New Items

I'm interrupting my collection photos to show a few new things that I've picked up recently. Two of them are Mattel clothing packs, one from Amazon, and one from a Meijer store. The Amazon pack consists of a checked dress, a striped top, flowered shorts, a beaded hairband and a white bag. While I like the clothes, the waistband of the shorts is a little loose, and also tends to flip over. The legs of the shorts also hang a little bit strangely. But overall, the set is cute. One of my models for this outfit is a doll with the Model Muse body, which I picked up recently. I think she's getting a rebody, but I thought she would look cute here. Her left arm pose should look good, but her hand doesn't come close to touching her body, which doesn't make for a good pose, in my mind.

The next outfit I happened to see in store, and since I'm a Hello Kitty fan, I decided to pick it up, even though I'm not thrilled by all the accessories. The "watch" seems pointless. And I hate the way the glasses look.

However, if you like Hello Kitty, the top alone is adorable. The shorts are usable with other tops, and the hairband fits nicely. The purse with the stylized Hello Kitty, I could take or leave, and a fanny pack? Eh. The necklace also doesn't do much for me, but I've never been a fan of the big, statement necklaces Mattel has been releasing for several years.

I'm happy with these new clothing additions for my Barbie size dolls. Next time, I'll be sharing a new way I've come up with to store some of it. Do your dolls have a whole closet full of clothes, or just a few?

In the meantime, I know Xanadu has been looking for a new photoeditor, so I'd like to recommend one of the ones that I use, which is Paint.Net. It's free, and fairly easy to use for cropping and resizing photos, taking out red eye, and doing some other adjustments and effects.

New Dolls! Cu-Poche by Kotobukiya

Today I have brand new dolls to talk about, from a line that I imagine is new to many of you. They are from a company named Kotobukiya, a Japanese company which has been around since 1953, making toys, figures and novelty items. These dolls are from the Cu-Poche line, a group of vinyl dolls made in chibi style. In Japanese, chibi apparently just means "short." In the greater world of those interested in Japanese culture outside of Japan, chibi means a child-like character with exaggerated features. This type of character can be seen in anime and manga art. For all I know, chibi also means a small, cute, child-like character in Japan currently too, but I don't have access to any experts on Japanese culture.

Cu-Poche dolls are made of PVC and ABS. Mine have fabric clothes; some have vinyl clothes. There are generic figures, characters from popular Japanese entertainment, and a handful of fairytale characters. The two I chose are Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella. Here they are inside their boxes. I like how the front of Cinderella's box looks like a coach.

Here are the boxes from the back, showing you what accessories you get with your doll.

The doll inside the box is packed in a plastic clamshell, with more fragile items wrapped in plastic, and some of the smaller pieces have tape over the indentation they're in, to keep them from falling out.

I'm going to start with Little Red.

Both she and Cinderella are approximately 11cm, or 4.3 inches tall. Cu-Poche dolls have magnets in their feet, to help them to stand and hold poses.

We'll talk more about this stand at the end.

Lots more pictures and reviewing under the fold!

Ever After High Back to School Madeline Hatter and Holly O'Hair

If you read the news and gossip about Ever After High dolls, you've known since March that these dolls were coming out. Well, actually, by this point, you were probably not sure you would see them at all. The Apple White set with the desk and accessories became available, but where were the rest of the dolls? Then in September, you started seeing pictures of the rest of the Back to School dolls, but at that time they were only available at the Mattel store in California. And then finally, last week, the dolls became available for sale on Amazon. It. Is. About. Time. We'll talk a bit more about all that later. For now, let's look at the dolls.

As all current releases do, these dolls have the new smaller heads and smiling faces. These two, Meeshell, and Apple have all of the regular EAH articulation. There is also a budget Blondie, Darling and Cupid from this line, who only have bending elbows. Those dolls also have different clothes and accessories from the others. As far as accessories, I think all of the hand-held items are repeats from previous doll releases. My dolls' purses are recolored versions of Ginger Breadhouse's stack of books from her Book Party release. The laptops are from Apple White's Fainting Couch. I think the laptops are nice, even as a re-release. If you didn't get/don't want Apple's couch, you can acquire multiple laptops here for your girls to get on the MirrorNet.

Holly's headband fits in very well with previous accessories she's had. The flowers and braided effect on this piece is almost a perfect match for her Spring Unsprung belt, for example.

The shoes don't go with any older accessories as perfectly, but they have a kind of theme of flowers climbing up a tower. They are also completely original, I think. I don't recall any doll having shoes like this before.

This version of Holly's face is a little bit off. I think the eyes look a bit too big and intense, and I don't think the color of her lips suits the rest of her coloring, even if it matches her very bright dress. I've lined up original Holly, ballet Holly with the new smaller head, and Back to School Holly, so you can compare different versions.

Maddie's tiara and shoes are a bit puzzling to collectors. First of all, Maddie doesn't wear a tiara. She wears a teacup hat, or a headband with a teacup on it. Secondly, Maddie's tiara, dress and shoes all have roses, although the dress and shoes are in Maddie's colors. Those don't fit Maddie's theme either. My guess is the tiara and shoes were designed for either Briar or Rosabella, and then Maddie was made instead. That being said, I think this version of Maddie is just a lovely doll.

I had to take a picture of Maddie's boots in direct sunlight. The camera just wasn't picking up that bright pinky-fuschia color she wears. Although in the sun, I think the color here is a bit too hot pink. I just couldn't get a good color representation.

And here is a trio of Maddie's for another face comparison. We have original Maddie, Epic Winter Maddie, and the new Back to School Maddie. The original Maddie certainly looks less like the cartoon Maddie than the newer two, although none have Maddie's rather manic smile.

Also just so you know, the middle Maddie and Holly have both been rebodied. I don't think Ballet Holly had bending arms. I forget what Epic Winter Maddie's top half was like.

Since there isn't a lot to review with these dolls, I'm going to do a list of pros and cons of the two new girls, both as themselves and within the EAH line.

Pros:
- More Ever After High dolls, and more of a chance for Mattel to see there might still be a market for these girls. Holly, Maddie and Meeshell are already sold out at their regular price on Amazon, and they're now only being offered at $42.99. I wish I would have thrown Meeshell in with this order, but the prices should come back down again, as they have with previous doll lines. When I ordered my two late last week, I grabbed the last Maddie at regular price.

- The hair items and shoes are nice, and the laptops are a great accessory.

- Both dolls have soft, non-gluey hair. And Maddie is just a very pretty doll. Holly may improve with new lip color.

- Full articulation. The three Back to School budget dolls, with bending arms only, are all still available at their regular price on Amazon. I'm not sure if that means just collectors are snatching these up, or if there are some parents who buy the articulated dolls for their kids.

Cons:
- The "purses" are not only a recolor of something we've already seen, they're kind of boring. On the other hand, the books are consistent with the theme.

- Holly's face looks odd. Her eyes seem completely blank. The Ballet version of Holly's face is very delicate and pretty.

- The dresses are boring. Holly's only real theme item on the dress is the print of the skirt, which has several braided ropes. I didn't pick up the skirt very well in my picture, especially since it has the tulle overskirt. :( Maddie's dress doesn't have anything to do with Maddie, besides being in her colors.

- I didn't get a picture, but each doll comes with a student ID. Maddie's ID has Holly's signature on the back, and Holly's has Maddie's signature. That's just odd, and shows a lack of quality control.

- As an EAH fan pointed out, it would have been cute to name these dolls Book-to-School. That shows a lack of serious attention to detail with these dolls. Considering we've been waiting since March for these dolls, it's not like they were rushed onto the market, but it certainly doesn't seem a lot of time was put into designing these. If you go to Amazon, there are also new budget Ashlynn, Maddie and Briar Thronecoming dolls that are appalling compared to the original Thronecoming release. Why couldn't those dolls just be going to some kind of regular dance?

So I'm going to be brutally honest here. I'm glad I own Maddie and Holly. I'm going to buy Meeshell when she gets to be her regular price, especially since I don't have her original version. But I think we need to see better from Mattel if the line is going to continue. At this point, I don't know if Mattel wants it to continue, although if that's the case, why wait so long to release all these new dolls? September or October would have been a far better time to release Back-to-School and school dance themed dolls, if Mattel wanted to sell these to anyone but non-collectors. At this point, what parent is going to know about these new EAH dolls, and what kid is still a diehard EAH fan? Plus, Mattel has only now gotten around to releasing the "EAH/Monster High universes meet" book that so many collectors of both lines have been clamoring for. Is Mattel trying to make a few weak attempts to keep interest in EAH/MH alive while they retool? Or are they just throwing the last shreds of ideas they had out there to make a few more bucks?

It's obvious that Mattel's in trouble. Its earnings are down, and while this is partially blamed on the collapse of Toys R Us, Mattel is just not bringing its A game. The new Barbie body types don't seem to have been a big boost to sales relative to the hype they received, and what else is there very exciting from mainline Barbie, or any other Mattel doll? Now Hasbro is expressing interest in merging with Mattel (h/t EverAfterHighLove). Mr. BTEG agrees with me that the Federal Trade Commission probably wouldn't let this go through, but it does seem to indicate that Hasbro sees Mattel at a very weak point.

These dolls are cute, but if this is the best Mattel's got, I don't expect to see its financial future improve anytime soon.

Ever After High Birthday Ball Blondie Lockes

My dolly time has been off and on lately. Not only that, but I'm working on projects which are taking me a while to complete. One of those projects is painting the accessories for one of the latest Ever After High dolls, Birthday Ball Blondie Lockes. I was going to put these pictures up after I finished changing up the accessories, but I've decided to make the doll her own post, and the painting one another. I need to blog more! Besides, there several things I wanted to mention just about the doll.

This doll was part of a release of three, Blondie: blue, Cupid: pink, and Duchess: purple. Target had two exclusive Birthday Ball dolls, Rosabella: yellow and Cedar: orange. Those dolls were scented, and were clearanced out at Target just before the three newer dolls came out. Blondie, Cupid and Duchess have simpler dresses, no scent, and no tinsel in their hair, unlike the two exclusive Target dolls. These three also seem to be sold only in TRU. If there's going to be an online story about these dolls, we haven't gotten it yet. We don't even know whose birthday is being celebrated.

Normally, Blondie Lockes has blond hair, but for this series, all the dolls have unusually colored hair, and Blondie's is blue. She is articulated, and comes with a headband, collar necklace, and "birthday present" purse. No earrings, no bracelet, no ring, and no stand. I used a spare stand to pose her nicely for pictures.

Her face is nice, and her bangs are not gelled overly scrunchy. When she wears the necklace, it hides the fact that the neckline of her dress is off.

Her hair is fairly thickly rooted. There's a baldish spot where her headband goes, but it's not too bad, and her scalp is painted blue to help cover that up.

She has holes marked where she would have earrings. This will make it easier for me to give her earrings, which I will probably do at some point. I've been collecting loose stock from various Ever After High dolls on eBay, but I don't have anything I want to give Blondie, yet.

She has the standard dots on her lower lip, intended to enhance her looks, I guess. Not all the more basic dolls have these dots. My Book Party Ginger Breadhouse, for example, does not.

It wasn't until I had Blondie near a window and direct sunlight, that I noticed that she has some kind of gold glitter across her forehead, above her eyebrows. I'm not sure if this was meant, or if it's some glue residue from gelling her bangs? I do plan to get Cupid, and possibly Duchess, from this series. If I do, I'll check out the foreheads.

This doll retails for $14.99, although she already is selling for less on Amazon. That's not bad, for a doll that is still workable; she has good face paint, an articulated body, and decent hair. The blue hair also makes for a unique doll to add to a collection, even if you have other Blondies.

So in case you're wondering what painting I'm doing: I'm painting the bows and ribbon down the front of Blondie's purse a light blue. I'm painting the feather in her hairband a pale yellow. There are "pearls" in front of the feather that are also going to be light blue. And in the marketing pictures for Blondie, the ribbon in the middle of her bows, on her headband, was gold. I tried it and it looks nice, so I'm going with that. I'm torn on whether or not to do anything to her necklace or shoes. I might paint the bows on her necklace a blue something like the color of her purse now. And I was thinking about yellow for the rosettes on the front of her shoes. Maybe!

Rebodying Belle, and Ever After High Book Party Ginger Breadhouse

I've started getting into the trend of rebodying dolls with the new Barbie Made to Move bodies. However, the first doll I picked to rebody was an older doll, a Mattel Belle doll from... quite a while back. I have many dolls that would be fun to have out again, if they were a little more posable, including this one. I did have to wash Belle's hair, to clean out the rubber band that had dried out and stuck to her hair. I haven't managed to make her hair behave enough to avoid using a rubber band completely.

First, here's Belle dressed as a modern young woman. I quickly discovered that this top sheds sparkles.

She has the ability to actually carry books now. :)

And here she is in her original clothes. The dress is too big in the bust now, but it works. Now she has the ability to offer tea to a visitor to the castle.

And she can reenact scenes from the movie.

Below the fold, I'm going to put pictures of another older doll of mine who could really use a rebody, and my new Ever After High doll.