Loose Ends in the Deep End

Finally finishing Isabrella's project inspired me to stay on both of her themes--fish dolls and finding closure with projects in limbo.

Most of this post is about Gil Webber, and making something out of a RESTYLE ICONS project that wasn't quite.

Gillington "Gil" Webber was and probably still is my favorite boy doll from Monster High. He was one of two to receive a significant amount of body detailing (the other being Neighthan Rot) and he was always really striking and appealing to me. 

Gil is the freshwater son of river monsters and his narrative arc was really kind of a bummer. His main defining story was that he had racist parents who didn't want him dating the saltwater monster Lagoona. This led to continued issues in their relationship, and while the couple defied the will of the Webber parents and resolved to stay together, it was just kind of uncomfortable for that to be hanging over them with no real resolution. On the one hand, it's laudable for kids'/teen media to depict the struggle with bigoted older relatives and a drift in generational values. On the other hand, because Gil and Lagoona are still minors in school, their situation is really depressingly inescapable and has no exit for them. I'm glad that there was no attempt to redeem the perpetually-unseen Webbers because some bigots simply don't change and they were enough of a persistent problem for it to feel implausible that they would, but there was just this dark cloud over Gil and Lagoona that never went away. 

It's never explicit, but given how 

1. Lagoona and Gil are an allegory for a troubled interracial relationship, 

2. G1/G2 Lagoona is a pale blonde Aussie who seems to me to be White, and

3. Gil has frequent use of wave designs reminiscent of Japanese woodblock prints...

...Gil might be an Asian-coded character. If that's true, then his parents' bigotry could stem from them being first-generation immigrants desiring to maintain more insular and familiar social circles in a new country. Generational values can drift when kids of immigrants or other marginalized people feel more open to and/or safe in the broader culture they live in than their parents, and that can create conflict including the parents attempting to veto romantic relationships with people who aren't from the same background. Since G1 Lagoona doesn't seem to me to have non-White coding (some think she might be Polynesian or Aboriginal but I just don't see it myself with any aspect of her portrayal), it might be that the Webbers' bigotry isn't echoing that of a dominant culture, but rather, that of an insular minority in the culture at hand. Or maybe the writers never thought that far into it and I'm overanalyzing again.

Of course, if Gil is Asian-coded, then it's an unusual pairing with influences from a fictional South American monster and its tropical locale in Creature from the Black Lagoon. I don't know if G3 Gil is specifically ethnically coded, but it'd make sense for him to be South American in reference to the classic film, given how G3 Abbey's portrayal shifted to be more culturally accurate to her monster type's place of origin. 

I previously owned Dance Class Gil (I got the whole five-pack for him!) and Shriekwrecked Gil. I'd actually forgotten I owned the latter! Dance Class was gotten since he was available then and the set was on sale, and he had the bubble helmet. Shriekwrecked was gotten for some reason I don't remember. For this review, I wanted a Gil with the helmet, so I ended up getting a copy of his first release in the Skull Shores line. The doll had a pretty good outfit and the helmet, plus a boy stand. I'll never pass up the chance for a boy stand since they have unique clips for the boy body and are harder to come by. 

Here's Skull Shores Gil.

The doll stand was not what was originally paired with Gil (I believe it's actually signature Holt Hyde's) but it matches the graphic on his top pretty well and I think it's a wonderful poppy contrast against his teals and turquoises that gives me a lot of ideas about what to do with Gil. 

The first thing I noticed about Gil himself was that his legs were floppy and his pants were caught inside his hip. This could mean only one thing--he's my oldest MH doll since he has elastic hips!

I already discussed the pitfalls of elastic hip stringing in my musings on Cupid, but the basic historic issue was that elastic loosens over time and clothes can get sucked into the joints. Both proved true for Gil. And as a result, even though he's very nice, I decided to go ahead and order a Shriekwrecked Gil I liked in order to perform a body swap for this guy. More on why I chose that doll in particular soon.

But let's look at what we have. 

Gil is not fully amphibious like Lagoona, so he wears a water-tank helmet over his head to breathe while on land. 

I have no idea how this could ever practically work (how does it vacuum-seal around his head and gills without spilling everywhere? How does it get filled? How long can Gil use one helmet's worth of water?) but it's a fun goofy retro sci-fi visual. Cartoon Gil is broader-shouldered, and his helmet is more of a classic Mr. Freeze-esque dome, but doll Gil's helmet is more egg-shaped and tapered to work with his proportions. It reminds me a lot of the Martians' bubble helmets in Mars Attacks! 

I'm just saying...there's a nigh-perfect helmet already made if Mattel ever
decides a Martian trooper could fit into the Skullector line! (It wouldn't.)

The helmet is two halves that snap around his head and gills, with pegs and holes at the bottom holding it together. This helmet is pretty hard to pull apart, but it works. 

My old Gil had a helmet with a couple of flecks of brown something stuck inside the plastic, which was disappointing, but new old Gil's helmet is instead yellowed a bit from age. Oh well.

Not all Gil dolls had the bubble helmet. Dolls like his Wheel Love and Shriekwrecked releases instead shoved nose-covering swim goggles on, presumably to offer more outfit variety because designing things to work with a bubble is hard. But the swim masks felt far less plausible to me particularly since they had no interaction with the gills he actually breathes water through! What makes the goofy bubble helmet logical is the fact that the gills are enclosed by it. The swim masks would kill him! G3 Gil has small caps or tanks on his neck to cover and oxygenate his gills while his face is uncovered, which is a fair way to update the idea and reduce the impact on his costume while making the devices plausible.

G1 Gil's face and head sculpts are wonderful. He feels really beautiful, monstrous, and fishy in an attractive, alien way that does the water-monster concept better justice than most of the other very humanoid fish monsters in the brand. Gil is the monster that feels like the true tribute to Creature from the Black Lagoon despite objectively looking so little like the famous Gill-Man. I think it's partly the advantage of being a boy doll who can get away with not having rooted humanlike hair. 

But it also makes sense to me that Gil feels more classic-horror than Lagoona because he's the one whose monster type is shared. The Gill-Man in Black Lagoon was also a freshwater monster, not a sea monster--he hailed from the Amazon and used its river! This realization makes Gil's beachy warm getups make more sense to me, given that he's referencing a tropical monster. Rivers and hot weather are not mutually exclusive!

Gil's face is narrow and feels very intimidatingly beautiful, nonhuman and full of attitude. It's one of those faces that really shows the design ethos of Monster High. He has narrow eyes with pink irises, double-pointed eyebrows, and an arrow-shaped straight but flat nose with notches in the side.

Gil's water-monster hair takes the form of scales and a fin mimicking a shaved mohawk, just like Deuce used scales and snakes for the same. The assembly is very similar, though Gil's use of translucent plastics for his fins is very striking and I like the way the fin swoops over.

Gil has one of a few MH head sculpts to lack ears, and his was maybe the first of them. I believe he and Finnegan Wake are the only fish monsters in that group--the other earless dolls are skeletons and bugs. 

Gillington's neck obviously features two gills on each side, each done with translucent blue vinyl that looks great. It's also a handy feature for the helmet to contour around. It doesn't snap in place around them and has a fair bit of wiggle room, but the neck of the helmet does fit a little more snugly around the gills.

Gil's outfit is pretty simple. Because the doll has fins on his limbs and the webisode costume is fairly unpersonalized, Gil has never been released with his "signature" outfit in the cartoon--a MH varsity jacket and athletic pants that covered his limbs. Here, Gil debuts as a non-signature-style release in a simple tank top and waterproof shorts. I like the dab of red in his palette which closely matches the neon orange doll stand. It's a striking piece of color contrast that was immediately dropped from his palette thereafter. You could mine a more poppy sci-fi look out of Gil by leaning into neon red/orange contrast. This was my first impulse with restyling him.

The fishbone design on Gil's shirt is some kind of decal or appliqué and is peeling off a little. It's old!

Gil's shorts are teal and feature a wave on the left leg that seems to be riffing on Hokusai's famous Great Wave off Kanagawa. 

The shorts are a waterproof fabric that suggests Gil will be swimming in them (this was a beach line of dolls, after all). They're just elasticated and pull up and down his body easily. 

Gil's shoes are flip-flops with simulated toe straps. The doll's feet have no toe gap so the strap is just sculpted to suggest it fits between his toes.

In addition to not being required to have fiber hair, this is another one of the rare advantages the mainline boy dolls have--the luxury of being able to wear realistic flat shoes since their feet aren't on tiptoes!

Gil's body details continue. His torso, head, forearms, hands, and lower legs are unique sculpts--it's just the upper halves of his limbs that aren't. Gil is one of the most thoroughly custom-sculpted MH boys, right alongside Neighthan Rot. No MH boy was ever released with all-over unique sculpts, though.

The only details of Gil that can't be seen while he's dressed are on his torso. On the front, he has scales covering his upper chest. I'm certain this wasn't the intention, but given that the only other location of scale texture in Gil's sculpts is used to translate to a hairstyle, I can't escape the visual reading that Gil has the water-monster equivalent of chest hair! I don't really find that accidental visual to be offensive or bad, but it's super unusual, and I don't really see how, given the visual logic already established with this doll, that implication wasn't caught.  I wouldn't expect G3 Gil to have chest scales in this pattern in doll form.

The other detail is maybe my favorite-- Gil has a dorsal fin in his back. It's obviously very recessed and doesn't stick out because he needs to be able to wear tops, but it's really cool. I would hope a doll of G3 Gil would retain this feature.

Similar to Lagoona, Gil has translucent fins on all four lower limbs. Because Gil's body sculpts are larger than Lagoona's, all four fins on him are separate pieces of flexible vinyl, though like Lagoona, only the leg fins can be removed from his body for redressing purposes, and the different fins have different plugs to ensure they can only go in one side of the body in one orientation. Lagoona's removable leg fins were not flexible like Gil's. Gil's leg fins are on the back, while Lagoona's are on the sides. Gil's fins always restricted his wardrobe options so he never wore jackets or long pants. I want to see if I can make that happen, though. 

Gil's hands are still done the way Lagoona's arms and hands were--they're cast in translucent blue with most of the piece blocked out by skintone paint to create solid hands with translucent parts. 

Just like Lagoona, the hands have the same deficits--the paint is visibly more matte and is very vulnerable to abrasions that spoil the paint job and hurt the effect. Part of the reason I'm getting Shriekwrecked Gil for the body swap is that he and G2 Lagoona's hands were cast solid in the color of their skin. I didn't find the loss of the translucent webs to be an issue at all since the hand sculpt is still good and fishy and the solid color was a better choice for durability and longevity.

I also think the skinny G1 boy shape fits Gil better than any other character released with it. I completely find it appropriate on him as a lean swimmer and fish-man, and his face is otherworldly enough for the bizarre torso shaping not to jar on him.

The first wardrobe option I ordered for Gil was a polo shirt. I felt like his character could go a little more formal and preppy, going on the line of riverside picnics and such as something to make his theme more separate from other fish monsters. The only option that came close was Clawd Wolf's shirt from the "Pack of Trouble" Wolf sibling four-pack. 

Gil with Clawd's shirt.

I thought this piece was workable and I enjoyed the idea of exploring yellow for Gil, but when I received him and latched onto bringing out the neon orange instead, this doesn't work quite as well. Yellow was also used on Finnegan Wake, making it less worthwhile on Gil. The shirt isn't printed on the back, which is disappointing, and the claw marks aren't suited to Gil. 

So alteration commences.

Under the orange-pop theme I wanted, I wondered if that should carry to changing his eye color. Making the orange a part of him would integrate the color more and give him some retro pop, while making so the pink wasn't a color that appeared nowhere else. Gil's colors are very beautifully blue and moody, but I think making him more poppy would suit his scaritage and movie heritage much better because he's probably not actually from cold, dark waters. I figured I could also alter the Clawd shirt to change the yellow stripes to neon orange and fill in the claw marks on the black stripes so that imagery was removed. 

To get the right shade of reddish orange, I had to mix two neon paints-- pink and orange. 

Here's those things done!

The next development was the arrival of Shriekwrecked Gil. Poor boy needed breathing aid even at sea because it's the wrong kind of water for him, but this copy doesn't have the silly swimming goggles he came with or his swim bag. However, he traded those for the addition of the silver chain accessories from Porter Geiss's doll. It's a pretty keen restyle touch that matches his Shriekwrecked necklace and bracelet, and the chains, particularly the harness, give him the feel of a deep-sea diver. 

Here's my old Porter with those pieces. The harness had space to hook on his spray-paint cans, and the belt has links shaped like paint palettes.

Shriekwrecked Gil's most obvious diversion from G1 is the face printing. His eyes are wider, either in keeping with G2's general aesthetic or to make him feel fishier, and this Gil's eyes are printed a little too low, making his face have a very different and less compelling personality. Somehow his jaw feels a lot squarer.

G2 Gil is also a fair bit bluer. 

The Shriekwrecked outfit features the first return of red to Gil's palette after his first doll, though I now prefer the neon orange I latched onto from the Holt stand. His outfit is okay, but feels a little juvenile in its patterns. The bracelet cuff on his wrist is clever since it has an open slit up the side so it can rest around his arm fin and come off and on very easily. The fish hooks are a fun edgy motif for a fish monster to wear, and I don't recall if any of MH's fish monsters ever wore fish hooks in their previous outfits. 

Here you can also see Gil's one-color hands. The way I see it, they still look good and eliminate the poor longevity issue.

Shriekwrecked Gil's shoes are teal loafers with silver accents.

Rebodying the G1 head onto the G2 body was surprisingly difficult, because Mattel made the anchor peg much larger. The round disc that pops into the neck hole is huge compared to the G1 version, so it was difficult to take G2 Gil's head off and I really had to cut off a lot of the disc to squeeze it into G1 Gil's head. I had no such problem performing the head swaps with the G2 boy body for Deuce or Clawd--their shared G2 body sculpt did not have an enlarged neck-peg disc.

But here's the Gil rebodying done, with a setup I think looks good for a swim.

I had really wanted to try giving Gil a black jacket to totally cover his torso and blend his bubble helmet in more like he was wearing more of a containment suit, but I couldn't find anything suitable that fit him and the bubble. 

I did have a good idea with ordering Boo York Deuce's pants. They're vinyl and textured with scales for a snake theme, but I thought they'd easily translate as stylish fish pants. Gil can easily wear them if his leg fins are out.

I also ordered Dance Class Gil's shoes. I'm still partial to the whole Dance Class outfit, but there were no offerings of it without a third Gil I'd have to get.

While fiddling around my collection, I looked at Invisi Billy's hoodie, and thought it'd suit Gil well, so here's a look with that and the long pants.

Gil's arm fins get a little bit in the way, but the sleeves bunch up enough. The fins actually help a lot in telling me which way his elbows bend while his joints are covered! That's usually tricky for dolls with long sleeves, but with fins on the underside, you always know! 

I'm not using the hoodie for Billy at all, so this is Gil's now.

And here's a slightly more covered look with the black tank under the hoodie and the Dance Class sneakers.

The tank can be pulled up to make a seamless line between his helmet and clothes, but it likes to slide down a little and expose a sliver of his torso.

This was where I stopped for several months on end, and when I finally came back to Gil, I decided this was less of a RESTYLE ICONS project and more of a "I love Gil and here's what I put together" thing. So I scraped off the orange paint on the eyes because my grander plans with that weren't happening. I also now had Howliday Clawd's white mesh top, which I thought would be perfect for Gil, what with the net imagery and all. 

Clawd makes this piece look more goofy or bro-esque, suitable for a music video or club, while Gil's moody sharp face makes this look haughty and like something a model would wear! Both visuals are valid, but the two mansters' dolls have such different personalities.

The tank layers under the hoodie fine, and the bracelet can be brought back into this look.

The hoodie also works with the sandals and shorts.

And here's my restyled G1 mansters together. All three have been rebodied onto their lone G2 releases' frames, since I found each boy's G2 body to be an improvement in some way--Deuce and Clawd for a buffer build, and Gil for the solid-cast hands.

Then I decided to do a small photoshoot. I wanted to try a proper underwater photo this time, so I needed a vessel. Because I had nothing clear and tall enough to shoot the picture vertically, I opted for horizontal instead, taking on a slightly bigger challenge. I found a plastic bin, and I used thread tied around his neck and leg, duct-taped to the bottom, to hold him suspended underwater without floating to the surface. I had to tape him down while the bin was filled with water, and was impressed the duct tape worked. I'd never tried it in water before. I then added the last of my current supply of green dye powder to make the water cloudy and turn the frame into a watery green void so the tape and bin shape wouldn't be visible. I did this for Gilliana before, though it was purely atmospheric, not so pragmatic with her. A long as the water's not boiling, the dye won't take and is a harmless colorant for atmospheric shots. I also taped some fake plant stems to the sides and shone a light through the bin from the side above him.

Beginning setup.

You can spot the threads anchoring him in the photos, but that doesn't matter because they're beautiful.

Can you believe this is a tub flat on my floor in the basement?

With Gilliana's water-tank photos, I went for a hypersaturated sci-fi tone to the green water, but Gil's setup already naturally had less lighting contrast and he looks like a more relaxed, pensive doll, so I didn't boost the colors in editing and let the photos be moody and murky in that gorgeous green way. I find green waters so calming and mysterious and compelling. I want to just glide through... 

I forgot to put Gil's leg fins back in with the outfit I shot him underwater in, but it's not glaringly obvious. I found the fins afterward in storage, and was glad they were where I thought they were. It's been a long time since I seriously worked with Gil, and none of it let him be on display.

And speaking of Gilliana, reflecting on her faded dye again recently encouraged me to go about fixing her and put her case to rest. The only course was to make her body now match the way her head faded, which appeared to be stable now. Re-dyeing wasn't going to solve anything.

The sympathies I received re: this disaster have been much appreciated.

I just painted all of her body parts with a green that matched her new stable head color, and I tweaked the eye makeup and redid the dots I painted for better contrast with this new skintone.

Here's the old vs. new. Fortunately, Gilliana take 2 didn't require color changes anywhere else. 

I'll still always miss the original result with the gorgeous super-dark green. It was one of those accidental outcomes that was better than my intention...but my intention is alright, too. I think the more medium skintone of the newer doll feels a bit more faithful to the Gill-man icon, and I'm glad to have her back to be able to cite her against the confirmed but unrevealed Skullector doll of the classic monster coming out this year.

[EDIT: And what do you know, the Skullector doll has now been teased and it's releasing this week! Perfect timing! If I like her, I will have to buy her secondhand and inflated at the start of May because I won't be able to afford her at this moment.]

With more of her being painted this time, the color is less stable than it was before, especially on her soft vinyl hands...though I guess stability is relative because it's a question of whether abrasions or fading will damage the color. The arms and hands of Gilliana did not fade like her head did--MH heads seem to hold dye the worst, though the L.O.L. O.M.G. head did fine; it was just the legs of Novi that faded out.

Gilliana is my biggest teaching experience so far, so I'm glad I decided to try again with her. She represents too much to me for her to be given up. Through her, I learned doll dyeing, joint tightening, and neck surgery...and her final lesson was don't dye dolls and generally maybe stop trying to change their body colors. Everything I've learned from her was invaluable. 

I didn't put Gilliana through an elaborate photoshoot this time because her color is a little more fragile now, and I already did the best pictures possible with her first run. (I also didn't leave Gil's tank setup open for her because the doll suspension rigging was annoying and I didn't want to repeat it...but now I'm kicking myself realizing I could have also used the setup for dead green lake-girl LDD Faith! Another day, when I'm bored and have more dye powder!) But I did take a couple of pictures with her to get used to her new look and start embracing the doll I still have.

It does feel good to have her back, even with some changes in personality and palette. It would have been a waste not to rework her.

Here's the two dolls together. They're both themed on the Gill-man, but Gilliana conceded to the classic dynamic by playing the kidnapped lady this time. (Also, she didn't think she could pick Gil up.)

I'm happy with these two. Gil was pretty much just as good as he needed to be from the start, so little work was needed and while I don't consider the result to be a grand RESTYLE ICONS effort, I'm glad to have him more complete and ready to stand in my collection. Gil is a really cool doll. And Gilliana was rescued after an (admittedly, fabulous) result didn't hold up over time. 

Makes me wonder if I'd be willing to try a Dahlia v2 built entirely on a Catrine DeMew; no skin color changes needed. Having ears wouldn't be important to her concept and I could find her a better wig--I'd be fine losing the gloss effect. White vinyl ages and yellows, so that'd be a concern, and I'd also be interested in pieces that required less vulnerable repaints, but something to think about. No promises. 

Thus concludes fish month!