Revenge of the Yass Gremlins, Part 2: L.O.L. Retro

There was yet more L.O.L. to tempt me--I blame the unhallowed mires of Walmart.

While shopping for holiday supplies on an excursion that could have given me my Christmas COVID, I checked the doll aisle just to see what was up. Walmart always has out-of-date inventory that hasn't sold yet, and that was the case with one item that struck me--O.M.G. Fierce Neonlicious. I couldn't justify her at the moment because I didn't initially see the need to look at Fierce, didn't want to bloat my first round of L.O.L. posts, and Neonlicious was kind of too much for me, but something about her stuck with me. I did want to investigate Fierce in the end, and I felt like there was a good doll in Neonlicious, so I decided to give it a chance. I thought there were things I could do to tone down the doll a notch and make her more favorable, so I ordered her from eBay. There wasn't a strong enough chance the Walmart would still have her, and I didn't relish the idea of venturing out for a result I might not want.

The Fierce doll line was very short-lived, only including a wave translating the original four O.M.G. characters and a lavish collector doll based on Cleopatra which saw its price plummet online due to not selling at $100. 

Lineup of the main Fierce dolls--left to right, Lady Diva, Royal Bee, Swag, and Neonlicious. (Photo found on YouLoveIt).

Fierce dolls based on O.M.G.s Kitty K and Candylicious were finished and slated for release, but got canceled with the rest of the line. While all L.O.L. spinoff characters are adaptations of originating L.O.L. Surprise babies, O.M.G. and L.O.L. Surprise Tweens are made up of separate original characters merely inspired by the L.O.L. dolls, who are canonized as siblings with the same theme. Fierce is the only spinoff so far to consist of previous characters depicted in a different art style, and, possibly, at a different age. The Fierce dolls could be read as even more mature incarnations of the O.M.G.s, but there seems to be enough difference that they're truly meant to be an alternate depiction that doesn't fit into the same canon. 

Several things signify to me that Fierce as a whole, not just Cleopatra, was a flopped attempt to appeal to the adult-collector sphere and provide a spin on L.O.L./O.MG. for that market, so these dolls might not fit in with the O.M.G.s to be treated part of the same world. I guess not enough adults who collected dolls were into these, or else they simply didn't mind going through the experience of standard O.M.G. dolls and didn't see a need for Fierce? The dolls might have flopped with kids and parents, too, and maybe lacked the adult base to make them profitable. Maybe word of mouth was just poor?

The blip of Fierce might have actually been the first foreshadowing of the dire state of MGA in 2024. We're now seeing things any 2016 Mattel veteran would be haunted by--simplification, cut costs, softening, and, perhaps most heinous, loss of doll articulation. Rainbow High has rebranded to be cuter and all wrists are all unjointed. Shadow High is now a dead trademark. The finale was Series 3. I'm unhappy. And even O.M.G. has gotten startlingly basic. We haven't heard news of another standard lavish doll series coming up, and the most recent dolls released in the brand have been simple, cheaper, and much less exciting. I think the eternal struggle has shifted once more and Mattel is back sitting on the higher bowl of the scales now, because MGA has gotten more kiddie just as Mattel has seemingly let Monster High get back some attitude, bit by bit. This is bad. MGA is supposed to be trendy and edgy, and when it's doing that without being gross, it's awesome. I see a downturn, and the death of three brands. Nobody wins by softening down. We know. We saw what happened to the Mattel high schools and Barbie during the dark times. I hadn't set out to write a eulogy in this second project of L.O.L. posts, but I think that's what this has to be, because it looks like L.O.L. fashion dolls have officially fallen past their prime--if you don't think they've already started careening off a cliff. I'm calling it now--this might be the last year of L.O.L. fashion dolls. The original Littles might survive, but even that titan might collapse.

Maybe there was deemed to be a significant enough sales decline in the MGA headliners to change tactics, or maybe MGA might push for Bratz to be their tentpole again and they're sacrificing the other brands currently carrying them in a gamble that Bratz will blow up again? I dunno, man. Risky. I wouldn't do it unless I knew for sure that the brands were absolutely untenable as they were.

This is what O.M.G. Neonlicious looked like in her first release, which will be useful visual context to analyze the Fierce doll under. 

Here's the Fierce doll in her box.

The Fierce dolls are packaged standing in a rolled plastic tube attached to a small cardboard assembly Almost all of their outfit pieces are on and the dolls seriously downplay the unboxing-surprise gimmick as a result. That gives me quite a break! 

The Fierce artwork is highlighted heavily, and exaggerates the proportions in a way that's not true to the doll. Fierce is much less squat than O.M.G., but the dolls are not as leggy as the box art. 

More text appears on the side obscured by the rounded front tab and on the top. 

The back of the cardboard part of the box has a small perforated flap to open. 

Opening it reveals a compartment holding the doll's brush, a rolled-up poster, and her only surprise package. 

The poster is very tightly rolled and would need some serious flattening. Neonlicious with a motto is depicted on the front, vertically, while the back has a horizontal graphic of the four dolls. I assume this back graphic is shared for each poster. 

The brush is neon yellow. 

And the surprise was the shades. Like O.M.G. Neon's, these have yellow lenses that don't fill the whole frame.

Close-up of an MGA stock photo showing O.M.G. Neonlicious in her shades. This sculpt has been re-released on a later Neonlicious, as well as recolored for the Missy Meow O.M.G. doll.

There was nothing else in this very tall cardboard box assembly, which feels like a waste of space. Turns out, Neon is already placed on her stand, which is fit exactly to the footprint of her tube! The cardboard section can detach.

I then pried the top of the tube out and pulled out a sleeve that was holding everything in. 

Neon is posed on her stand, but isn't attached to a waist clip--she's just tied in place with tags. The clips were separate. As with any packaging that has a removable backdrop, it was mercifully easy to cut the head tags from the back.

The doll has one clip and instructions. The spare clip is narrower than the one she's using by default, since she needs the wider shape with her puffy jacket. 

Neon's stand has a huge wide base with two mounts for waist clips.

If she's using her stand, one of the mounts will go unused, since the stand will only fill with both of her clips off the pole. There's seemingly no consistency as to whether an O.M.G. doll will have a base that matches the amount of spare clips they have. 

The clips and stand pole shape are the same as regular O.M.G. pieces, save for the pole being taller. This means you can pop the Fierce pole into a smaller O.M.G. base, and that allows for a pole tall enough for dolls in the 11-inch scale to use.

The pole is a little overly tall aesthetically for Monster High dolls, but it'll let them use an O.M.G. base if they want and has no functional detriment.

Here's the unboxing done and all pieces together.

First impressions are that the hair is messy and this doll feels big, layered, intricate, and important. The huge stand platform, the costume layering, active visuals, and the doll's physical size and proportions all do a good job of lending her a grander presence and make her feel more polished and collector-esque. The message that this is "O.M.G., elevated" comes through very clearly. While this doll is designed to be way over-the-top, everything feels intentional and it clicks together here. It's not really my vibe, but this makes sense to me. The impact of the doll really reminds me of other dolls that blurred the line between playline and collector, like some Tonner play dolls, or the porcelain collector editions of the Lollipop Girls (links are to Toy Box Philosopher posts where I learned about them).

Also, she is bright. I've reviewed neon-themed dolls from Monster High recently, but none of them are as all-over vivid and glowy as this doll. She truly is neonlicious, as ridiculous and lengthy to type as that word is.

At this point, maybe a blacklight would be a worthwhile investment for this blog because I could get some great photos with it and the neon things I have. If I decide to do that, check my Instagram (link here), because that's where I've decided to share new photos of older dolls.

Lining her up for sizes makes her feel quite large, with her being taller than Monster High and very obviously not in-scale with O.M.G. 

Left to right: Monster High G3 (median-height sculpt), L.O.L. O.M.G. Fierce, L.O.L. Surprise Tweens, L.O.L. O.M.G.

Both Fierce Neon and Spirit Queen represent adult L.O.L. characters, but adults typically stop growing past a typical range. The Fierce dolls are clearly alternate-universe depictions that fall out of the main doll canon and aesthetic. I think they were really trying to grab a separate audience with these. 

Her stand is tall enough that I also held Lagoona up more to her level--she's not actually vastly taller than MH when measured more evenly, but her proportions still make her a bigger doll.

O.M.G. Neonlicious had a bit of a poppy metropolitan tone with her smart jacket, shades, and leopard beret, while Fierce Neonlicious seems inspired by Japanese street fashion with her more informal, cutesy, and overwhelming aspects. The pigtails and jacket especially suggest that concept to me. In some ways, it's the Fierce doll who feels more youthful despite her less squat body and toned-down, more glamorous face.

Neon's hair is big and complicated. She has two high ponytails wrapped with hair twists, and two frontal locks that are meant to frame her face, featuring barrettes on them. The rest of her hair is loose, and the whole head is rooted to look split-dyed between neon pink on her left and neon orange on her right, matching the O.M.G. doll. She has bangs that form a point rather than the original straight line, and her hair features light crimping which could have been more defined. There was also pointless gel in this hair, applied roughshod with little clear purpose.

Here's the hair combed out a little with the front locks arranged correctly. The barrette on her left is a translucent blue heart, and on her right is a translucent neon yellow star. 

The addition of blue to the fashions is the biggest difference this doll has from her O.M.G. debut edition. That doll just used yellow, orange, and pink, though her eyes have always been blue and later editions of Neonlicious have featured blue in her fashions, too. 

Neonlicious has a very busy faceup with colorful graphics on her nose and cheeks, and a blue band-aid across the nose. Her eyebrows are wavy pink, something constant for the character, and are turned up in a way that can make her look gentle or worried. 

I've never understood the design appeal of a Band-aid on the nose. It's not cute; it's not cool. All I think about is injury when I look at it, and there's no fashionable value to the visual. And if it's meant to convey a tough vibe, I don't buy it on this character. Cutesy street fashion doesn't convey the sense of someone who gets into skirmishes a lot. The rest of the face decorations also look really unappealing to me. It's inherited from the original doll, but that was her worst design trait, too. I fully intend to wipe off the bandage and symbols. 

Despite Neon's overwhelming face paint, the Fierce face sculpts are designed to be more graceful, and maybe even more mature, than O.M.G. The eyes aren't perfectly circular, having more of an upper lid curve in the shape, and they're smaller. The internal eye proportions are also shrunk a bit to make the eyes less huge and starey. The irises and pupils are smaller, creating a far less dilated look and making an O.M.G. look astonishingly bugged-out next to Neon.

The nude lip repaint I gave Fame Queen does not flatter the O.M.G. sculpt, but even discounting that, it looks more grotesque next to Fierce. 

Like the Tweens, the Fierce dolls have a strip of teeth showing in their relaxed lips. 

If the Tweens face gave me thirties-cartoon vibes, I feel like I can see a whisper of sixties Hanna-Barbera in the Fierce one. There's a bit of Betty Rubble or Jane and Judy Jetson to it. Maybe that's also influenced by the retro vibe I'm getting from most of her clothing.

Neon's earrings are translucent white hearts with zigzag "breaks" in them. I feel like these would work well for G3 Frankie Stein. The jacket fights for space with the earrings, pushing the alignment off.

Around her neck, Neonlicious has a neon yellow choker with a heart charm that matches the yellow top it's above. I think this piece is meant to offer a pseudo-turtleneck silhouette to the costume in accordance with the signature O.M.G. outfit.

Neon's jacket is a thick, puffy piece color-blocked in contrasting black and white, and the outside is all vinyl fabric. The piece has yellow simulated drawstrings, a fake zipper, and pink patterned lining, and the cuffs are pink ribbed fabric.

I have mixed feelings about this jacket. On the one hand, it clicks together the look to make this doll feel busy and higher-tier, as well as solidifying her street-fashion aesthetic and being the only thing that goes with her purse. The bulkiness of the piece also kind of aids the overdone collector-doll aesthetic that I'm enjoying.  On the other hand, it's so bulky it impedes her already-subpar arm articulation and fights with her earrings, and a street-fashion look is not the aesthetic I want to mine from this doll. I want her more metro-retro in accordance with her original doll and her sixties-cartoon facial vibes.

Here's what she looks like without the jacket. I don't think her face decorations and hair suit this look, but I do like the clothing. 

Neon is wearing a two-part top and skirt over another two-part top and skirt. The over-layer is made of neon pinkish-orange plastic that falls between her hair colors, and takes the form of a bustier-like tank over a skirt with a belt. This outfit alludes to the O.M.G. clothes, where the plastic over-layer was cut like overalls with a skirt.

The click buckle of the belt appears to be functional, but I made no attempt to undo it because the belt is sewn to the skirt and undoing the buckle has no purpose.

The outfit underneath is a short-sleeved top and a two-layered skirt, both in neon yellow. The skirt has a longer sheer voluminous layer over an opaque short pencil layer. The sheer fabric snags very easily on the velcro hooks of the outer skirt when taking that piece off. 

These pieces could make for a great simple sundress. 

I also noticed the most imperceptible patterning on the yellow fabric, which might just be an artifact of manufacturing and not intentional. I had to really edit a photo to make it visible, since it's so subtle.

Neonlicious is wearing mismatched-colored sheer striped stockings, with her left being pink and the right being blue. For a new addition to her color palette, it really doesn't feel like the blue is balanced all that wonderfully in this ensemble--it's in her face paint and eyes and nails, but the only outfit pieces with it are this sock and her hair clip.

These socks only really work for Neon when she's at her most layered and done-up. 

Neon's shoes are white strappy sandal heels with translucent platforms in her original neon tones. 

Neon's purse is pretty nice. It's shaped like a checkered milk carton with a drippy pink design, and hands from a neon yellow chain strap that's hinged so the bag dangles with gravity. 

The piece opens on a hinge, but it's done with a clip on a bar, and it's easy for the front to fall off the bar when opening it too forcefully.

This purse is a little hard to include in the outfit, because it's Neon's only piece with the character's original checkered pattern, and the only black-and-white element she has to balance it is her huge puffy coat...which I'm not intending to use.

The Fierce body is bigger, and also significantly less squat than O.M.G.

The Fierce torso is proportionally longer and less pinched at the waist, and the legs are longer. The hips are deceptively wide. They're bigger than the O.MG. hips, but the more graceful flow into them makes them seem less exaggerated. They can't fit into O.M.G. bottoms. Fierce still has nipples. Whatever.

The Fierce head articulation is the same as the other L.O.L. fashion dolls--it rotates and tips side-to-side, but not forward and back.

The Fierce shoulder joints don't go completely straight to 180 degrees.

The rest of the arms are disappointing, too. Like the other L.O.L. fashion dolls, the elbows are unevenly cut so the arms can only flex their deepest at a certain rotation, and even that's not exactly at 90 degrees. Of the three doll types, the elbows feel the most restrictive on Fierce. The arms also bend further outward than inward due to their sculpts. Due to the length of the arms and the joint engineering, Fierce dolls cannot touch their lower face or cross their arms, and even a hand-on-hip pose looks underwhelming. It's such a shame. MGA slaughters Mattel at the doll clothing game, but Mattel are indisputably the winners in the doll-articulation game. 

Awkward arms.

The Fierce legs made me happier. They're all solid plastic with (non-rotating, ugh) knee hinges so the dolls' knees can bend, and that raises the posing potential. Fierce can sit properly, and tidily! Two-position click hinges in rubber legs offer basically nothing. The hips aren't spread out when they sit.

It really wouldn't have killed MGA to add proper knee rotation, but this is still welcome. 

Neon's feet are separate parts with obvious seams, but I couldn't get them to fully rotate in their sockets. I could turn them just a bit, but then it would resist and twist back on its own--something I've been dreadfully familiar with in the cases of malformed/stuck joint pins in wrists and forearms. I don't know if the feet are truly meant to rotate or not--that could have been an attempt to add some rotation because the knee doesn't have it, but if this is a joint, it doesn't seem fully functional on Neon. Maybe they're only meant to turn just a little bit? Very very odd. Flying Purple Monkfish brought up the question of if these feet were even designed for Fierce and wondered if this was some kind of late manufacturing patch job on the engineering somehow, and I think their questions have merit because, at least on this doll copy, it doesn't quite feel like the feet are right. 

I'm happy the knees bend, but this doll body is overall a weak showing when this is simply not the standard these days. Made to Move Barbie has been pirouetting around for several years now, and even Monster High does better than this. Heck even MGA's own Rainbow High does! However, I love the proportions with the long arms and large hands, and when you find a pose that works, it looks really harmonious and gestural. 

It's interesting seeing her next to So Goffik, my custom doll with an O.M.G. head on an Ever After High Cerise body. So Goffik's proportions are more spindly and quirky in a way that suits her, but I think, skintone differences aside, you can tell the head wasn't sculpted to the body.

Now, makeover time. I first wiped off all the distracting face decorations. Then I took Neon's hair down to wash it out and boil it. To fall more retro and sixties, I thought she'd suit a high ponytail really nicely. I also enjoyed the way it would make her color split a bit more subtle. Fortunately, her hair rooting didn't fight with the new style shape, and I tied it up with Court Cutie's scrunchie, which was close enough to her palette.

Here's that work done while her hair is wet. See what I mean about the body looking really elegant in the right pose?

Then I decided to clip her star barrette onto the scrunchie and the blue one onto her belt to bring those back in. I didn't want to lose the doll's sense of adult-collector complexity.

Here's how she looks.

This is pretty good, but that purse is a problem. With the new hairstyle and simplified face, Neon simply did not mesh with the coat, so that wasn't going to work. 

I then decided to hack at her upper arms with an X-Acto to cut down the elbow joint socket so it was flat and even, allowing her arms to bend the same degree at all rotations. The result isn't pretty and the articulation buff really isn't super significant because the hinge is still subpar, but it is meaningful and I'm glad I did it. It was tricky to do because the forearms don't come out, but I made it happen.

She might look better without the socks, but that's another blow to her complexity.

She looks really nice now in just the yellow set.

And she takes a good portrait with the neon-yellow backdrop I got for her.

I decided the best solutions to bump Neon back up to the level she started in while abiding by the new style and sorting out the purse were to cut the blue from her palette and give her her original O.M.G. counterpart's jacket. Fierce and O.M.G. can swap upper clothing, so I had an easy fix. 

The original jacket is vinyl fabric covered in black-and-white checks, with the inner lining that carries to the lapels and collar having a smaller pattern. There's a belt around the waist, but it's not gonna fasten here.

I also decided to keep the socks, because they aided the complexity I liked in the doll, and just traded the distracting blue one for one of Spirit Queen's striped socks, which is shorter for a better mismatched theme, and matches the other black-and-white contrast.

I think this is the look!

The jacket collar might be even better popped up!

I think this is a better translation of Neonlicious. She feels visually busy and intricate and layered to match the collector-wannabe aesthetic of these Fierce dolls, but now fits original Neonlicious' smart metropolitan aesthetic and resonates with the retro elements of her costuming. While Fierce is in a universe of its own, this Neon truly feels like a comparably mature or older version of the O.M.G. And basically, she's fun. Her colors are cheerful and her patterns are engaging in a way I really enjoy.

I wish Fierce hadn't fizzled out, but I can understand in part why it flopped. Those doll bodies look great, but the articulation just isn't up to par for that scale of fashion doll, and the improvements made kind of make the shortcomings more obvious. Taking away from the surprise gimmick might have also killed it after that had been a pillar of the franchise's success. It's a shame because the Fierce aesthetic and doll engineering is the most favorable to me of the entire L.O.L. line. There's several O.M.G. characters I'd immediately buy in Fierce form because the O.M.G. look and body has been holding them back for me. But I'm never going to see those characters in Fierce form and it's either get them as they debuted or not at all. It's disappointing both that we got so little of Fierce and also that it just wasn't done well enough. There was potential here, and the polish and grandeur are mostly there. 

I'm still glad to have Neonlicious.

Then, following up from my last post, I decided to get Gamma Babe because I liked her designs and had some ideas of what to do with them. 

I'm guessing her doll box inside will be some form of turquoise.

This time, I figured out the proper unboxing process.

It might help that Gamma Babe's box was what was used as the example in the instruction sheet. 

I figured out the main thing that tripped me up and wrecked it last time--since the step-2 graphic showing the flap lifting up also showed the VHS spine graphic, I thought I had to pull something out from the side with that graphic...

Pull up from this end, right?

...but no! I have to pull a flap from the opposite side, which uncovers another graphic of the same VHS spine! I can hardly blame myself, though--that's very visually confusing to have two instances of the same graphic that can trip up unboxers who only see the one that's uncovered at the start.

Pull up from this end!

And here's the theater popped up!

The back panel of the theater forms a small soundstage backdrop to place a doll on to play movie-shooting scenes.

Wrong genre, Spirit Queen...

The VHS spine on this "soundstage" side is not the doll box, and it has a perforated panel to uncover a cardboard tray that slides out, decorated like a trunk. This is where the ancillary pieces are stored. I didn't get to see this in action on Spirit Queen because her whole box fell apart at the hands of my ineptitude and the pieces fell out all over.

The film slides are on top of the brush, two clips and the stand pole. The third clip is attached to the base, packaged in plastic below them. Gamma Babe has two narrow clips and one wide, and only one clip mount under her base.

The 3D glasses are in the bottom, wrapped in tissue, and match Gamma Babe's alien-eye shades. As with Spirit Queen, the tissue wrap is patterned with the 3D glasses in the doll's set.

The bottom surface inside the trunk has images of Gamma Babe on it.

And the back has a graphic of a hairdryer made sci-fi. The ambiguous text on the poster alternately reads "HAIR GOALS" and "SPACE QUEEN" under the different lenses of the 3D glasses.

The "also starring" credits on the VHS spine graphics read "Lil Tinz" and "Glamstronaut" through the glasses. Glamstronaut is the younger sister who gives Gamma Babe her outer-space theme, while Tinz and Lil Tinz are her sisters who give her her robot theme. The Tinz kids are based on the Oz Tin Woodman, so it's a little funny they aren't Judy Garland-esque Starlette's sisters instead. 

One of the film slides shows Glamstronaut planting an L.O.L. flag on a planetoid.

The other slide shows two L.O.L. Tiny Toys, collectibles themed on tin robots. Neither of the Tinz babies are shown.

Gamma Babe's doll box provides the VHS spine on the other side of the larger box, and it slides out from that end. Unsurprisingly, it's turquoise.

Some of the graphics are similar, but the box has a different print. 

The ambiguous text says "SPECIAL FX" and "LEADING BB".

The VHS care warning might not be directly themed to the character this time, though space does pose serious temperature threats, so perhaps it is. 

Now I'm curious what the other doll boxes look like. Is Starlette's white? Is Ms. Direct's gold?

Here's the doll tray. No surprises with the clothing this time--Gamma Babe doesn't have a full outfit set that goes to waste in her main looks like Spirit Queen did.

And the backdrop this was over shows a nice dressing room with two sci-fi wigs that look awesome.

Here's Gamma Babe out.

The doll's hair is a blend of lavender and blue pastels for something of a pale galaxy effect (remember when the galaxy aesthetic was the overwhelming trend?) and has rounded curved-out bangs with gel and two high ponytails wrapped with microbraids. 

The ponytails are manufactured in ringlets, but when combed out, the hair gets a lot of flyaways that reach across the head and it's tricky to control. 

This hairstyle seems designed to loosely invoke antennae, which is a clever move that equally suits an android and a space alien, her two costume concepts.

Gamma Babe's makeup has a silver spiky retro-antenna motif and silver lips, as well as a silver constellation on her left cheek that sort of resembles the Greek letter gamma. She has star-shaped eye reflections.

Gamma Babe's default costume is two pieces mixing dotted mesh and metallic fabric to resemble robotic plating. Her midsection is uncovered. 

The plate printing in the legs also includes a small "LOL".

Gamma Babe's hands are both sculpted and painted to look robotic, though, as with Fame Queen, I wish these had been cast in a base color closer to the metallic paint.

Surprises now. Here's the paper pamphlet.

The ambiguous text in this script reads:

Red lens: Time to beam down to LOL Surprise Studios and  SEARCH the pink carpet. But first, they need a FIERCE makeover.

Blue lens: Time to beam down to LOL Surprise Studios and WALK the pink carpet. But first, they need a SO EXTRA makeover.

Then, the round box. This contained three packages.

One package contained her armor and ray gun...which is also/actually a hairdryer! Must be convenient for production--use the hairdryer to style her, and then hand it to her as a movie prop!

Here's those pieces on. The wrist bracers have cuts down the side, but I popped the hands out to put them on because vac-metal plastic isn't the best for flexing. The ray gun has a handle on its right side that Gamma Babe's hand slots into perfectly.

Another package contained her boot covers for the alien look. They're vinyl fabric and have translucent black plastic-fabric spikes on them.

And the third package contained her facewear--a futuristic visor and my favorite piece, the alien sunglasses.

The visor has a unique attachment, being held with an elastic strap with a click buckle at the back. I assume this is to make it easier to wrangle so you don't have to pull her ponytails through a loop...though I really think these could have worked like glasses to be easier. 

It was tricky finding the sweet spot of tension where the visor covered her face and the piece was held on tight at the back of her head. I tried leaving her mouth uncovered, but the visor can be posed to cover her entire face.

Eventually, I found the antenna earrings that got lost in the mix. They were somewhere in the round box's assortment.

Then, the shoe box. I took the lid off already, but this is the first L.O.L. surprise package I've seen cast in translucent plastic.

Here are her boots.

And the garment bags. The first contains her skirt, which has a pencil layer and a triangular plastic layer with bands of silver and an oil-slick iridescent effect on translucent blue.

The plastic torso form is wasted again.

The garment bag features a few movie parody posters, aping The Princess Diaries, Breakfast at Tiffany's, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Armageddon, and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, though that last one is just using the same phrase. I Know What You Did Last Summer is a weird pull here, since it's a modern teen slasher mystery, not a haunted-house classical horror film like the poster the parody title is put on. Obviously, referencing slashers here wouldn't be appropriate for kids, but why source a slasher title for the parody, then? "Bride of___" would be a good iconically-"horror" title template to use instead--other horror series after Frankenstein have even used it!

The next bag contained her triangular flared jacket, matching the plastic of the skirt. This top and skirt together are very extremely Jetsons in sensibility.

The last garment bag contained the alien jacket and shorts. The jacket's design matches the purple fabric and black spikes of the boot covers. This jacket is the first official piece of doll clothing I've gotten with a functional zipper.

Here's Gamma Babe in her android look without the visor.

And with it. 

I think this look is very well-conceived and hits the tone perfectly. 

Here's a meeting of futuristic androids.

And here's the alien look. I hadn't realized at this time that the android top is meant to be layered under the jacket here. That's the one piece both official looks share. 

Simply obsessed with the glasses.

The boot covers were tricky to stretch over the tops of the boots.

And my alien dolls meet.

Okay, so I got Gamma Babe with a plan. 

My first impulse was to use the Jetsons-esque costume pieces and put them on a Fierce doll to fulfill the retro aesthetic I see in them. The only option that made sense, because there were so few, was Lady Diva.

I took Lady Diva's four ponytails and tied them all into one on her side, and wrapped that with yarn to emulate Judy Jetson. I also wiped off her beauty mark and shortened her eyebrows by wiping some of them off.

Lady Diva's original hair.

I then dressed her up in the Jetsons pieces and the bracers and earrings. For a top, I gave her Fame Queen's black bra, and finished the outfit with Mystixx Azra's boots. The boots and the Gamma Babe skirt are not proper fits on this doll body at all, but they look fine when she's staged from the front, and I currently don't have better pieces. The bracers also don't fit the best. I still think the visual is good. 

Meet Trudy Jetfuse!

I didn't feel the need to cut the arm joints of this doll.

And in 2D art. Making this made me very aware of the proportional and detail discrepancies between this doll and the actual Jetsons characters, so the homage doesn't land well in this art for me because they're not actually that close stylistically when closer examined. I still liked the way I made her ponytail look like a rocket cloud, so I thought it was worth finishing.

Then, I wanted to take the alien look and make it "real" and turn her into a proper fantasy alien by dyeing her skin. I popped her head off to do so, breaking her neck peg, so I took one from the fallen Dahlia and replaced it. The Monster High peg doesn't fit great in the neck, but I just wanted the head attached. BlackKitty just commented recently that you can make your own pegs with wire and a button at the top, which I'll have to look into for future dolls. (Thanks for the tip!) I then got a purple dye mix ready and put her in. I didn't sand the torso to let that dye since her costume would cover it. The vinyl color dyed very dark and not that saturated, but I think it's fine. A lot of her face paint absorbed dye, so I touched it up. I blacked out her irises and sclerae and repainted her eye reflections, and repainted the silver lip color, which had mostly turned purple except for the overlining at the top of her mouth. Unavoidably, the dip also dyed the front of her hair, but that was my favorite consequence of it all because it created a way better galaxy color blend!

Honestly, it's a shame dip-dyeing on a rooted doll is such an imprecise, risky process (colors can sweat into the head vinyl, and I have two dolls soaking in chemicals to hopefully undo that right now!) because it could elevate play dolls so much more. Monster High's Astranova attempted a galaxy hair blend with layers of blue and pink, but it's not as good as this.

And here's the dyed Gamma all put together as a proper alien.

Great, now I have to get Astranova, don't I?

Awesome. I think she needs a proper name, and the choice is obvious. I'm calling her Novi now!

This pair of characters allows for Fierce and O.M.G. to share a canon perfectly--aliens are typically small in classic sci-fi, so there's no discrepancy between Fierce and O.M.G. with these two!

I found the best pictures in Novi alone, though.

And here's her own movie poster.

I think turning Gamma Babe into a fantasy doll really elevated her. Aliens are another great match for the L.O.L. doll aesthetic, and the dyeing came out really pretty. The Trudy idea was fun, but not as satisfying since her pieces don't fit great. 

Next up on L.O.L., some loose ends will be investigated. Other posts are also in the works!