Back Into the Shadows: Twy, Twy Again!

 I'm back for more of this character. Shocker.

So yeah, I've been increasingly curious about two G1 Twyla dolls, which are also the only two G1 Twylas I had yet to own at this point. I don't have the Freak du Chic one anymore, but with these two, I will have had, at some point, each of the G1 Twyla dolls. 

The two here? New Scaremester and Getting Ghostly. 

Both of these dolls had an appeal to me. New Scaremester was a design with potential.

Mattel stock photo of New Scaremester Twyla.

 Much like her Coffin Bean doll, her hair and makeup didn't look great, but I saw restyling promise in her.

Getting Ghostly Twyla had brilliant shoes and a design I wanted to check out. 

Mattel stock photo of Getting Ghostly Twyla
from the Haunted doll line.

Buckle the heck in. This is a long one. Especially since I encourage you to treat this as a "part two" to the first Twyla post I linked in the opening line.

The New Scaremester doll line was a "back to school" themed line that gave several movie-introduced characters from 13 Wishes and Scaris: City of Frights their second doll release and an outfit that was more modern or casual-- Catty Noir, Gigi Grant, Jinafire Long, Catrine DeMew, and Twyla Boogeyman were the beneficiaries. The line also introduced the new character Invisi Billy, who had previously been teased as an April Fool's prank, complete with photos of an empty box to represent Billy. The New Scaremester line's diaries were made up as agenda planners, save for debuting Billy who got a standard diary, and the dolls all came with personalized school folder accessories. Twyla's NS diary cover was the first confirmation and usage of her last name being "Boogeyman", with Freak du Chic's circus poster following suit. Most of the time, Twyla is billed mononymously, but her surname does exist!

My New Scaremester Twyla came with all of her doll pieces, minus the bag which I ordered separately, and came with a pinkish violet MH stand. 

It's pinker than the fake EAH stand my Coffin Bean Twyla got, but this stand was not the one NS Twyla came with. Hers was just a normal black one. I'll never begrudge a stand, though, and it works with this doll's makeup.

Here's NS Twyla out of the package.

New Scaremester Twyla's hair is the exact same colors as her signature doll, but is styled and rooted differently. NS Twyla's hair has a side part and partial, asymmetrical bangs, and her purple hair tones are rooted in wide chunks rather than thin streaks.

Twyla's hair is also tied in a mini top ponytail on her right, a feature that she'd later have again in G3, with her Creepover Party debut doll having a mini-pony on her left.

Like with Creepover, I took this top ponytail out because it doesn't work for me. With NS, I had another reason to do that, though: the elastic band had decayed enough that I wanted it out. 

NS Twyla's hair is fairly agreeable, and is so far the least problematic of my Twylas in arrival condition. It's dry and I intend to give it a good wash, but it's not awful.

Post-wash, the hair isn't too different, but it's okay. Coffin Bean's hair has been the best after treatment by far, and I wonder if it's because the purple color that's uniquely dominant in that doll's hair is a nicer fiber. I know other dolls with that color blend had good hair, judging from my two Amanitas. The mint-haired G1 Twylas have less wonderful hair, so maybe the fiber for that color just isn't that nice.

NS Twyla's faceup gave me pause, since it uses quite vibrant, almost neon pink tones.

I feel like my concept of Twyla would have her makeup trend moodier or subtler, and this color doesn't go much with the rest, but I don't hate it and I'll keep it this way until I try out some other things I have planned, which will be discussed within this review later.

Twyla's earrings are a dark violet color, and shaped like her fairly ubiquitous Skullette dreamcatchers.

Since G3 consciously removed the dreamcatcher imagery from Twyla for what I believe are cultural-appropriation concerns, I'm not too big on the use of them in her older dolls, but I also think these earrings suit the outfit poorly. The pieces can be interpreted as generically ornamental, and they continue Twyla's old-lady jewelry style which I love, so my real issue with the pieces is how they look with the costume, not necessarily what they depict.

And what is that costume? Well, it's a wonderfully clever piece-- Twyla, the Boogeyman dream monster, is wearing a pajama dress! 

This piece is very cleverly designed to feel like nightwear due to the bright colors, patterns, bow, and pockets, and nicely strikes a balance between Victorian and modern. The asymmetrical black ribbon seam and the consistent Twyla neck bow and pocket are great details, and the insect print is cozy and childlike in a fun way. The blue icons are printed in a metallic reflective color!

The pocket flap isn't sewn down, but the pocket isn't open and can't hold
anything.

NS Twyla's bracelets consist of a white chunky band on each wrist, plus a beaded medium mint bracelet on her right. 

This bracelet pairing on the right wrist is closely imitated by her next doll in the Coffin Bean line, though with different colors, and with a slightly thicker band for the large bracelet.

NS Twyla's shoes are similar to Mary Janes, with studded straps and platforms textured like wallpaper lines. The body of the shoes is mint, but the platforms and toes are painted black to make them look more like Victorian footwear.

The shoes were another aspect copied by the Coffin Bean doll, which reused the sculpts in a new color with no paint, making them less appealing to me.

But hey, the texture is easier to see on them!

New Scaremester Twyla comes with two accessories.

The one my doll arrived with was her school planner folder. 

Twyla's folder is translucent purple and molded with insects like on her dress.

The folder closes with a pin and hole, and opens up to reveal a lined texture (maybe it's supposed to be paper) and a dimensional Skullette symbol in the corner.

I'm a little disappointed by this accessory, since it looks a little cheap with no paint or nothing meaningful inside. Imagine if they'd printed tiny paper slips to put inside, maybe even as an inessential little surprise gimmick extra, so you would discover something interesting by buying the doll and opening their folder! As it is, the planners feel like nothing pieces.

Twyla's purse arrived later. It's a rectangular handbag with a black body and mint flap and handle.

The body is textured like wallpaper, the simulated clasp is a webbed Skullette, and purple bugs feature on the flap. 

The flap of the purse is on a pin hinge that lets the purse open up to reveal a narrow hollow interior. Not a lot of things could fit in it, but I like it. The purse matches Twyla's antique and somewhat grannyish style well.

So, that's what New Scaremester Twyla is like as designed, but that wasn't the potential I saw for her. Since the core of this doll's outfit is a gentle, comfy, casual pajama piece, I wanted to try making this into an actual bedtime Twyla doll. I love the idea of her character wearing pajamas out in the day, but why couldn't she wear a total bedtime outfit? I wanted to embrace the vibes of her dress and make for a more cohesive look. 

First up was her hair. I felt pretty sure that this doll's look would improve a ton if I tied her hair in a low ponytail, and I think I was right.

She doesn't need any fancy styling, but having her hair tied up this way makes her look much more aligned with her pajama dress to me. Also, notice how much more natural she looks in this outfit without her jewelry.

The shoes are great, and I am keeping and using them for something you'll see imminently, but "bedtime Twyla doll" made me think that this character absolutely missed the boat on the G1 Dead Tired slumber-party budget line. If she'd only been introduced earlier in the brand's output, she'd be right at home there. After all, her first G3 doll was in the G3 slumber-party line!

Collage of the Mattel stock photos of the Dead Tired dolls.

And what was the stylistic signature of the Dead Tired line?

Sleep masks...and the slippers!

Collage of just the slippers from the stock photos.

Each Dead Tired doll came with a pair of comical wedge-heel slippers with a personalized monster furball on the front with a face, so I figured I could repaint a pair of these slippers to suit Twyla.

As far as sleep masks, I already had G3 Creepover Party Twyla's mask to try on her. It works better on this doll, likely because I tied her hair up so its volume doesn't pop the strap open. 

I still don't love the look of this piece, and with the ears, I think it looks childish on top of her head, so I decided to steal from the Dead Tired mix, and ordered Spectra's mask since it's purple and black and would go well with Twy. The cloth masks with their elastic bands work nicely.

The mask has a ghostly chain design, but I don't think it spoils the look.

And slippers!

The pair I actually found wasn't released within the Dead Tired line, but with the Room to Howl bedroom playset for Clawdeen. They're the same sculpts as the ones she wore in Dead Tired, but not the same colors.

Mattel stock photo of the Room to Howl playset. Clawdeen had bunked dog beds!
Perhaps she shared a room with her younger sister Howleen?

The Room to Howl slippers are purple as a base color, which is ideal for Twyla, and they have two ears, which means I can wipe the paint off and pass them half-decently as Dustins!

Unfortunately, I discovered a little late that the little-sister dolls' feet seem to have a meaningful difference in shape, so these slippers don't totally fit right on her, angling up when her feet are in.

I can angle her knees so the slippers lie flat, but oops. I'll still use them, but it wasn't as good of an idea as I'd hoped.

Since I gave my Coffin Bean Twyla a uniquely-colored Dustin, I thought I'd keep it up for the New Scaremester version, and ordered another 13 Wishes Dustin cheap for her. He has some pink ink marks on him, which are irrelevant because he's getting painted over.

 I figured this Twyla's Dustin would make sense with a white body to match her bracelets and look distinct and fitting to the rabbit design. I think it makes sense for Dustin to constantly change colors, since his matter is just fluff and broken buttons. He probably needs to reconstitute his body often, and that can result in changes to his look in a way other MH pets couldn't achieve.

I love the shadow in the background, which could
just be Twyla herself in her entirety.

His round button became black, his broken button became violet, and his nose became mint to keep with the palette and have a different color arrangement. I didn't paint the tail this time because the official doll-scale Dustins don't highlight the tail with a different color-- I technically overstepped by giving the Coffin Bean repaint Dustin a colored tail!

Here the two are cuddling.

Dustin is not actually very huggable in the
doll's arms with how he's shaped.

And here's the three signature Dustins with their owners.

And my four G1 buns altogether.

Left to right: Official 13 Wishes, repainted 13W release for New
Scaremester, repainted 13W release for Coffin Bean, and
official Freak du Chic

And with that, we have a finished, serviceable Dead Tired bedtime Twyla doll!

But that's not all! Recently, I had gotten a piece that made me think this doll could have two full wardrobes. When I got my Werewolf and Dragon CAM duo which fueled two custom characters, I was struck by a leftover clothing piece--the Werewolf's ruffled shrug jacket. 

It's a black frilly piece with a pink moon pattern. and it felt right up miss Boogeyman's alley--particularly NS's due to her pink makeup. I really wanted to find a Twyla that could wear it and do this clothing piece justice, and I think Twyla deserved a fashion-pack doll edition. So now I had the doll...but what to pair with the shrug?

*shrug*

The Werewolf dress that came with it was too pink and felt too modern-mature for Twyla's aesthetic, and there weren't really any skinny MH dresses that were mint-colored and old-fashioned...but what about a slightly poofier dress? What about a dress that uses the same purple/mint contrast as Twyla and is also old-fashioned?

Like Honey Swamp's?

Mattel stock photo of signature Honey Swamp.

Honey was a pretty incredible doll design. She was a teen Southern belle cinematographer swamp monster with a gatory body covered in gorgeous swirling vines, and her signature was huge curly afro hair that paired with her face to code her as Black. Although her character seemed weakly defined and I don't know if her fashion archetype was a good choice, I adored her body details and the hair type she represented was great, particularly since all three of her dolls were fiercely curly. I definitely preferred her more casual Gore-geous Accessories doll design, and I think the yellow colors in that palette were a more original and appealing match for her than the wholly purple/mint focus of her other dolls. 

Mattel stock photo of GA Honey.

Simple though it was, Gore-geous Accessories was the definitive Honey Swamp release in my book, and I'd probably reobtain her to upgrade someday, so signature Honey was never a doll I needed. But now, thinking about that jacket for Twyla, signature Honey's dress started to look extremely well-matched--perhaps the not-so-unique color palette of this doll wasn't so bad after all!

Honey's dress soon arrived. It has a lavender bodice with a modest neckline and black lace collar, and a black button strip with white buttons. The bodice has very short sleeves. The skirt is mint and cut in an intricately tattered shape, and has evil flowers and thorny designs on it. Under this, there's a layer of black fur which isn't a texture that makes sense to me for the dress, but the color absolutely helps the look.

And here's Twyla completely decked out! Honey's dress, the NS shoes, the earrings and bracelets, the Werewolf shrug, the purse, and G3 Draculaura's cameo necklace, all with her hair in a high ponytail to match the tone. She looks so good!!!

I'll admit to having one superpower, and that's making visual connections between disparate things. I can't turn it off, and that can possess me to go far out of my way and inconvenience myself just to execute ideas that spark in my mind...but hey, with results like this, why would I want to stop it?

I just love this look for her. The hair tied up is a perfect match for the look. Honey's dress absolutely works for a more grand formal Twyla outfit, and it suits the little-sister proportions well with the skirt looking less short on her shorter frame. The shrug is wonderful with it. Here, the NS earrings and bracelets are essential to the outfit, whereas I found them intrusive with the pajama dress. This ensemble feels metropolitan and classy, like Twyla's ready for a day out on the city, but it also feels like a fancy awkward evening dress-- a little "Granny's first prom" in the best way! I'm glad I thought of the cameo necklace, as it helps the look and balances against the bracelets. It's pretty much impossible to take a good photo of the image on the cameo itself, but it's a profile of a ghoul with bangs, meaning it transfers seamlessly from Draculaura to Twyla!

My attempt to digitally outline the image on the cameo.

The white jewelry also works beautifully with the dress due to the white buttons that were designed to match Honey's own white jewelry.

This is an outfit for Twyla that unites two outside pieces that were practically made for her, and it brings out the best in her NS accessories, which weren't matched well to her default costume. This is an active fancy Twyla ready to get out there...and to dance!

(I apologize for my terrible sense of humor.)

Now I have two complete outfits for this Twyla doll-- a cozy bedtime getup and a formal party one! That's right-- this is now what I'd like to call "Twilight to Midnight" Twyla-- a night-out look and a bedtime look that can switch out on one base doll! 

Both of these looks are cohesive and both feel like they could have been real doll releases...or part of a single pack! 

Twy ♡ Fashion.

I think going to all this effort was well worth it. New Scaremester Twyla proved to be a wonderful base for two disparate wardrobes. I love the pajama look as something basic and resonant with her character, but I absolutely adore the fancy look I put together for her. It feels like it would have been a real design for a deluxe Twyla that never was, and I think I captured her antique awkward style in a really beautiful way just by assembling parts from other dolls. There's also the advantage of having all-fitted pieces, unlike the bedtime look and the slipper problem. NS Twyla was not the best as sold, but I think I really brought out her best by expanding her stock in these two directions. The fancy ensemble may be the most rewarding doll upgrade I've done. 

Next up is Twyla as featured in (and responsible for) Haunted's Getting Ghostly sub-line. 

In the special Haunted, Spectra Vondergeist leads the ghouls on a visit back to her old school of Haunted High after Draculaura gets haunted by an unseen presence. To enter the ghostly realm and pass undercover in the tyrannically-run ghost school, Twyla provides some magic boogey sand from her Boogeymansion that transforms the user into a ghost. The characters who got transformed in the movie were Clawdeen, Rochelle, Twyla, and Draculaura, though Rochelle had a deluxe doll release in the Student Spirits line alongside the new Haunted cast for no discernible reason, and Spectra got a makeover despite already being a ghost who wouldn't have needed any changes. Hey, if we can sell a new Spectra doll, we're gonna!

As further evidence of how successful Twyla has been as a character, Getting Ghostly Twyla is an uncommon example of a G1 movie-debut character getting a full doll release in a subsequent movie line--meaning the character who was introduced for a movie and merchandising proved to be dynamic and/or popular enough to be become a significant character in a later film that was already busy introducing more characters to make dolls of! The only other cases are Catty Noir (who had two Boo York dolls) and Jinafire Long (who only appeared as half of the fusion doll Lagoonafire in the Freaky Fusion line.)

My Getting Ghostly Twyla came without her boogey sand or stand, but I chose this copy because her hair was nicely styled in the photo, and she came with her headband, which no other listing of this doll seemed to. The boogey sand I ordered arrived simultaneously, so no real problem. 

Here's GG Twyla out of the package.

The Haunted dolls across the board have a unique pastel and translucent theme to them, with more pale colors and less opaque bodies. It's an interesting look and it makes the familiar and new characters alike in the line look pretty interesting.

These dolls also had a unique stand design shaped like translucent blue chains which hooked under the dolls' arms and clicked into different positions on the stand poles so you could display the dolls like they were floating above their bases.

A poor-quality surviving photo of my old restyled Porter
Geiss on his stand. 

It wasn't worth it to me to try tracking one of these stands down for this doll.

Twyla's hair is about the same length as most of her dolls, but is wavy and side-parted with no bangs. The side part is pretty strong so her right eye is pretty easily covered, which is fun. 

The color has shifted, with the purple streaks in her hair becoming a pale dusty lavender-- I believe it's the color that was previously seen on Ghouls Rule Clawdeen and later got used for Freak du Chic Honey, and even later later, Moanica D'Kay in G2.

The hair is styled so her left side is tucked aside. Some hair is swept toward the right and tied against hair from the right side, with other hair wrapped under this ponytail to keep the hair billowing more to Twyla's right. 

The wrapped section and the hair tucked under it.

A better view of the tied section.

Because the hair is pretty dry and the elastic band is decayed on this doll, too, I took it down. I didn't boil wash it because I didn't want to lose the dramatic wavy silhouette, but her hair needed a good rinse and comb and condition.

After treatment, the hair is still a little dry, but it has lots of fun dramatic volume. The way it covers her eye is really neat. 

The elusive headband I chose this doll listing for is pretty nice. It's dark grey with a bow and embossed spiders on the band and knot, and sits pretty nicely on her head. 

The Haunted faceups play into the design elements of both Spectra Vondergeist and the Create-a-Monster Ghost.

Like Spectra, the sclerae (whites) of their eyes are saturated colors to look darker and more eerie, and like the CAM Ghost, the transformed Getting Ghostly characters (not the debuting new ghost characters) have an airbrushed colored mask over their eyes. This feature also appeared on Spectra's Power Ghouls superhero doll, Polterghoul, where it invoked a superhero domino mask. Twyla's mask shading is a teal color, as are her sclerae. I never understood what this mask shading meant to the MH designers as pertained to ghostliness, but it does kind of have a masquerade, antique feel, so maybe that's the idea here. Twyla's eyes are also deliberately made to look washed-out, faded and empty to deaden them. 

Her lips appear to be the same tone as on her NS doll, and they feel weird here, too. The color sticks out on such an ethereal cool-toned doll, but, like on NS, they seem to work really well.

GG Twyla's outfit is not as clearly mint-colored like her stock photo (prototype?) would suggest--it's pale enough to be white, which is unique for her!

The dress under the chains is one piece but has a bit of complexity to it. The body is sleeveless and made of minty white fabric with a wider skirt done in a many-pointed hem. The white fabric has a lavender pattern resembling spiderwebs and ironwork. Around the neck, Twyla has a lavender tulle asymmetrical collar accent, and over the skirt is more lavender tulle mirroring the cut of the white fabric.

The tulle is sewn down on the back of the dress.

All of the Haunted dolls had unique chain accessories. Twyla's are a belt and are silver. The belt is made to look tied in a bow and features bug-shaped links and dreamcatcher charms. The belt closes with a loop onto an outward-facing peg and is surprisingly tricky to undo.

Getting Ghostly Twyla has some of my favorite MH shoes, and one of my favorite Twyla boogeyman design elements-- her shoes are shaped like antique beds. 

Look at the little bed feet!

It's such a great touch. These would have worked on my Midnight bedtime outfit for NS Twyla, but I think they're too good to take from the Haunted doll, thus the Dead Tired slippers. The shoes are translucent teal, matching her eye makeup, and I believe all of the Haunted line's shoes were similarly translucent.

Here's a shot of GG Twyla's legs next to NS's, since I think the legs best show off the faded colors and translucency effect. GG's leg shadows are more silvery and pale, and they seem a little thinner and wispier despite following the same lines and swirls. 

The boogey sand piece the transformed Haunted characters got is pretty nice.

It's a chunky bracelet made to look like a chain loop with a magic hourglass dangling from it. It's molded in a translucent blue color. 

I liked this piece because it fit in signature Twyla's purse, but as a bracelet, it doesn't quite work.

The piece feels a little too large to treat as typical MH jewelry, and it's not tight enough around the wrist, making it slide up the arm if it wants to. The angle of the hourglass versus the wrist loop is also awkward. It's not the best accessory to wear, but it is good in signature Twyla's bag.

I'd considered repainting the boogey sand to replace the signature doll's dreamcatcher bracelet, but it didn't work great testing it as it was.

Yeah, no.

So signature just stole the NS beaded piece.

Both the boogey sand and dreamcatcher bracelet
can fit in her purse!

I also wanted to try something to accessorize Haunted Twyla. You see, I ordered an Ever After High Thronecoming Blondie Lockes doll for parts, and had her masquerade mask lying around without purpose.

A Three Bears (of Goldilocks fame) masquerade mask.

The stick detaches.

Since the GG line has a masquerade theme, narratively and visually, I thought Twyla could use this mask repainted, since I'd already turned a Blondie piece into a boogeyman teddy bear for the character before.

Enchanted Picnic Blondie's purse turned
into a Twyla teddy.

The mask got repainted in appropriate colors.

Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work. These masks were sculpted pretty precisely for the EAH proportions, and Twyla's body just doesn't let her hold the stick and put the mask over her face. 

If her arm is bent, the mask is too high.
Doesn't work.

She does look pretty great holding the mask against her other hand, and that's a display I might go for, but it doesn't really do the job of a mask on Twyla because it wasn't sculpted to her neck and arm proportions.

This looks good, but it's a little dumb that it's only good this way.

Not such a big fan of these costume-piece repaints not fitting her body!

I declined to get a Dustin for this Twyla, since there wasn't really a way I could hope to match the translucent washed-out aesthetic on a lump of solid vinyl, and I didn't want to push myself through it just for the bit. I'd make a Dustin if I was inspired and confident about it, but I won't hold myself to an artificial pattern just to keep a train running. Getting Ghostly also does not represent an everyday Twyla, and since Mattel didn't give the GG line pets, there was no reason to squeeze one in myself. 

So that's Getting Ghostly Twyla. She's nothing too complicated and not the most enchanting to me, but she's a unique look for the character and pretty well made.

There was one last Twyla I wanted to investigate because I clearly haven't put you through enough of an odyssey with this post-- a Mega Bloks doll.

Stock photo of MH Mega Bloks doll figures.

Mega Bloks was the name of the brand now known as Mega Construx (or is it just MEGA now???), a prominent LEGO competitor. It seems like the original name "Mega Bloks" now refers to the young-child line of toys, as if LEGO DUPLO was originally the name of LEGO's entire brand. I have no idea what the name situation is in truth, and it doesn't concern me that much.

But Mega Bloks, being a subsidiary of Mattel, also had a Monster High line and produced several building sets as well as individual doll figures in collectible series. Unlike most collectible kid's toy figures like those from LEGO, Playmobil, and Imaginext, the Mega Bloks MH figures were not blind-packaged. While I normally never partook in non-LEGO block toys out of fierce loyalty to the classic, I'd been intrigued by these doll figures for a while, and was stupidly not into getting any at Toys "R" Us when in my first collection era. They were super cheap; I should have grabbed one. At least today, it was an easy choice which character to get.

The Mega Bloks characters come in very small coffin-shaped black blister packs with minimal graphic design and the character and phone on clear display. The stand is peeking though in the lower right. 

The back of the package is all jargon, with no images of the other characters. 

Inside the pack, there are two things not visible while it's sealed-- a clip-on bracelet in the plastic tray, and a collector's leaflet.

The leaflet shows headshot of all of the characters in this series, and uses Elissabat as a demonstration of how the parts disassemble on the right. 

The MB line included a lot of characters I wouldn't have
expected, like Viperine here and Kiyomi. 

The back of the leaflet is just like the back of the package--all jargon.

Here's Twyla out of the package. 

The stand is a small plate of marbled purple and grey plastic that corresponds well to Twyla's palette and wispy shadows. I wonder what the other stand plates looked like.

The plate isn't as wide as a LEGO Minifigures stand and doesn't feel quite as stable because of it.

LEGO Minifigures stand plate on the right.

But fortunately, the MB stand can attach centered on the Minifigures one to add stability and keep the designated stand in use.

The design of this figure doesn't correspond super closely to any of the dolls of Twyla, but it loosely resembles her signature 13 Wishes design.

The Mega Bloks dolls share a lot of sculpts with each other, and have only one head sculpt between them, so things are a little less personalized. Their size also means they have less painted detail to capture their larger counterparts.

MB Twyla's hair is a reasonable replica, but is bluer than her G1 dolls', and the purple streaks are much lighter. Her face is decent, and surprisingly detailed for the size. Her eyes don't glow.

I think the bracelet is too large on her, and the phone is super 
basic.

Twyla wears an antique-looking black rubber collar that clips onto her neck, and her torso is depicted as sleeveless and purple. Twyla's MB skin tone is pale grey, which doesn't match her pale purple tone in the primary MH media. The hands are in the classic LEGO or Playmobil-esque cupped-claw form, but they have finger molding on the outside. Twyla's arms do not fade into shadow. 

Twyla's skirt is a flexible piece that fits around the same peg that goes into her torso. It's four jagged tiers of black and purple. Her legs have shadow wisps on the front and she seems to be wearing blue boots. The part of the foot that goes into the sculpted shoes has been painted to look like part of the shoes themselves. 

These toys can disassemble quite a bit. 

This allows the characters' parts to be mixed and matched.

The hair pieces plug into the head with a peg in the middle, not unlike the Create-a-Monster dolls' wigs, but the heads have a groove in the back, which is a separate attachment point Twyla doesn't use. On doll figures like Ghoulia who have glasses, this groove holds those pieces, which are shaped like a band that encircles the head piece. 

One piece of the MB dolls that isn't really supposed to come off is their butts!

The butt plates are just small angled pieces that snap down on the waist peg to contour the figure a little, but I discovered they were separate parts when Twyla's was loose! It snapped back on just fine.

The MB dolls were interesting to me for their articulation, and I wanted to compare them to other block toys-- a standard classic LEGO minifigure, and a LEGO minidoll figure as originated in the girl-oriented LEGO Friends theme.

LEGO Studios Monster figure, magician Mia minidoll from LEGO Friends, and Mega Bloks Twyla.

The Mega Bloks dolls are quite a bit larger than the minidoll, but I think there are definite similarities and influences-- note the similar head shapes, rubber hair, and the curved-out arms. Other Friends figures have skirts that remind me of the MH figures.

In terms of head articulation, Mega Bloks wins out. LEGO's figures can only rotate their heads 360 degrees, but Mega Bloks has a pretty good ball-jointed head.

All three figures' arms have one point of rotation at the shoulder, but arms are the only category where the classic minifigure is the indisputable winner, since their hands can rotate 360 degrees. The minidoll and Mega Bloks doll have one-piece arms with fixed hands.

The curved-out pose of the arms on the latter two really
doesn't suit a raised pose. Why couldn't their arms have 
curved forward like the minifigure?

The minifigure and Mega Bloks doll can each raise a single leg. The minidoll cannot, since their legs are sculpted as single pieces with one hip joint, more like a Playmobil figure. Twyla has the best hip articulation, since they're ball joints!

And Twyla is the only one who can bend her knee, having a rotating hinge joint there like a full-sized doll!

I'm genuinely impressed by how the Mega Bloks dolls manage to closely replicate the waist-down articulation of the full-size dolls. It's a pretty incredible achievement.

The only limitations I found were that the knees could have bent a little further and that the skirt hindered the hip-bending. 

Mega Bloks dolls also rotate at the waist, which isn't a feature of any full-size MH dolls, but is fairly analagous to rotating torso joints on several of them.

What makes the Mega Bloks dolls so impressive is that there have been 11-inch dolls from MH with less articulation than them!

Mattel stock photo of a low-jointed
basic Gigi Grant doll.

I mean, yeah, we're talking about the bottom of the barrel, but ultra-budget dolls like these were less jointed than the MB figures! Their arms were fixed in the same way and their legs had the same joints, but the MB dolls trump them because they have ball-jointed heads (the budget dolls had tall fixed neck posts as part of the torso that only permitted rotation) and waist rotation! For the original price of three bucks, a tiny figure could give you more posing than an 11-inch doll!

Really, there's no excuse that micro-toys shouldn't be more jointed.

And let's get a size comparison between Twylas.

The Mega Bloks dolls are about a quarter (or smaller?) of the size of a mainline doll.

This makes them serve as pretty good dolls for the dolls...though proportionally, they're more like the Gooliope/Frightfully Tall scale-- the Mega Bloks doll figure is larger against doll Twyla than doll Twyla is against me.

A boogeymonster would totally have a creepy doll of herself to scare
people with.

But I'd gotten this figure with the intention of giving her a more detailed, 13 Wishes-accurate makeover. So here you go.

I repainted the hair to be more accurate to the G1 colors, and repainted the torso to be a better shade of purple and give her sleeves, arm shadows, and her belt. Her skirt got painted over black with purple trim and mint designs to match the signature design. Her legs got repainted so her feet weren't part of her shoes, they had more shadows, and her shoes were the accurate colors. Her torso got a hole bored into it where I could stick the pin of a repainted-black LEGO Friends hair bow so her outfit would reflect the doll and make the figure look more frilly, childlike, and doll-like. The pin doesn't fit super tightly, but it works okay.

I also found a LEGO plush bunny figure, so you know what that means...

The arms are designed to clip into a figure's hands, but with both the arms and Twyla's hands being repainted, I don't want to risk the paint being rubbed off by doing so. Tiny Dustin is just gonna chill out next to her.

Now the lookalike dolly really looks alike!

I obviously wouldn't have expected this kind of detail from a cheap mass-produced figure, but I'm glad I could take it to that level!

Whew. We're done now.

Here's my collection of Twylas.

Oh, I have a proooo-bleeemmm!

Of the large dolls, the last two don't have me in love with them, but they all make a pretty great group.

And the cult of Dustins grows ever larger...

I really need to sweep up.

I really enjoyed this second nightmare. New Scaremester Twyla turned into a really versatile deluxe fashion-pack edition of the kind I felt Twyla deserved, and her two new looks are both great, though her fancy look is more attractive to me and more functional due to the shoe issue on the bedtime outfit. Haunted Twyla isn't super precious to me, and who knows how long she'll stay around in my collection, but she was still worth checking out and I do respect her design. And her shoes are just genius. Mega Bloks Twyla was a fun exploration of a subset of MH that was pretty well-executed for the price and size, and it was nice playing with her to upgrade her into a more detailed and interesting figure and also a doll-scale prop. 

[UPDATE: In the time since this review, I've decided Haunted Twyla would be of more value to me transformed into an original character project, and Coffin Bean Twyla's outfit was something I wanted to use on another project, so I redressed Coffin Bean in the NS bedtime look, plus Haunted's awesome shoes that actually fit her feet. She didn't really need to be Dead Tired-adherent. NS Twyla looks best in the night look I designed, anyway. Realistically, I wasn't going to want to display NS in the bedtime look when I liked the night look so much more, and I think Coffin Bean works surprisingly well in the pajama dress. 

She's probably a more interesting model for the costume, and makes it more worth keeping on display than NS did.]

I know we haven't heard the last of this ghoul, since she's going to have at least a G3 Skulltimate Secrets doll some time down the line, but we'll wait to see if that one needs to come over and join my horde. For now, I'm pretty satisfied. I've delved into the classic Twylas and come out rewarded. 

I thought it would be a waste not to share the color version of this photo
since I thought it was so chic! Yes, I had to add the ghost a second time.