G3 Draculaura and a Mini History--a Guest Review!

Hello everyone!  My name is Ariel and I'm a toy and figure collector/enthusiast and an avid reader of this blog.  I'm here today thanks to Emily giving me the opportunity to talk all about my favourite ghoul, Draculaura.  While I don't have the most extensive collection of her, I still have several dolls that represent interesting points in Monster High's history.  I'll introduce Draculaura and go through some of her pre-reboot dolls so that you guys can get a feel for her before I show you the newest Drac.  So, without further ado, here we go!

A decade of Draculaura!

Monster High's G3 Abbey Bominable--A Guest Review!

In an attempt to balance out the novella-like Enchantimals post from last week, this week I'm going to feature two short and sweet posts, one of which is a guest review!  I've been getting a lot of guest review requests recently, and I love guest reviews!  I feel like it's refreshing to have new voices and opinions here on the blog.  But for my own time management reasons, I have to limit the number of guest authors.  So at least for now, I'm only accepting guest reviews from my Patrons, with the exception of anyone who has already contacted me (you know who you are).  My wonderful Patrons don't get enough thanks for their support, so this is another small thing I can do.

Today's author, Morgan, is a long-time TBP reader and Monster High enthusiast.  Morgan offered to do a quick review of G3 Abbey Bominable, which was music to my ears!  Abbey has been super-popular and very hard to find at retail price, and so she feels like a doll that I should feature.  But I have so many other dolls that I want to talk about, I don't have much time for another G3 Monster High character.  I will say, for anyone who's interested in purchasing Abbey, that she can be pre-ordered at Entertainment Earth for $24.99, so don't get sucked into the sky-high prices on eBay and Amazon.

Morgan needed some de-boxing photos for this review, so I took my own Abbey out of her box, which was really fun.  I'll chime in at the end with a few quick thoughts and pictures, but for the most part this review is all in Morgan's hands.  Take it away, Morgan!

Monster High G3 Abbey Bominable, $24.99.

G3 Monster High Dolls by Mattel

I have all of these carefully-laid plans with the blog, I promise I do, but then things keep coming along to derail those plans--often in a delightful way.  Two weeks ago my discovery of the DALL-E image generator threw me off track, and then last week it was the much-anticipated release of the Generation 3 Monster High dolls.  I knew the G3 dolls were coming out in October, and so I showed up at my local Target bright and early on October 1, eagerly scanning the shelves for the familiar logo, but I didn't see any sign of the new dolls.  Then, on October 2, my friend Darcy alerted me to the fact that many of the dolls were available online.  And so I ordered one. OK, two. Alright, most of them.  Oops.  And then, of course, the moment they started to arrive at my house, I had to put aside what I was working on and open them immediately.

Mattel has been very busy over the last few months, trickling out tantalizing Monster High releases like the Haunt Couture collection, the greyscale Reel Drama group (which I love!), and the Boo-riginal Creeproductions of the first wave dolls.  All of these dolls look like the original Monster High characters, with the same body and the same face molds.  So I was surprised to see that the G3 dolls are completely different!  The characters' names and styles are the same, but almost everything else has been changed.

I'll admit that I wasn't too thrilled with some of the promotional photos of the G3 dolls.  I could tell who all of the characters were supposed to be, but they looked too mainstream and cutesy to me.  They weren't weird enough to be the Monster High that I know and love.  But I decided to put my misgivings aside and give them a fair chance.  Things change, right?  The first doll that I bought, and the one who I'll feature in this review, is none other than my favorite Clawdeen Wolf...if you can recognize her:

Generation 3 Monster High Clawdeen Wolf by Mattel, $24.99.

Monster High Ghouluxe Ghoulia Yelps by Mattel

One of the really fun things about blogging is that when I have a few hundred pictures to sort and edit, I tend to watch a lot of television.  Lately, that has meant blasting through Netflix's Queen Charlotte, which is a Bridgerton prequel.  I never miss Bridgerton content because I have a long and happy history of reading Julia Quinn's work.  In fact, one of her novels, An Offer From a Gentleman, is one of my top Cinderella stories of all time.  Why am I saying all of this?  Because I want to put something out there, just in case any of the big doll companies happen to visit (Mattel?): could we have some 1:6 Bridgerton fashion dolls, please?  With all of those beautiful gowns and decadent hair--and all of the wonderful diversity?  Pretty please?  I will buy all of them.

But I'm not here to talk about Bridgerton, even though it's been on my mind lately.  The past week has been a whirlwind, with a few trips keeping me busy, and so I thought I'd review something short and sweet to get back into the groove.  I also wanted to review something relatively uncomplicated because Tears of the Kingdom comes out tomorrow and I need to clear my weekend for that.  I'll make you the same promise that I made my husband: I'll try not to completely drop off the face of the Earth as I re-enter Hyrule.  Mind you, I said "try."  So, anyway, what review topic is short, sweet, and relatively uncomplicated?  One of my all-time favorite brands, of course: Monster High.

I recently joined Mattel's Fang Club, and it's been very damaging for my budget.  It feels like every other week the company releases another limited Monster High doll.  And not only that, but now I get emails notifying me of other special releases, too.  So, last week I bought the new Barbie and Ken set, the week before that it was Monster High's Chucky and Tiffany, and in mid April it was fang-favorite Rochelle Goyle.  But the ghoul who started it all, way back in March, is the star of today's review: Ghouluxe Ghoulia Yelps.

Monster High Ghouluxe Ghoulia Yelps by Mattel, $50.

Barbie Dream Besties by Mattel

Well, November is almost over and December is shaping up to be either a busy month for the blog or a bust.  Let me explain.  I've been on an advent calendar kick for the last few weeks, finding myself amazed and overwhelmed by the diversity and complexity of the current choices.  So I wanted to do an advent calendar feature all throughout the month of December, and I bought about ten calendars (maybe a few more than that...) for the occasion.

But one of my kids has to be in the hospital at the beginning of December, and I want to be as helpful and present as I can.  So a lot of the month will be spent traveling across the country and being a mom.  That will either give me a lot of time for the blog (since I have a few weeks off from my animal shelter job), no time at all, or something in the middle.  We'll see.

As I wait for December and whatever it might bring, I have some time to chat with you about one of Mattel's newest playline releases, the Barbie Dream Besties:

Barbie Dream Besties Brooklyn (left) and Teresa (right), $19.99.

G3 Frankie Stein from Monster High

I already wrote an in-depth review of the new Monster High dolls, but I know there's a lot of interest in the individual characters, so I decided to do a short(er) follow-up with the fabulously freaky Frankie Stein!

G3 Frankie Stein from Monster High, $24.99.

Mattel Mermaids

I've been missing in action for a while because my husband and I finally took an honest-to-goodness, week-long, have-to-get-on-an-airplane vacation.  We haven't taken any significant trips with just the two of us since our honeymoon, so we felt like it was past time.  We decided to visit St. John, in the United States Virgin Islands.  This is the place that we visited ten years ago, with our kids and parents.  It's where I photographed the Rapunzel and Mother Gothel review, and also the underwater Lala-Oopsie sea horse review.

This time around, we rented a small house in a remote location and had an amazing time snorkeling, cooking, and trying to catch up on sleep.  Wild goats kept us from sleeping through most nights (in a charming, goat-like way, for sure) but everything else was magical.  I'm so glad that we finally took the plunge.  I'll confess that we weren't the only ones who had a good time on this trip, though.  Lena managed to convince us that she should come along, too--you know, to chaperone the other dolls.  She made a good point; I always like to bring along several doll companions when I travel, and things can get rowdy.  And anyway, I have a hard time saying no to Lena.  She had her own agenda for the trip, of course, and you'll hear more about that in future posts.

It's always tough to decide which dolls should be included in special trips like this, but since I knew I was going to be doing a lot of swimming and snorkeling, I figured it was the perfect time to continue with my mini series of mermaid doll reviews.  I've already looked at MGA's Mermaze Mermaidz and Spin Master's Mermaid High (both now discontinued, by the way), so this time I decided to showcase two of Mattel's mermaid creations: a Barbie Dreamtopia mermaid, and Monster High's mermaid hybrid, Sirena Von Boo:

Monster High's Freaky Fusion Sirena Von Boo by Mattel, MSRP $24.99.

LUV Dolls by Far Out Toys

Life has been even more hectic than usual for me these last few weeks, so my productivity has declined further.  Sorry.  I blame it mostly on the fact that I have eight foster animals in the house right now (yes, eight), and four of them are kittens with underdeveloped brains who make a huge mess and have to be hand-fed.  They're really cute though.  

I've been stealing moments in between my work and feeding kittens to investigate a new brand of fashion doll.  This brand has been on my mind since an anonymous reader mentioned it in the comments section of the Unicorn Academy review.  That was way back in June, which I find slightly hard to wrap my head around.  It feels like last week.

The new brand is called LUV (which reminds me of LIV!) and has been around for about a half a year.  These nine-inch dolls are made by Far Out Toys, which is the company responsible for the Glo-Up Girls.  I couldn't think of any other dolls that this company has produced, so I poked around on their website for a little while.  Apparently there are also a few surprise doll brands, like Squadz Place and Love, Diana under the Far Out Toys umbrella.  The Love, Diana dolls look pretty cute and come in little ice cream cone packages, but I absolutely cannot add anything else to my review queue right now!  So I'll try my best to stay focused on the LUV girls.  Here's Brooke:  

L.U.V. doll, Brooke, by Far Out Toys, $29.97.

Unique Eyes Dolls by Giochi Preziosi

Okay, so have you ever looked at a realistic painting of a person, and felt like that person was watching you?  Like their eyes were actually following you as you moved around the room?  The Mona Lisa is a classic example of this; her knowing gaze follows wherever you go.  Well, that's usually a feature of two-dimensional objects.  Our brains perceive the realistic shadows and reflections in the painting as actual near and far points, even though they're only flat on paper.  This means that no matter from what angle we view the painted face, the near and far points remain the same--and so the direction of the gaze remains the same.  Pretty neat, right?

Well, it's much harder to do this kind of thing in three dimensions, since the near and far points of a rounded eye actually do change as we move, but the Italian toy giant Giochi Preziosi appears to have figured it out.  Their Unique Eyes doll line features eyes that actually follow you around the room!  

I'm always on the lookout for something truly new and different in the doll world, and I feel like this brand definitely fits the bill.  I want to throw out a big "thank you" to gothielle, who alerted me to the presence of these fascinating dolls.  Gothielle, you know me well; I've become completely obsessed.

Unique Eyes Amy (left) and Sophia (right) by Giochi Preziosi, variable price.