Monster High Create-a-Monster Werewolf and Dragon Starter Pack (and Skeleton Add-on)

I think that the best thing about Monster High dolls is the creativity behind their design.  Each new doll has a fascinating and unique character with a wardrobe and accessories intricately matched to a theme.  When the "Create-a-Monster" line of Monster High doll kits was announced, it seemed like another in a series of innovative ideas from Mattel.  Why not let the buyer have a part in the design of these fun dolls?  Sell the raw materials and let everyone share in the excitement of creating a new monster.  I was definitely looking forward to getting my hands on one of these toys.  When I saw that there was a starter pack that included parts for a dragon doll, I was giddy.  I love dragons.  Once I got a peek at the scaled limbs and green wings that are included in this set, it became an absolute must-have for me.

There are two starter sets for the Create-a-Monster line, the Dragon and Werewolf set and a Vampire and Sea Monster duo.  They retail for $26.99.  These starter sets include all of the parts to make two complete dolls with the irritating exception of there being only one torso.  I was disappointed to learn that the dolls have to share a torso, but I assumed I could use the torsos from other Monster High dolls, like my wonky-eyed Lagoona, and that in the end there'd be plenty of body parts to go around.

I bought both of the starter sets when they came in stock at my Toys R Us, figuring that more parts would equal more fun.  Here's Dragon and Werewolf:

Monster High Create-A-Monster Werewolf & Dragon set.

The back of the box shows the other sets that are available right now.  The "Vampire/Sea Monster" starter set and three expansion kits; "Insect," "Three-Eyed Ghoul" and "Skeleton."  The ad-on sets cost $12.99.

The box shows many of the combinations that are possible if you buy several sets.  They look really fun:

Dragon girl!  Yay!

Skeleton--look at her shoes!

Triclops...uh, creepy.

Insect.  Eeeow!

I bought the Skeleton add-on set because a doll with actual skeleton bones for limbs seems pretty unique.  Also, I teach biology so I like bones.  

The add-on sets only include lower limbs, a head, a wig and an outfit, so you really need to start with a starter set.  Let's open the dragon set.  I can wait to see the dragon!

The packaging is awful.  It is mostly plastic.  There are actually two layers of plastic.  You open the outer plastic shell and there is another plastic holder with compartments for all of the body parts.

The outer plastic box with a cardboard back.

The inner plastic box with compartments.

You can grab most of the body parts right out of this inner plastic shell, but a few of them are securely plastic-tied in place.

There are some instructions that I hope I won't need:

Pile of plastic garbage:

 Here's everything that comes in the set:

The dolls have to share shoes, too.

I decided to assemble the werewolf doll first.  Her limbs and head match the torso that comes with this set.  The plastic is a very pretty shimmering silver:

The hip joints snap together really easily.  It took me a few seconds to figure out which leg was which since they're not marked, but if you get them wrong, it's fairly obvious.

The arms and hands come in three pieces that have peg joints almost exactly like the joints on the regular Monster High dolls:

Regular Monster High dolls have removable hands and lower arms (to make changing their clothes easier) but these limbs do not work with the Create-a-Monster bodies. I can't imagine why they wouldn't have made the limbs compatible.  It's pretty frustrating.

Lagoona's arm not fitting the werewolf body 

You can see why Lagoona's arm doesn't stay in...the peg has a smaller tip:

The regular Monster High dolls don't have removable lower legs, or I'm just not pulling hard enough.  The Create-a-Monster lower legs snap on in a similar way as the arms:

The plastic of the lower leg doesn't quite match the plastic of the thigh and torso.  I am not sure if you can see it in this picture, but the thigh is slightly darker and less shimmery:

Another point of concern is that the upper arm has a seam that is splitting.  It gets worse when the lower arm is attached:

Here she is all assembled:

On her back are two holes for the dragon wings:

 I love the wings.  They look amazing:

Fantastic!

The body is essentially the same as the regular Monster High body, with the exception of the hip joints.  The new legs snap on and rotate in a ball-and-socket type joint.  The regular dolls have strung hips.  There's very little difference in the range of motion between these two styles of joint.  There might be slightly more side-to-side movement possible with the strung hips, but not a lot.  I think I prefer the snap-on joints of the Create-a-Monster doll because the hips don't run the risk of loosening over time as the elastic stretches out.  You probably won't have pants getting stuck in the joints with the new hips, either.  

The wig has really pretty colors in it.  I love the mix of pink and burgundy/rose.  The hair felt a bit greasy when I took it out of the plastic, so I brushed it.  It's a total mess:

The ends are very uneven and frizzy.

Tons of shedding.

These dolls have holes in their heads similar to the Liv dolls but rectangular in shape:

The wig has a flexible plastic peg that inserts into the hole:

The wig is easy enough to get on, but it looks terrible.  Here's how it looked right after I put it on:

This is after I tried to smooth it down and tame some of the flyaway hairs:

It still looks like it's been played with for five years.

The colors in this wig are great, but the hairstyle, texture and quality are bad, bad, bad: 

I think the bangs make her look mean.

Liv wigs are so nice and soft, I had to try one on and see if it would fit.  The round peg on the Liv wig actually fits into the rectangular hole of the Monster High head, but the wig is too big:

But don't you think orange is my color?

Time to get this doll dressed!  The pack comes with two outfits.  One of them is decorated with half moons and seems suited to the werewolf character, the other has a green scale print and is meant for the dragon.  The green outfit has a cute little halter top and an asymmetrically hemmed skirt, both with velcro closure:

I love the scale pattern peeking out of the neckline!

The werewolf outfit consists of a strapless dress, a little jacket and matching moon shoes:

That's a nice long skirt!

The moon jacket looks a bit ratty in this picture, but it is actually one of the nicer items of clothing in this set.  It has fun frilly accents:

The jacket has a hole cut in the back to accommodate the dragon wings.  I wonder how easily that will fray over time?  It isn't hemmed or anything:

Doesn't the jacket look great on her?

Here's the werewolf in her dress and shoes:

I feel like there is absolutely no hope for that dreadful pink wig.  Maybe if I tried to cut off some of the scraggly ends?  I kept reaching for other Liv wigs, hoping they would fit.  They look ok from a distance, but they are much too big.  Sigh.

The shoes do not live up to the incredibly cool Monster High standard.  They are a bit hum-drum:

Yawn.

Time to get the mixing and matching started!  The dragon head and limbs are bright pink.  I was thinking that I would steal the torso from an old Draculaura body and use it for the dragon doll, but the torsos aren't compatible because of the strung hips of the regular dolls.  So, the dragon girl will have a silver body.  Not a huge deal.  

I like her face better than the werewolf face:

Wonderful eyeshadow!

 Her ears are really neat:

All of her pink limbs have molded scales on them.  Her calves and lower arms have green spiky fins.  She also has what look like green scale tattoos on her thigh and bicep:

Those fins are molded on and don't fall off like Lagoona's fins do!

Oh, what I'd give for a pink body!

 She looks really nice in the green scale outfit.  It does a good job of disguising the fact that her torso is a different color:

The whole look is ruined by the wig, though:

Here I go desperately trying on Liv wigs again...

This one has green in it...

The wig is so big it covers her wonderful ears.

Maybe if I braid the wig to get it out of the way?

Grr, argh.

This pink wig is so frustrating.  The dolls look fairly good without hair, but there's definitely an urge to complete the look with a wig.  I was hoping that maybe the wig from the skeleton ad-on pack would be of better quality and could save the day.  Time to find out.

The ad-on pack comes with a head, lower limbs and an outfit (including shoes).  The shoes in this set look incredible:

Once the box was open, I made a bee-line for the wig. I brushed it out, hoping for some silky style and manageability.  No such luck:

It's Muppet hair.

Again, the colors are wonderful, but the quality of the wig is unacceptable.

It's a rat's nest.

The arms and legs are every bit as cool as I thought they would be:

They are very fun.  I can't help but wish that the whole body was a skeleton, though.  It looks a bit odd to have the bones showing only below the knees and elbows.

I appreciate the idea with the head.  She has a grey nose to simulate the look of having no nose.  Noses are made mostly of cartilage, and so skeletons don't have much in the way of noses.  However, since this girl also has thick eyelashes and plumper lips than me, the whole "no nose" concept seems a bit lost.  It doesn't fit with the order of decay.

She doesn't have any ears, either.

 By the time I try the wig on, I am getting weary.  This is not any fun.  Look at how much worse this doll looks with the wig:

And then the awesome shoes (on the dragon's feet for better visibility)...

Do this:

Shoe scoliosis.

 The dress is ugly and doesn't even glow in the dark.  It should totally glow in the dark.

Bad Halloween costume dress.

Cheesy Pebbles Flintstone hair clip.

In one last-ditch effort to make an awesome doll, I assembled some of my favorite parts (and even clipped on the werewolf ears to get the full effect) and still felt unimpressed:

Sad donkey ears.

Deep breath.  It is rare for me to feel this irritated about a toy.  I love toys.  I love dolls...I love Monster High.  I do not like this toy.  This might be a good time to mention that I don't buy and review dolls or toys that I don't think I am going to like on some level.  So, my reaction to this product was a complete surprise.

I think my reaction comes down to two things.  First, the wigs are bad.  They're really bad.  If I could have swapped in a Liv wig and continued on my happy way, I'd have felt differently about the toy.  It's not so much about the fact that I spent money for a wig and it's bad, but that there are no other easily accessible wig options.  So, I am stuck with a bald doll or I have to learn how to root hair.  No, thank you.

The second reason that I am disappointed with these dolls is harder to explain.  The thing is, even if the wigs had been wonderful and soft with lots of coordinating colors, there'd still be something missing.  At first glance, it seems like there shouldn't be anything missing.  These dolls look like Monster High dolls should look.  I mean, the bodies are almost identical.  I even slightly prefer the Create-a-Monster body.  The heads look like Monster High heads, and I really like the look of the dragon girl's head with her funky eyeshadow and fancy ears:

I'm not crazy about the skeleton head.

They have interesting and unique limbs, even if those limbs don't match the torso or the design stops mid-limb.

But when the doll is assembled, there's definitely something missing.  In my first blog about Monster High dolls I said, "each new character that is introduced has the same level of individuality and attention to detail as the original five."  I guess this is what I look for in a Monster High doll.  Individuality and attention to detail.  An interesting and intricately rendered character with a careful balance of creepy and cute.  I can't achieve that with the Create-a-Monster sets.  Let me show you what I mean:

Here's Lagoona--a regular Monster High doll:

She has little details and surprises all over the place.  She has a new "hang-ten" hand on her right arm:

She has an absolutely adorable face, cute freckles, purple eyebrows and three shades of eyeshadow that match her outfit.

She has pink fish skeleton earrings:

She has an underwater watch!

She's got pink jelly shoes with bubbles in the heels and a coordinating beach bag:

She wears fishnet stockings, of course:

She has a head-to-toe completely coordinated and carefully thought-out look.  I think she is fabulous!

Now, compare that to Skeleton.  The dress is a total cliche cop-out.  It doesn't match her hair.  It doesn't match her makeup.  It barely covers her posterior.

The bony limbs are awesome, but they are incomplete.  It's a half-hearted skeleton doll.  

The shoes have an amazing concept but the heels are too bendable to support the doll. 

I am supporting the doll's weight in this picture.

She has no accessories and awful hair.

Well, I do like the color of the hair.  But that's it.

She does not have a cute face:

She has an incomplete, poorly-executed look.

I don't think the werewolf is much better:

Why doesn't she have Clawdeen's lovely skin color?
Is there such thing as a glittery silver wolf?   

The Create-a-Monster dolls do not have any kind of personality that shines through.  They are like generic Monster High mimics. They can't fully commit to a style.  I guess that this is the trade-off for having the mix and match body swapping feature.  For me, it is not a good trade.  For my money, I would much rather have a fully realized new character with all of the bells and whistles that make these dolls so much fun.

Girl, your rotting nose smells bad.

Bottom line?  I spent ~$40 for a starter set plus an add-on set and I don't have a single new doll I want to display.  As a person who values Monster High dolls for their carefully conceived and intricately accessorized characters, these Create-a-Monster sets feel like plastic boxes full of extra parts with no value.  I am certainly sad to deliver that opinion, and I really hope that there are tons of creative people out there getting more out of these toys than I can, but for me, this is a complete loss. 

Summary:

Age Level	6 and up
Value	Overpriced.
Quality	Average overall.  Body is good quality, with the exception of some cracking in the seams.  Wigs are awful, clothes are passable, but not very creative or special.  Dragon wings are great.
Packaging	Bad.  Tons of unnecessary plastic.
Collectable?	No.  This is a play doll kit.
Versatility	The potential for versatility is huge, but the absence of a usable wig and the inclusion of only one torso makes the concept much less fun.  Body parts not compatible with other Monster High dolls.
Overall	Not recommended.  Save your money for a regular Monster High doll.

As good as the kit gets.