Been thinking about flash in the pan failed doll lines....
And so, I give you...
L.U.V!
A doll line produced by Far Out Toys, the company who also made the Glow Up Girls, a line that had a thoroughly bizarre release here in the UK and was cancelled before we could even get the second half of the first wave.
L.U.V was, like the Wild Hearts Crew, a line doomed to failure by being sold ONLY at Walmart. Walmart, where dolls go to die. They also shot themselves in the foot by pricing them far far too high. At $30usd, that made them more expensive than a lot of Barbie, a lot of Monster High, most Bratz and several other doll brands.
now
yes, I get it. Smaller companies can't get such good wholesale deals so
their overheads are more expensive, meaning the final product needs to
be more expensive. but when you're launching a new doll line against the
big boys, you need to either bring something completely NEW to the
scene to justify that price point, or you need to cut a lot of corners
to get the price down to undercut the big guys and provide a "budget"
alternative. on top of that, a lot of stores won't take a chance on the
new guy, so getting your product INTO stores in the first place is hard.
Which is why so many new lines end up as exclusives.
The problem is
that Mattel and MGA have such a stranglehold on the doll market that
anyone new coming in has a seriously rough struggle to even be noticed. A
high price point and a restricted distribution is not doing you any
favors. Even if it all makes sense as to why it happens, it's just extra
hurdles to overcome when the deck is already massively stacked against
you.
what can new toy makers do? I don't know the answer to that sadly. but I do know that many have tried and almost all of them sink without a trace.
Anyway, let's take a look
Brooke here was another victim of Amazon's "yeah a bag will totally do to ship this internationally" policy. Her box is absolutely crushed, but thankfully nothing missing and no damage to the doll.
The box itself is a nice looking box but it IS entirely plastic which feels pretty wasteful. Does make it easier to recycle though, you don't have to cut it up to separate the plastic and card parts.
The brand name is pretty generic and I don't think much helped things. If you look up "luv doll" well.... make sure safe search is on.
Limitless, Unique, Vibrant. this is a backronym about as awkward as MGA's "Outrageous Millennial Girls"
Anyway, this line is fashion themed like almost every other doll brand. Fashion design is a common theme for dolls but never one I found to be overly inspired.
Brooke is supposed to be a "rocker chick" but i'm not seeing any of that in her outfit. She looks more edgy corporate but whatever.
The doll's face suffers from the same issues the first wave of the Glo Up Girls did (also made by Far Out Toys). That is, a rather blank stare and a lack of any real personality in the face.
it's nicely applied certainly, but it's very very 2 dimensional. There's no depth anywhere, even with their attempt at a shadow under the lids.
She has nice eyebrows though, and her lips are nicely painted with a bit of a shine to them.
Her outfit is the reason I picked this girl. It's quite an interesting combination of pieces but the biggest draw is of course that jacket. We'll get a closer look at her clothes in a bit.
She's TINY. She only comes up to Barbie's shoulder! Which actually I find to be quite a pleasant size. I remember the makers of Lottie talking about how Barbie was too big for a lot of younger children and that was why they made Lottie the size they did, the smaller scale fitted more naturally into the hands of a child. The only reason most fashion dolls are 11.5 inches tall is because of Barbie, but actually something more Brooke sized would be more ideal for little hands.
Brooke is very pale with black hair styled in loose curls. it's very soft fiber but i'm not sure if it's saran or nylon. It feels quite similar to the modern Bratz hair which I believe is Saran. But I don't know for sure.
Her profile is quite flattened with a large forehead and absolutely no sculpting for the eyes which also contributes to how unrefined they look.
Her ears also look a little too far back, or perhaps her hair line is too far forward?
weird.
Under the jacket Brooke has a silky cami top, a very chunky belt and these strange skirted suit pants. The trousers suffer for the scale I think, the fabric they're made of is fairly light weight but it's not enough to sit correctly at such a tiny scale. Unfortunately, miniature clothes don't behave like human sized stuff, and it's a pity because it's quite a funky and unusual design. I'll have to see if I can help it sit a bit better.
It's a very light stand though, and it's a bit hit and miss as to whether it'll actually stay together.
Brooke's full outfit consists of a pair of suit pants with integral skirt, a cami or tank top with lace trim and a vinyl coat.
All the pieces are really nicely made and utilise a nice variety of fabrics and textures which I always enjoy. The tank top is a touch too big for the doll but I put that down to her being just so damn small.
The jacket has a partial lining in the "skirt" piece so that the white inside doesn't show when it's on the doll. This is a nice bit of attention to detail right there.
Her shoes are pretty cool, they remind me of some of Monster High Clawdeen's shoes with the spikes and there's something almost skeletal about the shape of the straps.
they're made of very soft vinyl so they go on really easily.
Her accessories are all really chunky and honestly a little out of scale with the doll. I assume the chunkiness is simply so they could be molded and not fall apart as soon as you touched them but it's a pity they elected to go with the chunky plastic rather than taking the Bratz route of using fabric or chain. But it's probably a budget thing. Still, for the scale a little piece of chain would have worked a lot better.
the necklace is okay, it's molded as one piece with the black beads and the gold chain with the big cross. The chunkiness of it sort of works due to the style.
she also has this
bracelet ring... knuckleduster thing that has a big heart with "luv" on
it. I'm not overly keen on this piece, it's really chunky and swamps her
hand. 
She also has asymmetrical earrings. One is just a spiked hoop while the other has an attempt at a chain which again, the chunkiness of the plastic sort of undermines.
and she comes with a handbag which while a cool shape, is inexplicably pale pink which doesn't go with anything the doll is wearing. I feel like black or even purple would have been more cohesive.
It's also really awkward to get her to hold like most handbags for dolls are. I much prefer cross body bags or bags with long straps to these little clutches, they tend to be able to be displayed substantially easier.
On a realism note, i'm not sure how comfortable a spiky heart shaped handle would actually be to hold for any period of time.
the bag doesn't open, it's just a chunk of plastic. It went straight into the "random crap" box i'm afraid.
Brooke's body is articulated, surprisingly so in fact. She has 12? points of articulation. Although some are more useless than not.
her body shape is quite stylized with this sort of triangular torso. It reminds me a bit of the obitsu and similar bodies actually.
Her arms can't bend much at all, she can't even manage 90 degrees. Likewise her head can't look up and down and her bust joint adds only the tiniest pivot which honestly feels redundant.
her legs however are really interesting. Not only can her knees bend nicely to 90 degrees allowing her to sit properly, her ankles also bend to a pretty unnatural degree. I assume this was to make dressing the dolls a bit easier but it looks super strange.
She also has painted nails AND toe nails, which is kinda cute.
Her hands pop off but her feet don't seem to. I did try.
Her hip engineering is quite interesting and contributes to how well she can sit. She has a ball socket assembly with these extra cup pieces inside the leg? It's odd but it does mean the legs can splay completely outward.
I find it interesting they gave the dolls such decently jointed legs but fucked up the elbows. Can't have everything I guess.
Daisy has a similar issue, the top and jacket fit quite nicely but the trousers are far too long.
The g3 Monster High body has a similarly sized torso but much longer legs.
Here's a closer look. I need to wash her hair lol.
I do feel slightly bad about giving her the illusion of lids, it wasn't actually my intention when I did her eyeshadow but oh well. Just know that I wasn't trying to white-wash her, Far Out Toys already did that *cough cough*
But Brooke wasn't the only LUV doll i got.
I also got her a friend.
Terrible illiterate looking name aside, Londynn was my favourite of the set from the start. Her outfit is crazy, which is fun, and look at those curls!
Whoever does the art for Farout, I really dig it. I just wish the company made more effort to have the faces look like their artwork.
Like Brooke, Londynn's face has quite a flat profile but also has strangely aligned facial proportions with very high brows and eyes. I don't hate it though.
Unlike Brooke, Londynn's eyes are more detailed with two toned makeup and thicker eyeliner which makes her look a lot less dead eyed.
she's got gorgeous dark pink almost purple lips and wonderfully soft tightly curled hair which is styled in two pigtails.
her eyes are strangely yellow. I sketched in some brown to give them a little more depth and make them a little less "werewolf".
Her full outfit, like Brooke's, is all individual pieces. What is quite strange about this line is that the other two dolls do NOT have individual bits, instead their outfits are predominantly sewn together. Which is a real pity.
Her shorts are a sort of geometric camo with real pockets which is awesome. They're sewn shut, but they are real pockets.
the jacket is made from some sort of light floaty material with a full lining. It's a really nice jacket with these beautifully tailored puff sleeves and tiny little ribbed cuffs.
Her top is bright pink fishnet with a huge ruffle on the front and while it's also a nicely made piece, it's a bit off scale for the doll i feel. The ruffle is enormous and it gets in her face constantly. I like the idea, I just feel like it was a little too large to work as well as it could.
These thigh high boots are pretty awesome. They have deep slits down the back to make them easier to put on but they're still quite awkward due to the doll's articulated ankles. You have to really shove to get the feet in there. But the sculpted wrinkles and texture is very effective.
Less effective are her very chunky accessories. The belt doubles as her bag with a little heart shaped pouch attached and it's not quite as clunky as Brooke's belt.
however, the wrist cuff/knuckleduster is arguably worse. It has an oversized bracelet piece which is cut down the middle so it can go on the doll (I would argue that as her hands come off, this wasn't necessary) and don't actually line up nicely. In the box her bracelet was elastic banded tightly to her arm but so badly misaligned and flattened that it looked like an amorphous blob of gold plastic.
even if you line it up, it's so oversized it drowns the doll's arm and sort of sags in this sad manner.
Her necklaces look like you could maybe cut them apart into two separate pieces, which I would have preferred. The pearl choker is massive and also too big for the doll's neck anyway. Meanwhile the chain with the heart locket is chunky, but works due to its design.
As it stands, the two massively chunky necklaces AND the oversized ruffle of her top just swamp the doll completely.
So fresh off my discovery that Bratz clothing could actually fit these dolls, I went for a dig through my stash to see if I had anything that would work for this girl.
This pink ruffled top had a far more in scale frill but kept the feel of her original look. I put an orange boob tube underneath because I didn't have any pink ones. Alas.
I felt like the fishnet top would work better on a doll with a larger head, so the ruffle wasn't the same size as her whole cranium so I tried it on Draculaura. I think it could work.
You would think, would you not, that given the layers of Brooke and Londynn's outfits, Autumn here would come with a skirt, an undershirt and an overshirt no?
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