Back For Seconds: Monster High G3 Skulltimate Secrets Garden Mysteries Venus McFlytrap by Mattel

...well, that didn't take long. 

I liked G3 Venus's first and third dolls so much that I decided to go in on the second one and give it a shot after all. 

Skulltimate Secrets Series 3 downsized the cast list of the doll line, going to just three dolls in a series, here being Twyla, Draculaura, and Venus. There were rumors of a store-exclusive Lagoona in this wave too, and it even looked like a leaked image of the set was out at one point, but that may have been a hoax altogether, or else Garden Mysteries Lagoona was cancelled outright before she even got a design. It's a shame, because there's a strong chance I'd have liked her. This doll line is gorgeous. 

Garden Mysteries lamentably continued the gimmicky toaster-like box design of Skulltimate Series 4, as well as the utterly useless "color lens hidden image" gimmick that existed solely to show you the pieces of the lever for the doll chute are inside the mystery bags, like, yeah, no duh. However, the dolls are beautiful, embracing a lush, classy fancy visual style with restrained colors and elegant fashion suiting the line's theme as a garden tea party. Well, you know that last part hooks me. 

All three Garden Mysteries dolls had potential. I didn't like the way Twyla's hair was tied at all, but her softer blue-tinted look was intriguing. 

Twyla's ponytails will very easily let down for a hairstyle change, so I'm not worried about that, and she has a haunted-house-shaped purse which is just irresistible.

I was instantly obsessed with Draculaura's red and burgundy theming here. It's so rich and velvety and such a fun step away from high-contrast pink and black. I told you Draculaura needed to try red more often!

I probably would have grabbed Draculaura alongside Venus if she was still on the shelf. I've let these dolls wait too long. Expect these two to also feature on the blog pretty soon, probably as a double feature. I haven't made purchases yet, but they're on my shortlist.

While I went on record in Series 4 Abbey's review saying that Venus's next G3 doll being in this Secrets format had the potential to be the only reason I'd buy another doll with this toaster box design, Venus was actually the doll I was least excited for here, all despite her signature release being one of my top G3 dolls. I saw what they were doing with the hair silhouette more directly copying G1, but I was leery about the mix of braids and straight hair and didn't really prefer this hair texture for the G3 character. She was still lush and gorgeous, though, and after reviewing Fearbook Venus and loving her too, I decided more would be merrier. Venus being in this line is well-suited thanks to the botanical theme, while Twyla suits teatime nicely. This Venus almost reminds me a tad of Gloom and Bloom, too...though Gloom and Bloom Venus wasn't actually one of her notable G1 editions in my book, while I think G3 garden-chic Venus is very pretty. Venus is also the doll of the trio who has the teapot, suggesting she may be the host of this gathering and a particular tea fan (it is plant-based, after all). If so, and if G3 Venus does have a passion for tea, I love her even more.

Here's the box in its cardboard sleeve.

The upshot of this series' toaster boxes is that the colors are prettier than the box palettes in Series 4, and Venus's pink and green are my favorite of them all. Venus's character portrait shows her in her dress, corset, and shirt layered together with her purse on her arm, and she's holding a doll-size version of the key for the box.

The back shows the three different Garden Mysteries dolls. I think the artist got Twyla wrong facially, though. That expression does not suit her.

All three dolls are depicted in the artwork with the same basic set of matching clothes-- black printed dress, corset, sheer shirt layered under the dress, net socks, short shoes, and purses. Skulltimate Secrets stock remains coordinated as ever.

Here's the sleeve off. Instructions taped to the front and key taped to the side like normal.

Here's the naked box. The core is pink, while the doors are medium green and the key and key hubs are lighter lime green. The Series 4 toasters had a beaded and bejeweled look to their molding, but here, the sculpts are floral and viney. Series 6, mercifully the last of the toaster concept, has star patterns for its Hollywood theme. Series 7's boxes are a third new design that has to be more practical than this.

I'm realizing now it's a shame the Skullette in the middle isn't placed so its empty eye sockets are over the doll's eyes.

The key has a red lens this time, landing on the opposite side of the red/blue hidden print dynamic, and the lens looks great with Venus's key. Twyla's lens is blue instead to match her color palette.

The instructions are the only place this stupid lens gimmick is used, yet again, and it's net-zero information again since the only thing you do is put the lens over the drawings in the instructions to see the shapes of the pieces of the lever for the toaster mechanism. This isn't helpful unless you were going to be confused about what those parts in the packets were...but the rest of the instructions then proceed to explain it very clearly. Finding the hidden images has zero purpose, and it's still not even a great color-isolation gimmick because the images are still fairly clear without the lens. The difference with the lens vs. without is at least greater and better than it was with Series 4 Abbey, though.

Not a meaningful addition to the experience.

The back side of the instructions inventories the parts and details the functions better. I do appreciate that these sheets have multiple illustrations of the dolls in different outfit configurations.

I opened the left door first. Again, unlike the first three series of Skulltimate Secrets, there's no directed sequence for unboxing and opening the packages, save for the doll coming last. It feels a little aimless this way.

The paper packets here are pale pink with a darker pink thorny vine pattern, which happens to be the design of Venus's shirt! I'm now expecting Drac and Twyla's packets to match their sheer tops as well.

The serial code on the end is pretty ugly.

The first package contained the hanger rod for the closet on this side of the box, Venus's teacup, her honey wand, her hangers, and the backboard of the toaster lever.

The other package on this side contained the purse, the doll waist grip that plugs into the heart-shaped holes on the box, and the base of the toaster lever.

Raiding the other half of the box, package 3 contained the alternate costume pieces--her green sandals, her skirt, her shirt, and her green top. 

The final package contained the teapot, the earrings, and the insert accent for the toaster-lever backboard.

Here's the lever all assembled. The base is green and leafy, the backboard is speckled like stone garden sculpture (they do this and still no G3 Rochelle?), while it's sculpted like woodgrain, vines, flowers and flytraps. The insert is a lime green flower with fanged lips in the middle. It's really fun and very Monster High.

As with Series 4, the insert piece on the backboard and the lever base part is the same mold for each doll. I only thought to check this time because the lips design looked far more "Draculaura" than "Venus" and I wanted to see if she had the same piece. Yep. All three dolls have the lip-flower and the same base lever, but the "backboards" are different as they were in Series 4.

Here's the lever plugged in and Venus popped up.

It's such a silly system. I hope the new Series 7 boxes are more practically focused and better for storage like the Series 1-3 cases were. I can't guess what makes them special, though, beyond their suitcase theme, and don't know what they're bringing new to the table. Maybe they hinge into two halves like a book? I'll take a boring old locker with decent storage. I don't need it too flashy.

Here's the plastic tray Venus was attached to. She comes packaged in her dress, corset, tights, and boots. 

Venus was only secured to the tray with a single tag in the back of her head. She pulled right out after that was cut, and just needed an elastic removed to let her hair loose. The bar that folds across the doll's torso to keep them in the box's doll chute when reloading it is under the doll in the tray like usual.

Here's the three Venuses in line at the start.

Signature has the only use of denim blue in her G3 repertoire so far, and while I like more dramatic colors too, I hope blue denim comes back for Venus in later dolls because it deserves more exploration. Sig also has the most punk theming with her hairstyle, ripped clothes and silver jewelry. Punk Venus deserves more exploration too. Fearbook struck me as darker and more refined with her emphasis on black, muted pink, and the exploration of red and orange tones. Garden Mysteries feels very much like "the pink one" and the most feminine of the three, though she has plenty of dramatic black of her own and I'm up for a fancy elegant Venus. One of my favorite pieces in her G1 wardrobe was her big-skirted checked dress (debuted as a webisode-only Dot Dead Gorgeous gown for an edition that didn't exist, then got made for real in the I Love Fashion line).

I know some people don't like how saturated G3 Venus is, but I'm all about it. G1's colors were good, but something about the increased vibrancy of G3 with her G3-green skintone just sings for me.

Venus's hair is a more direct recreation of her G1 signature hairstyle than her G3 signature's hair, as most of it is loose and straight(ened) with some microbraids across the top like those seen on signature G3 Catty or Skulltimate S4 Clawdeen. The braids are flatter and thinner than the type used on signature Venus, and match sig Catty and S4 Clawdeen's type instead. The braids are also straight to match the rest of the hair.

The majority of the hair is Venus's typical pink, while medium green streaks are mixed in (something shared by her Fearbook doll but not her signature, nor most G1 editions of Venus) and the braids are all pale lime green mixed with mint, a color not elsewhere in Venus dolls nor this doll. It's subtle but very effective. I love the pale lime color on Venus, and her hair streaks being this color on her G1 Fangtastic Fitness doll makes one of the reasons I like that edition so much and would pick it as a base for restyling the G1 character. (The other reason is that the doll is one of her saran-rooted editions.) The pale lime color matches G1 Venus's skintone, so its use on the Fangtastic Fitness doll made it blend with her face in a fun way, similar to how G3 sig Venus's green braids match her skin.

The braids all laid across the top of the hairstyle are very striking and dramatic, but my concerns about them weren't founded on nothing.

Like Catty's, these braids are not sealed, and while they're tight enough to pass through the wide teeth of a typical comb, finer teeth will snag them, and there was some unraveling at the ends of a couple of braids. Thus, it's hard to tidy this doll's hair because the loose hair and the braided hair call for different approaches and neither can be fully handled the way that's best because hand-arranging the braids disturbs the loose hair and trying to comb the loose hair can mess up the braids. There's also the annoying thing of trying to keep the braids in line without crossing over each other, and the directly frontmost braid is hard to keep on top of the hair rather than falling loose in front of Venus's face. There's also the fact that this is poly hair and feels less nice, and I'd have loved a longer more even-length haircut. It reminds me a bit of the hair on Music Festival Venus, the only G1 edition I've owned (at time of writing). Music Festival's hair was the same shape (no braids, of course) and a similar length and was rooted with kanekalon...which is not necessarily a better fiber than polypropylene, in my experience.

Creeproduction G1 Venus is almost certain to use poly because kanekalon isn't used anymore and all former kanekalon dolls from G1 have been Creepro'd with polypropylene. This doll's hair doesn't make me excited for that. Can the right colors really not be achieved with a nicer fiber than either poly or kanekalon?

With my Garden Mysteries Venus, the braiding machine evidently grabbed the wrong lock of hair at one point, and snarled and fried a pink section really badly.

This hair lock is outright damaged. I was forced to cut this piece out and fortunately it doesn't show, but that's disappointing. 

Stylistically, I don't really find this hairstyle as appealing as the looks on G3 Venus's other dolls. I think it would be more hair-play friendly if it was entirely braided in this style, since it would be only one texture and easier to tidy. I've seen that the signature doll's braids can boil straight to form the G1 silhouette while keeping the braided texture, and that's what I'd personally prefer if Mattel wanted to push the hair closer to the G1 look. The hairstyle is fine, though, and she looks good when it's arranged right. If the change in hair texture is objectionable, I'm certainly not qualified to be the objector so I won't make any claim to there being a problem myself. This could very well be a value-neutral foray into a straightened hair texture. Venus's other two dolls so far, with one of those following this doll, demonstrate full natural textures in a way that doesn't get me worried about the optics here, and Venus would be entirely within her personal rights to wear her hair this way if she were a real person. It's also kept clear that Venus is still wearing a Black hairstyle thanks to her braids, cornrows, and baby hairs, so it's not like Mattel totally switched to a fully straightened "White hair" look. I think the designers are being mindful of that, especially since this was Venus's second impression forming a pattern for the character's depiction and fully switching up like that could look bad. 

Venus is also a fantasy nonhuman example of Black character design, so her hair texture helps to make her representation intent absolutely clear. Her fantasy green skin, while dark enough, isn't a color that would often be the first signifier of Blackness on a human, and her face sculpt might be overlooked by some viewers, so if G3 Venus didn't have textured hair elements, I wouldn't be surprised to see certain audiences with passively racist blinders on failing to realize or to acknowledge that G3 Venus is Black. It took a live-action film adaptation for many people to realize Rue in The Hunger Games was Black, despite her being clearly described as dark-skinned in the book, so I can respect efforts to directly combat the insidious illogical bias to read any given character as White. Textured hair is kind of the clincher against any perceived vagueness or deniability in a Black-coded fantasy character's design, and it's effective as well as looking nice. I'm not saying G3 Venus should theoretically never ever have fully relaxed smooth-texture hair, though, so long as that doesn't become her dominant depiction. I trust that Mattel won't let that happen because they seem to understand how that'd come across, and the designers seem to genuinely enjoy the textured hair work with the character. 

All design thoughts aside, though, the other two G3 Venuses' hair is simply better executed. Signature and Fearbook have some very effective hair rendering that suits the design intent really well. Poly hair with an uneven haircut and a fried hair tangle don't impress me, and mix of textures that's hard to tidy is frustrating for a hair-play fashion doll.

As mentioned, Venus again uses the character's head-mold variant with braided-down cornrows sculpted on the side, which explains her asymmetrical hair volume and takes the place where a buzzed shave was usually found on G1. Because G1 Venus used flocked patches applied on her head instead of sculpting, she had only one head mold and had a lot of flexibility as to her rooting patterns and where her hair shave was. Most of her dolls were "shaved" in the same spot as G3, but I Love Fashion was "shaved" on the opposite side, Gloom and Bloom had an undercut shave, Fierce Rockers (my least favorite Venus ever) was shaved on both sides with hair rooted in the middle top, and maybe the newest collector G1 Venus with that awful denim leotard is her first fully-rooted doll? I'm not sure about that last one since I haven't seen her head in 360 degrees. G3 Venus is kind of locked to only this placement of hair asymmetry, and to the explanation for the asymmetry being cornrows, if she doesn't get any additional new mold variants to switch where her hair is volume-controlled, or why. If G3 brought back flocking, though, her Fearbook-debuted no-cornrows full-rooting head mold could take advantage of that for different shave-shaped styles. Mattel seems pretty pointed about not replicating flocking on their current playline offerings, though, and I understand the durability concerns behind such a choice. Flocking is vulnerable to abrasion and saturation and can rub off.

Garden Mysteries' cornrows and baby hairs are a little duller and more faded-looking than the pink hair paint on signature or Fearbook, and of the two dolls with cornrows, signature's are painted more precisely. I'm glad Fearbook got back to bolder paint, but I'm sad this one is weaker, especially because the right profile of this doll with the pink linear cornrows and green linear long braids is so striking.

Garden Mysteries on the left.

Weak paint or no, Garden Mysteries Venus has my favorite baby-hairs design for the character, since they're shaped more like plant stalks and leaves here in a fun fantasy style. The other two G3 Venuses have hair-shaped baby hairs which are totally acceptable and appreciated, but less fantastical. My basic thesis for Venus is "the more vines on her body, the better." I'd want Zombie Shake's faceup to be her G1 baseline! 

It's not Zombie Shake, but Garden Mysteries Venus has a fun botanical makeup design, with lots of pink under the eye and flowers at the corners of her eyes. This feels like a more "Gloom and Bloom" faceup than actual Gloom and Bloom Venus had! The eyeshadow above is dark green with a little lime, and her lips and part of her eyeshadow are primary red, which isn't a recurring shade for this doll but suits her colors fine. There's no yellow in this makeup, which is fine. While I love Venus in yellows and am intrigued by orange in her Fearbook doll, I can respect an edition that's all green and pink. This edition's eyes are more brown like signature instead of more golden like Fearbook.

The three faces together all have different effects. Signature's makeup emphasizes the space above the eye while Garden Mysteries' emphasizes the space under the eye. Fearbook has dark lips, but brighter-looking alert eyes. Signature and Garden Mysteries have more relaxed eye expressions from their makeup.

Garden Mysteries Venus's earrings are an anytime piece, so I added them in at this point. They're translucent dark green and kind of look like lanterns, but I think they're meant to be hanging planters with a large hibiscus-like flower filling the top. The two earrings are a symmetrical matched pair.

Venus's out-of-box costume is a black printed halter dress and a vinyl corset. Similar pieces are used on all three dolls in this series, and all of them will have been packaged in the equivalent costume elements. 

As far as plastic costume elements go, using them for corsets is pretty logical and inoffensive. I rankled at the pieces of the Series 4 dolls, finding the plastic breastplates to veer too close to G2 molded-on costume pitfalls, but this feels sensible since a corset is best depicted in this scale in this manner, and enhances the outfit more than looking intrusive. Venus's corset is pink with lime green lacing painted on, and it closes in back with a pin but has two holes letting it close tighter or looser. It's pretty snug as it is on the hole at the end, the "loose" setting, so I can't see why it would need to be tightened. It's not even the case that the corset sculpt is shared across Series 5 and needed to be designed with Draculaura's body type in mind. Drac has her own corset mold.

It's kind of hard to close the corset up again because the flexible material makes the pin bend rather than popping through the holes. I trimmed the top of it to make it easier, but a slightly more rigid corset material would be easier to use. 

Venus wearing the corset does not prevent her from fitting into the waist-grip clip that turns the box into a doll stand. Good.

The dress underneath is black with what looks like edited solarized photography of flytraps and other plants forming the print in shades of pink, orange, and lime. 

The orange tints aren't enough to tip this doll's palette out of pink, green, and black, though. It's not like Fearbook's palette.

The dress is really fun. It closes with velcro on the neck strap, and also all the way down the back of the dress. I don't know why it doesn't velcro partially and slide down the legs. Having it open all the way down the back makes it easier maybe, but I might actually prefer if it was partially closed in back. Trying to widen Venus's stance threatens to open the velcro the way this is, and it might be easier to fiddle her dress closed if her body had to slide into it first.

Under her dress, Venus is wearing black mesh tights with a dotted pattern. These don't enclose her feet, stopping at the ankles, and I don't know why. They'd be better as footie pieces. G3 is allergic to footie legwear, I swear.

All of the Garden Mysteries ghouls have socks in this material, but Venus has the tallest pieces. Drac and Twyla have separate shorter sock pieces rather than tights. These are pretty, but Venus's legs are yet again obscured by her costume when her coolest body detail is there! 

The tights are illustrated on the instruction sheet with a diamond lattice pattern, which would be very effective for the garden theme of the series, invoking a climbing trellis. A lattice-patterned top is the third reason I want Fangtastic Fitness G1 Venus. The real tights have this spotted pattern inside, which is still fine.

I think the boots here are really interesting. They're black short boots with heel cutouts at the back, silver zippers down the sides, and vine and spike texture...and the heeled platforms are themed as a subway tunnel with vines growing in it. Seriously:

The sides have "STATION" plaques on them.

Don't wear these boots if your name is Achilles.

The soles make it even more direct, being molded with train rails and arrows and signs pointing "UPTOWN" and "DOWNTOWN". 

I think the implication here is that the shoes depict a ubiquitously manmade city fixture being overrun by plants as a message about how nature will reclaim the earth even as we try to take up its space. That's such a cool abstract message for a shoe design, and it's very eco-punk. The pink paint isn't perfect, but should it even be? 

This might be one of my favorite MH shoe concepts. They look modern and plausible and cool, suit Venus really well, and have a poignant visual story. It helps that they cover up the end of her tights, too.

Here's the pieces of the alternate costume--the sheer top matching the paper packets, a green sleeveless top, a skirt, and the tall sandals. Each GM doll has equivalent pieces of these types.

The sheer top is cropped the same way as Fearbook's shirt and has a metallic thorn design, while the skirt is awfully plush-feeling thanks to velour fabric. I don't think that's been seen in Monster High before, and outside Garden Mysteries, I couldn't name a single playline Mattel doll from the last 20 years wearing velour if you asked me to. The skirt is pink with pale lime bows on the front and a cut with notched panels. I think these pieces look great together just on their own for a poppy pink look.

I don't think the top is intended to be worn alone because it's sheer enough that it would be indecent on a more anatomically realistic torso, but it looks really good if we allow it to be seen as opaque enough. The skirt is really nice, but it opens all the way down the back, making it a little bulkier than it needs to be, and there's also no internal strap sewn in to prevent it from riding up, so it's really hard to keep it in place. Ugh.

The green top is quite dark emerald teal, with black ribbon straps and black lace trim. It hangs longer on the torso than I expected it to...and I just could not get this piece to work with anything. 

The green color is too dark or too blue to coordinate with the rest of Venus, the cut is too long to layer over pieces well--a cropped length would make it a decent bustier--and the solid color comes off as flat and a dead spot in the design. I think it's a pretty piece, but it would not cooperate with Venus's stock to make something that appealed to me. This combo above looked fine in the stock photos, but I didn't feel it at all trying it in-hand. 

The green sandals are mostly plants with a high platform and tall straps made of vine stalks, and pink flowers adorn the toe straps. This green color also feels slightly disconnected from Venus's other greens, but not so badly it doesn't match her.

The tights don't go with them, though.

I tried the outfit with just the top, skirt, and sandals for a lighter, simpler look, but that top just isn't working for me. Maybe with a different shade, but it's just not right.

Layering the shirt under the dress, however, is directly encouraged and looks really good.

You can layer the top over the dress and the shirt, and then it all falls apart again.

The corset over the dress and shirt is also recommended and looks good, but I think the look calls for the boots and/or tights again because the sandals and no tights makes her lower half too faint.

Venus works really well even with just the boots and dress alone for a sleek chic look.

I tried layer everything except the dress and boots onto Venus, with the corset covering up half of the top. This is kind of going somewhere for the green top, but it wasn't better than just not using it at all.

I finally found the combination that flattered the top by returning to the top and skirt with no shirt or dress, but switching to the boots, which balanced the black out well. 

It works fine with the corset, too.

So this tank piece isn't an absolute flop, but its flattering applications are extremely limited and all of the looks I really enjoyed from this doll had nothing to do with it.

I do love Skulltimate Secrets' layering game, though. The different styles of tops and dresses being able to stack on each other is an intelligent way to use the mix-and-match feature and I don't recall anything like it from G1, where the equivalent I Love Fashion assortment sets had far more mutually-exclusive pieces that swapped out with each other rather than stacking.

Here's what Venus looks like in the signature doll's stock.

It's a good look that increases the G1 homage even more, but I think Mattel was correct to introduce us to G3 Venus with wavy all-braided hair texture, and I love signature the way she is.

I like Venus's first G3 purse!

It's a chunky hard plastic cast in pale lime, and has fancy pattern printing on the front as well as a black panel and lacing and a green bow that makes it look elaborate. The strap is spiky and the back has a sculpted zipper pocket.

The bag opens on a folded plastic hinge and has a small bump clasp on top, but easily opens by prying from the sides.

Venus comes with her teacup, and the party's teapot. Again--her being the bearer of tea means she and I would be very compatible as friends.

The Garden Mysteries cups all have plantlike forms coming from them, and I'm not sure if it's meant to reflect steam or aroma forming stylistic plant shapes, or if it's splashing tea in plant shapes, or if it's actual plants being planted in the teacups and this is a garden activity Venus has arranged for the ghouls. Venus's cup is pink and has a petal texture on the bottom with spikes on the handle, and the saucer is molded on, which is awkward for trying to pose her holding it. The insert in the top is pale lime for her cup and does not come out. 

The teapot is cast in translucent green that fades to translucent red and reminds me of a gummy candy, but also evokes certain plants. It's not sculpted as a pitcher plant (how awesome would that be???) but the colors work for a botanical theme. The base of the pot is shaped like a leaf, though that could be a trivet it's resting on too. The body is scalloped like petals while the spout is twisted and the handle is thorny. The lid is solid pink and shaped like a flower bloom facing down, while the crest on the top might include a microscopic Skullette on the side.

This might be more of a fruit-tea summer teapot than one that would serve black tea.

It's not defined, but I'm sure there's a Skullette here.

The lid comes out, revealing dangling plants inside the pot which may be the infusion creating the tea. Definitely not a black leaf tea if so. Call me insufferable, but I think black tea is a qualifier in calling it the gathering a tea party specifically. Fruit or floral teas lean me toward calling it a garden party that includes a kind of tea in my mind. Still tasty, though, and rules aren't real, so you can absolutely disregard that thought!

Venus can shove her fingers into the teacup handle fine, but the pot handle is too wide for her hands to brace against. She needs to slide one hand into the loop and then have the other hand between the spout and the body to hold the teapot, though this would be dangerous if it's hot tea she's steeped.

Venus also has a little honey wand cast in pearl gold with a drip of honey coming off. This is a cute piece, but she has no honey jar to dip it from. 

Venus using honey as her tea sweetener scans well. The wand fits inside her purse if you want to use its storage for something. 

I took Venus out to the garden. I also put her in the leafy mint collar and a cut-off vine wrap from some Inner Monster pieces I had, playing off the mint in her braids for a fancier look. She's wearing the thinner G3 sig Jinafire bracelet too.

I used some log blocks, fake flowers, and other G3 food accessories to set a little tea table in a lush environment.

There's a risk to having a tea party outside, though--you might get an unwanted guest!

Venus was nonetheless happy to pour a cup. 

I also took a picture I should have taken for Teddy's review, showing him alone with his tea in nature.

Here's some pictures with Venus around the garden, including her redressed to her "all pink" look, which isn't indecent as long as I say it isn't.

Here's some glam shots of the look against flat color.

I then set up a corner to stage a dressing room for Venus, using the box as her closet and putting in a table and chair. I got a few shots I liked, but the one with pink lighting was the best in tune with this Venus's unique aesthetic qualities, so that became the cover.

Here she is after getting dressed up.

Then I put her with her tea things next to my modified G3 Chewlian, since I needed to photograph her with the honey wand.

Here's some more portraits.

The look I ended on was the previous photo, just without the tights so the leg sculpting could shine more. I needed a Venus whose vine detail was showcased! Here's my Venus trio how I like them.

Garden Mysteries really is a worthy exploration in character design. She takes to fancy patterning and elegance really well, and this hairstyle looks good even if it's the poorest quality of the three. This is a really pretty doll, and does "fancy Venus" better than some previous editions across the brand generations. I'm excited about the other Garden Mysteries dolls, too...and they kind of make me want to track down and reacquire Amanita's second doll too. Scream and Sugar Amanita is obviously a G1 doll (delayed into G2, released unmodified) and isn't designed to the formula of Garden Mysteries, but her formal look with elbow gloves, muffin heels, and a prim dress would suit these dolls well. I loved that Amanita and maybe it's time to get her back. So many things to think about!

Garden Mysteries Venus isn't perfect. Her hair is polypropylene and the loose/braids mix makes it hard to get in order, plus my copy had a messed-up lock of hair from the factory. Speaking practically, a fully-braided rendition of this hair silhouette would be just as good, and probably easier to tidy, than this awkward mix of textures. The paint for her non-fiber pink hair details also is too flat and dull compared to the other two Venus dolls. The toaster boxes for Skulltimate Secrets and the lens gimmick are still jokes and poor ideas. I found the green top very difficult to make look good as a fashion piece for Venus, and the tights not covering her feet made them look bad with the sandal shoes. With the right combinations, she's gorgeous, but her fashions have limitations that are frustrating. 

I do think this is a good Venus doll, and I honestly wonder if a bad G3 Venus is even possible at this rate. At least one further doll for her has been announced, so we'll have to see! Garden Mysteries has her own identity with lush pinks and formal attire, and anybody who brings the teapot to the party is someone I want to be friends with. I'm very happy with Venus's G3 run and success and there are still no singular favorites among her editions. She's just that good.