Monster High - Great Scarrier Reef - Down Under Ghouls

Great Scarrier  Reef looks like it might be the last really interesting line Monster High is giving us.
I've said a lot about this "reboot" thing on social media, I don't really feel I have the energy to repeat it. Suffice to say, i'm not happy about it but i'll enjoy the last few truly creative dolls we get before it all turns into doe eyed safeness.

And wow talk about going out with a bang because this mermaid line? it's awesome.

I joked a while ago that Mattel would inevitably give us mermaids and fairy mh because it was a cliche of "girl" franchises, and yeah... the have given us mermaids but oh my goodness they're not just a humany doll with a fish tail tacked on.

These here are merfolk done right, with creativity and craziness. I honestly really dig this whole line.

Anyway, I had Argos vouchers so I bought the three new characters.

Monster High - Brand Boo Students

I couldn't resist, I needed these three.

Weirdly this bunch aren't listed as Monster Exchange, they're "Brand Boo students"  I wonder why, especially as their diaries etc specifically mention the monster exchange program.

Anyway, here's Isi Dawndancer, Batsy Claro and Kjersti Trollson

Monster High Manny and Iris SDCC

They're here, they're here! My giant box is here!

Monster High Invisibilly and Neighthan Rot

Boys boys boys, omg boys.

<_< >_>

BOYS!

Ok I think I have that out of my system.


This season Monster High has given us not one, but two brand new male characters. I feel spoiled.
Better yet, they aren't proving to be an absolute needle in haystack to find! YES!
Neighthan a good friend from the US sent to me, while Billy came from Amazon.co.uk, so let's get around to actually reviewing them shall we?
I can't wait to get my hands on these boys... wait... that... came out wrong.
*cough*

Monster High - We are Monster High 5 pack

omg omg omg omg omg... you guys... seriously...omg.

Ahem.. ok, allow me to compose myself...

holy crap GILDA!

Monster High - Picnic Casket for Two

Not my photo

Picnic Casket for two, another two pack from Monster High featuring two characters who might be dating, and probably aren't. 

Monster High - Slo Mo

HELL YES SLO MO!

I um... suffered a moment of madness there. I appologise.

Wait.. no I don't. HE WAS DELICIOUS!

Amazon.de (that is, Germany) finally got my preorder in stock and dispatched him. 2 days he took to arrive, sweet!

Euro boxes obviously, so much smaller graphics on the back and the usual dozen or so languages.

 

In case anyone was particularly curious about euro boxes. It's not very interesting, just says "pep rally, come show your ghoul spirit", though I have to ask... ok, in the MH universe "ghoul" means both "girl" AND "school", is that not really confusing? Like "I really like this ghoul" could mean either "i really like this individual of the female persuasion" or "I really enjoy attending this academic institution". MH Language is just asking for misunderstandings.

"I was hanging out with my ghoul friends"

"Oh yes, she's my ghoul friend"

"We have to wear ghoul clothes today."

You get the idea.

Anyway, moving on.

Slo Mo! He comes with a random plastic pennant which is kinda pointless imo. Yay plastic crappy flag? Yeah, that's going in the accessory/tat box. (Edit: Scratch that, toddler took it and now it's lost to the ether. Dum de dum.)

Mo has really worried eyebrows, he looks so concerned. It's ok Mo! I'll get you off this backing card asap!

He has normal "human" style hands.

So let us begin.

Slo Mo looks first of all, pretty much NOTHING like his webisode self. This guy is skinny, he has ridiculous hair that makes him look like a painbrush and he's far too even featured. I suppose Mattel didn't want to fork out for a bulkier body sculpt and figured a lazy eyed boy might be a step too far but that said, Neighthan Rot has half his face decaying and they're releasing him!
Oh well. IMO Mo doll looks like a character from a Tim Burton movie or Paranorman or something.

He's dressed pretty simply, but then he IS a budget doll. I hope we aren't waiting too long for a signature version of him.
He needs pants and a letterman damnit!

His shirt is ok, it's a purple tee with the MH logo on the front and dripping black gloop on it. Yummy.
His shorts are thin, simple blue shorts. *YAWN* they serve their purpose I suppose, they cover his butt.

He wears a pair of pretty standard hi top sneakers. Most of the boys seem to wear similar sneakers or slip ons. Only Clawd ever gets boots. I like boots. I want more boy boots!
But yeah, we'll get to Mo's shoes later. 

Mo has this multi tonal dark blue hair sticking straight up like he's had a fright. The sides and back are flocked in grey.
Around his eyes he has a lovely mossy green, kinda like decay. Yum. It works well to give him a ghoulish kinda look (that's ghoulish, not girlish or schoolish.. got it?)
His eyes are a very pale blue/grey colour. His skin is actually a greyish purple tone. He's more purple that Ghoulia but nowhere near as richly coloured as Twyla. Against Twyla he looks grey, against Ghoulia he looks purple.

His lips are a frosty blue and make him look like he's cold.

He has a really long face and a quite strikingly large cleft chin. Look at that thing! That chin has it's own bloody post code!

Mo's ears are ever so slightly pointed. He also has an interesting very straight nose but it's kinda dwarfed by that big ol' chin of his. He's like Bruce Campbell in zombie form (or should that be Deadite?). Grooovy.

Mattel seem to have actually learnt something from their packaging of Clawd. My Forbitten Love Clawd has holes in his flock where they decided to jam those packing tags THROUGH the flock. Slo Mo's packing tags were actually attached in his hair line, above the flock.
However, because he was jammed pretty tight to the backing card, he does have a little bit of a rub to the back of his flock. Damnit Mattel, can you just put the heads into like a plastic cradle/pillow to keep it in place and avoid this kinda thing?

Mo's shoes are pretty unremarkable till you look at the soles. BRAIN TREAD! lol.
Very random, I mean, who looks at the soles of shoes? Still a cute though though. A few of the MH boys have unusual treads under their shoes.

I should probably mention that my Slo Mo has a lazy eye. A defect that for once, delights me. So many people were lamenting that their Slo Mo's face paint was a bit too perfect, that this is the one character where eye wonk would work and so i'm kinda pleased mine is actually wonky. It's subtle, but it gives him this slightly "off" look I feel.

He looks so perplexed though, he doesn't look like he wants to eat my brains, he looks like he wants to give me a hug!

Ghoulia swooped in to lay claim to her man.
Sadly Mo can't actually look DOWN. Like all the MH boys. He can look up and around and has a great range of head motion, but looking down at his girlfriend (or is that ghoulfriend with whom he attends ghoul?) is right out. A shame, because it means in photos he looks like he's either ignoring her, or fascinated by her forehead.

You can see the colour difference though. Ghoulia almost looks grimy alongside Mo who's a really pretty purpley grey.

Anyway, his paintbrush hair is bothering me. Even in the art on the box he doesn't have his hair sticking straight up like a broom!

I took a look at it and I honestly suspect it's not meant to be sticking up like that.

Let's see if I can sweep it forward.

A little hot water and a bag on the head later (I don't recommend this for styling your own hair, you know, in case you're wondering... ) and yes, I believe this is more what the designers had in mind. But then, what do I know? Certainly it seems closer to 1: a realistic hair style and 2: his artwork

 Mo's so happy with his new "do" that he did a little dance.

I lined him up with the other boys and you know what this did? Made it more obvious what a long face he has and also, what a bubble head Clawd has lol. Clawd's head is so fat and round ahahahaha. Slo Mo's on the other hand is narrow and long.

Gosh I love how different all the boys look from one another. (Except the "twins" of course. )

I do wish Mo had come with his letterman though. We need more lettermans! Mattel, give us lettermans NOW.

Anyway, overall I give Slo Mo... oh who cares, everyone will buy him anyway!
He's Slo Mo!

 

Loooove meeeeee

Monster High - Jane Boolittle

Jane Boolittle, a bit of a random odd addition to the MH franchise. This ghoul showed up with no fanfare, no real details, she just... was. Odd.

She can indeed talk with the animals, walk and talk and sing with the animals. Ok i'll stop.

Her box! VERY striking . The red is very eye catching and the jungley, bridge/skull/waterfall thing is very King Kong. Lots of pulp references here i'm sure.

There's also this 3d bit, which is cool. I don't know why there's a sticking out rock.. but there is and it's awesome. Sometimes the MH boxes have 3d furniture and stuff to display shoes and accessories on, but I don't recall any having like... 3d scenery like this.

It's worth noting that Jane is not part of any line, she exists on her own as the doll accompanying, presumably, secret creepers, the newest gimmicky piece of tat branded MH. They're basically oversized versions of existing character's pets, which open up so you can hide things in them, mostly scraps of paper with stuff written on them. Kinda exactly like Keypers...

(I totally had the snail, she was awesome)

Only less fabulously useful and demented. (You could hide your dad's keys in these things, a hilaaaarious prank... <_< what?)

I never quite understood why toy companies are so keen for kids to write their secrets down. Surely writing them down is like... the number 1 sure fire way to make sure it DOESN'T stay a secret?

Anyway, Jane seems to be part of this line.. somehow. It's confusing and odd. Means she's packaged in her own case though, much like Catty Noir was, and all those exclusives.

Jane has a diary, which is great. I love these things. Hers goes into details about how she was adopted by Doctor Boolittle (presumably the monster Doctor Doolittle) and Doctor Moreau, AKA that crazy dude who turned people into animals. It's been parodied on the Simpsons so you better have heard of it.
Anyway, what's interesting to note is that why Dr M is male in the book/movies, in this diary he or she is NEVER once mentioned by gender pronoun. It's "dr M" this and "dr m" that. That's gotta be intentional, but why would Mattel hide the gender of a character from us? There's two reasons I can think of.

The first, Dr M is indeed a man and they didn't want anyone to read any homosexual subtext into her having two dads.

Or they're screwing with our preconceptions and it'll turn out Dr M is in fact a woman and the daughter of the original Dr M, much like Jackson's mother appears to be the Jekyll/Hyde parent.

Either way, it's odd.

And no, we never learn what monster type Jane actually is. She doesn't seem to know.

She comes with instructions, exciting. They seem to tell me that her bag can open, her sloth goes on her back and she can hold her staff thing which is also a pen? Awesome... and random.

Presumably for writing your "secrets" to put inside the toy and leave for your siblings to find and blackmail you with... yep.

Here's Needles the sloth, who appears to be made of stitched together burlap sacks lol. Least, i'd rather believe he was made of burlap than shredded sloth parts. Ahem.
I wonder if he's linked to Hoodude's fabric, which was given to Dr Stein by some voodoo shaman he knew... hmmm.

He is soft and squishy and hollow, having a slit in his back for secret thiiiingsssss.

Inside Jane's purse is a small pile of papers, secret papers? no, just blank paper with little vine motifs on the edges.

I didn't want to waste one of the bits of paper, so I uncapped the staff/marker and wrote my secret things on A4 bwhahaha. It's a purple felt tip pen.

You waited long enough though, here she is, deboxed and gorgeous.

Jane's skin is a really deep bruised purple, much much deeper than Operetta's or Twyla's. Her hair is actually a deep purple indigo shade, with deep pink streaks though it. It's lovely and soft but a little frizzy.

Her outfit is a mad assortment of colours, patterns and textures that works well against her dark tones. Irl the colours are all much much darker than photos tell.

  

Her shoes are mismatched, one is a snake coiling around the leg, the other looks to be some sort of metal brace thing with feathers. Go figure.

Her leggings/tights have jagged hems and one is longer than the other.

 

Over the tights she wears a pink dress/tunic with a teal skirt in netting. Her belt is three skullettes with feathers and I think teeth are the other motif to each side.

She has one bracelet with scratched lines in it, and the other arm has a fishnet sleeve and a red and a teal bracelet.

She has clawed hands.

Over the dress thing is an asymetrical top with furry cap sleeves.
the top itself has a sort of vine/tree pattern on it.

Over that she wears a plastic shoulder piece made of moulded plastic feathers. Then a necklace piece in red.

One ear has a bone and feather earring.

The other has a tooth.

Jane's face is striking with very unusual lips. The top lip has no dip in it, while the bottom lip has a pronounced dimple. No upper lip dip always makes me think of Julia Roberts, though I think Jane here pulls it off far far better.

She has aqua/teal coloured eyes with pink and purple makeup which is quite subtle. Under each eye are a series of aqua/teal dots. Her ears are very faintly pointed.

On top of her head she has a headband with a skullette at the centre of large feather "wings". It kinda makes me think of a butterfly or moth tbh.

Her hair is pretty, and not too bad out of the box tbh. It needed a little combing and finger curling but it's ok to me.

Under that top you can see her dress thing is a strapless number, held up with clear elastic straps.

As the instructions told me, her sloth does indeed make a good backpack. he looks so cosy there. though he does also kiiiinda look like he's trying to cop a feel. Hmmm.

There is a bit of a problem with the slothpack though. Jane comes with a standard stand, but with the sloth on her back as he's clearly designed to be worn, the stand will not fit.

Best I could manage was a nice sloth seat. A saddle stand would have made a lot more sense. Annoyingly, the only one I have came with Catty Noir and is far too high for any other doll to use. Grrr.

Solution! Put her on the stand sideways lol. It's not particularly elegant, but it works till I can locate some shorter saddle stands.

Overall, I really do like Jane. She's a very unique colour and she stands out beautifully. Her tribal motif is fun and I like how she has so many colours on her without it feeling too much.
Her pen staff is a cute accessory, but it's a bit gimmicky as a pen for me. I can't see when I would ever use it as a pen, but it makes a great prop.
her pet is stinking adorable and I do like that he clips onto her. Only a few of the pets have really been able to hang out with their owner in a way that felt/looked natural. Sir Hoots a Lot can perch on Ghoulia's arm for instance, so I always like it when the doll and pet can interact in this sort of manner on display. Also saves me from losing the pets when they fall off the shelf and roll off somewhere.

Booo.

I like having them attached to the doll, but very few of them can do that.

Her stand lets her down. A real design oversight here to make it so she couldn't be on her stand and wearing her sloth in the manner the instructions tell you.
The secret keeper thing is a bit cheesy and I can't see it ever being used, at all. Why would you?
But she's a nice doll and an interesting character addition. Her parents add a lot of potential for tying her in with other characters and i'm really curious about Dr M's gender now lol.
Is she our first MH character with two dads? Or are Mattel just messing with us?
I suspect the latter but I like to think the former.

I give Jane Boolittle 9 ambiguous gender identities out of 10. She'd get 10 but the stand thing annoyed me.

Monster High - Music Festival

Music Festival, I know it's an older line but i've been lazy about deboxing ok?

Anyway, a few months back Argos listed the whole budget line for around £6 each, I sent husband on a mission to obtain them for me. I can't resist me a bargain.

I picked up the two pack from Sainsbury, where it's exclusive.

This line is odd in the choice of characters. It's always baffled me why they picked these 5 and not you know.. characters who are actually music related. Why is Operetta not here? Or Holt? Heck even Deuce would make more sense than Abbey who's shown zero musical interest ever or Venus who strikes me as more likely to be protesting about how "bad for the environment" festivals are or something.

Anyway, the boxes are a nice eye catching red and black with music notes and symbols all over.

The backs of the boxes have a giant VIP pass (odd given the passes on the dolls say V.I.M) and cute cartoons of the characters.
I love this art, it's so dynamic. Shame Clawd's art is covered by Sainsbury's stupid warehouse sticker. Bah.

So enough about boxes, let's look at the dolls.

First up because she's the first one I picked up, it's Abbey!

Abbey:

 

Abbey's posed rather randomly in her box. I think maybe she's dancing? Not sure though.
The box says nothing about her music style, but judging by her vintage ensemble, i'd guess "1960s flowerchild" which seems totally NOT Abbey at all.

Apparently the US boxes have a quote on the front explaining the music theme.

Abbey's is "Where is stage for Yetish FOLK MUSIC?" - So... are we to garner from this that traditional Yeti are all a bunch of hippies? Are the Himalayas still stuck back into the 60s?

Abbey says: "Big Yetish folk band Beatles... you hear of yes?"

Despite her outfit not being what I think of when I think "Abbey", it's a very cute outfit and the ice themes are adorable. I do really appreciate the northern lights inspired tie dye on her shirt.

I should point out now, that as with all recent budget lines, Music Festival doesn't come with stands. Booo hissss. 

 Back to the boxes for a moment (I know I know). The backing card is fun. All slime and monstery musical notes and speakers and records/cds. That skull note is so cute. Is there a.. fanged one as well? Wth?

Here she is free of her box. Three tags in the back of her head.. WHY Mattel? Why three!? Is one not enough to keep her head pinned to the backing card? Sheesh.

Anyway, her outfit.

On her head she wears a headscarf made from the same fabric as her Home Ick dress I believe, it's black and has strand effects in pink and white on it. (reminds me of her bobbly tinsel hair).
Her hair is in bangs, is this the second time she's had bangs? Picture day had a fringe but I can't think of any others.
Anyway, the front has two chunky vivid pink streaks and then there's blue streaks to either side of her face.It's a striking look, though no purple in her hair this time I note.

She also has no tinsel. I can't say I miss the stuff. I hate that tinsel, it snags on hair brushes and makes me reluctant to comb the hair with anything but my fingers.

Her makeup is bold blue which I like, it's a change from her usual pink makeup and it looks great. Her lips are a bring pink.

She has one icicle and one snow flake earring, just like her original doll but in inverted colours (the snowflake is blue not pink and the icicle is pink/purple not blue)

 

She wears a tie dye shirt with flared, jagged sleeves and jagged hem. Under that is a mini skirt with splattered blue and purple patterning. I do like that these are to separate pieces, it would have been easy to have this just a stitched together dress but i'm glad Mattel didn't cheap out there and gave us options for mixing and matching.

She has an icicle belt and a VIM (very important monster) backstage pass.

Her shoes are awesome ice boots with pink straps. Love these boots!

Music Festival Abbey's eyes are a lot wider than my original Abbey, and the bangs make her face look wider and smaller. Overall it makes her look younger to me, less Abbey, more Abbey's kid sister. I do like me some variation in my dolls so i'm pleased to see such a difference.

The pink in Music Festival's hair is a LOT brighter than the pale pink in original Abbey's.

H

Original Abbey's hair is practically CAKED in glittery tinsel, but Music festival has not a single strand. Must be cheaper. I don't miss it, but it's odd to me that several of her releases have lost the tinselly bits which added a cool effect to her hair despite the irritation of brushing it.

 
Her hair is a little thinly rooted under the headscarf, which is annoying. Good thing I didn't intend to leave it off huh?

Overall? I really do like her.

I'm particularly fussy with Abbey, as despite liking her character, I find most of her dolls really do look too similar. Given I have limited space and funds, I seldom can justify more Abbeys in my collection but this girl manages to snag herself a "keeper" slot purely by being stinking adorable and by looking so different to my original girl. In my mind, she's Abbey's little sis, the girly flower child living in the past.

I give her a solid 9 peace signs out of 10. At full price she's a nice budget doll, at just over £6 she's amazing.

Clawdeen

Can I just say how freaking HOT Clawdeen's art is? I mean damn is that some awesome artwork there, such attitude and sass and ... just.. wow. Loooove that image. Seriously.

Anyway, Clawdeen is a surprise for me. When Music Festival was first annouced she was the one with the least interesting outfit, the one who seemed the most "meh, pass". But when I saw these dolls in the flesh... or should that be plastic? Her faceup is just... wow. Narrow eyes, magenta and gold shadow, blonde streaks in the hair. This Clawdeen is seriously FIERCE and I love it.

Her blurb from the US boxes is: "I need a SCARY COOL BEAT and space to DANCE."

which isn't hugely helpful. Are the caps supposed to be the hint? Scary cool beat dance? Is that a thing?

Anyway, Clawdeen looks like she's stepped out of the 70s and is ready to bust some sweet disco moves. I almost feel she should have an afro, man I would love a Clawdeen with an afro. You listening Mattel? Make it so!

Another odd box pose. I think she's striking a pose, oh yes girl.. vogue.

Of the three, Clawdeen's outfit is still the simplest. It's a jumpsuit in purple lycra with stars, moons and skullettes down one side. She has a black belt... or belts and gold torn up shoes with zippers all over them. What is with Clawdeen and zippers? She's obsessed with the damn things!

one hand is gloved, the other isn't, funky.

She has two gold hoops in one ear, the lower of which is more...oval shaped but i'm not sure why. The other ear has this gold chain thing going on.

poor girl has some serious "box hair.

Not only is it frizzy as hell, I swear it's longer on one side. Wth? I'm going to have to recurl this ball of frizz stat.

I sold my original Clawdeen quite some time ago, so second wave/School's out will have to do as my comparison. Look ma! Same shoes! (is it bad that I only just noticed that upon looking at this photo and writing this sentence? Man i'm observant)

Anyway, this time it's the older doll that looks younger. Music Festival's narrow eyes lend her a certain maturity to her look and it's remarkable how much eye shape influences the perception of the rest of the face.
The blonde streaks are a nice touch, I don't think we've had a Clawdeen with blonde before now. It's attractive, if only her hair wasn't so fluffy.

My only issue is that jumpsuit.. girl... disco is dead. Ditch that jumpsuit and get yourself something befitting that gore-gous sultry face of yours!

 Overall I do love this Clawdeen, don't like the outfit but I love her face and hair so so much. Ok her hair is frizzy and i'll need to spend some time fixing it, but i'm sure it'll look beautiful with minimal effort.
She was the music festival doll I wanted most of all, because I adored the DOLL. Often I find I love the outfit far more than the doll itself, but here it's the other way around. Not that I HATE her outfit, it's just kinda.. bland when you consider what a fashionista Clawdeen's supposed to be.
I give her a solid 8 boogie nights out of 10. Her outfit ain't great, but her face is terrific.

Venus

And the winner for most awkward box pose goes to....

What the heck is she doing with her hand there? Poor girl, that looks so painful.

Her art... again, awesome. Kinda a bummer her doll doesn't have that mohawk thing going on but i'm not certain how they'd have achieved it. Still, her art is so vibrant and punky and her doll just feels a bit... meh by comparison. Don't get me wrong, love the outfit, but her face and hair.. blah.

Her blurb is: "Just point me to where it's THE LOUDEST." so... Venus is into thrash metal?

Heeey Macarina...

that leg looks sore... I mean i'm sure knees shouldn't bend like that, poor girl's obviously broken something dancing.

Somehow I managed to not take a solo deboxed photo of Venus... so we'll discuss her outfit using this image.

Venus' outfit is very cool. It's very 80s and I wouldn't really say punk but it's cute. Interesting, so far each girl has represented a different decade. Go figure.

She has a pink cropped over top with skulls and under that a one armed dress with a very abstract sort of graffiti print and this large black starburst effect.

Her usual vines are brighter green than usual and she has a pair of shoes that look woven at the top and have vines trailing down the heel. They remind me of Scarily Ever After Clawdeen's shoes actually. She has a translucent green spiked belt which has been reused a few times already. It works well enough here.

She only has one earring which is designed to cover her ear but is only actually slotted into the ear in the usual place so it pivots and when I deboxed her, it was positioned to be dangly. You could I suppose have it either way, but according to her art it's supposed to be more like an ear cuff.

The over shirt is made from oddly stiff fabric, while underneath is this very cool dress which is stretchy and soft. My only issue with this dress is that it's not very well fitted in the bodice and kept sliding down and giving me a full on boob shot. Poor Venus, I mean that's not just nip slip, it's full on wardrobe malfunction.

Her hair is mostly pink, which is interesting as usually it's mostly green. The side flock has a zig zag pattern in it which is a nice touch.

Her makeup is frankly disappointing. Her art and promo image had her with two toned pink/purple makeup but here it's just flat purple and a bit raccoon-like to me. Her eyes are very wide and starey for me as well, she has this blank dead eyed staaaare that unsettles me greatly. I mean, she looks like a deer in headlights!
I don't get why her makeup is so incomplete. The other two girls got proper makeup so why did Venus miss out on her second layer of eye makeup? I feel like just a tiny bit of pink and a thin black line to narrow her eyes just a tiny bit would make a huge difference.
Annoying it wasn't done in production, it really spoils the doll for me. Her outfit is awesome and the flock detail is neat but her eyes... argh.

The mostly pink hair is striking, though picking up original Venus reveals how woefully thinly rooted Music Festival's hair is. Original Venus has LOADS of hair, I mean she's heavy as anything because of it but music festival's hair feels flat and disappointingly thin.

Her eyes are a totally different shape, original Venus actually looks a little mean with her eyes so heavily lidded with black while Music Festival looks bright eyed and a little... hyper to me. It's a very bright eager face, but at other angles it's a very blank wide eyed stare face. I can't live with it.

So I did some tweaks. Tiny bit of black to narrow the eyes, and a tiny bit of brighter pinky purple on the lids to give her makeup some depth. What a difference. I'm a lot happier now. Just gotta do something with that thin limp hair.

Overall, Venus is actually the least well put together of the lot. Her makeup is disappointing, her hair is disappointing and she just feels incomplete. A little more time to just tweak things and she could have been utter perfection, and the disappointment just makes me annoyed because all the things wrong are such tiny stupid things that would have been so easy to remedy.

I love her outfit, I really do. But I feel there's better Venus DOLLS to put said outfit on.

I give her 6.5 oncoming vehicals out of 10.

Overall

For a budget line Music Festival is a pretty cute little line. The outfits are great quality and nicely put together. Both Venus and Abbey have separate elements that allows for mixing and matching which is always a welcome thing. It's nice to see all three ghouls shorting looks that aren't their typical looks, Abbey with bangs and blue eyeshadow, Clawdeen with blonde streaks and magenta and gold and Venus with predominantly pink hair is a nice change of pace.
In terms of a budget line, they're one of the better ones and i'm glad I got them, particularly on clearance.
Will I keep all three? I haven't decided yet. Venus is likely the one who'll leave my company sooner rather than later thanks to her iffy hair and uninteresting faceup. She could have been such a striking doll, and missed opportunities bother me more than anything else in dolls. 
Clawdeen however may end up one of my favourite Clawdeens and Abbey is absolutely stinking adorable. I love her boots particularly.

While I still find it confusing they used these three characters for the line, and the eras they represent are a bit arbitrary (seriously hippy chick Abbey? what?), it's well pulled off. It's a shame we didn't get to see a Music Festival Holt/Operetta two pack though, that would have been AWESOME.

though.. speaking of two packs...

Draculaura and Clawd

A random two pack, considering how many Draculaura's we've had over the years and this marks Clawd's third doll release. Why these two and not any other couple? Goodness knows. But boy doll yay!

Ahem

Their box blurb from the US box:
"OH MY GHOUL! It's our song come on!"
"WE HAVE A SONG?"

I think it's a real shame the "international" boxes don't have these blurbs, the blurbs are cute!

What cracks me up about the poses in this box is that to my eye, it really looks like Ula's all "Back off wolf boy, you're getting in my light!"
Seriously, this is the least coupley posing i've seen. She's literally shoving him back and walking away! And he's all "hey look, a plane... " staring into the distance. Perhaps he's been distracted by Catty Noir taking the stage in her eye gougingly pink dress. Quick Clawd, sunglasses now!

Interestingly, the two pack comes with stands. How unexpected. 

What the heck IS this? I had to take a picture because i'm baffled by it. What's the deal with the random white card shape? Is this some arcane symbol designed to further addict us to Monster High? It's too late Mattel! We're already hopelessly hooked.

But yeah, random confusing box backing.

Thankfully not too difficult to open.

Poor Ula's a bit of a mess but we'll get to her and her problems.

Deboxed they still seem to be having some sort of lover's tiff

Clawd's hair is silly, but I love it. The sides are flocked and then he has this silly fringe thing and this shaggy long strip all down the back. If you so desired you could restyle it into a super crazy mohawk, but straight out the box it's gelled down and sort of sticky. Ew. It's not a simple rinse job either thanks to the flock, thanks a LOT Mattel. I'll have to run wet fingers through the hair till it eases up a little as it's pretty solid at the back.

 

Such silly hair. 

He has random teal streaks in one side, otherwise it's all brown. 

Husband decided two hamsters had died on his face, and the two random disconnected patches are a bit random I have to admit.I am thankful though that unlike my original two pack Clawd (Forbitten romance) this Clawd's flock is solid and he doesn't have huge bald patches around his ears where they couldn't be bothered flocking it. 

His outfit is very simple. A vest with cross bones, a pair of denim jeans, a watch and teal flip flops (reused from Gloom Beach Jackson). Who wears flip flops to a music festival? 

It's nothing special, nothing massively interesting. I kinda like his vest but otherwise, it's a pretty bland outfit. It's servicable though.

Draculaura is an explosion of pink rivally Catty Noir.

Her dress is made of a thick plether-like material which actually works quite well. There's a tuel overlay at the waist. Over this she wears a cute black cinch with bat and heart motif and a heart printed lace top. 

Her shoes are a recast of her Day at the Maul shoes, they are a PAIN in the butt to get on and off thanks to that ankle strap. I keep thinking i'll snap the strap removing the shoes. Hate. -_-

The neckline of her dress is a sort of sweetheart shape which is adorable. The dress itself feels very high quality and I like it a lot.

Her hair is in a high ponytail and i'm not sure if it's just mine, but the ponytail is lopsided.

Of course, given the other problems this girl has, I wouldn't be surprised if this was yet another error.

Poor girl. Her eyes are misaligned and she has a mangled fang as well. *sigh* Typical, such is the peril of buying online. The two packs seem to be the worst for this, finding a pack with two decent dolls is a challenge. Getting a bit fed up of serious eye wonk like this. A fang I can repaint, but look at her eye! It's decided to migrate north!


Anyway, overall this is a decent set and not overly expensive. It retails at a little over £20 when most two packs here are closer to £35 now. A budget two pack is a novel idea, and I appreciate the addition of a male character.
Clawd's outfit is simplistic but it does the job. His hair style is cute if not silly and he's as always, well worth having in my collection. I have this crazy need to own ALL the boys.

Draculaura would be cute were it not for mine's QC issues. She's nothing remarkably different in terms of hair style of faceup, but her dress is a unique fabric for MH and very nice quality, the overshirt is adorable and the cinch is a lovely little accessory. She has cute earrings as well, though they're also reused sculpts.

For the price, this set is worth it but only if you can be certain you will get a set without dreaded eye wonk and messed up paint. The QC is disappointing but nothing we haven't seen countless times before. For me it seems to be Draculauras that I have the most problem with. What is that about?
Am I cursed with "no decently printed vampires for you" ?

Anyway,

I give this set a solid 8/10 communication breakdowns. Just pick out your set in person.

 Afterthought: Some curling to Clawdeen's hair and yes, she's just amazing. Still not sold on Venus though.