Fish Month Addendum: About That Skullector Gill-Ghoul....

Well, she's been revealed. And it's terrible timing for me, and I'm not smitten. However, she's certainly relevant to my work here, she's quite interesting, and I promised she'd be a topic, so let's have a short chat.

Mattel stock photo of the Skullector Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Back in December, I embarked on the project to do justice to Universal's Creature from the Black Lagoon in the absence of Mattel's fish-monsters really evoking the iconic green Gill-man. This was Gilliana Manuela Ribeiro, a journey and a half of a doll. 

I had decided to do this project before the Skullector doll was rumored, but I knew about it by the time I was working on Gilliana. That made me intrigued in the Skullector doll, more perhaps than I would have been had I not invested in the character with this project.

Gilliana's dye faded badly in her head, so just recently, I repainted her body to the new lighter tone so she could be displayed again.

It wasn't my ideal outcome, but I think I'm liking the new Gilliana more and more. She has her own merits to celebrate. 

The day I posted the second post dealing with Gilliana, the teaser for the Skullector doll came out, and she was revealed after. And I was not sure if I wanted her, so I asked for opinions, but I wasn't encouraged to take the plunge and I lean more toward it being a doll I can pass. But let's compare. 

Mattel's take on the Creature is female, like their Skullector Dracula. I don't think a single Skullector solo doll will ever be male if it's based on a male character. Dolls are female whenever possible in the industry. The only Skullector dudes have been in duo sets, and I've made reviews of both instances. I had been thinking of playing this doll as Gilliana's family, but I don't know if I want to change the gender of the Gill-man to make that story work. It's unfair that there was only one female Universal Monster, yes, but for my purposes, a female Creature doesn't serve me.

Mattel's Creature is low-contrast shades of medium green and lime which match the iconic monster's depictions outside of the black-and-white film, and she has red lips in keeping with the monster having pink fish lips. I think her colors are very pretty, but I'm suspecting her green skin tone is less saturated than the colors around it make it feel. It's still clearly more vibrant than Gilliana. She has shimmery skin, which feels right. 

The head sculpt and face paint are the biggest draws of Mattel's doll. 

The face has lots of texture, with a ridged nose, folds above the eyebrows, bumpy skin, and most prominently, large frilled gills on the side of the face. These all reflect the Gill-man well.

I was delighted to see that Mattel did the same thing I did and pronounced the wing of her corner lashes to evoke the shaped eye sockets of the monster! It was very validating to land on the same instinct as the official doll!

I'll venture to call the effect clearer on my faceup, though, since I dipped her lid more. 

The eye paint is much more detailed on the Mattel doll, with the wonderful orange-and-green irises and the almost Freak du Chic-esque dots underneath. 

I chose to give Gilliana two upward-pointing teeth, which I think the Mattel doll could have done. 

The big thing I know I did better is the hair. Why does the Gill-ghoul doll have long princess hair? In what way does that at all benefit the homage to the licensed character? This is a collector doll; there is no pressure for long hair here! I think using a choppy layered bob cut minimized the silhouette of the head in just the right way and made Gilliana align better, and the layered cut was a fun way to depict the gill imagery without a custom sculpt available. I tried sloppily editing the stock photo into a bob silhouette, while also taking off the fin tiara, and I think this is a massive improvement.

I actually don't hate the train on the costume this way--the hair and tiara are the biggest problems.

This would actually make her silhouette harmonious with the monster she's depicting, and it ages her enough to be Gilliana's mom or aunt. I think I could work with this and enjoy her--all it'd take would be the breaking of the "don't mess with collector dolls" taboo.

Mattel and I seem to have used very similar body sculpts for the Creature. I, of course, had no choice but to source from premade options, and I chose Lagoonafire, whose fused sculpt mixed Lagoona's fins with Jinafire Long's scaled, plated body. I would be pretty surprised if Mattel's Creature has an entirely bespoke body sculpt (with Jinafire, Viperine, Lagoonafire, and the CAM Gorgon, there are multiple premade G1 scaled/plated bodies to source from), but it's clear the forelimbs aren't Lagoonafire's on account of the fins being attached to bracers and boots, not the arms. The Creature certainly has new hand sculpts, with scales on the palms and wicked webbed claws.

Official Mattel detail shot.

I'm definitely curious about this body sculpt, and always happy to see new dolls with extensive body detail. The reason I'm suspecting most of her sculpts aren't new is that they clearly don't replicate the ridged plated limbs that are iconic to the Gill-man--the bracers and boots do instead. If the body was all new, I think the limbs would have had this texture, not the costume. 

[Actually, maybe Gigi Grant's plated sculpts could have been repurposed? She's not scaly and her genie-monster twist is to evoke scorpionid anatomy, but the Gill-man looks far more plated than scaled at a distance, so Mattel could have made the Creature smooth instead with Gigi's plated body plus the webbed hands. Heck, maybe I should have thought of Gigi's sculpts instead when making Gilliana! That's a potential revision to consider, though I won't do that before getting a proper Gigi as herself.]

The boots are odd, since they create the Creature's feet but aren't the Creature's actual feet, and the heels feel especially out of place and highlight the fact that they're fake feet. I think they might have looked better without the heels so the boots could be played as the real thing like the arm bracers can.

I can get behind the queenly look of the costume, to an extent, and the shaping does a great tribute to the plated body of the Gill-man, but it feels a bit too fantasy the way it is. She's supposed to be an Amazonian river monster, not a being of Atlantis! Mattel owns Masters of the Universe, and that's a big vibe I'm getting from her. She's like fish She-Ra, and that's not on. Without the tiara and long hair, she'd be right.

And that comes to my major roadblock--while I could probably get great results and have a wonderfully green and monstrous doll if I cut her hair, that's the kind of thing I'd be more likely to do if I got this doll at a deal...which is essentially impossible, for one, and for two, my April budget is such that I won't be able to make a purchase at launch, forcing me to eat a higher aftermarket price. If she dropped the first Friday of May? Sure, I'd be in and trying. Oh, well. This is not a "boo-hoo me" moment at all, and I still doubt I'd actually lock down a doll at launch anyway. But the timing of this release is thus essentially setting me up to pay extra for a doll I don't love, and that's not enticing.

I will continue to give this doll consideration because there's maybe something there, but if eBay is too inhospitable, I'll be more productive and strike one or two Living Dead Dolls items off my wishlist instead. If, by some miracle, somebody on the aftermarket sells this doll loose with her costume intact but no stand or box, at a sub-$90 price, then I'll go for that...but I'm not jumping at the opportunity to pay more than retail for her. I didn't keep Jack and Sally, and I don't want any future collector-doll purchases to feel less than worth it to me. Watch this space, because I'm still divided and you never know. But I might just make do with the Gill-monster I have history with. We've been through enough together that Gilliana truly means more to me. By no means would I call her a consolation prize or "the gill-ghoul at home".