20 Feb 2014

Monster High - Jane Boolittle


Jane Boolittle, a bit of a random odd addition to the MH franchise. This ghoul showed up with no fanfare, no real details, she just... was. Odd.

She can indeed talk with the animals, walk and talk and sing with the animals. Ok i'll stop.

Her box! VERY striking . The red is very eye catching and the jungley, bridge/skull/waterfall thing is very King Kong. Lots of pulp references here i'm sure.


There's also this 3d bit, which is cool. I don't know why there's a sticking out rock.. but there is and it's awesome. Sometimes the MH boxes have 3d furniture and stuff to display shoes and accessories on, but I don't recall any having like... 3d scenery like this.


It's worth noting that Jane is not part of any line, she exists on her own as the doll accompanying, presumably, secret creepers, the newest gimmicky piece of tat branded MH. They're basically oversized versions of existing character's pets, which open up so you can hide things in them, mostly scraps of paper with stuff written on them. Kinda exactly like Keypers...

(I totally had the snail, she was awesome)

Only less fabulously useful and demented. (You could hide your dad's keys in these things, a hilaaaarious prank... <_< what?)

I never quite understood why toy companies are so keen for kids to write their secrets down. Surely writing them down is like... the number 1 sure fire way to make sure it DOESN'T stay a secret?

Anyway, Jane seems to be part of this line.. somehow. It's confusing and odd. Means she's packaged in her own case though, much like Catty Noir was, and all those exclusives.


Jane has a diary, which is great. I love these things. Hers goes into details about how she was adopted by Doctor Boolittle (presumably the monster Doctor Doolittle) and Doctor Moreau, AKA that crazy dude who turned people into animals. It's been parodied on the Simpsons so you better have heard of it.
Anyway, what's interesting to note is that why Dr M is male in the book/movies, in this diary he or she is NEVER once mentioned by gender pronoun. It's "dr M" this and "dr m" that. That's gotta be intentional, but why would Mattel hide the gender of a character from us? There's two reasons I can think of.

The first, Dr M is indeed a man and they didn't want anyone to read any homosexual subtext into her having two dads.

Or they're screwing with our preconceptions and it'll turn out Dr M is in fact a woman and the daughter of the original Dr M, much like Jackson's mother appears to be the Jekyll/Hyde parent.

Either way, it's odd.

And no, we never learn what monster type Jane actually is. She doesn't seem to know.


She comes with instructions, exciting. They seem to tell me that her bag can open, her sloth goes on her back and she can hold her staff thing which is also a pen? Awesome... and random.

Presumably for writing your "secrets" to put inside the toy and leave for your siblings to find and blackmail you with... yep.






Here's Needles the sloth, who appears to be made of stitched together burlap sacks lol. Least, i'd rather believe he was made of burlap than shredded sloth parts. Ahem.
I wonder if he's linked to Hoodude's fabric, which was given to Dr Stein by some voodoo shaman he knew... hmmm.

He is soft and squishy and hollow, having a slit in his back for secret thiiiingsssss.


Inside Jane's purse is a small pile of papers, secret papers? no, just blank paper with little vine motifs on the edges.


I didn't want to waste one of the bits of paper, so I uncapped the staff/marker and wrote my secret things on A4 bwhahaha. It's a purple felt tip pen.


You waited long enough though, here she is, deboxed and gorgeous.

Jane's skin is a really deep bruised purple, much much deeper than Operetta's or Twyla's. Her hair is actually a deep purple indigo shade, with deep pink streaks though it. It's lovely and soft but a little frizzy.

Her outfit is a mad assortment of colours, patterns and textures that works well against her dark tones. Irl the colours are all much much darker than photos tell.

  

Her shoes are mismatched, one is a snake coiling around the leg, the other looks to be some sort of metal brace thing with feathers. Go figure.

Her leggings/tights have jagged hems and one is longer than the other.

 
Over the tights she wears a pink dress/tunic with a teal skirt in netting. Her belt is three skullettes with feathers and I think teeth are the other motif to each side.

She has one bracelet with scratched lines in it, and the other arm has a fishnet sleeve and a red and a teal bracelet.

She has clawed hands.


Over the dress thing is an asymetrical top with furry cap sleeves.
the top itself has a sort of vine/tree pattern on it.

Over that she wears a plastic shoulder piece made of moulded plastic feathers. Then a necklace piece in red.


One ear has a bone and feather earring.


The other has a tooth.

Jane's face is striking with very unusual lips. The top lip has no dip in it, while the bottom lip has a pronounced dimple. No upper lip dip always makes me think of Julia Roberts, though I think Jane here pulls it off far far better.

She has aqua/teal coloured eyes with pink and purple makeup which is quite subtle. Under each eye are a series of aqua/teal dots. Her ears are very faintly pointed.


On top of her head she has a headband with a skullette at the centre of large feather "wings". It kinda makes me think of a butterfly or moth tbh.


Her hair is pretty, and not too bad out of the box tbh. It needed a little combing and finger curling but it's ok to me.


Under that top you can see her dress thing is a strapless number, held up with clear elastic straps.


As the instructions told me, her sloth does indeed make a good backpack. he looks so cosy there. though he does also kiiiinda look like he's trying to cop a feel. Hmmm.


There is a bit of a problem with the slothpack though. Jane comes with a standard stand, but with the sloth on her back as he's clearly designed to be worn, the stand will not fit.


Best I could manage was a nice sloth seat. A saddle stand would have made a lot more sense. Annoyingly, the only one I have came with Catty Noir and is far too high for any other doll to use. Grrr.


Solution! Put her on the stand sideways lol. It's not particularly elegant, but it works till I can locate some shorter saddle stands.

Overall, I really do like Jane. She's a very unique colour and she stands out beautifully. Her tribal motif is fun and I like how she has so many colours on her without it feeling too much.
Her pen staff is a cute accessory, but it's a bit gimmicky as a pen for me. I can't see when I would ever use it as a pen, but it makes a great prop.
her pet is stinking adorable and I do like that he clips onto her. Only a few of the pets have really been able to hang out with their owner in a way that felt/looked natural. Sir Hoots a Lot can perch on Ghoulia's arm for instance, so I always like it when the doll and pet can interact in this sort of manner on display. Also saves me from losing the pets when they fall off the shelf and roll off somewhere.

Booo.

I like having them attached to the doll, but very few of them can do that.

Her stand lets her down. A real design oversight here to make it so she couldn't be on her stand and wearing her sloth in the manner the instructions tell you.
The secret keeper thing is a bit cheesy and I can't see it ever being used, at all. Why would you?
But she's a nice doll and an interesting character addition. Her parents add a lot of potential for tying her in with other characters and i'm really curious about Dr M's gender now lol.
Is she our first MH character with two dads? Or are Mattel just messing with us?
I suspect the latter but I like to think the former.

I give Jane Boolittle 9 ambiguous gender identities out of 10. She'd get 10 but the stand thing annoyed me.


9 Feb 2014

Monster High - Frights Camera Action! - Clawdia Wolf

The Wolf family really need to invest in a big book of baby names... seriously. How many variations on "claw" are they really expecting to use? And doesn't it get SUPER confusing around the house when you have a Clawdia, Clawdeen and a Clawd? Is there a Clawdette as well?

Not to mention the super confusing for parents in the toy aisle aspect.

"I want Clawdia Wolf, she's the daughter of the werewolf."
"Oh Clawdeen Wolf, that must be it."

*headdesk*

Mattel... why you do this? WHY?

Anyway, here she is:


Clawdia of the red blazer... Clawdia of the yellow hair... Clawdia of the manic grin!

 
AHHHH! AHHHHH this image... oh god... her teeth... that gaping maw.


Anyway, on the back of the box we get to learn a bit more about Clawdia. Apparently her look isn't "Red Blazer realtor" but "tribal prep"... go figure. I still say she looks like she should be showing me around a 3 bed apartment on the upper west side with good transport links and a central location.
Ahem.

Her flaw is cute, apparently she chews... everything. I can identify with this, i'm a terrible chewer as well lol. Mattel always have fun with the Wolf sibling flaws, it amuses me.


Clawdia's colour scheme is striking, that's for sure. Gold/yellow and red is a bold combo and I kinda like it. The more recent MH dolls have really opted for a far more muted, pastel sort of palette or a great deal of black and pink. Now, much as I like black, it's nice to see some really strong primary colours for a change.
Not sure about the canary yellow hair though, it's an odd choice I feel. That beautiful dark skin and that bright... yellow... bletch. Poor girl. She must dye it that colour right? But one has to ask WHY? Why would you want bright yellow hair?
I wonder how she's look with dark hair, I suspect she'd look quite beautiful.

 
Speaking of that canary yellow poof, it's a ball o frizz. Curly hair always is but poor Clawdia gets a combination of a hideous shade AND frizz madness. Makes her look like a clown.


Ignoring the hair, which is hard believe me... it's so bright. Her faceup is interesting. Her eyes are rather similar I feel to Music Festival Clawdeen, a lovely burgundy shade of eyeshadow and then gold.  Then she has this wide, grinning sculpt with prominant fangs.

This grin has polarised people, and I admit, I was not impressed when I first saw it and even in person, i'm still not totally sold on the idea. oh it gives her personality certainly, but it also makes her a not particularly pretty doll.
She oozes personality, not sex appeal, which is an interesting change of pace in an industry where dolls are always selling on the rule of "ooo it's pretty".

I DO however like that they sculpted teeth and particularly fangs into this grin. It's a really cute touch.


Underneath her real estate blazer, Clawdia wears a printed gold dress with a very subtle Union Jack motif. Now that's a neat touch.

Around her neck she has a chunky tribal necklace which seems to me to be inspired by the moon. A large "full" moon in the centre and then crescents on each side.

She has a tribal swirl in one ear and a small crossed bone motif that looks a bit like a clover... uh.. yeah. Random.

She also has a black bracelet with like a carved geometric pattern. 

 

Her tights/socks are really nice, thick knit fabric. They feel really robust actually, unlike a few of the mesh socks which never felt like they'd survive much play and redressing.

Her shoes are studded heels with cross bone clasps. They're not hugely complex shoes but they're cute and do the job.
I feared they'd be a nightmare to get on and off but actually they're very soft and slip on without you having to put much strain on the cross strap at all.

Horah!


Clawdia comes with two accessories, a tablet/Itomb? and this little journal and pen. The pen has a prong on it so it can be held, but the book doesn't open or anything. It's just a solid prop, but it's cool. There's chewed edges to the cover lol, a nice touch.


Clawdia also comes with glasses that have slightly magnifying lenses. I do love that the MH doll glasses actually do magnify slightly, it's a fun touch that differentiates the "glasses" from the sunglasses.
Clawdia's glasses come perched on top of her head, a trend i've noticed with recent releases no doubt in response to all the complaints of hidden eye flaws and dents in the faces thanks to glasses elasticated on too tight in the packaging. It is nice to be able to inspect the eyes without glasses in the way and it's great to not have to worry about those dents any more. So thank you Mattel!

I do however have to ask. How the HELL do werewolves keep their glasses ON? They have nothing to hold the things on with! It's annoying enough on the dolls, having no ears at the side of the head to hold the arms of the glasses in place, they tend to slip and end up lopsided, but imagine in reality? Lol. Yes, I think about this sort of thing.You lean forward and bam, glasses have fallen off your face. They'd need like elasticated things on the back to hold them onto their heads!


Continuing the theme of the Wolf Sibling skin tones getting darker with age, Clawdia's skin tone is a beautiful rich brown. She's darker than Clawd by several shades, which is awesome. I love me some variations of brown. Particularly nice dark shades because they're pretty uncommon in dolls in this country. Unlike the US, we don't tend to see AA doll lines, so lovely rich mahogany skin is somewhat of a novelty.

I wonder if we'll ever see any older Wolf siblings, and whether we'll eventually end up with one that's almost nubian black. I can dream of a doll that deep a shade can't I? Wow she'd be stunning.
But anyway, Clawdia's diary yet again deftly avoids the subject of how many Wolf kids there ARE. I'd love to see a younger brother and an older brother at least. We need a "little brother" body and an "adult" male body already, so bring on the wolf brothers!


Overall Clawdia gets 7 unsettling grins out of 10.

While the smiling face was a bold move, I don't really think it paid off this late in the game. We're what, 3 or 4 years into the franchise and now they decide to debut "character sculpts" ? It's a bit jarring. While I do like that she has the fangs, the grin coupled with the yellow frizz hair makes for a pretty unattractive doll I feel. Oh yes, she oozes character, but she isn't pretty and she's a doll that seems to be polarising people. She's the Marmite of Monster High. You either love her, or you hate her. 
Her outfit is also an odd choice colour wise. Much as I LOVE the primary colours, the red blazer screams real estate agent to me, and coupled with the bright yellow, I can't help but think "do you want fries with that?". Perhaps if she had a different hair colour or they'd picked a different colour than red? I like red, but the combo here is just a bit... unfortunate. 

The hair is just a pain. Even after a boil wash and curl it's STILL frizzy as hell and I don't believe there is any way for it not to be a ball of fuzz. While one could argue frizzy hair is in keeping with her character, it's never a good thing for a doll. This hair will not tolerate brushing and that's a problem. 

However, on the plus side, this is the first taller body mh doll i've had that's had no joint issues! Both Nefera and Bloodgood had iffy knees while this girl's seem to be fine. No stiffness or odd looseness, could it be Mattel finally worked out the kinks in this sculpt? Or did I just get lucky?

I like Clawdia's personality, I do like that she's more an action figure than she is a doll. I look forward to seeing her in the special when it finally airs. Her diary has a few really sweet moments, particularly one featuring Clawd which i'm curious to see if they'll build on in the special (I doubt it though, the specials always squander opportunity to have character's display depth. Grrr)
I also like that while we've got "yet another Wolf sibling", Clawdia's style is totally unlike anything you'd see Clawdeen or Howleen wear. (Now they just need a super girly frills and ruffles sister ahahaha)

I suspect this doll would look stunning with dark hair. The canary yellow just isn't working for me. It's my biggest gripe, which is odd as I thought i'd be hating on the grin more. I look foward to seeing someone reroot her.

Monster High - Frights Camera Action! - Elissabat


It's Elissabat!

Or Draculaura 2.0, hehe.


Her CGI self seems far sparklier and more mature than her doll. I'm not totally sold on that pale purple hair, her deep purple is far more attractive.


The back of the box gives us the usual. 1,601 years... wow Vampire years must be really really dull. I'd be bored out of my skull after the first hundred or so years. Imagine 1600 years and you're still mentally a teenager, yeek.

Anyhoo, universe issues aside... Apparently Elissabat is an amazing actress who suffers from massive stage fright... riiiight. I've seen a lot of really bad rp characters with this kinda crap. Look at that pose, that ain't a girl with crippling stage fright. The diary plays it as a "i'm acting that i'm not scared but I am, but i'm just that good at acting you don't see" deal which feels like a cop out to me. I dunno, if this were an OC it'd be something that'd annoy the crap out of me and even for a canon character the cliche hurts.
Maybe they'll play more into it in the special, but it kinda feels like a phoning it it freaky flaw.
I'll shut up about it now lol.


Anyway here she is.

Elissabat very much feels like the "safe" doll for the Frights Camera Action line. Clawdia and her psycho grin is very marmite, Honey has her awesome hair and Viperine has her freaky snake thing going on. Elissabat is comparatively, really very boring. She's just a pretty pink vampire girl, like we've seen hundreds of times already.
But that's not to say she isn't freaking adorable.
The purple looks nice with the pink vampire skin and her hair is an absolutely stunning shade of plum. I love love love this hair colour.


Her outfit features a very detailed layered dress with lace up bodice and various ruffles and petticoats. Over the top of this is a patterned jacket that adds another textural layer and some gorgeous elbow length frilly sleeves.


Her boots have hearts and ruffled? platforms. These are very cute boots and crazy detailed.

Around one wrist she wears a semi opaque plastic bracelet, I think it's a heart with batwings. I couldn't get a decent picture of it.


She also has two blood drop earrings in each ear. Yes, that's right, two holes in EACH ear as you can see in this picture. I found this interesting, there's only a handful of MH characters with multiple piercings like this (Venus and Clawdeen spring instantly to mind) but it's certainly an unusual trait.


Straight out the box Elissabat's hair is nice. It's a little gelled in the bangs and there's bits of the hair that are kinda gloopy thanks to packaging yuck but the majority of her hair is soft and manageable.

The colour... oh my. It's a blend of plum purple and black. I think I had hair dyed this colour at one point lol.


She comes with two accessories. An award shaped like a hand, and this dvd case that actually opens and has a little removable dvd in it. EEEE! I love teeny details like this!
Not sure WHY she's got a copy of her own movie on dvd but eh, it's another movie for creepover night lol.


Somewhat sadly, Elissabat does share a face mould with Draculaura.
Edit: Apparently they ARE different moulds, but DAMN they're similar.
Elissabat's lips are a slightly different shape and she has a very slightly narrower jaw.. maybe. Even with the face paint removed i'm honestly struggling to tell them apart. So let's assume Elissabat is in fact a tweaked Draculaura sculpt rather that a simple reuse? Still, she is to Draculaura as wider faced Spectra is to regular gaunt spectra, that is, so similar they may as well be the same face mould.

Now, I get WHY they did this, her diary and the whole plot of the special has a bit of a prince/pauper vibe to me so having the queen and the commoner looking the same fits that trope, but it still feels like a shame. They look like twins.

Elissabat's screening has at least been made unique. She has smaller painted lips than most Draculaura's I own and her eyes are larger. 

I do believe Elissabat's skin tone is slightly more purplely but that might just be her hair messing with my colour perception.



I do find it interesting that Elissabat's eyes are pretty much the inverse of Draculaura's. Ula has purple eyes usually with pink shadow while Elissabat's are pink with purple shadow.


Overall, Elissabat is a very cute doll and i'm pleased to own her. She has a great outfit, her hair is beautiful and she has a sweet face, even if it is a very familiar one.

There's not many MH dolls with purple as their base colour, and I love purple so it's nice to see a bit more of it. (Though anyone else notice both Draculaura's BFFs wear predominantly purple? Coincidence? hahaha)

I do wish she wasn't reusing a face mould but at least she doesn't just look like Draculaura in a different dress.

I give Elissabat 7 inexplicable doppelgängers out of 10. She's a nice doll and her costume is high quality, but she's nothing special. Particularly not alongside the rest of the FCA line. She's not just reusing the same body as standard, she's reusing a face mould as well (or at least using one really bloody similar) so she's the least ambitious and least individual of the new characters. Some might go so far as to just call her "purple Draculaura."
I'm not that unimpressed myself, I do think she has a really sweet face that doesn't look too much like her mould twin. But I certainly couldn't fault those who couldn't see her as her own character because of the similarities.
Previously at least reused/similar moulds have switched up the skin tones, which helped keep the similarities down. Here we have same skin tone, same face shape, even a similar fashion style.
Still, I do like her. She may not work great as a brand new character, but even for a "purple Draculaura" she's really really adorable. 

3 Feb 2014

Monster High - I heart Fashion wave 2 - Scarah and Clawdeen

I heart fashion, or I love fashion.. whatever man.. I don't know! It's a heart, how do you pronounce a shape!?

I shall dub it "Hrrrrt"
So, I hrrrrt fashion wave 2! AWAY!


I've had Clawdeen for a while, I shipped her from the US but they at the time had no Scarahs. When these hit the UK, Scarah sold out stupid fast and then it was months.. and months.. and months of no restock. In fact, she still hasn't restocked online. Way to go tru, good to see you really making the most of your exclusives *eyeroll*
I lucked out and found this Scarah in my nearest store (which is like an hour away by bus). They only had Scarahs, no Clawdeen at all and from what I hear, this is common everywhere. Scarah is shipping in her own case, making Clawdeen now the hard to find one.
Go figure.

Anyway, Scarah's box is damaged because my toddler sat on it. Bah. 


The backs of the boxes have character art in a somewhat generic paper doll kinda style. Clawdeen looks oddly awkward to me here. Like.. her leg position and her hip/torso don't quite gel. Looks like someone chopped up several images and pasted them together.

Clawdeen's box as you can see is the US version, while Scarah's is the Euro version. This means more text in multiple languages and less actual words. While Clawdeen gets a whole in character blurb explaining how much she loves to shop etc, Scarah gets one line... repeated over.. and over.. in different languages.
THIS ladies and gentlemen, is what the euro diaries look like as well. Now you see why we're so pissed off when we get EU versions of this stuff in the UK. Damnit, we want complete content, it's sucky that we get shafted with abridged crap.

 
Let's look at Scarah first as she's the one that's selling like hotcakes.

She comes in an attractive green box with a few cardboard inserts. A dress maker's dummy/dress form thing, a table and a shelf. Also a picture behind the doll featuring her frankly rather freakish logo/symbol. It's a grinning mod face and it's freaking me out man.

As with the previous I Hrrrrt Fashion line, the dolls feature 3 full outfits and a few random accessories. 


Scarah's first outfit is this funky 60s inspired ensemble. White zip up boots, a white pleather jacket with a green belt and a pair of shorts an a cute graphic tee under.
It's a simple but effective look, a modern twist on retro fashion.

I actually had to look at several Scarah's in the store to find one with decent shorts though. The first one I picked out had iffy seams in the crotch region, meaning the shorts rode up higher on one side than the other. Wth?

I love these boots, I have no idea whether they're a recast, but they're fabulous. I'm a sucker for knee high boots on dolls.

Scarah also has 4 chunky square bracelets on one wrist and a small pink bracelet on the other.
her necklace is a recast, it's a sort of blobby effect that makes me think of science wheee. That's probably because it's Mad Science Lagoona's necklace but in black hahaha.

She has these great giant sunglasses that remind me of Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's Wonka (Now that was an awkward sentence).

Her hair is soft, fluffy and gel free. YAY! not sure what the heck is up with the style though, it's tied to one side and then loose and what? Eh.. whatever.


Her belt clasp is a skullette... she's skullette crazy this ghoul.


The jacket has one flaw. To take it off you have to snip a teeny little white thread holding the belt in place. Unfortunately, then it wont STAY DONE UP again. ARGHHHH. wth Mattel? The clasp is too loose to actually hold the ribbon, so her coat just slowly slips open like an unintentional striptease.

Under the coat is this cute pink graphic tee with skullettes in black and green. Shorts and that afformentioned pink bracelet you can't see under her long sleeves.


Scarah's second outfit is this saucy little number. A sparkly high collar dress and green wedge heels. She also has a simple white necklace.
It's a very basic look but i'm sure could be awesome with some mixing and matching of accessories.


Her final outfit is another little dress with printed tights underneath. The dress features a grey on black skullette motif on one side, a strip of pink, then what looks to me like safetypins and stripes. I like this dress, it's suitably devoid of any particular thematic while still having a pattern. It's not specific to ONE character, because it seems Spectra is yet to get a pattern identity beyond "Skullettes".
And everyone looks good in skulls.

She also has a white belt with an open faced skullette "buckle"


There's also a third pair of shoes, simple silver heels. But they and the green heels will NOT got on her feet if she's wearing the tights. Bit of an oversight for a line that's all about the mixing and matching don't you think?


Speaking of those tights, they're designed to look like mesh, printed green and black with occasional hidden skullettes. I love this subtle detail, it's adorable!

The tights are also very effective in conveying a fishnetty mesh look while being robust and easy to put on and take off. (these sorts of tights are apparently fashionable, frankly I think they're kinda dumb irl because they rely on you having the exact right skin tone and that rather limits your market.)

Now of course, the reason this Scarah is selling like hotcakes is because she's the first mass market release of the character. Previously the only way you could have a Scarah of your very own was to be super duper special lucky at SDCC or the after sale on Matty, or fork out stupid amounts of money for the limited edition exclusive. 


I got lucky ok?

SDCC Scarah has much softer makeup and a very mod sort of hairdo, which I love, while I Hrrrt Fashion comes with pink lips (not sure I like them, they're a bit jarring) and silver eyeshadow which is quite pretty.


I'm not sure if my eyes are messing with me, or these two actually have slightly differently shaped faces. I hrrrt fashion's jaw seems squarer to me, broader somehow but i'm not certain it's not an optical illusion caused by the bangs and lip shape... hmmm.

Have I mentioned how much I freaking love her blank white eyes? Oh yessss.


It's remarkably difficult to take a photo of two dolls when they refuse to stand and you only have two hands.

Still not sure about the faces being different or not. It's messing with my head man.

So, final thoughts on I hrrrt fashion Scarah? She's gorgeous and she comes with a LOT of very versitile, and more importantly, non character specific outfit pieces. The mix and match possibilities here are practically endless because so much is so blank or general in patterning and that's a really good thing. It means ANY doll can wear this without looking like they raided another's closet.
Her mod style is unique to the franchise as well, and I love love love retro styles so i'm pleased to see this.
The pink in all her outfits is minimal and attractively done, I love how much black and white she's sporting in all her looks.

Her hair is a little fluffy but it's sooo soft, I can't stop stroking it. Certainly an improvement over the gel nightmare that was her SDCC doll.

She has a few design problems. Her belt that refuses to stay closed and her shoes not going over her tights are a pretty major oversight for me. I mean come ON Mattel, what the hell? It's extremely frustrating to see such a great doll let down by a few badly implemented elements.
As a result, Scarah has to get only 8 stocking feet out of 10. She's great though, and for a first mass release of a character, you couldn't ask for better than a doll with three complete looks!

Oh, she also has a stand, but it won't clip over her coat. -_-