Answering Questions, Part 2--Abrupt end of the Dolly Insider series!

Well, already, I've hit another publishing roadblock while waiting for supplies, and it's gotten me so frustrated that I decided to dip back into my fallback and put this out to have done something. Here we go!

Go here to read the first part of this Q&A series. 

It turns out, to my disappointment, that the Dolly Insider Q&A series was only ever intended to be a year-long activity for 2023, so I ran out of questions much faster than I intended. I'm still open to receiving any reader questions to add for a future post like this, but I might shift my dead-time posting concept to be something more like "Tangents, no Toys" where I just have text posts opining on something that grabs me, which may not be relevant to a more specific project or review. I don't know. I'll figure something out. But let's commence with the questions!

31. Do you make items for your dolls? If so, what have you made?

I guess so, given how much customizing has involved cobbling together clothing pieces and repainting or DIYing accessory parts. I don't think I've yet made anything for a doll purely from raw materials, but I've appropriated several things in customization. Part of it is due to me not considering myself quite skilled or precise enough to make clothing or sculpt pieces from nothing. I don't make things like furniture or other diorama stuff (as mentioned above). 

32. Which doll in your collection is getting all the attention at the moment?

Right now, it's split two ways. On the one hand, there's refresh G3 Clawdeen Wolf, my current problem child. We aren't the happiest with each other at the moment because her restyle project has bumped the G3 Clawdeen post back three separate times now as I had to order things, revise my approach, and order more things. So I'm fairly eager to not have to pay much attention to her...or for that attention to turn into admiration at a wonderful result.

On the other hand, there's G3 signature Venus McFlytrap, an absolute stunner who I'm also dying to publish the post for, and who's also holding me back because I'm waiting for a couple of extra things for her...but Venus is currently dazzling me already as she is because what a doll!

I mean. She's just. Incredible. I'm beyond excited to post her project, but I just have to try those few more things.

33. Do you swap out your doll's original body with a body from another company? 

Rarely. One was in my original collection, where I put some Alice in Wonderland dolls from the Tim Burton movies on better bodies--the Disney Store Hatter on the Jakks Pacific Hatter body, and the Jakks Alice on a Made to Move Barbie body--neither a natural fit. Then, in my current collection is Jacqueline Haydn, a custom character using a Mystixx head on a Monster High body, and So Goffik, an L.O.L. O.M.G. custom head on an Ever After High Cerise body.

34. What skills have you learned because of your dolls?

Drawing and character design, foremost. Using Monster High dolls as models taught me a lot about control and design skill and turned me into a full-blown visual artist rather than just someone with an imagination. Besides that, mostly just things related to doll care, since a lot of my customizing technique derives from my college's art practice foremost, not my original doll hobby.

The other major thing was dynamic photography. I've learned how to, with very little budget at all, take and edit pictures to create beautiful, dramatic, poppy, and interesting art pictures. Backdrops, color filters, constructed scenery, lighting, and the like are all things I've added to my doll-photo repertoire and I've impressed myself with the kinds of things I've taken, and found a whole new facet of the process and experience for my dolls and posts--the art pictures!

35. What doll would you like to see re-released?

Several of the Monster High early G1 signatures who need Creeproductions, the SDCC-exclusive signature dolls, and the Sweet Screams Frankie and Draculaura. 

36. What props/accessories do your dolls enjoy?

It depends on the doll. Some of the dolls I make don't feel complete without a purse or a pet, but there are several official dolls whose accessories I immediately put in storage because they have no use to me or I don't care to display them. I tend to keep accessories if they're purses, but don't love backpacks, and accessories that are character-meaningful and easy to securely pose on a doll--for example, my nostalgic G3 Cleo restyle is holding her phone when most of my MH dolls aren't because G1 Cleo was given a cell phone holster on her leg to emphasize her status as a social queen always on top of the student body activity.

37. Do you have a doll budget?

I probably should! I do try to let myself think and wait on purchases if I can, though, to be sure if I really want them or need them sooner than later so I don't feel like I've made rash decisions. 

38. Do you keep your doll's original box or do you throw it away?

I only keep collector doll's boxes with proper flaps that make them repackable, since those are actually useful for storage and are nice enough to have around. Playline doll packages these days are mostly infeasible for repacking and don't look nice enough, anyway. Boxes are a fantasy for pretty storage, but also take up so much space they'd be impractical. 

39. If you could visit any doll company, which one would you visit?

I don't really care enough about any doll company to want to visit them. I don't think I'd get anything out of it. I'm also generally not fond of corporations on a conceptual level even if they hire artists and engineers who can put out good work. I'd visit a doll designer, sure...but not their company.

40. What doll collaboration is your favorite?

I don't really care much for fashion culture or celebrity culture, so those kinds of dolls based on real fashion brands or celebs don't have inherent appeal to me, even if the product is nice. I guess, if we can stretch "collaboration" to narrative media licensing, then the Skullector Monster High line by far. I love horror, and the dolls expanding to direct horror licensing for collectors is all kinds of perfect.

41. Which doll would you like to hang out with as a real person?

I've always been very fond of Monster High's G1 Twyla as a character and identified with a lot of her traits, so she could be fun to hang out with. Operetta from MH would also be a lot of fun, and so would G3 Frankie. As far as dolls I've made custom, probably Maudie, just because I've explored her innocent, exuberant personality and endeared her to me so much with that exploration across my posts with her.

42. Do you create stories with your dolls?

I haven't done any creative writing with my original doll characters beyond their bios, but I have done small photo-stories a couple of times in reviews here, which is always fun to stage. 

43. How did you get into collecting dolls?

The horror blog Bogleech spotlighted Monster High and the Fearfully Feisty/Fangtastic Love Inner Monster in particular, and that was so cool to me that I did more research, found the Toy Box Philosopher talking about the same doll, and then started my first collection. Seeing Creeproduction Frankie in 2022 and getting interested in G3 brought me back to the hobby and building up a new collection to replace my old one.

44. Do you make doll clothes, buy them, or both?

I am not skilled at the engineering or dexterity of sewing, so all doll clothes I use in custom projects are sourced premade and modified afterward if needed.

45. What five dolls would you like to add to your collection?

Just five??? I'll narrow it down by listing five things I've wanted for my entire second collecting era, but which have remained pipe dreams due to continued lack of priority or ridiculous aftermarket prices-- Gore-geous Accessories Honey Swamp (to reobtain), I Love Fashion Iris Clops (to reobtain), the Create-a-Monster Gargoyle boy, and I Love Fashion Wydowna Spider (to reobtain).

46. What crafting skill would you like to learn for your dolls? 

Maybe sewing, but that doesn't sound like something I'd enjoy much. I feel pretty good about what I can achieve, and my experiments have also tempered my ideas in helpful ways through learning what's just not possible through my current means. 

47. What long-discontinued doll line would you like to see back?

Probably Bratzillaz or Novi Stars. Bratzillaz dolls had great designs and nice doll bodies but were reportedly hampered by poor clothing and hair quality, so a new go could be great, and Novi Stars could reach its full potential if the characters were treated more like true playline dolls than figurines, with uniform articulation schemes and less focus on quirky physical gimmicks that restricted their designs in different ways.

48. If you had $100 to splurge on doll items, what would you buy?

My splurge dolls tend to be passing curiosities I get with gift money, done to reduce the feeling of risk taken on them, rather than priority items I've wanted for a long time, so probably whatever's on the market that I'm interested in but not positive I'll love, or have no direct plans for. I usually have this mentality that items I really care about or feel confident I'll enjoy are the ones that I want to put my own money on, so my splurges have typically been more frivolous risks on things that I'd be comfortable not loving.

49. What type of doll-related content do you enjoy watching on YouTube?

Not a lot, really. I'm averse to doll-influencer consumption hype culture where the first to own and review the doll gets clout for praising the hot new item, so I don't closely follow those kinds of creators, but I'm not largely an intense fan of other doll customizers, either, just because so many doll artists go for more realistic or soft and blushed design aesthetics which are impressive but do little for my own aesthetic tastes. I do like Maryna of Poppen Atelier a lot as a personality and she's very talented, but I don't drop everything for her videos. I used to watch a mother-child review channel that felt a bit more authentic since they were just regular buyers getting the dolls at retail release date, but the child chose to go offline and I've stopped wanting to watch review videos since I now feel like I don't need anything but an image of the doll to really inform my decision on whether to get it. Today, I guess I'm most interested in the videos of Darling Dollz, which are a combination of opinion pieces about certain doll releases, and cultural analysis of doll history, which is what I do in my own way here. I can fully articulate my opinions of doll designs by myself now, so I want to hear deeper talk from others.

50. Where do you buy your dolls?

Wherever. I favor in-person at Target for a lot of current dolls, though I default to online options when I'm being tormented by convenience/laziness demons. For older stuff and parted-out doll items, I go to eBay, and use Etsy for cases where existing doll parts catalogues don't offer the thing I need and I don't trust I could make it well myself. 

51. What were your 2023 dolly wins?

This is a surprisingly vague question. I've had tons of successes...but I'll just direct you to my first year-in-review post to give you that breakdown.

52. What doll goals do you have for 2024?

• Re-acquire and review the original trio of dolls that started my first collection. 
• Figure out which dolls might need to be let go, or how to accommodate a growing collection more tidily. 
• Have fun!

BONUS! Reader question from Bitty!

Q: What's in your special doll cabinet?

This was a small piece my grandma didn't want to move houses with, so I took it.

Inside, I have a top shelf of real characters, and a lower shelf of original characters. The dolls right now are:

• Monster High C.A. Cupid, my ultimate grail doll.
• Creeproduction Frankie Stein, the doll that got me back into the hobby. Frankie, G1 or G3, is also one of my top three favorite doll characters.
• Restyled Operetta, another one of my top three doll characters and a really wonderful styling result. 
• Restyled Invisi Billy, another one of my favorite dolls after my second pass at him.
• 13 Wishes Twyla, representing my favorite Monster High character.

• DiDi DiPterri, an early custom doll with a super successful design. Also one who's been painted to change her body color, so this is about the safest form of storage for preserving my work!
• Gilliana Manuela Ribeiro, a recent great custom doll with my best success at a stable body-color change, and who taught me a lot about doll repair.
• Marcia Greyman, another early custom and my first good original faceup. She was a great design and held up well without any really unstable modifications.

Below those two shelves are all my spare stands. I just had to get in a second pack of spare unbranded stands recently, now that I have so many G3 Monster High dolls out and about!

Contents are subject to change, but I think Frankie, Cupid, and DiDi have earned themselves basically permanent places here, though Cupid will be out during February. I fully expect signature Amanita Nightshade will take a permanent spot here whenever I reacquire her, because she was my very first doll.

Alright! There's my second buffer post finished. I really hope to get a proper doll post out before the week is through, because I have so much work done and so little holding off completion! See you whenever that comes to fruition, and let me know what else I should do content-wise in slow times, if you have any ideas.