're cute, but they serve no purpose other than giving us ANOTHER thing to open because apparently the act of opening shit is the "experience".
These COULD have just been packaged normally.
Bag #1 contains... a plastic baggie with a plastic bag in it (why is it in a plastic bag of its own?), a pair of shoes, a key and two uh... shelf... thingies?
The shoes are cute though, little platformed Mary Jane style I think? In a pearly white. Could they have more detail painted? Probably. But I don't hate them being simple and one colour actually. Sometimes a simple pair of shoes is nice and the pearl spiderweb detailing is really cute.
Bag 2 contains MORE plastic baggies. The paper bags were a ruse! a trick! To make us THINK Mattel was trying to reduce their plastic bullshittery! But it was all a lie!
Inside this bag we have a luggage tag looking thing which looking at the instructions I think is actually supposed to be a key card/fob for a hotel key.
two hangers.
a plastic corset thing in the shape of a flower
a fan
and a pair of sunglasses.
The fan is actually really cute. The fairly abstract cherry blossom pattern doesn't suffer badly from the UV printing. It's printed on one side with the back side being plain as a real fan would be.
The sunglasses are really nice too with these little metallic purple batwing and flower? details at the edges. That little pop of colour makes them look pretty special.
Her little keycard fob thing is adorable too. Room 013, yep, that tracks.
I really don't like the corset flower piece at all. It's chunky and it's awkward. it fits oddly, it looks weird and I dunno, I just don't get what they were going for with this at all.
The key from the first bag fits into the lock which is a cute thing to do, but I will spoil things a little for you by mentioning that this bag has no locking mechanism in the first place. Making this "unlock the case" step completely redundant. COME ON Mattel. I was going to give you a pass on the random extra step because the idea of having to open one thing to find the key to unlock the next was cute, but when the thing wasn't even locked in the first place and can't lock, what's the point?
The contents of the case however, DELIGHTED me.
THIS, THIS is how you should be doing your "blind bag" shit. No nonsense baggies to open, none of that crap, put them INSIDE the actual luggage.
Heck yeah.
That's fucking adorable.
The case contains Drac's second outfit. A "knit" jumper thing, a pair of very stiff shorts, a headscarf, a pair of shoes and another key for a lock that doesn't exist.
The shoes are a sort of purplish colour, pearly and have a gold heel which photographed matte for some reason. My camera hates the evening light and my flash wasn't working, sorry.
So the next key is for the final bag, a cute little skullette carry on in a slightly shimmery pink.
Of course, like the other bag, the lock doesn't exist. So the whole "unlock for more surprises" is redundant.
*sigh*
And it was such a fun idea too. One of the more interesting ways they've gone about the whole thing.
Anyway, inside the bag is a belt. Why? Presumably because they needed to put SOMETHING in this bag so just shoved the one accessory that would fit.
Nevermind that it'd fit into the other bag with all the other clothing just fine. They decided something had to go in this bag too and so the belt got randomly separated out.
What is cute is that the carry on bag actually slots into the handle of the wheely bag.
And it does it quite well so it won't fall off as you move it around.
Of course, I do wish the wheelie bag's wheels were real wheels so it actually COULD be wheeled, but instead you kinda have to drag it and pretend real hard. Kinda like having to pretend those keys unlock something.
Anyway, the bags actually connecting to one another is a cute feature.
The backdrop is finally revealed. It's a window I think (there's a dresser in front so it can't be a doorway right?) leading out to a pool. The chandelier's placement is a little confusing though, why is there a light fixture attached to the top lintel of a window?
Whatever.
The mystery shelf things it turns out actually slide into brackets at the side of the case to turn it into a kinda almost wardrobe.
you can put the hangers onto the hooks or even hang the bag over one. It does offer a little more use suggestion for said box, though I do wish they had considered the fact that her shorts can't go on a dress/shirt hanger. I've only ever known Rainbow High to actually provide those grippy pants/skirt hangers. Never seen them in any other doll line and they are SO useful.
Anyway, here's Drac. Yeah, I know, I spent this whole review talking about her stuff and not her.
She's beautiful. Though her hair needs a wash to get the styling gel out of the bangs and could do with a boil to get the kink from her packaging out of it. Ho hum.
The belt is a touch too small so instead of sitting in line with her skirt's waistband it constantly rides upward and annoys the shit out of me.
Her headscarf is too large to be worn as a skirt/wrap but can be used as a shoulder wrap/shrug.
And here's all the waste i'm left with at the end.
We could have removed most of this honestly. The case didn't NEED a card oversleeve, nor did the package require the paper baggies and had the accessories etc been actually just packaged in with the doll like normal, they wouldn't have needed the plastic baggies either.
At least I can recycle the paper bits.
I also don't actually hate the plastic case, it's a useful size and i'll be using it to store things which isn't something i've done with any of the previous coffin ones because they just aren't useful shapes to store things in. But I really do wish Mattel would stop with the blind packaging. I want to SEE the doll before I buy it, I don't want to gamble that i'll get one with a good screening.
I appreciated the hiding some accessories and clothing in the suitcase though. If you're gonna do hidden shit, do more of that please. Less paper bags, more utilizing the actual doll accessories.
that was adorable.
But also, I was kinda taken by the "unlock the next case to find the key for the next one" until I realised there were no actual locks to unlock. How hard would it have been to just put a simple latch on those two bags so those keys served a purpose? And that would have been way more fun.
I mean, I don't much LIKE blind boxes or this "unboxing as an experience" shit, but this idea was novel and felt more like an authentic experience as it was utilizing the doll's actual accessories. This gave it something more than "open bag 1, now open bag 2." or unlocking a series of colour coded drawers/cupboards like the other coffins.
My middle son would have LOVED the "unlock the bag, find the key, unlock the next bag" aspect but upon realising there was no actual lock to unlock? Magic ruined.
It's not like they haven't made small bags with latches before. They can do it.
don't make keys for things that don't have locks Mattel. It's dumb.
Anyway, while she has my least favourite sort of Drac hair (a messy blend of pink and black instead of nice stark streaks) she does have a really sweet face and I like her outfit pieces. So when she dropped to silly cheap I grabbed her.
The Fearbook dolls are all themed around school clubs and Draculaura's club is the film/movie club.
So this means a lot of themed accessories. Draculaura comes with a varsity jacket, a cardboard "fearbook" that's way out of scale for the doll so is more a "for you" accessory, a tiny script, a megaphone, a phone with stand and ring light, a clapperboard and a tiny pink skullette which feels more theatre than movies but whatever, it's cute.
The fearbook is disappointing. It's just a piece of card folded in half with some pictures inside.
It is cute to see Heath again and is that Spectra?
The little bat tragedy and comedy masks are cute too.
But man, i'd have loved this to contain a little more information, like maybe actually have something to read. I miss diaries, I miss them so bad.
But, the tiny script DOES have text! And a coffee stain lol.
It's brief, but it's cute that have something here. Also, Heath being melodramatic makes me smile. Feels like his old g1 self.
Sadly the script is only this one page. Alas.
But I do appreciate that they made it readable text instead of going with some squiggles.
The clapper board actually claps too, which is also really cool.
The doll herself is gorgeous. Her hair is a bit messy from the box and could do with a brush and boil I think to get it tamed but it's soft saran and despite me accidentally snipping a bit trying to remove the damn head staples, she has plenty of it.
Her outfit is cute too. The pleather jacket with a bat wing collar i'm concerned won't age well but looks awesome right now. Her hat is reused from one of her previous releases but in black rather than pink. I like these little berets though, they're cute and versatile. She has bright pink earrings that are two little hearts strung together. A little choker matches their colour.
her main outfit is a matching two piece, a little tank top and a skirt that has a quite unusual ruffle to the hem. It's like a dagger shape or something.
Her shoes are massive chunky platform sneakers that remind me of the shoes that were trendy in the late 90s (thank you Spice Girls lol) but their lack of colour variation does make them a bit "big chunk of plastic". They have potential though, maybe a little paint to the soles to give them a little more variation. I'd be inclined to paint the soles white and maybe pull out some of the little details in black or white or a darker pink.
Draculaura has a side glance which I always love on her. Her screening isn't overly different to other releases we've had of her but it's a nice screening all the same. I like the darker pink lip.
My Draculaura army grows! BWHAHAHAHA.
it's more a small platoon right now.
But still.
I should do a big boil wash to get their hair smoother and less unruly. Especially eekend getaway who's hair is frustratingly lightweight despite being saran.
And so, with that, i'll leave this. I have a lot more to open and catalogue but if I do it all in one go it'll be just overwhelming and make the blog post too long for anyone to want to read anyway. Already this one is way too long.
I will try not to wait over a month for the next installment though.
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