Lottie Meets Lottie (also feat. Lottie!)

I had a...symbiotic idea. One doll made me think of another doll, and both gave me motivation to review the other and resolve an old curiosity and a new one at the same time. We're reviewing Lotties today of very different nature, and satisfying a fascination for small dolls.

As mentioned just previously, my phone broke and I lost a heartbreaking amount of photos I cared about from it, so getting a new phone felt like cold comfort. It was a rainy day that day, both from sky and from eyes, and the weather had never felt so appropriate. And neither had the little doll who visited to bring me some desperately-needed cheer. 

My first subject is a Lottie doll from the Lottie brand, produced by English toy company Arklu. Lottie is a doll designed for young children to represent the demographic and serve as a wholesome, childlike toy with a sweet, youthful aesthetic. They're essentially fashion dolls in terms of construction/function, but with more of an emphasis on story play, and all within the realm of childhood. They feel more like dollhouse dolls in terms of age and purpose. The Lottie brand name doesn't, to my knowledge, refer to a single specific character, and I don't think it's a narrative brand. There are some Lottie dolls with separate proper names, and others which are named by their role. So not all Lottie dolls are Lottie, but any of the unnamed dolls could be? I think it's a bit of a Barbie situation where everyone is Lottie but then there are the offshoots with their own names. These are toys intended for imaginative play, so there's not much of a rigid canon. 

The Lottie dolls appealed to me because I'm always supportive of wholesome childlike whimsy and cozy childhood themes, and I love toys that feel timeless or classic and sweet. I was also intrigued because Lottie seemed to be offering a fairly unique doll size, with the characters standing at seven inches. 

There are several Lottie dolls on offer, and it doesn't look like the dolls leave production, so the choices were pretty good. For the purposes of this review and my own personal appeal, I chose the Lottie labeled as "Muddy Puddles". I love a cheery raincoat springtime vibe, the doll looked very sweet and appealing, and the name felt very charmingly English to me despite nothing about the phrase being culturally unique. I just feel like you see English kids' media talking about the joy of muddy puddles a lot...or maybe I've just had the Peppa Pig episode about them drilled into my mind through seeing critiques of the show's overbearing redundant narration. Muddy Puddles also had a lot that would pair and contrast her beautifully with the next doll. 

I sure felt like a muddy puddle the day she came in. Rain was perfect for my mood, but also for this doll.

The Lottie doll boxes are shaped like little houses with carry-case handles on top and wide windows showing off the doll. The artwork is fairly flat and quite colorful, and suits the doll. The Lottie logo/name appears right on the top. Her doll title is on a badge-style circle on the lower right. I believe the only Lottie doll titled as her real name rather than her role is Rosie Boo, who depicts a girl with Down syndrome. If I ever get a second Lottie doll, it might be Rosie Boo. I think she's very charming.

The sides of the box have windows, too, shaped like umbrella (or should I say brolly?) cutouts. This means the other Lottie boxes have different window shapes on the side!

I didn't notice the pink patch on the side, but when I turned the box to the back, I realized.

This doll's name is not Lottie. This doll's name is Olivia. 

Now, Olivia is a wonderful name for this doll and I think it suits her beautifully, but this review idea cannot function if her name isn't Lottie, so I'm going to override the creators this time. I usually won't, no matter how much I disagree with a doll's given name, but this case demands it. Maybe her middle name is Lottie and she prefers it to her first name. She's Lottie.

Anyway, the character art of this doll is cute, but it's not nearly as charming to me as the doll herself. It is sweet that the child owning the doll is given a space to sign their name on the back, and it encourages further use of the box as a carry case and little house. 

The box opens at the top with a flap that pulls over the handle pieces.

Then the inner backdrop can slide out. It has a cute raincloud-and-boot pattern. 

Due to the shape of the box, the backdrop doesn't slide out super gracefully, and because the windows are cutout in umbrellas on this piece too, the side tore a little. It was also a bit tricky to put this back into the box because it unstuck the plastic of one of the windows at the top and that got in the way.

Behind the backdrop was a sheet showcasing the range of Lottie products.

A few more items were on the back. 

Most of these dolls have one charm or another, and they could make a darling little group. 

Lottie is secured to a plastic cradle prop by just two ties--around her neck and ankles. 

The tie on the neck is pretty treacherous, because there's really not a great gap to snip it without the hair threatening to be cut at the same time. I took the cradle off the cardboard backdrop, but that didn't make a difference. I eventually got the tie cut safely, but it made me nervous. 

Here's the doll unboxed. She has no accessories.

Lottie's hair is a golden blonde color and rooted long with bangs across the forehead. The hair lays beautifully without any stiff gel, and it doesn't feel airy or thin. 

The Lottie face mold is very cute and has a slight anime feel to its caricature, with wide eyes that have a smiling straight lower edge. Her nose and lips are small and the doll has blushed cheeks that make her feel very youthful. The Toy Box Philosopher did a review of the Japanese fashion doll Licca-chan after being alerted to similarities with Lottie, and yeah, they're there. Read that review on the TBP blog here.

Lottie looks so happy and excited that it's hard not to feel brightened-up. There's an impish quality to her, too, like she's planning a mischief you'll likely enjoy just as much as she does!

She also has small eyebrows hidden under her bangs.

Lottie's most significant clothing piece is her raincoat. It's made from a classic sunny yellow vinyl fabric, and lined inside with blue and white striped fabric. The coat has blue cuffs and isn't designed to close in front. The hood comes up, though...I'm just not sure how to wrangle it with her hair.

While it's realistic, doll hoods with no holes in the back struggle to look nice with hair that has to push forward out of the hood. Lottie's hair looks too voluminous this way, and it pushes the sides of her coat open too much. I think this was the wrong haircut for this doll, and while I liked her hair length, I think it has to be cut to make this outfit look the best. To keep this hair, there really needed to be wire inside the hood and the edges of the coat to let it wrap around her better, but that might have been a safety concern for the target age of these dolls if the wire ever poked out o the coat.

The official photos show her with her hair tucked out to just one side, which is better, but not wonderful.

The hood has a cute point to the back, but the yellow fabric is translucent and you can faintly see the lining through it.

Here's the coat off. 

Underneath, Lottie is wearing a baseball-style shirt with a rainbow graphic. The shirt has full-length beige sleeves. For bottoms, she has a pair of blue corduroy shorts with two pink button details, layered over blue-and-white striped tights, which are a separate piece.

The shirt and shorts velcro in the back.

Lottie's boots are classic kid wellies in yellow with white polka-dots. She could have rocked red boots as well, but the matching works nicely.

Here's all of the outfit pieces.

I really like the way Lottie clothes are designed and made. They feel cozy, colorful, fun, and timeless. It's exactly right for the feeling of childhood. 

The Lottie doll body is about seven inches tall, and fittingly, seems to depict someone about seven years old.

The body is deliberately gender-neutral, as the designers wanted the clothes to be swappable between the male and female Lottie dolls and to not adhere to strict gendering, which is really nice. It's also just logical that the young age demographic depicted here wouldn't have any difficulty swapping clothes.

I experimented with other doll clothes later. Most small-torso doll clothes I've found (L.O.L. Surprise Tweens and Monster High) are too short on Lottie's torso, and Tweens pants on Lottie felt a bit short when most tops I found wouldn't cover her belly. G3 MH skirts with elastic seem okay, but they have to slide up high to meet with most tops. Best stick to swapping with other clothes from the brand.

The male dolls are branded as "Finn" dolls. I don't think it's any coincidence that "Lottie and Finn" has such a familiar cadence to another girl/boy pair of dolls everyone recognizes...

In a lineup, Lottie is between L.O.L. Surprise Tweens and L.O.L. O.M.G. out of the dolls I've gotten. I was surprised Barbie Extra Minis was so much smaller than the rest, since I hadn't properly compared with that brand before. 

Lottie's much more (comparatively) naturalistic proportions still leave her feeling tiny next to dolls in her bracket. Her art style and size don't mesh with any of my other dolls...yet. We'll see how this goes forth. Will my plans be foiled?

Lottie dolls don't pose in a hugely versatile way, and the smaller dolls next to her can do more. 

Lottie's head rotates, but does not tilt. Her arms are one piece with rotating shoulder hinges, which can actually hinge upward a bit past a straight line with her collarbone. Her legs have rotating hip hinges, and internal click joints that seem to have two positions, but the furthest is really not very far--not any better than the L.O.L. fashion dolls. Her feet are not at all able to support her without her boots because they're tiny, they're not flat, and they're rubbery. As always, I find rotating knee hinges would have been the objectively better choice. 

Here's a couple of pose pictures.

Dressing Lottie back up wasn't as much of a nightmare as I was expecting, though tight clothes on rubber legs are always less than a joy. 

Then, I decided to give Lottie a haircut so her hood would work properly. This happens to invite another parallel to the next guest, so that all works out.

She looks so adorable this way, and I was finding a lot of childlike spirit in her. 

Then I took her out into the actual rain. I didn't find the weather and they day so tragic anymore with Lottie having such fun.

I also found a gnomish, faerie quality to such a tiny person exploring my patio. There's a serious appeal to the small size of these dolls and their cheeky faces that makes them feel somewhat enchanted. These could just as easily be little people from another world as seen in a children's storybook. 

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Story, Part 1

Lottie didn't feel much like a gnome after her time in the rain, but she liked the idea of being one. She went back inside, and was a little bored. Being in the rain was fun for a while, but it wore off. She returned to a grown-up book she found at the library that was all about magic. 

"Dark spells...'for the lonely to care for a little one'-ooh! I am going through a dark spell, and I'd love to!"

Lottie had always longed for a little sister to take care of, and had earlier tacked a sign offering babysitting services on the corner telephone pole. Nobody had answered yet. Maybe this magic would do the trick?

"Zwyskesteshaea ewhsuetahhsrwa wakehwqoasuesoawa-? No, that can't possibly be the pronunciation-"

CRASSSSSHHHHH!!!!

Lottie was already unnerved, and then she heard a THUNK! at her doorstep, and was startled upright.

She wasn't sure at all what to think when she opened the door.

"BABYSITTER!"
"EEEK!"

Lottie was starting to think she may have been doomed. Now that she thought of it, kids in yellow raincoats ended up in scary stories a lot!

What a poor time for the sun to have come out.

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This begins the darker portion of the post, which will mention grim topics and feature morbid comedy.

This Lottie is a Living Dead Dolls Mini, a line of miniature spinoff Living Dead Dolls replicating the designs of several standard dolls with smaller proportions. There are far fewer Minis than standard dolls, but some of the Minis are exclusive characters with no standard counterpart. I'm especially irked by the dolls based on the four ghosts from A Christmas Carol, because they would have made a great full-size set or series. Scrooge would round them out to a full five, and...well, it's not gonna happen.

I might covet them all the same--apparently, they had ribbon attachments so they could serve as tree ornaments! In that regard, the Minis format is perfect for these characters! I definitely want to do Christmas posts this year, so I'll think about getting these guys and (she's a real big-ticket get) Frozen Charlotte to celebrate with among some other, sweeter things. 

Mini Lottie is from Minis Series 3, which corresponds exactly in its cast to LDD Series 3. The Minis line was not a linear one-to-one adaptation of the standard line. Series 2 of the Minis, adapting LDD Series 2, swapped Schooltime Sadie, who appeared as a Mini in a stationery set, for Bedtime Sadie. Bedtime Sadie actually debuted as the Mini, and her full-size doll was released afterward due to fan demand, cast as the deadly sin Sloth in Series 7. Series 4 of the Minis adapted retailer-exclusive dolls from outside the main series. Series 5 of the Minis adapted LDD Series 4, and Minis Series 6 adapted LDD Series 16. A Series 7 of the Minis was planned, with each of its characters coming from a separate series, but this was never released due to poor performance of the Minis line. It's a shame, because the Minis of The Lost and Frozen Charlotte would have been great. Only LDD Minis Series 1 and 3 are exact counterparts to the standard series, sharing both the same cast as the adapted series, as well as the same series number.

Living Dead Dolls Minis are less than half the size of a standard doll, standing at four inches tall. They're not exactly (or perhaps, not always) in scale with the big dolls, and that makes sense because most of them are renditions of the exact same doll designs, not palette swaps or otherwise "baby versions" of the main cast. The Minis come equipped with optional noose keychains to allow them to serve as morbid bag charms.

LDD Lottie is one of those characters I've always been kind of captivated by, and at the same time, unsure why. Her concept isn't very clear and her visual design has nothing to do with her story, but she's cute and striking and straightforwardly goth in an iconic spooky way. She's never been a particular standout in my mind among LDD, but she's certainly not a poor design. I thought she was a pretty versatile choice among the Minis because she was cute on her own and had a good design to let her be a dolly prop for the standard LDDs, and the pun potential for this project made her the only choice.

Lottie's look is of a pale little girl in a nice coat for an outing, and she carries a lace parasol (the latter not included/replicated with the Mini rendition) and she died of an aspirin overdose. 

LDD photo of the Series 3 Lottie doll.

The coat makes her look like a little city girl to me, but the parasol feels more ornate. It's not very cohesive, especially not with her death story, and her Resurrection dolls being in a raincoat didn't help clarify her design logic much more...but she's cute and compelling all the same. 

The Minis coffin design has a clear plastic cover and a cardboard tab attached to the back of the cardboard coffin to hang it on a store display. The tab has a headstone design with creepy cherub heads and the LDD and Mezco logos.

The lid has no designs on it, and it covers more of the box sides, meaning it's less prone to falling off.  A tiny chipboard is included, using the LDD logo, but the name of the doll is not located anywhere. Later Minis would change to the chipboard saying the character name, which makes more sense for consistency with the standard boxes. Plus, the logo is redundant this way when it appears on the tab above. I tore off the tab for the purpose of using the coffin as a prop, so the chipboard actually isn't redundant with that done.

The inside is colored red, and the doll sits in a (by now, very very yellow) plastic tray.

Lottie is secured with one twist tie around her waist. Her keychain is taped to the underside of the tray.

The back of the coffin is similar to the Series 1 coffin back. There are no opaque coffin lids for the Minis. I find that a real shame, but I completely understand how that could be a waste of engineering and resources.

The side has handle decoration, but it doesn't match the style I've seen on Series 8 (and also Series 6, to be discussed soonish.) 

Handles on a Series 8 box.

Maybe another standard series had a handle design that matched, or maybe the Minis handles are unique.

Here's Lottie taken out. 

The Living Dead Dolls Minis both are and are not in scale with the larger dolls. For LDDs styled as adult characters, the Minis can pass as toddlers, but for LDDs styled as children, they're more the size of dolls. 

Faith is way too big of a child for Lottie to work as a little sister, but the Wizard as an adult would work as her parent if she was very very young.

Comparing to mainline LDD creates the impression that Living Dead Dolls are larger than they are, because surely the Minis can't be that small. So here's a full size lineup including both Lotties and classic LDD. Next to a fashion doll, LDD Minis are teensy.

Mini Lottie almost gets lost at the end there!

With my other dolls, Lottie is clearly the smallest. She's not that much shorter than Barbie Extra Minis, but her proportions make her effectively much smaller, much like Muddy Puddles Lottie. The only thing I have in her size range is Calico Critters. The only other humanoid dolls I know with a similar head size were the Monster High Fright-Mares and Winged Critters, though those were larger than Mini Lottie.

And here's my smallest doll with my biggest- Gooliope! 

And Mini Lottie works great as a toddler in Arklu Lottie's world!

I'm not sure Arklu Lottie agrees.

While their ability to share a world with the big Living Dead Dolls really depends on the LDD they're compared to, the Minis do still use their size as somewhat literal, since they're designed to feel like even younger kids than regular LDD. If the classic LDDs feel sculpted like ages four to seven, then the Minis look two or three. They have more squished-down faces with chubbier cheeks to indicate a younger age in correspondence with the smaller size. In addition to the lowered complexity from scaling down the designs, this can also lend a very different look between the two sizes. The Minis face has more of a narrow-eyed smile to it, giving them a real evil-baby style. The Minis face molds also included a scale-down of the LDD screaming face, but I'm unsure if there were any others produced. The ripped-face dolls could have been painted only. 

Minis dolls were used alongside larger dolls in The Lost In Oz doll line to represent both the Munchkins and the Flying Monkeys, both cases where they made sense sharing a world with the standard size. 

Lottie's hair is black and styled in a retro child's haircut that I associate with the book character Ramona Quimby. It's a little tomboyish and it's not a hairstyle you see on kids today. Lottie died in the early sixties, so this look lines up perfectly. She's been dead a few years longer than Sadie, but I think the two could be friends. I'd heard bad things about the full-size doll's hair condition, so I wasn't at all optimistic about the three-inch doll's. Hair at such a small scale is really hard to do well in short lengths, but Lottie's looks fine. It's proportionally a bit longer than the big doll's. 

While the expression and proportions are changed by the head mold, Lottie's face is pretty faithful to the big doll's. She's not a fully black-and-white doll, and her colors are in her face paint. She has eyebrows that turn up at the far ends, black irises and white pupils (matching Series 1 Sadie's black eye), and dark blue and purple shading around her eyes with matching dark blue lips. Small creases appear in the dark blue paint to make her eyes look slightly weary or stressed.

Lottie's head is hard matte-feeling vinyl and feels exactly like it's been chemically shrunken--looks like the Minis head was sculpted and molded larger for better accuracy/definition, and then the cast went through an extra step to get its size smaller. I don't know if the head was painted before or after the shrink, but it is possible to shrink vinyl doll heads with paint on them if the solution is diluted. The shrink is slower, but the paint job survives.

Lottie's outfit is very simple and only one layer, though it would implicitly be covering something else. I don't think a later Living Dead Doll would have an overcoat with nothing for it to actually go over, but I think they could get away with it earlier in the brand, and the shape and style of the piece works well enough for there not to need to be clothing to see underneath. The piece itself is a retro coat of white shiny satin, with black felt for a collar, cuffs, and trim. 

It's very spiffy and the style feels fairly wealthy and metropolitan to me. Lottie doesn't strike me as a suburban kind of girl in this costume, and I like the idea of a city kid in LDD. However, the black parts of this costume have leached dye for a while, staining Lottie's head, arms, hips, and even the coat itself with purple from the diluted dye. It's meant to be bright white with black trim and buttons.

The body stains work fine with her eye paint, but the clothing stains are very discouraging. I'll see what I can do about all of them.

Lottie's shoes are soft vinyl pieces that are separate, but I couldn't fully pull (or peel) them off, suggesting they're not meant to be removable. I appreciate that socks have been painted on her feet. 

I was curious about the body design, since some pictures of Minis suggested they had ball joints or rotating hinges, but others suggested they didn't. And maybe there were two types where ball joints were introduced later, like the big dolls?

The Minis body has a different, stockier shape and features swivel joints at the head and hips, and rotating hinges for the shoulders. The Minis head piece does not include the neck. None of the joints are like a full-size Living Dead Doll, and the articulation scheme doesn't match either full-size classic body design. The cut of Lottie's legs means she sits with her legs together very tidily, something full-size classic LDDs cannot do. Here's a pose.

Little Lottie has more articulation than her original Series 3 counterpart, and sits more politely than any classic Living Dead Doll, making this tiny toy better for posing than the big doll!

The body pieces are made of hard plastic, not vinyl.

Lottie's noose keychain features a lobster clasp tied to a noose of twine. I have no idea how it is meant to attach to the doll, however, because the loop is too small to even think of encircling the doll with in a secure way. 

So I decided to pop off her head. I heated it up to reveal a massive neck peg that effectively fills the whole thing. 

That's not gonna work if I want to enjoy the noose gimmick, so I cut this big part off and managed to get a small screw into her neck that her head can pop onto and off of without heating. Enough of the neck part below remained to stabilize her head back in the swivel. I can still pull Lottie's head up a bit too much, but I can push it back down to a stable place, and I got the peg close enough to the bottom of her head that her head won't pop away and flop too far when she's hanged. Now she's got a means to attach her noose, without this attachment falling apart. Lottie's head can get dislocated, but it's not going to fall off. She'll stay strung up.

...and guess who learned too late how nooses work?

All I needed to do was tug on one side of the loop to pull the length through the knot and widen it enough to slip over Lottie's head, whereupon I can perform the task of retightening it. That has a wonderfully grim realism to it that really makes you feel like you are murdering your little doll! (But remember: they love it.) 

Look, the only fancy knots I've ever learned to tie were for rock climbing in gym class. I was a spooky kid, but not an edgy one, so I'd never handled a noose knot before. It is trickier, though, to loosen the noose and take the doll off once it's around her neck, so in that regard, I'm a little glad I swapped the neck attachment so she can pop off. Tweezers might be recommended for removing the noose so you can grip the line properly.

I later got Lottie's neck tightened by getting the screw in lower, so her head no longer dislocates so badly. She's all good to use the noose as intended now, and I know to spare myself the grief on any future LDD Minis, if I get any. 

The noose also came in handy to hang the teaspoon on my cover photo for Agatha's post when I decided the composition needed something coming down from the top!

Soaking in bleach cleaned the coat up completely, but it made no change to the body stains after a long soak. Remove-Zit didn't seem to be acting on the head stains, either, so I resigned myself to those remaining. Not a huge problem. I also trimmed Lottie's hair a bit more to the right length, though its volume is inherently a bit large due to the proportions of rooting to head size. 

I also added pink tissue to her coffin to bring it closer to the big dolls. It's just kind of scrunched up inside, but it works.

Lottie is currently the smallest articulated doll I have with rooted hair and fabric clothing, and there is something to marvel at with her. She's literally pocket-sized and she feels so fancy for how small she is. She does tempt me toward seeking more Minis, especially those Dickens dolls. And I may just need a Mini Sadie. 

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Story, part 2

Lottie wasn't sure how to feel about what had just arrived on her doorstop. Especially not after discovering a letter in that box which looked awfully like a coffin.

"Dear Lottie,

Thank you so much for answering our call for a babysitter. Nobody has yet responded to us. 

Our little girl is named Lottie too, and she will be delighted to join you. She's been dying to have a lovely babysitter to take care of her. Don't let her get into too much trouble, and thanks again for your help. 

We will be picking Lottie up tomorrow morning. Take her back to where she arrived and close the door. By the count of three she will be back with us."

That all seemed awfully peculiar, and Lottie was having trouble believing anybody from the neighborhood had dropped the little girl off. In fact, she was suspecting the magic she had looked at wasn't so nice.

The girl herself was also very odd.

She was very pale and looked ill or grimy. She smelled like wet soil. 

And she didn't blink. 

The older Lottie made awkward greetings. 

"Hello? Your name is Lottie?"

"And yours!" cackled the tot, pointing at Lottie with an over-wide grin. 

"...Yes, that's right."

Lottie couldn't help but feel it was a bad thing her name was already known to these...whoever they were. 

Still, she decided to be pleasant and sat little Lottie on the couch. 

She rummaged for some cookies, but could only find some months out of date, having been made for Halloween. The older Lottie wouldn't eat them herself, but she had the feeling the little one would like them...and that she probably couldn't be done any harm from them. 

Little Lottie's bottomless eyes seemed to shine when she saw the plate.

"Yummy, yummy, yummy, made of tasty mummy!"

Well, they were about as dry as one. But big Lottie decided not to correct her. 

She went to see about something to drink.

With my luck, she'll want window cleaner...

Lottie wasn't sure about the offerings, so she went back to the living room. 

And screamed.

"AAAAAAAAAAAA-!"

Where did she get that-

Lottie crawled closer to the sofa. She was looking at the only thing worse than a headless toddler--a headless toddler who was still moving. 

The body continued to shuffle through the upside-down book, page by page. As she crept closer, Lottie couldn't stop herself from thinking it: At least she can't read any of those magic words aloud.

Lottie was shaking as she approached. She held out her hand, and she felt like she was going to be sick. 

The book pages flipped. Lottie hovered her hand above the collar and--eugh, no. No, her head was not pulled down inside the coat somehow.

Then she heard a giggle.

"Heeeheheee!"
"No, it can't be."

But by now, she knew it could be, and she crawled up to the cabinet under the grandfather clock. She knew what she'd see, but she still didn't want to.

"Hide and seek, you found me!"

This was too much.

Earlier in her book, Lottie had read about the kind of thing you could do in this situation.

Somehow, she doubted it would work, though...and she didn't really like the idea of that in her backyard.

Instead, she raced for the phone and dialed emergency services.

"Hello, yes, I'm babysitting, and I don't know the little girl, and I think she might be a zombie-"
"Bear!"

"Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!"

"...an evil zombie."

[No expensive collector-dolls' teddy bears were harmed in the making of this post. Cotton balls were used.]

The operator gently told Lottie she was having a bad dream and that she needed to rest and not call again unless something was really happening.

So Lottie dragged Lottie up to her bedroom and secured the tot while she frantically searched online.

Search: help i am babysitting a demon what to do???

"Whatcha looking???"
"Achkgh-  geez!"

Lottie groaned and gave up. She'd signed up to babysit, so she might as well try. 

She decided to take little Lottie for a bath to see if that would tidy her some. 

Little Lottie thought it was great fun running up to the tub and holding her head straight underwater, and it was a struggle pulling her out and putting her in properly.

Eventually she got the bath in order. The spots on the baby weren't changing.

"Bleach!"
*gasp* "Lottie, no! Where did you-
...actually, you know what, might as well."

The bleach didn't help, and the older Lottie felt horrible agreeing to it, but the baby was radiant, and seemed to suffer no ill effects. Big Lottie opened a window.

Lottie then threw little Lottie's coat in the wash, and decided to try out one of her large doll's dresses on the little girl while she waited for it.

"What do you think?"
"Heehehee....it's sunny...like you!"

[The dress is from Calico Critters' Pickleweed hedgehog family-the mom's.]

Lottie was a bit taken aback by how cheery the girl was. She had expected the dress to be too bright for the little girl. It almost sounded like the little one liked the dress because she liked her! Surely not.

Looking at her next to the wall, big Lottie had an idea.

"Look at this! I can measure you! Do you know-"
"Six feet! Six feet! Six feet!"
"No, that's-"
"Six feet! Six feet!"

Nothing Lottie could say would make little Lottie stop stomping, looking down, and asserting a measurement of six feet. She shuddered, knowing exactly what the tot was talking about, and put the tape measure away. Maybe an outdoor activity would be good. 

It was rather chilly outside. Little Lottie seemed thrilled.

"So, what would you like to do?"
"Swing!"
"Okay, there's a swing out back-"
"Rope swing!"

Lottie sighed and went to the garage, and found a rope. The toddler shivered with glee. And regular shivers too.

Lottie brought out the rope, which she tied to a low tree. 

"Okay, little one, you're gonna have to hold on real tight, and I'll be right next to you."

But before she could even move, the girl had tied herself in by the neck. At this point, Lottie was hardly surprised. She had walked herself into this one.

"WHEEE! Hahaha!"
*sigh* "...of course."

Lottie was very grateful for the tree cover around them so the neighbors wouldn't see. And she had to admit, she was having just a bit of fun watching the girl. As long as this was safe for her, right?

After a long day, Lottie took the little girl to bed. She didn't bother with boarding up the room. It would hardly make a difference. Still, she was anxious as she retired to the sofa, and brought that awful cleaver to defend herself.

She didn't have good dreams.

Deeper and deeper, she slid into nightmares.

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Of course I had to get the full-size Lottie. It was the right way to really analyze the Minis, and I liked the big doll on her own merits. This copy came mint.

The Series 3 packaging seems mostly identical to Series 1's style. The only major difference I saw was that it took very little time for the age rating to be bumped from "8 and up" to "15 and up"--already by Series 3, the new rating is in place, and LDD would wear that until the very recent reboot with the fancier dolls. Since I don't want any Series 2 dolls, I scoped out eBay photos of the dolls to check, and can confirm that S3 was where the change was made. Series 2 coffins still say "8 and up". 

There are no handle decorations on the sides of the Series 3 coffins, unlike the Minis Series 3 coffins.

The Series 3 chipboards maintain the art style introduced by Series 1. Series 5 would be the first series with a new chipboard style, and then this original style would come back with some modifications one last time for Series 8. Every other series has its own chipboard style.

Illustrated Lottie has lace cuffs, while the doll does not. Her cuffs match the trim of her collar and coat hem. I prefer the doll.

Her chipboard poem reads:

She comes with an umbrella

To help keep out the sun

Now that everything is dark

Her playtime has begun

I didn't find myself stumbling over this with an out-loud reading; the meter isn't perfect, but it reads aloud smoothly, and the third line is a deliberate and effective break in the pattern.

It was very smart of the designers to use the phrase "she comes with an umbrella" in the poem, since it's a selling point of the doll that she can't be presented with in-box, and the way it's written makes it clear they're advertising a feature of the toy you're looking at.

Lottie's unboxing was smooth, as well as the repacking. I'm pleased the tissue stayed in order.

Her death certificate is in the usual style. She died on February 11, 1963. 

Her poem says:

Lottie ate a pound of aspirin

That went straight to her head

She pretended they were sweets

Instead of treats for the dead.

The word "pretended" carries the distressing indication that she knew what she was doing. Given that she's a very childlike doll, that's extremely troubling. Her death date is also shared with Sylvia Plath, whose legacy has long been marked by and associated with her suicide, further indicating that Lottie didn't make a childish mistake. Since I'm fairly sensitive to the topic, I'm going to run with the least harrowing possible interpretation and say Lottie was just really morbid and twisted and thought death would be a fun experience. 

Here's a rewrite.

Lottie ate a pound of pills

That went straight to her head

She chose to play that they were treats

Not sweets to feed the dead.

Lottie's got leaning legs, which led to her doing a bit of a "Smooth Criminal" when standing up.

Lottie, are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay, Lottie?

She stands up better tilted back with a bit of a forward thrust, like my S1 Sadie.

Big big Lottie's hair is a mess, which was not surprising to me. I'd been aware of this doll's reputation for poor hair, but I was ready to face the challenge. I discovered it was very very thinly rooted, and of course, her bangs were thin and standing straight up.

It also seemed to be that black hair fiber I've seen on other dolls which tends to look a little bit ratty and disorderly. I don't know what it is, but I feel like the coloring has to be part of it because I've only observed it on black-haired dolls like Headmistress Bloodgood, Skelita, and Jackson. However, my Sadies have not had this issue, especially not S1 Sadie. Her hair is gorgeous.

Lottie's skin is a slightly yellowish white that matches the Mini, and her face has all the same details, but is more piercing and somber due to the full-size sculpt. The paint looks more textured with the smudging technique that debuted in Series 2, and the undereye crease lines are much subtler on Lottie at this scale.

The eyes are so haunting. From afar, the sclerae disappear so they look like black voids with pinprick glowing pupils, and the shading and colors make her gaze so intense. I could believe her seeing you with a terrifying focus, or contrarily, being so bugged-out on pills that she sees nothing at all.

Big Lottie's coat is obviously much like the Mini version, and seems to be the same materials. The buttons on the big coat are smooth, while the Mini uses buttons that thread through the front. The black trim had not seeped into the big coat with a violent purple color like on the Mini. I'm glad of that, very, but also not sure why.

And fortunately, Lottie's body had very little staining, and that also wasn't purple.

The coat is pretty inelastic, so it can be a little stiff and tricky sliding the sleeves back up her arms to re-dress her.

Lottie has a similar white sock and Mary Jane setup to Series 1 Sadie, but her socks look better-made, with a more defined roll at the top where the edge tucks inside.

Big Lottie comes with a parasol accessory, which is really very impressive--it folds with a canopy of black lace, and the handle looks like a spine with a skull knob. The handle is a very soft vinyl, which makes me slightly worried it could tear.

The parasol looks just a little wonky and spidery in a very charming way, almost like it was drawn by Edward Gorey. 

The piece stays open well, and while pulling it back down always makes me nervous, the ribs seem sturdy enough. You just have to pinch between them to slide the piece down.

The parasol has a loop on the handle to slide over her fingers, and this caused some frustration. As a Series 3 doll, Lottie's simpler swivel body limits her ability to hold the umbrella well. On her right hand like in the official LDD photo, Lottie's fingers are sculpted at an angle which pushes the umbrella to tilt, and the canopy is in the way of her head no matter how high she raises it. It works on her left hand, but the handle still has to be slid onto only her third and fourth fingers so it stays straight. To credit the toy, though, this does stay on pretty well. If you hold Lottie upright by the torso and don't flail her around, you can easily carry and move her while she holds the umbrella.

Her abysmal factory hair does not help the awkward elements of this display.

This was an accessory that really should have had a peg to put in her palms (which are pierced) rather than a handle to slide over her fingers. The pole also should have been longer. 

Later dolls with ball-jointed shoulders fare better with it. The hand sculpt still demands the awkward shoving onto the end fingers, but Agatha looks pretty good with it.

Perhaps a gripping-handed doll would fare even better with it, though then, of course, the umbrella couldn't be raised very high. Series 13's Morgana had a gripping hand for her umbrella. She also had the second-gen ball-joint body so she could hold the umbrella out of her way to her side, but not very high up if she wanted it to be held straight. Even so, it looks like the canopy gets in the way of her head because the pole is so short.

Official LDD photo of Morgana. Series 13 is based on bad luck, and Morgana represents the superstition about opening umbrellas indoors.

I think the best solution for Lottie would have been a palm peg, because then the umbrella could secure and it could be rotated to stay straight when you raised the doll's arm. A later release after engineering advancements in the brand could have benefited Lottie, but I think the LDD umbrellas also probably needed to be longer.

Lottie's Resurrection was also apparently released with a more modern vinyl-fabric umbrella at random, so only a select few of the limited copies had it. Res Lottie had a gripping hand, and had it regardless of whether her copy had the umbrella. I think this randomized umbrella gimmick would have also applied to the variant, since that doll has a gripping hand as well.

I took Lottie down to boil her hair aggressively, and eventually tied a cloth behind her head to press her hair down so I could get her bangs flatter, and that worked okay. They're still not very flat or orderly, but they fall in the right area. I had pulled a bit of hair forward to thicken the bangs a bit, and when the hair dried, I trimmed it a little because the way it was rooted, some overlong pieces were at the front of the hair when combed. 

We're not for a single second going to pretend that Lottie has good hair at all, but I made it work more like it was supposed to.

I also got the parasol okay in that arm, but notice how it tilts toward the camera.

The rooting is still absolutely tragic.

But hey, she looks proper now. I knew what I'd signed up for, so this is what I can do and she is very cute.

The hair still flies away and looks ratty. A fabric softener treatment seemed to help just a little bit, though.

Lottie shares an aesthetic niche and appeal with Series 1 Sadie--she's a 1960s kid who plausibly invokes the look of 1960s kids' dolls. As such, I'm very endeared to her in just the same way. Both dolls also happen to capture "simplistically spooky 1960s retro child who could have come from the Addams clan" in very different ways that I find fascinating.

However, Lottie is not necessarily a better doll than Sadie. While clear manufacturing advancements have occurred by Series 3 (that parasol, her coat and socks), there are still awkward and unsatisfying drawbacks to Lottie's construction that can't get by as well on being "charmingly formative" like Sadie's cheaper factors. A Series 1 doll can make cheapness cute because it's literally the first go, but Series 3 is a bit too late in the game to pass it off as "still learning" for me...or maybe I'm being a little uncharitable and am just more disappointed by Lottie's flaws because they hurt her more. Sadie proved you could root a darn good head of hair early in the brand. I'm certainly glad I got big Lottie and I think she's very sweet, but just know this is not the best-made doll. She and Faith both have had the most disappointing LDD hair for me--they're both too thinly rooted to cover the scalp, and the texture/fiber hasn't been great either.

Perhaps the most damning thing, though, is that I don't think it would be altogether ridiculous to make the claim that Minis Lottie is a better doll than S3 Lottie. While the Minis doll was badly stained in ways the full-size doll wasn't, Mini Lottie had better-manufactured hair at a much unlikelier scale, and her articulation is more versatile. A mini doll being pretty impressively made is great, but it's not right that the big doll should come out feeling lacking in comparison. Both dolls had problems I couldn't fully overcome, though--Mini Lottie's body was stained in a way I couldn't undo, and big Lottie's hair was always going to have limited improvement potential.

They do look really cool together, though.

The lobster clasp is tucked up big Lottie's sleeve to hide it!

Series 3 Lottie was jealous of Mini Lottie's noose, so I made one for her, too. Could be useful for any number of LDDs.

Now I'm seeing no reason the Oz Scarecrow's hood shouldn't have been tied by a noose. 

It is a little trickier to take off and might not have been a secure enough tie for the designers, but this would have worked. 

Here's how I'm setting the LDD Lotties up on my shelf.

As dolls, the LDD Lotties have their problems, but they're really solid characters.

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Story, part 3

When Lottie woke up from her nightmares, she expected to see a room turned upside down, and perhaps a few burning goats. Instead, all looked calm, and she felt something pressing on her back and nibbling very gently at her neck. 

"Wha-hey?"

"Mmgh...I love you, Lottie." 

The cold little child snuggled closer. Big Lottie was in awe. Softly, she rocked at the toddler's shoulders. Was this what she had been so scared of? She was so...sweet.

"Hey, hey, wake up."

"Oh...good night!" 

Big Lottie smiled.

"It's morning, little lots. What are you doing here?"

"You ran away from me, and I was sad. And I made you sad, like everybody. And...I don't know."

Lottie's heart melted all the rest of the way. This horrible creature was just a lonely child at the core.

"Oh, no, no...no, I..."

"I'm scary. I know."

"Well, yes, you are. But guess who can handle it?" She tickled the girl and she laughed.

"Hehehe. I had lots of fun." 

"I know. Let's get you dressed."

Lottie fetched little Lottie's coat from the wash, and set to make breakfast. She filled a bowl of cereal, and seeing the tot's eyes fixated on the rat poison, switched the cereal to a disposable Tupperware container, and shook some of that on top. 

The girl said it was her favorite breakfast ever. Big Lottie checked again to make sure the curtains had been drawn. 

Then, time came for her to go. Lottie lined the little one's coffin to make it more comfortable, then she saw the girl running up with the dress.

"Can I have it please?"
"Of course."

Little Lottie then got laid in and closed up. She spoke up.

"...I don't have to come back, you know. I get...called for one time."

Lottie looked at her with her hands on her hips.

"But what if I want you to come back?"

The girl looked stunned, and then broke into the least evil grin in the world. 

"Oh! Will you say it?"

Knowing she was promising to the powers that be, big Lottie nodded, smiled, and spoke.

"Lottie, you can come over anytime."

"Goodbye, little Lottie!"
"Bye-bye, big Lottie!"

*close*
"One, two, three."

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Call me sentimental, but I think it's the dolls' fault. They were so sweet that I couldn't make this a cruel story in the end. And setting that massive photo story up was so fun. Scouting house corners to create rooms to stage dollhouse furniture in, making a fake front hall for the door, and then staging everything--I was surprised by how much I got out of dolls with such limited articulation.

I got these dolls to investigate, but they also gave me quite a lot of cheer. Arklu Lottie swooped in on a very bad day to turn rain into something wonderful, and LDD Lottie makes me marvel at her tininess and detail, and her very cute morbid charm. I can't say for sure whether I'll ever want more than one Arklu Lottie, but the dolls are pretty sweet, and perfect for their age demographic. I find the articulation disappointing myself, but it's not needed for the toy she's trying to be. LDD Minis are dead and gone and small in number, so there's mercifully a smaller catalogue of them than standard LDD, but I can definitely see myself looking into a few more. They're very cute and pretty impressive, and could work as set dressing for another big project I have brewing--and that could be entirely a next-year thing, so don't hold your horses.

Big LDD Lottie was also a lot of fun to get, and I'm glad I did. Her hair is abysmal, yes, but it can be shaped into a better silhouette and the design is strong enough to play it off. She's very eerie and she's adorable. 

All of these Lotties were wonderful little acquisitions.

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Epilogue

*thunk*

*thunk*

*thunk*
"...yes?"

"I want a cookie please."
"Not without your body."