I decided at the last minute (after the annual trip to the doc-in-the-box to get antibiotics because nature sure does love her design flaws) to join in on the office Cinco de Mayo activity, and make some tacos. Food photography isn't my forte, and due to the late hour Party City was sold out of just about everything, but I did manage to get a couple of decent mini sombreros for Sim and mini!Sim.
🌮 F I E S T A 🌮
Despite what Mom always used to joke about whenever she walked by and caught me watching anime, I've never actually been a fan of things with extra-huge eyes. To date there's really only been one doll of that particular type I actually wanted.
But I've been following some bad, bad influences for some years now, and in particular more recently. So as I threatened on her post, this is largely Moon's fault, lol.
I finally caved, went to Aliexpress and got a DBS Blythe. Yes she's an offbrand, on an unbranded Azone-style body. But she's cute in her own way.
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| Barbie clothes, Real Littles sneakers. |
I'm not sure I'd get a whole nother Blythe? But maybe a face plate with the smiley face if I find one. Possibly a scalp with a wig, though I like her hair now, it suits her like the ears do. I also had a random kitbash idea involving the eye mech that I might act on later.
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| Adou (Street Series, Dance Battle), meet Adou (Loong Fantasia, Qing Yao) |
Apparently Penny's Box is having a whole "fantasy creatures" series blowout. When I came across the Antu mermaids, I also happened to notice these Adou anthro dragons. I knew immediately what I had to do. (This site has better details and translations, by the way). I'm not sure exactly how her name goes, aside from how to pronounce 'Qing' and that surnames usually go first? So for the sake of this post I'm calling this girl Yao.
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| and a set-specific "how to" pamphlet page. |
I expected her to come in a larger box, given her size, but she wasn't packaged stretched out. This had to be a relief for Mail Man since he could just leave said box in the mailbox instead of getting all the way up to the porch. I'm not blaming Mail Man for the broken horn issue. Pretty sure that happened before the whole shebang was swaddled in bubble wrap. I'm not mad - I just glued the broken bits back on. They're like the unicorn horns on the Antus; separate cast but not meant to be removed. Yao seems to be unique among the rest of the set in that her horns are asymmetrical. I also find it interesting that her wings are elastic strung like the rest of her, and not a detachable ball and socket peg attachment. On the one hand this is great since they can't fall off, but they are a little on the floppy side. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Like Shimmer, she comes with this neat character card, a dress, and extra hands. The second link I posted says they all have "accessories", and you can see from the images most of them do seem to - either a kiseru (I have one of these in real life, actually, and someone please tell me what they're called in Chinese if you know) or some little spectacles. A few of them apparently don't, and Yao is one of them. This is whatever, she can interact with most anything in the right scale. The dress is easy to get on and off - even over her special hand - and has velcro all the way up the back.
I like her many many joints, and her construction is solid, but not quite as hefty as Shimmer's, probably because of how long Yao is. She doesn't have much body blushing aside from on that one special hand, just a little bit on the molded scales at her waist, but there is some neat molded detail on her dragony bits.
She stands pretty well on her little lizard feet but will get top-heavy if you're not careful. I didn't experiment overly much with poses yet.
The pouty face and smaller eyes seem to be an Adou characteristic; I couldn't find much else similar between her and Dance Battle. The only thing that kind of bothers me about her is her eye chips. They're so very pale they kind of disappear, but I could probably make my own pair one of these days and swap them out if I tried.
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| Let me hold that for you. |
Damn my eyes, I got sucked down the Amazon rabbit hole again. Penny's Box has been busy (there's a new Dreamlike Tea Party set, someone save me). I have a couple other things coming, but the first one to arrive is this little lady:
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| Tidal Secret Language meets Dreamlike Tea Party |
She's another Antu collaboration doll, as you can see from the facial screening and general style. She's elastic-strung like the rest of her type, but I think for the sake of these anthro dolls, I can put up with that. They're just so cool.
Imagine my surprise when she arrived in a box about the size of a standard Barbie. I'm used to these being much smaller. It still had the convenient rip-strip opening at the top and surprisingly no sticky tape anywhere.
This one's name in particular is "Shimmer". I'm not sure what exactly her theme is aside from pink, but her hair buns look like lotus flowers, so maybe that's it? Her box is large because she's packaged "standing", in a plastic shell. The little side fins are separate pieces on pegs, by the way. Her main outfit is this two piece gauzy bubble underskirt, and then the slip dress that goes over it. The velcro on the latter is a little hard to get closed.
Also included are this nifty transparent character card, a shell bra and some sticky pads to put it on with (working for walmart several times has me calling all adhesives in that format "rethtickable dot-th"...it's an inside joke), and several pairs of extra hands in this nifty double-stacked ziplock baggie.
The collector guide game has levelled up - there's this large foldout spread showing not only how the doll in question is strung and works, but the rest of the non-secret characters in her series, and what I think may be small ads for other series and accessories, and/or tips on how you can use the body parts together. That's the same Adou doll I got, incidentally, center-left in the pink coveralls.
Shimmer does balance surprisingly well on her own, all things considered. I haven't had a chance to play around with clothes-swapping yet, but in comparison to the Dreamlike Tea Party dolls, Shimmer here is just slightly larger in the torso and hands, and her arms are a little longer. Honestly, she can probably wear Barbie/dollar store knockoff fashions, but don't quote me on that.
Speaking of fashions, in my occasional buying of Mini Fashion balls, I finally came across the current bane of Froggy's existence - the paint can purse. For me it was the quilted green one and the shoe purse in the first two series, though multiples of the shoe aren't the worst thing - if you cut off the strap they actually do fit Rainbow High feet almost perfectly.
Having that purse made me want to pull together an outfit based around it, but I don't have a coverall that would work (rip), and am lacking a printer, so I can't go get a pattern and make one on the fly. That particular purse came with a pair of sneakers, so no problem there... I went to Amazon and found this set for a decent price. Honestly once they arrived I was pleasantly surprised - the clothing items look exactly like the photos and even have working side pockets! Those little metal clutch purses actually hinge open, though like all clutch purses you'd be hard pressed to fit more than a single credit card in there. I ended up using the lighter denim shortalls and pink shirt for this.
I can't remember where the watch comes from - I think it's a Barbie staple one, but the hat is Mini Brands Sneakers. Nameless Style Friends hybrid doll gets a 'fit upgrade!
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| You got something to say about pink? We can dance battle for your opinion. |
When Hot Pink Vinyl (tm) just isn't the color you need for the 'fit.
Some of these are based off of shoes I own/have owned, some are based off of video game equipment, and some are just enhanced versions of what they would normally look like.
These two were painted to match some Mini Fashions bags.
Red Chucks crew represent. Featuring the Cozy Cute Tees lion doll, whom work friend has named Stevie (she's also wearing Snoop on the Stoop's t-shirt), and Fashionistas 138, who needs a much better name than Hairball.