davidd’s A DOLL A DAY 2021

[Lejays17]

The roller skating helmet for Ghoulia was brilliant! Shaped like brains.

And no worries about commenting on the posts - I might miss a day or two (work is totally bonkers at the moment), but I try to catch up on the weekends at least.

The March Monsters is hitting my nostalgia big-time, even tho I never really collected MH - EAH were far more my thing. And they were actually what shoved me along the doll-collecting path

[Loona]

Yup, seconding Lejays here: no worries about commenting. I'm happy to be able to drop by more now that I have a little more time before work gets mad again later this month and in April - though it's sad that I sometimes come on to find that no new posts have been written since I last logged in. I really miss neon's and werepuppy's photos and presence (and I think Kanrabat is also away more recently), so your daily thread is especially refreshing. Plus, the March Monsters give me, too, immense nostalgy for the golden years of Monster High (which were also the golden years of my forum activity).

Roller Maze Ghoulia is a cool doll. I don't like her stok that much, but she herself is cool - plus she is a lovely custom/rehair candidate. During my "make a zillion greyscale dolls"-craze when I bought tons of dolls with monochrome skin tones to rehair and repaint (none have actually been completed to date T__T). I have at one point owned about 5 of her, and none of them had the hair secured with glue, which is awesome because her head is soft, easy to dehair, and is less likely to produce discoloration that is sometimes caused by the glue used within a doll's head to secure the hair. She also has a pigtails-hairstyle, which I always like, because I like to give my dolls pigtails - and dolls with a regular hairstyle don't look too good from the back with hair separated that way. A few of her have since moved on, but she is one of those dolls whom I haven't given up on: I still plan to make a greyscale version of her someday.

Brittle plastic packaging that is less than 10 years old, though? Huh. And there we were, thinking 80s collectors' items deteriorating are dreadful enough. Next it will be the dolls themselves disintegrating within a timeframe less than what it takes for the kids who play with them to grow up

[davidd]

The roller skating helmet for Ghoulia was brilliant!  Shaped like brains.

The March Monsters is hitting my nostalgia big-time, even tho I never really collected MH - EAH were far more my thing.  And they were actually what shoved me along the doll-collecting path

That helmet cracked me up so much the first time I saw it! Brilliantly hilarious!

I don't have enough EAH to do a month of posts... although a month of Dragon Games Darling wouldn't be all bad, at that!

I miss the early, exciting days of Monster High. And yes, MH was the line that pushed me beyond Pinky Street and a few Pullips.

I really miss neon's and werepuppy's photos and presence (and I think Kanrabat is also away more recently).... Plus, the March Monsters give me, too, immense nostalgy for the golden years of Monster High (which were also the golden years of my forum activity).

... (none have actually been completed to date T__T)....

Next it will be the dolls themselves disintegrating within a timeframe less than what it takes for the kids who play with them to grow up

I miss them too. No sign of werepuppy since the end of last year. neon pops in now and again. Kanrabat's participation seems to come and go in bursts, depending on what treasures he finds or projects he completes.

The early years of Monster High were definitely a Golden Age for activity on the doll and toy forums, and a great time to be a hobbyist, fan, and collector.

Sounds like most of my project: lots of grand plans, very little to show for it.

Some Monster High dolls have a propensity for the glue to seep out of their heads and gum up the hair quite badly. I've had an issue with "melt" on a few accessories. The joints on many of the MH figs have become quite loose and floppy, even when they've been in storage most of their lives.

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March of the Monsters continues:

18 March – Monster High Toralei Stripe as "Cat Tastrophe" from the Power Ghouls line

This one stays in her box. The cool retro comic book style packaging makes the Power Ghouls line, in my opinion. At one point I owned the entire set. Before I moved a few years ago, I de-boxed nearly all of my dolls and figures to save space, including the Power Ghouls. Once taken out of their boxes, the Power Ghouls figures aren't all that great. They're just... dolls. There's nothing wrong with them, as far as quality or anything. They're simply not very exciting, at least not to me, once they are removed from the context of their packaging. I regret having de-boxed the Power Ghouls, not because of any potential collector value (most of them have not significantly appreciated in value), but because they lost a lot of their visual appeal and cool factor once removed from the packaging.

[Alliecat]

Well, I've had too much screen time this week so the first glance here, I read, "Crappy Kitty". ...what?, no, that can't be right...
I won't start another round of to-debox-or-not-to-debox, haha; I think everyone knows my opinion
Oh yeah, plastic package material definitely deteriorates. Too bad. The mint-in-box investment is probably a worse bet than an iffy stock purchase

A few of her have since moved on...

“A few of her” sounds like the way one would talk about davidd's Ameliae

[Loona]

I'm in agreement with Alliecat on the deboxing thing - but I also agree, the Power Ghouls line, while looking great MIB, lost a lot of their charm deboxed. Several of the dolls just weren't versatile enough (at least not to me) OOB with their superhero outfits and facial features - this is especially true for Toralei, whose catsuit isn't even something you could mix&match to make a more casual look for her. Maybe certain kids liked this, and they are still the main audience, not me, but I personally never really liked superhero dolls who weren't able to go casual. I always liked redressing, personalising the look, making dolls, even superhero dolls look... not like they were superheroes in power suits 24/7. That must not be comfortable, right? So to me, it is an important factor in a doll not to have e.g. facial markings that clearly identify them as superheroes, stripping them of the ability to go casual when they want to. Spectra probably has this one the worst in the line: while her dress can be used as a casual look, she has temporary superhero facepaint.
Also, Monster High was not a superhero franchise. We aren't talking about characters whose main characteristic feature is fighting evil (by moonlight ) in incognito, most of them don't even have superpowers, they are regular teens and schoolgirls (as regular as you can get in the world of MH anyway ). I don't even remember if this superhero theme ever came up in e.g. the animated series - so I'm not sure if the Power Ghouls had enough... power in them to stand out. I mean, I'm still not a kid (though once was, and in some aspects I never grew up, nor do I plan to ), but if I wanted to make my favourite doll into a superhero, I could do that in pretend play without the doll having a special suit and a mask/facepaint. But my ex-perience is (both personally, and also from when I had loads of Monster High dolls and - through resales - met several kids - or their parents - who were purchasing a specific doll from me, for a specific reason) that many kids like to stay 'canon'. They are looking to get their favourite characters in dolly form - and not a doll who resembles their favourite character and has some features said character never really had in the canon form. I get it superheroes were always a big thing, and I assume Mattel also wanted their fair share of it - but I think (and especially in the eyes of children) superheroes are a thing because of the characters first, or at least not without that aspect also in place - and not solely because of the theme. So characters who aren't actually superheroes having that backstory won't necessarily take off just because they are represented cosplaying as some random superhero you have never heard before (or after this line, apparently).


So what I am trying to say here overall (gosh, it is clearly my morning-came-too-early-compared-to-when-I-went-to-sleep-self talking   will leave this here for now, sorry if long and incohesive ), is that I don't know if the concept was appealing enough to take off - either in the eyes of the original, juvenlie audience, or in the eyes of adult collectors. Because for adults,  I agree, in box, looking like a 3D comic strip,  they are eyecandy - but is that enough to haul an adult otherwise uninterested in MH into purchasing one of these dolls? I don't think it is fair to make any comparison between this line and the superhero-themed SDCC-exclusive Ghoulia, the doll that inspired this line - because that is a doll produced for an 'adult' fan and collector event, and whoever bought Ghoulia there for any reason, won't necessarily buy another 5 playline, store-marketed counterparts for her as well. Surely these factors can't seem a big enough market for a giant like Mattel.

ETA, not to mention (and going back to the deboxing debate), no matter how good something looked MIB, I, personally, wouldn't buy a doll if I knew they only look good in box, being a deboxer myself, because I wouldn't be able to enjoy them that way. I can only think of one single counterexample that managed to break my deboxer attitude, this Stranger Thing Applejack. And exactly for the reason why I'm sharing this picture of her (pic not mine!): packaged upside-down, she looks awesome next to a regularly-packaged 'classic' Applejack. That said though, I didn't buy only one of her, because I need to debox things to enjoy them - and while ponies are considerably more static than dolls (where a great factor of their enjoyment is the posing), their soft and brushable hair is also a feature that I need to be able to touch in order to be able to enjoy the collectible the way I like. That, and ST AJ also looks great posed next to 'classic' AJ out of box. And I need that too :3

/dizzy morning philosophising off, back to work

[davidd]

So what I am trying to say here ... is that I don't know if the concept was appealing enough to take off....

The superhero "thing" was a fad for a while. I'm not sure which came first, Monster High Power Ghouls or Bratz Action Heroez [I looked it up. Bratz copied Monster high yet again; Power Ghouls debuted in January 2013, Action Heroez in Fall 2013). Neither line seemed to generate much enthusiasm at the retail level. I suspect that by the time the dolls reached the market, the fad was already fading. It was a cute effort, I thought, but I agree with everything you say about the lack of versatility.

A tie-in animated movie was planned but apparently never materialized.

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March of the Monsters continues:

19 March - Monster High Luna Mothews

Luna is pretty cool, actually, with "scales" or carapace-like "plates" sculpted on her entire body... which obviously isn't visible unless she's allowed out of her box.

[Loona]

I don't think I have ever heard of the Bratz Action Heroez line. Looking up pictures of them, I do remember seeing one of the dolls being sold second-hand at a local auction site, but the rest of the girls are totally new to me. They look like strange hybrids between Bratz and one of the pastel-coloured lines of Moxie Girlz. I wouldn't have thought they are superheroes (just like that one doll on said site never made me think that either) if you didn't point it out.

I wasn't aware of the superhero movie-thing either. Weird that I never came across this back in said Golden MH Years - knowing myself though, I most likely did, but I have since forgotten. It's sad this movie never happened, it could have been exciting - it certainly sounds more exciting than some of the movies that did actually happen

Ah, Luna! I was so excited for this doll back when she was only a name trademarked (guess why XD ) - and while I liked her as a doll and a concept (the aforementioned carapaced body, her goth vibes and big eyes), to me, personally, it was disappointing when finally a picture was put next to the name. I don't know if it was more about the fact that she totally didn't have the colouring of a luna moth (which I, alongside  many other speculating collectors, was ex-pecting), or about the abundance of red on her (which I dislike) - but in a way they are the same thing: I was disappointed and unappealed. It made me sad. I did acquire her in her 3-pack format later - but I bought the pack for the other 2 dolls, and not even when Luna was here in person did I think much before I resold her... and never regretted doing so.
...that is, not until a few days ago, when Dollightful posted this video of her repainting and rehairing Luna in pastel purple. Now, yellow body and purple hair is my favourite colour combination when it comes to My Little Ponies. Towards the end of the video, I started to regret selling Luna back then, several years ago - but I tried to calm myself with that the fact that I like ponies with these colours doesn't mean I also like dolls with these colours, and I'm sure I considered this already back then (my love for yellow-bodied ponies dates back to way before Monster High was even a thing). Now that she has appeared before me again, out of interest and curiosity I flicked through pictures of her in an image search, and my  mind is more at ease again. Ponies and dolls are definitely not the same thing, and what makes me like one doesn't necessarily have the same effect with the other. Her body is cool, but she doesn't really have anything else going on for me, and I have left dolls more tempting on store shelves and never looked back. To think what she could have been with a pale greenish colour scheme resemblant of that of an actual luna moth, and with cute ferny antennae... well, that is still such a bummer

[Lejays17]

Luma is an interesting idea, I did like her cape being winge when it was outstretched.

[davidd]

To think what she could have been with a pale greenish colour scheme resemblant of that of an actual luna moth, and with cute ferny antennae... well, that is still such a bummer

That would have made a remarkable doll! Also remarkable: the way these Monster High pics inspire your nostalgic musings! It makes me happy to see someone who is still excited about Monster High! neon was similarly fond of Monster High.

Luma is an interesting idea, I did like her cape being wings when it was outstretched.

Yes, the cape is a nice feature of the Luna release.

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March of the Monsters continues:

20 March – Monster High Robecca Steam

[Alliecat]

Cool lighting, again. She looks like she fits the setting.
Agree Luna would've been cool as a green doll with feathery antennae.

[davidd]

March of the Monsters continues:

21 March – Monster High Little Dead Riding Hood

I long thought this figure looked intriguing, but it never showed up in local stores. I finally purchased this one online. In person it isn't as appealing as I ex-pected, hence the still-in-box condition. Based on the current resale price, I'm on the fence as to whether to keep this figure or try to move it along to free up funds for other things.

[Alliecat]

Well, it's cute wordplay on the name. It must be kind of disappointing to buy all these figures and then find out they're not as fun as you hoped.

[Lejays17]

They're cute, but the EAH is a much better representation of the whole Fairy Tale idea

I get the intial excitment of seeing the figure on line, but feeling disappointed that it doesn't look as good in person

[Elfy]

You seem to have at least one of every line MH released.

[davidd]

It must be kind of disappointing to buy all these figures and then find out they're not as fun as you hoped.

Fortunately I have not been disappointed too many times. And this time, with Little Dead Riding Hood, was only a minor disappointment. She's still pretty neat.
And... she has held her value, so if I change my mind about keeping her.... [update: I changed my mind about keeping her; she's on her way to a new home!]

They're cute, but the EAH is a much better representation of the whole Fairy Tale idea

I get the intial excitment of seeing the figure on line, but feeling disappointed that it doesn't look as good in person

I'm not sure of the timeline, so I don't know if Mattel released EAH after trying the fairy tale concept with Monster High, or if the Monster High version was an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Disney's Descendants line.

You seem to have at least one of every line MH released.

Not even close. Not even close. Neon told me once how many there were; seems like it was over seven-hundred different characters or variations.

And... welcome back!

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March of the Monsters continues...

22 March – Monster High Draculaura (in aftermarket dress)