Shadow High Nicole Steel

Here is the third doll in my Rainbow/Shadow High collection. She's Nicole Steel, and she's cute as a button. Her eyes are the most luminous of any Rainbow High doll that I've seen, and her curls are super adorable.

This is Nicole's jacket from her first outfit. Since the Rainbow High students are Sparkle, the Shadow High students are Anti Sparkle. Fortunately, they seem to be moving past that theme with newer dolls. It was getting pretty boring. She has a motif on the left sleeve of her jacket. The cat is related to a band that is made of up three other Shadow High students. It looks very 1930s, and like it could have been on the nose of a WWII plane, at least to me.

This is Nicole's base outfit, minus the jacket. She's a basketball player, and her interest is in street clothes and sports wear. It's nice that the dolls have different fashion styles that they're interested in, but I think this outfit is pretty basic compared to the other dolls that I have.

The fact that these shoes have ties is a little annoying. Of course they come untied, and then they're difficult to re-tie. The backs of the shoes have a sort of lift, to accommodate the fact that these dolls' feet are made to wear heels.

When I took off her shoes to take pictures of her in her second outfit, I got an unpleasant surprise. There are holes on the bottom of her socks.

Nicole needs to learn how to darn.

Here's a picture of one of her earrings. They tend to fall out easily, and I have a short funny anecdote I will tell about them at the end of this post.

When I went to change her into her second outfit, I noticed there are two notches in what I guess is supposed to be a dress, that looks like a sports jersey. It's possible that I made those snips myself, when I was clipping out all the tiny plastic ties attaching the dress to the cardboard. It was still a bit disappointing to see.

Her second pair of "shoes" is really stretchy knit fabric on top of a plastic shoe base. I did find it a nice touch that the shoes had toe caps to slip the dolls feet into. They serve to keep Nicole's toes from showing through the fabric. They might help hold the shoes on better as well, but I haven't moved the doll around enough in these shoes to know.

Her jacket is the most impressive piece of her second outfit. It is a beautiful reflective silver on the outside, and features a faux zipper. The jacket actually closes at the back.

I guess the circles and triangles are supposed to mean something. They look like laundry instruction marks to me. :) When the jacket is closed, the pattern at the back becomes clear. The jacket technically has working pockets, but they are very small and tight, so not useful for much.

The jacket has a beautiful lining. I'm torn between admiring it, and feeling sorry that there wasn't more effort put into the stuff that can be seen. The jacket isn't reversible, and since it closes in the back, Nicole can't even wear it open to show off the lining.

I wish Nicole would have come with a basketball, to make up for the fact that her outfit is lacking compared to some of the other dolls. MGA chose to make a black and silver "purse" shaped like a basketball, that was put into one of the blind boxes that they made. Considering there were 27 different purses in all, buying blind boxes trying to find Nicole's would be rather a waste. Also, it's a purse, so she can't really "play" with it. I think this Barbie basketball is a bit small to look realistic. Just a bit? Other than the basketball, this is her entire second outfit. Good thing I didn't buy her for her clothes.

Also, I forgot to point out in my other posts about these dolls, that they have a "joint" in their upper thigh, so that their legs can be twisted around. 

So, this the second Nicole Steel that I purchased. I took the first one out of her box quickly, to enjoy looking at her. It wasn't until later that I noticed a flaw in her face makeup.

Oopsie

Since she came from Amazon, I just sent her back and ordered a second one. When I started to pack the first one up, I realized that one of her earrings was missing. I looked for it for several minutes, then sent her back without it. It was just as well, because the second doll came without one earring! I finally found the missing one, so she ended up with two earrings after all. The left one, where there was no earring originally, tends to fall out easily. It gets caught in her curls a lot, which is good, because it doesn't get lost, but bad because it takes a bit of work to work the earring out without messing up her hair too much. The right earring also fell out during this photography shoot.

As a review, this one doesn't have a lot of high points. If you're a big fan of sports/play them yourself, you might find her clothes at least a bit more interesting than I do. Except for the jackets, they still aren't as detailed as other dolls, even the rest of Shadow High Series 1. Luna Madison's prime outfit is a bit... interesting, but I like her overall looks better than Nicole's. I bought Nicole because she is just such an endearing doll, not for her clothes. It's actually why I got her third off my list of dolls I'm interested in, just so she has other stuff to wear. I am working with a dress pattern that I have for her, too.

Next up is going to be the doll that I received for Mother's Day. Since it may take me a while to get the doll and all of her clothes out of the box, I'll let you know ahead of time that is Emi Vanda, who is about as different from Nicole as can be. :)

Total dolls: 85

And Then There Were Two

Yes, I picked up another Rainbow High doll. Well, technically this doll is part of the Shadow High line. Shadow High is Rainbow High's rival school, and the first dolls in this series varied in skin tones and clothing from mostly all white to mostly all black, with shades of gray in between. Shanelle Onyx is the doll who is mostly all black, except for a white streak in her hair, and she's the doll we're looking at today.

This is the way she came, fresh out of the box. I like her outfit for the most part. Her lace socks and strappy heels with black fur looked cool in the YouTube show, but they look a little odd in real life.

Fortunately, she comes with a change of clothes and shoes. I like her second outfit too. There is no slit or clasp on either of her pairs of shoes, so they have to be worked on and off. I don't like that her clothes mostly fit *very* tightly, meaning you have to really pull the sides together so the Velcro can meet. With the black belt that comes with Shanelle's dress, I feel like I'm not getting it closed all the way; I can't get all the Velcro covered by the other end of the belt. At least her hands can come off, similar to the way Monster High/Ever After High dolls' hands could. It makes it a lot easier to put on things like the jacket with ruffled sleeves in the second picture below.

I like her makeup. Her hair is silky soft, with only a little crunch on the end of some of her hair at the bottom of her ponytail.

Her body has some marks and scratches, but those don't bother me for some reason. Also, these dolls have an "unrealistic" knee hinge, which again, doesn't bother me, but I thought I'd show those of you who don't have one of these dolls. 

These dolls have their own names, with personalities and story lines you get to see in the show on YouTube, but the dolls seem mainly designed to display the clothes. As with Mila's dress, for example, Shanelle can't sit down in the black and silver houndstooth skirt. Of course, lots of kids just hold their dolls in the air and make them "talk." This also reminds me that the dolls do come with color-coordinated stands, and a comb. I talked with Dana about whether these clothes would fit curvy Barbies, and the answer is: no. I have a picture of a curvy Barbie/Shadow High doll under the fold.

Rainy Day

 

This picture has been up on Instagram for a while, and I haven't taken any more photo challenge pictures since. I've been busy with all kinds of preparations for upcoming events, including making eight pumpkin pies, with fresh pumpkin. We've had snow since this picture was taken, but the weather has gone up to being a bit more comfortable. Happy Thanksgiving to my doll collector friends in the USA!

My Collection Part Five: Tyler Wentworth by Tonner

Since I have many 16" Tonner dolls, with several different face sculpts, I'm going to only share my Tyler Wentworth dolls in this post.

I've never given any of my Tonner dolls names beyond what they'd been given. I enjoy looking at them, and dressing them, but they're not "alive" for me in the way that my Barbies are. They don't seem to have personalities to me. Therefore, I'm calling these Blond, Brunette, Redhead, and Vintage.

Blond was the Tyler sculpt in a wave of four Basic dolls. She's wearing the swimsuit and headband that she came in. That series included interchangeable feet, either flat or high heel. The feet are on pegs that pop in and out of the doll's leg. The flat foot also has some slight bending movement at the ankle.

Brunette was a special Signature Tyler, which I bought nude. Tyler Wentworth was a fashion designer, and her signature office look was a white button down shirt, a black skirt, black nylons, and black pumps. Brunette's signature look was glammed up; the shirt was satin with buttons looking like diamonds, the black skirt was covered with sequins and had a belt with a square buckle with clear stones, and the black heels were T-straps. The doll also came with "diamond" earrings. I presume the earrings came loose in a bag with Brunette, and the seller kept them with the outfit. I vaguely remember having to pierce a doll's ears to put earrings in, although dolls meant to have them used to have a faint hole in the earlobe already started.

 

Brunette is wearing an outfit which came as separates, although maybe the shoes and purse were a set? I took pictures of Brunette without the scarf, and of the shoes and clutch.

I think Redhead was in a wave of different sculpts, all in striped swimsuits, called Superstripes. I sold off the swimsuit, as I didn't care for it. Superstripes is wearing a green teddy from another Tonner doll, which was an exclusive to a specific doll store. The lace on the sides of the teddy is showing its age, and the straps never would stay up nicely on a doll's shoulders.

Vintage was a doll named Hope (the production's name,) who was an edition of 500 sold exclusively at an event at the Rosalie Whyel Museum of Dolls, to benefit a cause called Teen Hope. She came in a 1910s style dress, and she did having earrings in. Again, I bought her nude, and the seller must have kept the earrings. It doesn't bother me, as earrings for dolls this size are easy to buy or make. She's wearing an outfit that I drafted and sewed myself, although it was for a Gene doll.

To coordinate with her original outfit, Vintage has her hair in an up-do. There are several loose hairs; I think trimming them off would be the best way to deal with them.

Total dolls: 24

Xanadu has asked me some questions about the Tonner 16" line of Tyler and assorted, so there is more information below the fold.

J-Doll Punkka Street

This is the second J-Doll I got during the sale at Groove; the story of that purchase and the other review is here. This doll has been gracing the top of my blog for several months now, but I'm finally getting out her review. As always, this doll is named after a physical locale. Punkka Street is in Finland, "where an old castle sits amid surrounding forests and lakes." The theme Groove chose to use with her was "water sprite." I named her Anni after a Finnish vlogger I watch.

Anni photographs beautifully, but it was hard to capture the real color of her hair. The above picture was taken in our front bedroom, which faces north. I also took some pictures in my bedroom, which faces south. The southern pictures did not accurately capture the color of her hair. The ones in the north bedroom turned out better, plus I took a couple of pictures outside in the sunlight. Here is Anni wearing most of her outfit.

That's the last you'll see of those shoes. They're the same as the ones that came with Stephen Avenue Walk; they're way too big and don't really march the arch in her foot. She also has knee-high stockings, a dress with a thick belt, a small lace jacket, a hat and a purse.

Above she is standing, holding the purse that came with her. The purse is another wasted accessory, honestly. The faux leather has cracked and come off in multiple places, and I think this probably happened to all of these purses, and not just the display model. The color of her purse, shoes and the flower on her hat are also interesting to me. They don't match her hair, eyes, or the beading on her dress, nor do they harmonize. At least the hat is nice, so she could wear it with something else.

Here are up-close views of her jacket and belt. As usual for J-Doll, the jacket is a little on the small size. The belt is really more of what you might call a sash. There's actually a lot of material in it, sewn together in bunches, and decorated with beads.

I was not fortunate with Anni as far as cracking plastic issues. This is what her left arm looks like just below the wrist. Of course, she was a traveling display doll at one point.

And below are a couple of pictures I took of Anni in direct sunlight. I don't think the picture of the back of her head accurately captured her hair color either. It's probably actually closest to the pictures with the northern light. It's very nice hair, not super soft, but not overly coarse either.

She's a beautiful doll, and I'm glad I managed to get a good deal on her. She has too many outfit issues, plus the arm crack, to have been worth full price. Her delicate face and inset eyes are her biggest appeals; she'd make a lovely water sprite.