DIFFUSION: Smiling Like Clockwork!

Time for the Dracubecca portion of this project!

[If you haven't, please read the intro post here to understand what this DIFFUSION series is about. It saves me an intro on each post.]

I've decided these posts will be the most fun if I look at the dolls over in the state they arrived in before I disclose the vision I had for them. We're gonna give Mattel their credit first and do a decent doll review, and I think it's more authentic to my thought process if you don't get the full idea of my reinterpretation until after you've gotten a good look at the base product. I'll let you guess with the cover photos, though.

Here are Dracubecca as they arrived to me.

The goggles were upside-down.

Dracubecca are synthesized around the Victorian elements of both Draculaura and Robecca's fashion senses, as well as some of the accessories. They use a heavy heart-symbol motif, which ties to each character since Draculaura has a heart-shaped cheek birthmark and Robecca has a heart-shaped chest plate on her body. The color palette is a pretty easy blend, as both have black tones, so the blue of Robecca and the pink of Draculaura are mixed in, plus the copper from Robecca. Physically, the doll strikes me as resembling Draculaura more, but the outfit, details, accessories, and hairstyle are very distinctly Robeccish. In terms of color, I honestly would have found the bright off-primary palette better balanced by Draculaura's G1 yellow accents than Robecca's copper, but the doll looks enough like Drac already that I can see why they wanted to shift the colors to Robecca more.

Here's stock photos of the signature component characters for reference as the fusion review progresses:

Mattel stock photo of Boo-riginal Creeproduction Draculaura
(using a photo of this doll since the stock photo of the original
doesn't quite match the released original)

 

Mattel stock photo of the gorgeous signature 
Robecca Steam (I really really want this doll).

The first piece these fused ghouls wear is a pair of copper steampunk goggles with an antenna. This is directly based on an accessory from signature Robecca, but the lenses, antenna ball, and a few other details are now heart shapes.

The goggles aren't super tight and fit their face
a little strangely. They definitely look better
on top of the head.

While signature Robecca's stock photo shows her wearing the goggles on her forehead with the antenna pointing downward, that doesn't work as well with Dracubecca, since their goggles' heart-shaped lenses are directional and thus only look good facing upward.

Dracubecca's hair seems to be a direct imitation of Robecca's loose and long signature style. The hair uses the base black tone of both component characters, and throws in pink and blue streaks that are distinctive to each. The hair is a little dry and messy, but not too unpleasant and I imagine it'd respond well to treatment. I don't think it looks very good in its default style, since it feels lacking in volume on top and doesn't fall into any particular shape. The colors are pretty great, though.

Dracubecca's skin tone isn't a color blend of the two characters--instead, it's a finish blend, as it's Draculaura's pink skin tone with the shimmery, shiny metallic effects from Robecca. The shimmer effect feels maybe the most prominent or overt of any MH doll I've seen, as it feels reflective in pretty much all lighting and effectively conveys that Dracubecca are made of pink metal. I can't recall another shimmering MH doll that felt so obvious to me, and it's really pretty on Dracubecca. Maybe the shimmer was deliberately intensified to sell the metal look harder, since pink wouldn't read as metal without a heavier effect. Robecca's copper skin tone was already readable as metal with or without a shimmer, so it wouldn't have to be quite as shiny on her.

Dracubecca have a unique head sculpt that's based on Draculaura's, but with Robecca's monster details added in and modified.

The faceup blends stylistic elements of the two characters, but unlike the other dolls, it's not in a way that reads as a strong blend of facial features to me. This looks like it's just Draculaura's face with Robecca specifics, not like their features' unique shapes are mixed in together at a baser level in the way Clawvenus and Cleolei and Lagoonafire convey to me. Robecca's presence in the faceup is pretty much just in the cog-shaped irises and cog-shaped version of Drac's heart birthmark, but the colors and shaping of the painted features otherwise remind me more of Draculaura, which is only compounded by the sculpted facial features and body color belonging to Drac, too. Maybe the lipstick could have been darker to make them reflect both characters' signature dolls better. I always loved the dark dark lips on signature Robecca. 

For some reason, despite both ghouls having black hair apart, their fusion's eyebrows are not black.

I do really love how Robecca's rivets and plating have been transferred to Draculaura's sculpt, though. The grooves and seams of the head plating are super cool, and Robecca was the first character to have this extent of monster detail on the head sculpt. I really like when the dolls have detailed bodies and heads that seque in with good texture detail themselves. There are a lot of dolls with more jarring head/body texture balances.

The ears are Draculaura's pointy shape.

Another detail that's super subtle is that the rivets have been replaced with heart shapes. 

This is one of those dolls that doesn't like to look down. [My copy at least] has a sticky neck peg that doesn't want to rotate inside her neck, so she's restricted in the up/down motion department.

My Dracubecca have one earring that evokes signature Robecca's, with dangling gears, though there are bat wings and heart shapes on this one. The earring is a copper color. This doll is supposed to have a second earring mirroring it in the other ear, which is pierced, but I like the asymmetry of my incomplete copy. 

They also have a small choker necklace that clips around the neck, which is a reddish tone matching their birthmark. This piece isn't derived from either character's signature wardrobe, but it works.

Dracubecca's dress blends both characters' fashion, with mesh, pink, hearts, and ruffles from Draculaura, and stripes, blue, cogs, and a bell-shaped skirt from Robecca's more steampunk side.

Over the skirt, they wear a cagelike belt derived from signature Robecca's costume, but shaped like bat wings and with heart shapes to reflect Draculaura. It closes with three pins in the back.

The corresponding piece was blue on Robecca, but it makes sense that it'd be copper for better color balance on Dracubecca.

Dracubecca's boots are a tidy fusion of Robecca's thigh-high rocket boots and Draculaura's black bat-winged fashion elements, and they feature some Drac heart shapes as well.

Dracubecca should have a pair of copper-frame bat wings, but I didn't need them for my project, so I didn't seek out a copy with them or get them to complete the one I ordered.

Dracubecca also have an umbrella, fusing the accessory of signature Draculaura with Robecca's aesthetic. Unlike the Drac umbrella, this one's canopy is open and made to look like a copper frame, while the handle looks like twisted wire. The umbrella has a loop halfway up the handle for a doll's hand, though the loop at the bottom could theoretically be used, too.

Unfortunately, the umbrella is kind of a failure as an accessory. It's too top- heavy, the hands don't fit very tightly in it, and the doll's joints aren't strong enough to hold it elegantly, nor do the wrists have the jointing to make very natural poses with it. It was worth a try, but I can't use this piece on the doll.

Not happening.

[UPDATE: Slow down-wait just a minute. I think I cracked the code!!! 

I've realized that, just maybe, the Dracubecca umbrella has two loops on the pole because it's supposed to be held with two hands. Putting a hand in each loop stabilized the top-heavy thing and allowed me to create a halfway decent parasol-behind-the-shoulder look! Maybe this piece doesn't suck quite as bad as I thought!

Teaser of an in-process Rochelle project making the umbrella actually look
kinda good! I didn't paint the canopy black for her, but it'll be perfect that
way paired with her, due to now looking like ironwork.

I'm still gonna call BS on the umbrella because the stock photo of the doll had no upper loop on the pole and misleadingly depicted Dracubecca holding the umbrella upright in one hand under the pole's wing accent...and the doll simply can't hold the umbrella one-handed even with the loop being there on the final product. Mattel also never included instructions or images pointing you in the right direction like oh yeah sweetie, this piece will just be utter crap if you don't go zweihänder regenschirm with the damn thing-

But after a long time, I'm vindicated by not yet throwing the piece out because I finally found that the piece was designed with a functional display option. And maybe it was just me not figuring it out soon enough.]

Okay, remember how the head had the Robecca rivets changed to hearts? Yeah, well, they did that on the entirety of Dracubecca's sculpts. It's not just the torso being changed for the wings--Dracubecca have a completely new body for the effect of tiny and subtle changes to personalize it to a fusion. 

You can't tell me the MH design team lacked passion. 

I hope whoever tweaked the Robecca sculpt, rivet by tiny rivet, in the 3D
modeling software I assume they use for modifying sculpts,
was paid very handsomely.

Robecca was actually the first character in the brand to receive an all-over textured body where every sculpt was bespoke to her, so it's great to see an adaptation of that body being all-over unique as well!

The ghouls look largely identical in all their riveted plated texture, but beyond the change in shape to the rivets, the torso has wing holes...

...the fake screws sculpted on the knees are hearts...

There'd have to be some ridiculously precise machining to make these fit
into their hole at their tightest. Round screws are way more practical.

...and the lower legs don't have the spinning half-embedded gears that were so cool on Robecca.

 I can respect that fantastic feature being reserved to be unique to Robecca, but I still wish the fusion had it.

So, where are we going with this character design to turn two monsters into one cohesive concept?

Well, Dracubecca, to me, looked very bright and colorful and toylike. I think "vampire robot" is a ridiculously stupid and therefore awesome monster concept, but Dracubecca were not what I would ever think of for the prompt of "vampire robot". Instead, despite the predominance of Draculaura's physical likeness, their robot details and color palette were making me think of retro windup tin-toy robots! I used to have quite the collection of those and loved them, and so I thought it would be really fun to turn Dracubecca into a toy robot! Hey, if the MH canon features a steampunk copper bot and a futuristic bot, then I think a toy robot fits nicely as a third take. 

Look, if they can be haunted in horror movies, they're a monster, okay?

A taunting haunting toy robot as seen in Poltergeist.

And maybe I'm biased because the broad concept of haunted toys is one of my favorite monster archetypes. 

I didn't think I needed anything from other dolls to work with the idea--just paint to change some things. 

I knew I wanted to replace the copper colors on this doll with yellow to make it look more bright and primary-toned and toylike, and I also knew lime green would need to be added to the palette for a reason you'll see soon.

As usual, the first thing I worked on was the face. I wanted to make her faceup feel bright and retro and colorful to make her look more like a tin toy. I first tried having her eyes solid yellow with reflections, but that felt too undetailed, so I decided to add multicolored concentric pink and blue irises without outlines to hit the right retro-toy look. Her lips became blue and got a heavier smile, and I gave her a beauty mark opposite the cog birthmark, the latter of which I didn't want to keep and wiped off later. I also darkened the eyebrows to black and put the new lime green color over the white section of the eyeshadow.

This face felt less like Draculaura and more like a tin toy--bright, friendly, colorful, and a little retro.

The copper pieces of her costume got painted yellow and glossed, and I added blue details to the hearts on the goggles and belt, as well as painting the goggle antenna heart black. The choker became lime green, and I added the black arm bracers from an EAH Spring Unsprung Cedar which I got for parts in elsewhere in this DIFFUSION series.

Already, this looks like a different character, and quite a personable one!

I had another idea for this doll that I think forms the pièce de résistance of this design, akin to Robecca's spinning gears which the fusion sadly lacks. It seemed clear to me that a tin robot needed a wind-up key! And where better to put it than in the space where holes have already been cut? 

All I needed to do was wiggle an X-Acto around in there and carve out a bit so the two wing holes became one hole in the doll's upper back.

And fortunately, I had a metal windup key that was skinny enough, taken from a toy whose mechanism wasn't stellar.

The key fits snugly in the back of the doll and rotates nicely. I'm so pleased with it!

Meant to be.

All dressed up, I was struck by the realization that, as I worked on the doll, she looked way better with her hair above her neck and poofed out around her head, so I got together a very messy loose bouffant bun look for her.

I am no hairdresser.

And here's the funny thing. I was completely in love with this faceup and totally sold on the look...and then I tried one more thing and realized I found something even better.

Voila! Don't these glasses just perfect the look? They outline and circularize her eyes and make her look more decked out and mechanical. The idea has been crystallized with this one piece! It's funny, too, since I'm a glasses-wearer but I so rarely design characters with them. Here, though, it propelled the design one step further.

As to where those glasses come from, it's a weird weird place.

The glasses belonged to G3 Sir Hoots a Lot, Ghoulia's pet owl! They're not designed for a doll to wear since the arms are too short to meet a doll's ears, but I think that works for a tin robot whose glasses would tab into the side of her face...and this doll wears the glasses a heck of a lot more securely than Hoots ever did!

Alright, so why the heck did I decide to introduce lime green into an already-busy color scheme? Well, I realized there was one thing I could order to improve the doll-- to make her feel more like a windup toy and a mechanical character, she needed wheels. Skates. Many toy robots shuffle forward on wheels, and there have been a few large plastic dolls with windup legs and roller skates! And guess what? Fortunately, MH had a full roller skating line with good options, and I chose the black skates from Ghoulia's Skultimate Roller Maze doll.

The skates' coral, black, and blue colors worked fine with the Dracubecca pieces, but the lime green wheels needed to be balanced out with my own incorporations of the tone elsewhere on the doll. The skate wheels actually roll, pretty loosely, and make a small standing surface, so it's not easy to stand a doll in these boots.

But it works!

This is my favorite picture of the doll, showcasing the skates and key and being posed like a toy robot would be.

And I think, after all that, it's time to properly meet this new ghoul!

Tinny Tinkerpins

Monster Parentage:  I was built by an extremely obsessive toymaker. I'm top of the line...but I don't think I was supposed to come to life!

Killer Style: Bright colors, mechanical doodads, and vintage/retro elements define my style. The future was then!

Freaky Flaw: I may require immense precision to operate, but I think I can demand it of others when that isn't fair. Lots of things are looser and can be more spontaneous, and there's a beauty in that, too.

Favorite Activity: I love rolling down the street and cheering people up and making new friends. I wouldn't call myself a performer, but I love spreading cheer!

Biggest Pet Peeve: It really winds me up when I pop a cog or get a dent. I don't take well at all to mechanical failure, and I have to spend a lot of time playing around to tighten things up and make sure it won't happen again.

Favorite School Subject: Skullpture and engineering alike. It helps me understand a lot more about how I work and can improve myself...and I can't help it; I love to make my own toys.

Least Favorite School Subject: Phys dead. It's so random and impulsive and puts way too much stress on my mechanics. You can't rehearse or routine a soccer game!

Favorite Food: Screws, coils, and metal chips washed down with a glass of oil.

Pet: I haven't yet brought any toys to life like I was, so no pet so far. 

Best Friends: Robecca Steam, Elle Eedee

I really had fun with this diffusion-- while the vampire elements did not remain in the final concept, I think she makes a pretty cohesive new type of robot for the brand! I'm happy with the new touches I added to push the doll into the new concept, and I think she now stands as one unique ghoul.

One last thing-- Tinny really didn't play nice with my unbranded stands, since her belt is so thick and the clip on those is so wide that she wasn't being held by the stand much at all, and the belt prevented me from bracing the clip lower on her body. I had to steal an official MH one (she's borrowing the Bride of Frankenstein's for now). Her belt still braces against the pole too much, and her key can't be in her back with the real stand, but I prefer her sturdy on the stand to being displayed with the key. If I can get a Freaky Fusion stand for her and saw off a little bit off the top, that'd be ideal.

Thus concludes the first doll of three. Thanks for reading...and stay tuned for more DIFFUSION!

 

[UPDATE: I wasn't fully finished with the doll to my liking, so go here to read a small--but I think, dramatic-- design update that made Tinny really work for me!]