LOL OMG have been out for quite a while now and judging by the massive slowdown of releases, i'm going to go out on a limb and assume that the franchise is winding down at last. They had a great run, but doll lines only have a limited life span.
Released in 2019, the OMG line was a spinoff of the blind ball LOL tots, and since 2019 they've spawned quite a few MORE spinoffs including the B-Tweens and JK, and now we have a whole new spinoff. The OMG Fierce dolls.
Are these going to be the new direction OMG go in to refresh the brand or are they kinda like Moxie Teenz, just a random deluxe aside that ultimately fades into obscurity?
Let's take a look shall we?
The new dolls come in a box with a plastic tube holding the doll and a card boxed section to one side.
I appreciate that MGA is moving away from the frustrating blind box element of these, it was pointless anyway. I prefer to SEE the doll i'm buying so I can check for defects you know?
I also think this presentation is substantially more visually appealing than the original OMG boxes.
The barely visible doll art and the rather plain colourations really don't seem very exciting now do they?
The back of the box has an illustration of the doll as well. In this case it's Lady Diva.
The Fierce line aren't new characters, instead what they've done is taken the original 4 dolls and reimagined them which is quite an interesting idea. I wonder if we'll see more.
I bought two of them. Lady Diva and Royal Bee.
Royal Bee looks kinda MEAN in her artwork don't you think?
The back of the boxes uses pretty much identical bases for the artwork. Now I know this is common in fashion illustration with the use of fashion blocks or whatever, but for a doll line it feels kinda lazy to just trace over the same image and recolour it/draw over it.
The regular OMG dolls tend to have their own unique artwork with a character specific pose so it's wierd that this line doesn't do the same.
It means if you put all their artwork in a lineup like you would usually do for a promotional shot they just look like paper dolls, all in the same position, the same pose.
Maybe that was intentional, I dunno. It's a minor thing to be disappointed in lol. But I do feel like it lets down the visual impact. Maybe that's just me though.
Anyway, the tube part of the box is also decorated on the back with a foil design that's character specific. A geometric shatter effect for Diva, a honeycomb for Royal Bee. The fronts do a similar thing with the backdrop. Again Bee gets hexagons while Diva gets a leopard print.
So the little box section of the packaging has a "open here" section but all it does is open a little window so you can see the poster and brush. It's too small to allow you to wriggle the poster OUT though. So I had to open up the whole side to access it.
I expected a stand to be here but it's actually packaged behind the doll inside her tube, you can see it from the front of the box.
So... why is there this large card box on the side if all it has inside is a brush, a poster and a tiny accessory? Could those have not also fit into the tube? Heck, you probably could have hidden the accessory UNDER the stand base or something if you wanted to.
Feels like excessive packaging there, but what else would you expect from MGA? they love their excessive packaging.
The poster is cute, it's an image of the character with "Make it Daring, Make it Dazzling, Make it Drama" written on it.
The other side has the four portrait images of the characters as seen on the back of the box.
It's awkward to photograph though because it's so rolled up. I'd have to leave it under something heavy to flatten it out and I can't be bothered going to that much effort for a little poster.
The little tissue wrapped package contained her glasses which are a wierd visor thing with little molded squares all over them. I dunno.
Like all omg dolls, because she has no real nose to speak of, her glasses don't sit correctly on her face and have a tendency to droop. *Sigh*
The box also demanded blood. It wouldn't be an MGA deboxing if I didn't injure myself though would it? In this case I sliced my thumb pretty much along the entire thumb pad. It didn't bleed as such, but it's a pretty nasty paper cut. I'm not even sure which bit caused it. Could have been the plastic, could have been the card, could have even been my scissors as I tried to cut through all the tape and plastic tabs. I dunno. I just know it hurts dangit.
The box isn't the worst thing i've opened, MGA have to their credit gotten better with their boxes over the years. Or maybe i've just gotten used to wrestling with them.
You cut the tape on the top lid of the tube, slide the whole inner plastic piece out and then snip all the millions of little plastic tabs that are holding the doll in her box. Then she should just pop out of her little clamshell.
Unlike most OMGs, Diva here comes fully dressed right out of the box.
She uses a different face mold to the regular OMGs with more emphasised eyelids giving her a sort of half lidded look rather than the big round eyes of the regular dolls.
Her eyebrows are simple with little lines toward the center to imitate hairs and she has two painted hairs on one side of her head to emulate baby hairs or something.
This face mold feels to me like OMG and Bratz had a baby. The narrower eyes with the intense eyeshadow is very Bratz and I dig it.
Like all omgs her face paint is very simple, almost cartoonish which works well for their big flat faces. She has pouty half opened lips, a tiny almost not even there nose and her whole head is a sort of flattened potato shape lol.
She's significantly larger than the LOL OMG dolls, standing closer to Barbie height.
now of course, she DOES have high heels and a very large head so she's actually a little shorter than a Barbie if you take those things into account but she's definitely more toward the 11-12 inch fashion doll size than the 10 inch size of OMG and Bratz.
I don't own the original Lady Diva, I was never overly keen on her look.
this version is VERY different.
The hair seems to be the same colour though.
Diva's fur shrug is SO SOFT.
Under it she wears a leotard/body suit with a one sleeved mesh shirt underneath.
Her boot covers are actually sewn like this so one always has the black inner showing. I'm not sure I fully understand this but it is what it is.
She has a lot of outfit pieces and each of them are really nicely sewn. This is one of OMG's biggest assets imo, their interesting layered outfits.
Diva comes with her body suit which has little diamantes on the sleeves (one came off during all this, they're just glued in place so be aware they're quite fragile there). Under the body suit she wears this asymetrical sleeve mesh top with a high collar and a leopard print. The long sleeve is a little overlong so it comes down over her hand.
Over these she wears a skirt made of stretch fabric with a subtle leopard print done with gloss on a matte background. There are false silver laces at the front.
She also has a metalised pink necklace which looks to be a lot of dangling shard shapes.
On her other arm she has a black fishnet cuff/sleeve piece.
Her belt is pink soft rubbery plastic with metalised silver charms hanging from it. They spell out "la" "dy" "di" "va" (lady diva) though the "VA" keeps falling off. They aren't really fixed to the belt in any way, they're just on little hooks that loop over the belt.
Also odd about the belt is that it has no fixings on it. It doesn't do up at the back at all. It's just this open thing that means it falls off a lot. I ended up wrapping elastic around the ends and pulling them together so it would at least stay in place. A wierd decision there. Why couldn't they have your usual little peg and hole?
Her boots are decorated with a sort of diamond print that looks a bit like reptile skin. The same pattern is used on her bag. The boots have a little spike at the back and a totally flat sole which helps the doll stand up.
Over these boots are these long shimmery boot covers which have faux lacing all up the back. They have a little elastic loop stirrup at the bottom which allows them to fit over the boots and stay in place.
she has one earring, it's a snake in silver. Her other ear has a metalised spiked earphone piece with attached microphone.
The bag actually opens too which is nice. note the little diamante that came off her bodysuit lol.
Her hair is a pale yellow colour and styled into four pigtail.. things...She doesn't appear to have any super crunchy product in her hair. The curls have something in them to keep them in ringlets but it's relatively soft with only a few little crunchy segements so that's nice too. No rock hard curls here. Horah! Seriously i've become so accustomed to MGA's bulletproof curls, having a doll straight out the box who's hair isn't absolutely solid and sticky is a relief.
Her body is like a scaled up OMG body with the tiny upper body and very broad hips.
She even has the same butt dimples hahaha.
UNLIKE the regular OMG dolls however, Diva here has articulated knees. She also seems to be constructed out of more hard plastic than the regular OMGS who have rubbery legs and a degree of rubbery-ness to their arms as well. Diva instead has hard hollow plastic arms and legs which means she's actually a lot lighter than the regular OMGS.
She also has feet that are separate pieces to her lower leg. I thought at first maybe this meant she had articulated ankles but they only swivel around. I puzzled over it for a while and I THINK it's because her knees don't have any rotational movement in them. They literally only bend forward and back so giving her ankles that can swivel means she can pose with her feet at an angle from her body.
Least, I assume that's the reason. It's quite odd though.
The feet are also made of a different plastic to the rest of her, they're very very shiny and a much thinner cheaper feeling plastic. I wonder if these were a last minute change, like it was quicker to just hack the original feet off and ram some new ones on than it was to reengineer the knee joint or something.
Like the regular OMG dolls, Diva can tilt her head side to side but cannot look up and down. This is as far as her head tilts too. It's enough to give her some expression, but not overly impressive.
Likewise her arms can't even manage a full 90 degree bend at the elbow due to the way her upper arms are designed.
This means she can't touch her face at all.
Instead she looks like she has a headache.
I find it so odd that MGA continue to be so shit with articulation. Rainbow High showed they CAN actually do decent articulation if they try, but every other line they've ever done has had this crappy half arsed jointing. It's like they only sold their souls for ONE articulated doll line and the rest have to make do with these scraps.
the engineering of this body is very similar to the 2010 "Party Bratz" bodies. Better than a static body, but really pretty unimpressive in terms of poseability.
This is as far as her knees bend which is utterly pathetic.
Her upper legs also have no outward movement either, just hinged backwards and forwards like a 1990s Barbie doll.
At least her knees bend enough that she can sit okay though.
But ultimately, this is very outdated engineering going on here. It's fine for a doll i'm just gonna sit on a shelf but at the same time, this line is very much aimed as a "deluxe" line for older kids and collectors, two groups who really DO like articulation.
I suppose ultimately, I do prefer decent clothing and hair to joints though. Maybe MGA had a really strict budget for these.
The hand mold looks to be a modified scaled up version of the OMG hand. Longer less detailed palms and a shorter pet.
Putting the dolls shoulder to shoulder highlights the similarities between the bodies. The torsos look quite similar, the Fierce doll just has longer limbs.
They do not however share a torso completely because while the tops from the OMG dolls fit perfectly, the pants do not.
This girl has far too much junk in the trunk.
Diva's outfit is a little big on Agent Soul here but it's not too bad honestly. The skirt is a little baggy and the jumpsuit a teensy bit roomy but it doesn't look that off.
The shoes are slightly big on Soul but seem to be a pretty close fit.
Because Diva's outfit is stretchy it fits onto Rainbow High very nicely. Simone looks gorgeous in it.
the boot covers won't fit though as Diva's legs are substantially longer than the Rainbow High doll legs.
Also a fun aside, the Fierce hands fit the Rainbow High body perfectly and Diva and Simone are a near perfect skintone match. So that's fun too.
They can't share shoes, Rainbow High feet have a much shallower heel.
Rainbow High pants and skirts seem to fit the Fierce body very nicely, but the tops are predicably far too big.
incidentally, Monster High shoes fit Diva so that's nice to know.
I also looked at Barbie but as Barbie's torso is significantly longer than Diva's, there's no way they'll fit one anothers clothing.
Some Barbie pants or skirts might fit okay but generally speaking Diva's thicker thighs and teensy cinched waist and tiny upper body will mean almost all Barbie stuff just won't fit her and vice versa.
Putting Diva back into her outfit I once more marvelled at how soft her wrap is. It's gorgeous and I am in love with it.
Ahem.
And i'm happy to report that even after trying her clothing on any doll in easy grabbing reach, I only lost ONE diamante stud and no seams popped, no threads snagged and nothing broke.
I did keep losing that damn VA charm though. There has GOT to be a better way to affix those charms to the belt, surely?
Diva did come with a stand but the base is HUGE and I find the LOL stands just take up far too much space anyway. Diva cannot stand unaided, but she stays on her feet fairly well if you balance her against a wall or another more stable doll hahaha.
I'm very impressed with Diva. I wish her glasses wouldn't constantly slide down her dang face but otherwise she's a pretty cool doll. She has so much more attitude than the standard OMG dolls. And I mean I quite LIKE the standard OMG dolls. I enjoy the variety of hair styles and textures and their multi layered often quite OTT outfits. I find them quite fun.
Fierce has taken that and dialled it up to 11 and I am here for it.
Royal Bee is even MORE detailed. Which is impressive.
Her makeup is a bit more subdued than Diva's with a thin gold strip above the lid and glittery dark lips.
Her hair is curly, dark brown and streaked with gold.
For some reason sometimes her glitter lips photograph a bit too frosty.
Her hair style is very very complicated at the top with this braided section styled into loops. There are little painted spiked sections at the front.
Her bag is a cute hexagon shape with a gold bee clasp. It doesn't stay closed without elastic.
She comes with a lot of pieces. Her overshirt and pleather shorts are worn over the top of a black mesh bodysuit which was unexpected. Her necklace and bracelet are metalised gold with little bees on them. Her earrings are double hoops.
Her fishnet kneehighs are black shot with gold so they sparkle. Over these she wears black ankle boots with a gold heel.
She also has some pleather arm cuffs.
Finally she comes with a pair of wierd wing shaped glasses and a belt with a long mesh train on it that like her fishnets, is shot with gold thread.
The shirt has cone (hive?) shaped shoulder pieces and metal chains dangling from the front and one shoulder. The hem is rucked up so it flares out at the hips.
Her shorts have little gold square studs which come off very very easily.
So if one desires, Bee can have a far more casual look.
Interestingly, her bodysuit straps attach with a hook and loop rather than elastic.
Her glasses are wierd. Not only are they very difficult to get to stay on her face, even when you position them properly they're just very very silly looking.
She gives me huge Beyonce vibes, or at least some pop star. She's pretty awesome.
The two of them are gorgeous over the top pop divas.
I'm enjoying this new line and maybe it'll breathe some fresh life into the OMGs. Or it might be a flash in the pan of a brand that's reaching their end. I hope we do see more of this spinoff, they're a lot of fun and at £35, only a couple of pounds more than a regular OMG, they feel like pretty good value for money.
now granted they are ALSO the same price as Rainbow High and only come with one outfit, but the outfit they come with is far more detailed with the layers than any of the rainbow high stuff and far far more over the top aesthetically.
I only wish they had better elbow jointing, they are very very awkward to pose as a result of their limited arm movement and it's a massive pity.
Bee-yonce
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