Cife's Catrinas Underworld.
A line of mexican day of the dead Catrina/calavara (whatever they're actually called) skeleton dolls distributed by a Spanish company called Cife who make "Who's your Llama" and a few other lines of cheap disappointing products.
(salty? Look, those llama things are LAME. I never bothered to review the one I had, it was too shit, it wasn't even cute.)
Anyway,
at £30 each the price tag was eye watering and far too much for an unknown. A new brand from a company most people have never heard of? Mmmm good luck guys.
But I got curious because new doll lines always make me curious so I did some digging.
Cife are the distributor, the designer is a company called Maya Studio which uh... seems to be an artist who makes vinyl and plastic figures that remind me a LOT of Kidrobot sort of stuff. They're always skeletons, that's Maya's thing, skeletons.
Which is fair enough. Gotta have a signature right?
I couldn't find much in english unfortunately, but I did find that this line have their own website and it's pretty extensive.
There are 6 characters in the initial lineup and designs for 30+ MORE characters on the website, it's nuts!
The basic premise is thus: there are portals to the underworld dotted across the world and these girls are the portal guardians stopping bad stuff getting out.
I think.
And that's where things get wierd because while they're clearly inspired by Mexican Day of the Dead stuff, the dolls are NOT all styled in that manner.
Angelica seems to have a bit of a native american vibe going on with her jacket and such. Cassandra is the Mexican one. Mariko is inexplicably Japanese. Rosabella is... er.. Romany... I think. Valeria is a... viking? What? and Maya is wearing modern camo so er....
I'm rather confused about the timeline.
They all have a magical power apparently, but honestly it's a bit confusing.
There MIGHT be a tv show... or books... or something in the works... the website isn't very clear.
Anyway, I was curious but not curious enough to drop that much money on one.
thankfully christmas happened, and she was one of my gifts from my husband.
Ooooo!
It's an attractive box I have to say. And her head is HUGE like damn.
The box is in Spanish, English and uh... Portuguese I think.
Pretty sure this girl is supposed to be romany because she has a caravan. Not sure if inappropriate....
Her power is that she protects from bad luck.
that's about all this back blurb actually tells me.
live the adventure! Buy more dolls!
lol.
I am honestly so bewildered by the Japanese and Viking (!!??) Catrinas lol. It's so random.
one side of the box gives some info about the setting with the portals and the guardian aspect. They're like "guardian angels" apparently which is... a whole OTHER thing.
Man how many cultures and traditions are they gonna ram into this line?
The other side of the box has a different image of Rosabella doing er... magic... ball... magic...
I wonder if Maya studio trademarked the bajillion OTHER "characters" they have art for. I mean no joke, there's steampunk ones, rockabilly ones, some "street poets" (whatever that means) and even an Otaku group (ooookaaaaay)
I mean it's seriously RANDOM and a bit er...
well let's just say, when you're churning out a bajillion designs, your characters are gonna end up a little thumbnail sketch rather than being actual characters. And the mixing of cultural symbols feels... very messy to me.
I don't quite understand why they threw so much into this, like dude...my dude, slow down. Work on the 6 you have here, flesh em out, then make more.
The top of the box has a decication which i've never seen before.
It's thanking the designer's mentor for believing in them which is all "awwwww" and now I feel kinda bad for criticising their creative process.
The box has opening instructions which again, i've never seen before. "Open me by the side!" it says.
The box is taped shut but has two little card tabs which slide out once you cut the tape and then the backing card can be slid out.
It's so colourful!
As is the doll's facepaint. It's quite striking.
She reminds me a LOT of the Book of Life particularly. Lol.
It's her eyes.
See?
Not the marigold petals, that's quite a common motif for Catrinas, but the half lidded sultry yellow eyes heh.
Rosabella is twisty tied into her box but has no elastic bands or little plastic staples. Whooo! no staples!
Once free from all the twisty ties and the two little tabs holding her dress to the card, she's good to go!
She's an interesting doll. She has a bit of heft to her mostly from her large VERY hard head. Her body is pretty sturdily jointed but hollow hard plastic so it's very light, all her weight is head.
Her clothing is made from two different fabrics. A very thin fragile feeling satin-like fabric for her dress and a thick cotton for her scarf and apron.
Her facepaint is beautifully done, there's no errors I can see and it's crisp and immaculate.
And she's jointed! We'll look at those joints in a bit.
Her face mold is really unusual and unexpected, she actually has a sculpted indented "nose" like a proper skull rather than what most companies do and just draw black over a small nose.
She has full sculpted lips though.
And a very flat profile.
Her earrings slot into her cheeks because she has no ears lol. This is actually something i've seen a lot with authentic Catrinas too, they just kinda ram earrings on wherever hahah. Ouch, that's quite a piercing.
She has black hair with blue streaks in it. It's quite soft, I don't know what fibre it is but it seems to be a nice enough one. It doesn't frizz or feel too plasticky to my touch. It feels like good doll hair rather than the shit cheap stuff you often get on these small brand dolls.
Her apron and scarf come off to reveal her fitted dress. It's a.. is this called a fishtail style? I don't really know my dress shapes.
It's a little messily sewn in places. The collar is lopsided and I don't think that's intentional, the bodice is a bit twisted as well.
But for a tiny little dress made of very fragile fabric it seems to be all hemmed and finished everywhere. The sleeves even have elastic in them so they fit over her hands which is a nice touch.
Her shoes are simple little black heels.
The dress feels very very fragile, the fabric is thin and cheap and while it's lovely and soft it also feels like it'll tear if you're too rough and i'm not sure how robust the seams will be.
The scarf and apron attach really strangely. There's no velcro or poppers, they instead use a little sewn in place loop of fabric. This makes them REALLY awkward to get back on again.
Her body is unexpectedly detailed.
She has skeletitties (ahahaha) big ones. Bone detail on her neck, skeletal hands and feet and there's even an element of attempting to keep the theme going for how her joints are integrated.
Especially her hips and shoulders.
Her hips are on ball joints while her knees have a hinge. Her ankles don't bend despite looking like they should.
Her arms are on pivoting hinge joints like most modern fashion dolls (think Monster High for example) and she has jointed wrists but their movement is limited by the flange sculpted to her wrist.
Skeletitties still crack me up so much.
Her articulation isn't bad. Her knees bend to 90 degrees and her ball jointed hips have a very large range of movement thanks to her very narrow pelvis.
Her arms can bend to about 90 degees as well and her shoulders have a decent range of motion as well, they can bend inward and outward as well as up and down.
She can touch her own face, not just the sides of that giant noggin either. Which is more than I can say for a lot of fashion dolls.
She has no chest or waist joint which is a shame though, as it would have allowed just a little more sassiness in her posing.
She also cannot tilt her head. It turns but it cannot tilt.
All her joints feel pretty sturdy, I didn't feel like I was going to break anything bending stuff. Her joints bend fairly easily and hold well. Unlike Monster High where the knees often feel extremely fragile, Rosabella I didn't feel too scared handling and posing.
Her big ol' head and small body reminded me of Blythe or Pullip and as my fake Blythe (Blyh?) happened to be nearby I grabbed her for the shot.
Rosabella is chunkier than Monster High and quite a bit shorter, even with her giant head.
in fact, her body is far more Blythe sized.
The two swapped clothes quite happily (the green dress is actually from a Jecci 5 Blythe knockoff)
They can't wear one another's shoes though. Rosabella has feet that are closer in size to Monster High but with a far shallower heel.
At this point Rosabella was shedding hair BADLY so I had to investigate what was going on.
As it turns out, my doll has an error in her rooting. It looks like they were BURNING the ends of the hair to hold it inside? I'm not sure, but the hair along the rooting line is frazzled and charred and breaks off with a light tough.
I removed the worst of it and took her hair down to see the damage.
thankfully she has enough hair that you can't see the damage at the back. She lost a few more plugs from elsewhere in the process though.
What's left is very long and slightly wavy.
She lost a small tribble's worth of hair.
Much of which is ENTIRE chunks and multiple plugs fused together.
Ew.
What the hell did they do to this poor girl?
Had this doll been released 6 or more years ago i'd have been unable to call in inevitable Monster High comparisons but it's been so LONG, and her proportions are quite unique anyway.
Her head is huge, it's rock hard, it's very very stylised and her body is likewise wierd but sort of cool in how much detail they put in there.
I LOVE her facepaint, it's so detailed and colourful.
She can't QUITE rest her hand on her hip but i'm yet to find a fashion doll that reliably can.
I actually really like her.
I mean ignoring the whole "is this cultural appropriation?" question (I can't answer that, I don't know) about the line and the vagueness of the whole universe building as a whole, as a doll and just as a doll she's quite a neat little thing.
She's well made for the most part, though I would suggest the clothing is perhaps not really intended to be removed. The fabric of this particular dress feels far too fragile to be practical for much more than careful display honestly.
I do think though that this line is MASSIVELY overpriced. This is literally all you get for your £30 and that's a lot of money for an unknown brand from an unknown company.
I'd say £20 would have probably been far more viable for them. I can't see them selling too well at full price.
She doesn't stand well on her own, she's top heavy and her feet are heeled so she's just naturally unstable. She'll need a stand really.
Still, I find her face extremely appealing. I always quite liked the aesthetic of Catrinas/calavaras and sugar skulls in general, clearly i'm not the only one there heh.
I just... I think it would have been nice if they'd included some genuine information about the cultural significance of these things rather than just coopting the design for some fantasy globe trotting world... thing. I think that might have been a nice touch, to acknowledge the inspiration you know?
I dunno..
One thing I like about dolls held in with only twisty ties is that you can put them back IN the box when you're done lol. So here she is, nice and safe back in her box till I find somewhere to display her.
In summary,
not worth full price, but not nearly as cheap as I expected them to be. Actually pretty decently made dolls.
She's so cool other then the hair thing they did a decent job.
ReplyDeleteWow, I need Mariko!
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