Tuesday, August 2, 2016

The My Twinn Project

One of my new ideas for the blog is to write about the doll-related projects in my life.  I could call this series of posts "regular person attempts tricky things that you can learn from the internet!" but I'll probably just put the word "project" somewhere in the title.  I love a good project.  I've documented project-like things in the past, but I'd like to make it more of a regular occurrence.  The basic formula will be to set the scene in a relatively short post and then publish a few progress updates--interspersed between my more conventional reviews.  This way you'll get to follow along and share in the suspense as I succeed (or fail!) in my endeavors.  When the project is complete, I'll put together a cumulative post with some concluding pictures and statements.  Let's see how it goes!

The first project involves My Twinn dolls.  My Twinn went out of business in January.  I was sad to hear this news, but it didn't come as much of a surprise.  By late 2015, the quality of the 18" dolls was plummeting, there was a glut of unsold, mega-browed 18" Adopt-A-Friends, and the company had ceased production of dolls with darker skin tones.  The situation didn't look promising.  The way I see it, My Twinn dolls were made great by four critical things: a great range of customizable options (including over 40 face molds), overall high quality of construction, beautiful inset eyes, and carefully hand-painted eyebrows.  Many of these features had gone out the window by the time My Twinn closed its doors.

Like many collectors, I think the best versions of My Twinn dolls are the ones assembled in Denver, Colorado from 1995 through 2001.  These dolls have high-quality vinyl, beautiful (durable) eyes, nice wigs, a variety of faces, and (occasionally) artist-painted eyebrows.  To commemorate the end of My Twinn, I decided to add one more of these vintage gems to my collection.  The Denver dolls are all at least 15 years old by now, though, so adopting one is likely to involve a bit of restoration.  This project will document what kind of work can be required...and how I struggled through it.

My Twinn Audrey from 2001.

Friday, July 22, 2016

DC Super Hero Girls "Wonder Woman" by Mattel

Well, that was a long delay in between reviews.  As many of you know, blogging was getting complicated for me, but then life got pretty complicated, too, and I needed to step away from the computer.  But I can't seem to quit dolls, and I also miss you guys.  So...I'm back.  As a kind-of warning, though, I don't think the blog will be exactly the same as it was before.  Specifically, I no longer think of this as my job, and can no longer attempt to buy and review everything new or popular.  But I'd love to review and talk about whatever doll passion or project I happen to be wrapped up in at the moment--or share some of my older dolls with you.  Despite the changes, I hope that this will still be a useful or diverting place for some.  Thank you for coming back, and thank you for all of your kind messages and heartfelt concern.  That's all I'll say for now because there are a lot of dolls to talk about!

While I've been away, Mattel has been taking the play doll world by storm. Specifically, the new Barbie body types and the awesomely powerful Super Hero Girls are turning a lot of heads...including my own.  I actually want to credit Mattel (and a few others) for luring me back into active doll collecting.  Today I'll be looking at two of Mattel's DC Super Hero Girls: Wonder Woman and Power Action Wonder Woman.  This teenaged version of Wonder Woman is a main character in the new Cartoon Network series, DC Super Hero Girls, but I won't pretend I knew that when I bought the dolls.  The fact is, I've always loved Wonder Woman more than the other female super heroes.  I even had the Underoos, if you must know.

I'll do a thorough review of the debut Wonder Woman doll and then I'll take a look at the Power Action version to provide some comparison--and also to make up for lost time.

DC Super Hero Girls debut "Wonder Woman," $19.99.

Saturday, February 13, 2016

"Hermione Granger" by Star Ace Toys

In my post about Mattel's 2001 Hermione Granger play doll, I mentioned that I had another Hermione to review.  Several of you guessed correctly that it was Star Ace's new sixth scale figure from the My Favorite Movie series.  Aside from the fact that both of these Hermione dolls portray Emma Watson's version of the beloved character from The Sorcerer's Stone, they have very little in common.  First of all, the Star Ace figure costs about ten times as much as the Mattel doll: a whopping $210, to be precise.  However, Sideshow Collectibles has a great payment plan, and so I was able to make this purchase slowly over a period of almost half a year.  There are other differences--in size, quality and articulation to name a few, and also the fact that Star Ace's Hermione is not yet discontinued and can still be found for sale in several online locations.

The biggest difference between the two dolls, however, is that Star Ace's Hermione is strikingly realistic:

Sixth scale Hermione Granger by Star Ace Toys, $209.99.

Sunday, January 31, 2016

Hogwarts Heroes "Hermione Granger" by Mattel (2001)

The doll I'm going to review today is about the same age as my kids.  She's an 8-inch Hermione Granger doll that was released in 2001, the year that the first Harry Potter movie (The Sorcerer's Stone) came to theaters.  I always hesitate before I review an older, discontinued doll.  Doing this can be confusing (since most reviews are of newly-released dolls) and also a little frustrating.  Nobody wants to read a review, fall in love with a doll, and then not be able to find one for sale.  However, I purchased my Hermione only about a year ago, so she's still out there.  I paid $35 for her, and right now there are a few on Amazon and eBay in the $30-60 range.  Her original price was $19.99.

I love discovering older dolls and reviewing them.  This is because I really enjoy exploring the history of doll manufacturing, but also because it's refreshing to look at dolls that are removed from trends that dominate the current market.  So many of the newest doll releases are bright and colorful with huge heads and exaggerated facial features.  In contrast, Mattel clearly designed this Hermione to be realistic--and in the likeness of a young Emma Watson.  I think they did a pretty good job:

Hogwarts Heroes Hermione Granger, Mattel (2001).

Saturday, January 23, 2016

American Girl's "Lea Clark," Sloth and Diabetes Kit

I want to say again how touched I am by the outpouring of advice and support following my last post.  Thank you.  I've been thinking a lot about many of your suggestions...and I haven't bought a new doll since January 8th.  I also haven't set foot inside a toy store for more than a month, which--for me--is really good.  The nice thing is, I still have a pretty big backlog of awesome dolls to review, so it's possible to continue blogging (as many of you mentioned) without constantly running out to buy the next new thing.

The doll I bought on January 8th is actually the doll I'm reviewing today--and I bought her for personal reasons that I'll explain along the way.  She's Miss Lea Clark, the new American Girl of the Year.  I think she's really pretty, but it was her pet sloth (along with one of the new Truly Me accessory sets) that really won me over:

Girl of the Year Lea Clark with her pet sloth.

Monday, January 11, 2016

Photo Mission! (With a Mini Review of Posea Reef)

It's been a bit of a rocky start to the new year for me.  Family distractions caused me to take a step back and look closely at the blog.  When I first started blogging, I read an article describing how it can take, on average, five years of hard work before it's clear whether or not a new blog will be successful.  That seemed reasonable, and so I promised myself that I'd get to work and not worry too much about success (whatever that means) until at least four years had passed.  Now, four years later, I find myself wondering about the success of my blogging approach.

There are so many things I love about this blog--things that I consider a huge success.  First of all, I love to photograph dolls and write about them.  And, there's an incredible selection of amazing dolls out there to review.  I feel like the proverbial kid in a candy shop most days.  In addition, I get a lot of visitors or "page hits" (the brass rings of blogging) and am about to hit the 6,000,000 mark, which is unbelievable.  I also love you guys.  I'd wager that few blogs have such an amazing, kind, insightful audience.  But the bottom line is really all about...well, the bottom line.  The harsh reality is that this blog is losing money.  Lots of money.  Breaking even would be one thing, but losing money is starting to be bad.  This could be my fault, or just the way blogs are these days.  I don't know.  But I can no longer pretend that this is my job.  It's kind-of the opposite.

I like blogging too much to give it up completely, but my approach definitely has to change.  While I figure out what all of this means, I thought I would publish the wonderful contributions from the last Photo Mission.  I asked to see pictures of the interesting dolls for sale in your part of the world.  I added my own photographs to this post and will also include two short reviews.  One of the reviews is of a doll that I found during the Photo Mission: Monster High's new mermaid, Posea Reef. Snapping pictures of Posea on the store shelf was not enough--I wanted to get a closer look at her:

Monster High Posea Reef, $19.99.