Living Dead Dolls fashion victims

So the toy aisles are BORING right now, very little new stuff and that which is new is crap and not worth buying anyway. Toy sections are shrinking rapidly in stores across the country and it's all blind bags and nothing else.
Not that I object to blind bags, they are in fact rather fun, but it's sad to see ONLY blind bags and not much of anything else.
It looks like that's where all toy companies are focusing their attention now and I dunno, that makes me sad because I like variety and I love dolls.

So because there's really not much to buy and i've been saving up for something big, all the "new" stuff i've gotten lately has been mostly all second hand.

I'm afraid that for the while, most of my blogs are going to be more like roundups or retrospectives, at least until the toy market picks up again.

but hey, old stuff is fun too right? Be aware parts of this review will be NSFW, blame Mezco. So if you're at work or in public, you might wanna wait to click below the cut.




So let's start with the dolls that arrived yesterday. Living Dead Doll Fashion Victims!

The Fashion Victims were a failed Mezco line based on the ever popular Living Dead dolls.
I think they first came out in the early 2000s but there's not that much info on their history that I can find online.

Anyway, from what I can establish, the first wave of dolls were NOT a commercial success. They had a lot of problems. They were badly made, they were ugly as sin and they really seemed to miss the mark of whatever they were aiming for.

The original four were all characters based on existing LDD characters. Kitty the cheerleader, Sheena the punk, Sadie the school girl and uh Lillith the um... vampire.
For some reason someone decided the best thing to do to make fashion doll versions of these cute little child characters was to turn them into sexy pinups... uh... yeah.

The dolls came packaged with two outfits. One inspired by their original doll's outfit and one that... honestly I have no idea what the secondary outfit was inspired by other than a soho sex shop.
They seem to have no connection to one another at all.
They also came with a poster of the doll in a sexy pinup pose, nude, and a death certificate with a lot of crude innuendo.

The second set was quite different. New bodies, new heads, less sexy references and no nude pinup posters.

Yeah basically they were way more tasteful and better made.

Anyway,

I always found the 2nd wave ones weirdly fascinating, so when i saw someone on facebook selling a couple incomplete for cheap I decided to go for it. She threw in a broken w1 doll as well for free.

So, let's take a look and dive into this hot mess shall we?

 From left to right: Lulu, Kitty and Holly Wood.

Lulu and Holly are wave 2, Kitty is wave 1.

Now, Kitty was thrown in for free but the seller did clarify that she had a broken head. The hex shaped peg that holds her head into her body has snapped so it falls off if you move her.
However, when I undressed her I also learned that one leg had come out of the socket as well.
This made making her stand up a little tricky.

 This is what she was wearing when she arrived. It's her alternate outfit.
It's a sort of fake leather catsuit with a tail. Because... Kitty? catsuit? getit?
*headdesk*

Yeah, I dunno.

Anyway, the Fashion victims are about 13inches tall and Kitty is seriously heavy. Her body is made of this thick rubbery stuff with an internal wire skeleton so her arms and knees pose and hold.
Her hands and feet are on pegs for easier dressing.

http://livingdeaddolls.wikia.com/wiki/Series_1_-_Kitty She would have originally come with a poster of her posing naked with her pompoms... because ... classy... and a sort of death certificate thing that listed her likes, dislikes etc including the rather nauseating "Ideal Nightmare (read: dream): Taking one (or more) for the team.

I feel a bit sick.

Seriously i'm worried to touch her, I feel like she'll be sticky.

She has a factory error across one eye, because of course she does.

these dolls were notoriously shittily constructed.

She has really angry eyebrows, simple red eyes and black lips. Actually I don't think her head is THAT bad, on a different body maybe she'd make an interesting doll but the body is just...

Okay... we'll get to that. Once I work up the courage to touch her without gloves. *gag*

She came with two outfits. Her cheerleading outfit here hasn't aged well. the plether it's made of is deteriorating and peeling badly and it doesn't really seem to fit quite right.
Hmm.
Her pompoms are proper pompoms though, and soooo soft.

Her feet are interesting because her long boots clip onto pegs like Bratz feet but her secondary shoes actually slip onto a pair of feet which then clip onto the bottom of the leg. The feet are more like action figure feet with a jointed ankle section as well.
They're actually pretty cool.

I initially assumed the shoes were moulded to the foot part but nope, they come off. So she has three options. Bare feet, slip on shoes and then a pair of high boots.

Notice the strange angle of these pieces? yeah, her legs are moulded into this bizarre splayed pose so her shoes are too.

It's weird.

Looking at other images, I think Kitty originally had some socks as well but beyond that I think this is her full stock.
The catsuit has aged substantially better than the cheerleader dress which... really looks like the sort of thing you'd buy in a sex shop.

I don't actually own a regular LDD Kitty, but for the record, this is what she looks like:

I can see the translation to sexy blow up doll version, but it still squicks me out and baffles me.

Under the outfit things are just... a mess.

Her body is so distorted she honestly looks like a sex doll.
She has some marks on her slightly tacky squishy rubber titties and moulded pants. Seriously? You gave her balloon tits and nipples but molded rather regular and not sexy pants?
Uh...
I mean, i'm relieved she's got pants, but it seems kinda weird to do giant erect nipples and then go for standard pants. They aren't even sexy pants.

They might be a thong but it's hard to tell because you know, all doll panties kinda look like this.

She has no butt. And short over muscled legs and twig arms and huge linebacker shoulders.
Like.. holy crap did the person who sculpted this ever look at a woman?

Also notice how her hands are a different colour to her body? yeah, the hard plastic hands and feet are a different colour to the soft rubbery arms and legs. Because of course they are.

I'll give her this though, she can pose quite well and can support her own topheavy weight which is impressive.
Even with a broken leg she stands up.

Her arms are molded as one part with her torso and are bendy like those old bendy barbie dolls. Her legs bend at the knee but oh ho ho, don't let that hip socket fool you.
I gently tried to manouver her leg to see if the hip could move aaand...

THIS happened.

The gentlest touch and the peg shattered.
It won't go back in, the whole peg has completely disintegrated and believe me, i wasn't being rough.

So, her neck peg broke, her leg came out the socket and now the other leg peg snapped. Great workmanship there Mezco. *eyeroll*
Thank god I didn't pay money for this shitty thing.

I feel kinda bad though, I didn't mean to break her.

Before this happened I did manage to get some pics of her standing and gently supporting herself against a wall with only one foot peg on.

and with her leg and hand off to show they're removable.

Removable hands are such a dang good idea for dolls you're supposed to redress.

Anyway, Miss Gross and Sticky represented a serious misstep from LDDs, something they tried to fix when they released wave 2.

Wave 2 very much went back to the drawing board. New bodies, new heads, new ideas. Less sex doll, more macabre fashion doll... hopefully.

The wave 2 dolls have hard plastic bodies and limbs that I don't think are supposed to bend (I couldn't get them to) and interestingly, have full body blushing. Their heads are bigger and they even have inset eyes!

Their bodies are still a bit pinuppy, but more "pinup girl" and less "porn star" which I appreciate.
I don't feel like I need to get tested after handling Lulu.

Because the w2 dolls don't have rubbery bodies they don't feel tacky to touch, and they don't get so many random marks and bits of fluff sticking to them.

Interestingly, their hands still detatch for dressing and are interchangable with the w1 dolls. not sure why you'd want to do this as the skin tones don't match but you know.. you can.

Unlike the first wave, the second wave dolls can't remove their feet. They have molded heeled feet more like a Barbie doll.
This means they can't stand alone.

W2 bodies are still cartoonish with very pert unrealistic boobs and a kinda cute little rounded belly. AND they have a butt! an actual butt! Kitty's all flat at the back, Lulu's got a booty.

The w2 dolls also have a shorter torso and longer legs making them look more proportionate, they really feel more like someone saw a female form before they sculpted it.

The wave 2 dolls have a very pinched in hourglass shape, no molded panties and no definition, a really subtle belly button, no nipples, it's weirdly blank.
It makes their bodies look a little unfinished to my eye, it's a bit odd but I prefer it to the strange shape of w1.

The hands are made of the same plastic as the body, so the skin tone match is fine. And like the rest of the body, the hands are blushed too. The whole body looks airbrushed, making them feel more like art dolls and not mass produced factory dolls. This is something the regular LDDs do a lot as well, a lot of their design choices feel more like the decisions you make if you're customising a doll yourself than if you have a factory. Airbrushing parts rather than casting them in the right colours, hand painting bits. I even find her body sculpt reminds me of something that's been hand sculpted. All the rounded edges and lack of refinement feels very much like something I would sculpt at home and I actually kinda like that.

She even had painted black fingernails.

Lulu has tattoos down her arm and of course, someone couldn't resist inserting some smut in there. One of her tatts reads "ride me hard"
Stay classy Mezco, stay classy.

She also have pink blotches all over her. I dunno why. Is it blood? is it strawberry pudding?

My Lulu is incomplete. she's missing a skate and the leggings from her primary outfit and her secondary outfit's shirt.

Like the first wave, the second wave came with alternate outfits. Their first outfit clearly playing on their LDD character's look and the second seemingly plucked from thin air because they have NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING to do with one another.

This is Lulu's LDD. She's a little roller skater.

So no, I have no idea why her Fashion Victim doll comes with a cowgirl outfit as her secondary outfit.

But she does, and it's kinda stripperific.

Her boots are made of soft squishy plastic and go on and come off really nicely. They're fake snakeskin and I kinda like em.
Her pants are actually footy tights and made of some sort of soft velvety fabric (it's sooo soft and furry). Her belt is soft plastic and clasps at the front with two little plastic pins.
Her top is from her primary outfit, it's quite coarse gold taffeta kinda stuff, really stiff and not very nice to touch. The straps are ribbon.
It clasps at the back with a hook and eye which is interesting as most regular LDDs use velcro or buttons.

She has a little leather effect cuff on one arm and three plastic bracelets on the other.
Her hat just perches on her head, there's nothing to hold it in place.

 Her hair is quite dry and frazzled, but it's a pretty shade of pale pink.

Her original LDD had pink splotches too but I think they were supposed to be grazes. These are just... splotches.
I dunno, she has pink splotches. Looks like she's been in a food fight.

Her eyes are awesome, with these yellow and red sclera and small red irises. The irises are too small for the eyes which makes them look a bit starey but i'm convinced this was an intentional decision.
She has no eyebrows. Her original doll didn't have eyebrows either (no clue why).
Her lips are black and a really attractive shape, she has a little upturned nose and a slightly wonkily sculpted face. She's also got fake eyelashes glued to her eyeballs and pink eyeshadow.

Her hat perches fine on her head but if you move her it falls off. I can't help but wish it had a teeny bit of elastic or something.
It's soft plastic with a skull on the band.

Holly has the same body, but hers is white airbrushed with blue.
I don't know why as her original LDD isn't blue.

Fashion Victim Holly doesn't look much like her namesake at all in fact. She has short blond hair instead of long white curls, her eyes are aqua not green and her skin is blue not white.
Wha?

She does however get the same outfit.

And the massive head wound.

This dress has a real feather boa and trim with a stretchy dress with a lacey straps. It's a really nicely made dress but it's a wee bit see through ahem.

My Holly is missing her second pair of shoes (a simple pair of black heels) but beyond that appears to be complete.

She's the only one who's secondary outfit really makes sense to me. She's a 1920s starlet so a flapper outfit makes sense for her I think.
That's also why she has the short hair.

Her flapper dress is made from sequinned material with a fringe at the hem and a little red satin rose on one strap.

She has a necklace of pearls which is plastic and a hat made of matching sequin fabric. It's stretchy so actually stays on well.

Now, I think  her hat should have a matching flower on it, but i'm not sure.

She also wears a pair of fishnet stockings and strappy shoes.

Notice she has one eye larger than the other?

Her face sculpt is slightly different to Lulu's, to give her that characteristic mismatched eye thing. I also think her chin is slightly less sharp but it's hard to be sure.

Anyway, Holly has angry as hell eyebrows that are SO Ldd in their style. Like Lulu her eyes have tiny irises and she has lashes glued to them too.

Her lips are red and she's spattered in blood which goes across her face, down her chest and onto one arm.

She's fully body blushed too, but it's actually more noticeable in Holly because it's blue over white instead of pink over peach.

I gave Lulu the feather boa because she looks dressed for a hen night to me, and feather boas are part of hen nights right? lol.
Also I felt like her outfit was missing something not having a jacket or anything to cover her shoulders.

These gals are ready to hit the town!

Now, unlike the first wave dolls their articulation is a lot more limited. You're looking at standard Barbie joints. Shoulder, hip, neck. That's fine though, the regular LDDs have the same joints.

Their heads are on the same sort of ball as the first wave but they feel more secure. They don't quite fit onto the neck, there's a little ball that sits above it but this gives their heads a great deal of motion. They can tilt their heads side to side which makes them extremely expressive.

At 13 inches tall they're a bit taller than a Barbie and substantially chunkier.

I was actually surprised by how big they were.

They tower over Monster High, Bratzillaz AND regular Living Dead Dolls.

They kinda look like the slutty moms of the LDDs lol.

But I still find it difficult to think of these three dolls as being all from the same franchise.

So all in all, the second wave Fashion Victims are cool expressive creepy dolls who are decently made with two really nicely constructed full outfits. Their hair is cheap nylon but it's much like the stuff they use for the regular LDDs and the clothing quality is about on par with that too.

Wave 1? they're grossly proportioned, over sexualised and very very badly constructed. They're fragile, their outfits seem to deteriorate because plether does that and they all just look a bit too trashy and sex dollish for me to be able to not feel dirty touching them.

Kitty's actually one of the least sexy of that wave too. They included a sexy pvc nun costume on one.
I always found blow up dolls a bit icky, and the first wave fashion victims look too much like blow up dolls.

But I do kinda feel sorry for Kitty. Her body is so gross but her head isn't that bad. Maybe some day i'll find her something... till then, she goes into the box of shame, and I go rinse my hands with so much dettol.