When given the opportunity to get Creeproduction Venus, I said yes. She has enough bright spots to be worth reviewing. I also took this as my opportunity to catch up on the G3 character, who has given me no reason to pass on her yet.
My only G1 Venus doll in my original collection was her Music Festival edition, which was the most accessible basic Venus for me at that time.
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| My earliest MH dolls--not a single one is still in my collection as these photographed copies, though I've replaced all of these but Venus since. |
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| Closeup of Music Festival without the pink shirt layer. |
Music Festival was years off the shelves everywhere but Walgreens at that point in time! Walgreens, regardless of location, was a weirdly reliable spot to find years-old slim-box G1 dolls. Music Festival's hair was similar to signature, but pinker and much shorter.
I never connected massively with G1 Venus. Her punk look was cool, but most of her basic clothing failed to stand out or connect to me. And while alternative people are actually often some of the most kind and welcoming folks around, I did find myself wishing Venus's actual personality in the cartoon had the amount of bite that her look did. She has a few shades of DC Comics' Poison Ivy with her colors and some persuasive pollen powers, though she's not depicted as slinging vines around or anything.
Her kanekalon hair on most editions was also discouraging, and her body detail felt underbaked as G1 went on, with minimal flair and illegibly textured hands that were visually confusing. I admired some of G1 Venus's fashion departures like the moodier Zombie Shake version with "infected veins" vine face paint pumping up her plant theme:
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| Also one of my favorite Rochelle base dolls. It's her spookiest look! |
I also love the more metropolitan-chic I ♡ Fashion doll with her checkerboard patterns, short hair, and smart dress.
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| The dress is from the "Dot Dead Gorgeous" webisode, where Venus's signature character model wore the piece. Venus was not in the Dot Dead Gorgeous doll line despite this costume being a unique look shown in the cartoon tie-in for that line, but the dress was eventually released, with an original base Venus to wear it! |
I was also intrigued by wavy-haired Coffin Bean Venus and her light green lipstick. I thought this doll would look great dressed as a 1950s-esque glamor horror botanist in a lab coat to match her lab-vial glass, maybe to make her parallel to Pamela Isley as much as Poison Ivy!
Lastly, I liked her Fangtastic Fitness edition, which has interesting saran hair with light green streaks that match her skintone.
This doll would be my choice base with which to build a personal RESTYLE ICONS Venus idea. (That series has been a very long time dormant; I tried to work up Slo Mo for a restyle last year and lost steam. In the meantime, his hair proved to not really be able to reshape more like the cartoon depiction.) Fitness Venus's top is a great piece, looking like a garden lattice without going into old-fashioned greenhouse ironwork and filigree that fills more antique than punk. Some Venus pieces make that misstep.
Venus survived to G2, but with her face drained of some ferocity. I guess that made her look more accurate to her character! She gained a few molded vine curlies on her limbs, which was appreciated (though nothing compared to G1's Honey Swamp), while Mattel tried a richer green for her palette. This palette reduced her flytrap resemblance a bit, but it was still pretty.
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| A party-themed Venus edition. The pink flower charms popped into holes in her boots and vine harness for custom rearranging. |
Unfortunately, Venus was stricken with some very unsightly changes to the doll joints that began partway into G2, with the elbow pegs being made nonremovable and also creating large gaps between the forearms and upper arms, harming the relatively seamless look.
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| Mattel: messing up their perfectly good doll bodies since at least 2016. Not my photo. |
G2 Venus in the Electrified! doll line tried a huge focus on yellow which no other Venus has done, and I think she was seriously cooking something here.
With a repaint and maybe a swap onto a G1 body with cleaner arms, she'd be a killer design. We've seen flashes of yellow and even orange from G3, but never this strong. I wish we'd get back on this color idea. I think yellow is amazing on Venus.
When G3 signature Venus came out, she trounced the G1 character in my mind. I thought her design reimaginings and translations were very graceful and contributed to some stronger realization of the monster concept. Her vibrant colors are great, she has a better eye color and better detail sculpting, and she feels like a celebration of textured hairstyles across her dolls which happen to harmonize with a plant theme by evoking stalks, vines, and blooms in ways G1's common straight hair texture never did. G3 does also rock the color yellow like a superstar, even though Mattel hasn't really pushed her there themselves. They do use it as a small highlight color, but these pictures with her wearing very prominent yellow are my efforts.
I've found every one of Venus's G3 dolls, from signature to Fearbook to Garden Mysteries (the latter two reviewed on this blog in reverse order of release) to be a hit, while I find more misses in the G1 repertoire. But I wanted to give G1 a fair shake now that her signature doll is back.
Here's her box. Theme color is a very yellow lime green here, which doesn't match the doll perfectly, but complements her well.
This is G1 Venus's second doll in recent years--she first returned to the current era with her G1 molds revived for a solo Skullector edition that had awesome hair, makeup, and piercings, and a tremendously disappointing denim-leotard-Victoria's Secret-Angel costume look. This Venus would be an awesome restyle base, but it was common to see confusion and disappointment upon the full-body reveal of this doll.
The cutout icon on signature/Creepro Venus's box is a potted flytrap, which is not the most legible silhouette.
Here's the quote on the top.
This copy is an English/French bilingual edition, and her full profile text is not included on the back of the box, nor in the diary at all.
I did, however, enjoy reading the diary far more than I expected to. Venus has a bit of a hippie "whoa, that's deep" tone sometimes (though it may sometimes be sarcastic), and the diary intelligently addresses how Venus's eco-activist side can alienate her from others. At one point, Operetta gets defensive when Venus approaches her, with Operetta assuming Venus is going to make a fuss about Operetta's guitar being wood from a tree, while Venus is hurt to be antagonized, or viewed as antagonistic apropos of nothing. Still, Operetta points out that preaching isn't often conducive to changing behavior, and Venus has a record of getting in trouble for unethically hijacking monsters' free will with her pollen to make them act more green. I like the depth written here, making Venus far less like a two-dimensional always-right eco-warrior than she might seem to be. I also think it's really sweet that Venus is friends with Robecca and admires her so much because steam-powered Robecca is "a marvel of sustainability".
Here's the doll unboxed. Like with Captain Penny, Chewlian sticks out through the back of the cardboard oval he's mounted on, and it's a separate piece from the rest of the backdrop.
Venus's hair seems pretty nice. G1 used kanekalon fiber, which was silky and glossy but also very susceptible to static due to not clinging to itself, and boiling could make the hair even more unintentionally puffy. I'm pretty sure Creepro uses polypropylene, and the fiber looks disorderly at the ends, with a few wonky strands but it's overall nice--for now.
Nothing about this hair texture and shape really click with a plant theme, but it's still a great look for her. As is typical for G1, the art and cartoon give this hair volume that doesn't occur on the toy, with Venus being stylized to have the hair in more of a teased fauxhawk look. This is also prominent with sig Ghoulia, whose hair is nowhere near as big and retro-styled in practice as the art would suggest. Ghoulia's hair is a little underwhelming, but I think the doll hair for Venus looks perfectly fine. 2010s alt girls had side-shaves that looked just like the doll--less so the artwork, so the doll hair feels fully authentic as-is. Venus may have been aiming for an eighties silhouette in the art and animation, but the doll feels exactly of her actual time period with the hair silhouette she has.
Thinking of Ghoulia inspired me to revisit her hair, and I found some improvement!
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| Factory-hair Ghoulia. |
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| Hair reshaped. This way, both sides of her parting are tied behind her head in front, while the loose hair was combed forward the wrong way and boiled to give it more volume when swept back again. Still not as vertical as cartoon Ghoulia, but better. |
I like the subtle shaping my Venus's hair has from packaging so I won't boil it totally straight. The colors are the same as ever--watermelon pink under a layer of olive green. The pink is a bit redder and more neon than the G3 hair pinks, and it pops brightly under blacklight. The green is maybe a bit more drab than a real flytrap, but I think it works really well. G3 Venus sings with her vibrant colors, while G1 uses muted green very sharply to pull her own look together. I like the hair at this length far more than the shorter Music Festival cut, which was also less green. I like more green in G1's hair, but pink became more dominant in several other dolls. I think the predominance of muted green makes this doll design look fantastic--and respectably atypical for the girls' toy aisle in 2012. The colors come from the real plant, so Venus is able to be pink enough to qualify, but she's no Draculaura and really works the green too. I want more color palette diversity in dolls!
G1 Venus made a splash with her use of a flocked side shave haircut, so in a way, hair is extremely significant to both G1 and G3's incarnations. The side shave is one of G1's defining "2010s-alternative" features which contributed to MH's air of trendy edge in the doll scene of the time.
Most of her G1 dolls used this pattern of long hair on her left and a "shaved" section covered with flocking on her right, but a few switched it up. Gloom and Bloom had a "shaved" undercut on the lower back of the scalp instead, Venus has had the side-shave on her left, and Fierce Rockers (her worst-ever doll, IMO) had shaving on both sides for a mohawk cut with longer hair. (Fierce Rockers also happens to have zero green hair, one of her many crimes.) Clawvenus, the fusion doll of Venus and Clawdeen Wolf, has a unique head mold blending the fusion characters' traits, but the doll head is flocked on the front half of the scalp with rooting in the middle and back, plus isolated lines of rooting in the flocked section as well.
Venus has also had printing on her flocked shaves, like checkerboard squares on I ♡ Fashion and a brain pattern on Zombie Shake.
Music Festival's flocking had a taller arc in the shaved section, with the shave taking more of her scalp than on Creepro. It's been so long, I forgot Music Festival was another printed shave, with a lime green jagged sound-wave pattern!
The edges of the Creepro flocking aren't perfectly lined up to the edges of her rooting.
Venus wasn't the first Monster High doll with flocked shaving. Clawd Wolf preceded her with his signature doll's buzzed-sides-and-mohawk style which most of his following dolls echoed, give or take curly hair texture.
G3 Venus imitates this side-shave hair silhouette on some of her dolls with cornrow braiding instead of shaving, represented by a special head sculpt for the side-braiding and paint on the sculpted braids.
G3 Venus has two head mold variants, with the other lacking the braids so she can have fully-rooted dolls as well. So far, exactly half of her releases use the braided head mold.
G3 Frankie Stein debuted a system like this before G3 Venus. They often wear straight hair and a side-shave cut like G1 Venus, including on their first G3 signature look everywhere except the doll, but their shaved dolls don't use flocking. Frankie's side-shave dolls have a different mold with a sculpted, painted patch of buzzed hair on the left side of their scalp. It seems like Mattel does not want to use flocking for playline dolls anymore due to concerns of play and water damaging the adhered powder fuzz.
Flocking is far more versatile than head molds when it comes to a shaved look, because one neutral sculpt can be produced and mapped for flocking and rooting in any way the designers wish. With specialty head molds like G3 Venus and Frankie's, there's only one place the hair pattern can be controlled with that mold. G3 Venus is more understandable because her braided rows are easiest executed with a sculpt, but G3 Frankie would need additional head variants if they want to wear their hair with a shave anywhere else...and it looks like they're going to get that, judging by Self-Scare Secrets Frankie's artwork showing them with an undercut!
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| Images of the physical doll are not yet out at time of writing. |
While G3 Venus's original hairstyle is a translation of G1's look into full braiding, the most similar G3 Venus hairstyle to the iconic G1 look so far is her Garden Mysteries doll, which very obviously homages the G1 hair, while keeping it a Black hairstyle for the G3 character with the use of the cornrow mold, painted baby hairs, and thin microbraids layered on top of the loose hair.
G3 Venus hasn't flopped yet, and she wears the Garden Mysteries hair well, but I prefer this look on the G1 character. I think the mix of uncombable, snaggable braids and loose fiber that's meant to be combed is awkward and frustrating for hair tidying, and I think G3 shines when she goes all-in on texture. Garden Mysteries is actually closer to G1 Music Festival hair-wise, rather than G1 sig.
There's a slight quirk in my Creepro Venus's hairline, where part of it bends down forward more than the rest.
Since G3 Venus is a Black character and G1 is not, G1 has paler skin and is not sculpted with Black features. Her signature face is simply painted but absolutely fierce, with heavy mascara and eyeshadow narrowing her gaze with brows setting it firm.
Venus's eyes are fairly wide-set and her eyebrows look a little short. I'd almost expect them to extend a bit closer to the nose. This is one of many G1 dolls with brows that don't match the hair color, and in a fantasy world, that's not really excusable to me. I also think G3's brown eye color feels more logical for an earthy monster, and even pink to match the hair would be more cohesive than blue. I still really like this face, though. It's got loads of attitude. While Draculaura, Clawdeen, and Clawd preceded Venus with fang paint on the lips, Venus iterated with this two-directional five-fang design to evoke flytrap teeth. Honey Swamp would do similar (though she's plenty planty, her teeth are more for her alligator side) and G3 Venus keeps this feature. Corazón Marikit has one-directional downward fangs, but she has more than two, with a pair of fangs on each side.
Venus's skintone used to strike me as being on the yellower side of green, but it's kind of in the middle of yellow and blue. Her color is pretty close to fellow plant ghoul Amanita Nightshade, maybe a few shades off, and is much more saturated and clearly greener than pale mint G1 Frankie/Scarah/G3 Ghoulia. G3 Venus's skin is more saturated and darker as one of the elements that convey that she's Black. Here's some greens in contention.
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| Left to right: Frankie (color shared with Scarah and G3 Ghoulia), G1 Venus, Amanita, G3 Venus, Frankenstein's Monster |
The Skullector girl version of Universal's Frankenstein monster is coming later this year, and I'm excited to see how she fits in. I think the only green G1 skintone I need to get back in my collection is Iris (no easy feat). Iris is the yellowest green color in the brand. I also need Casta Fierce back (I think she's the same as the Create-a-Monster Witch, sorry for leaving her out of this comparison--the Witch is a bit yellower than Venus), and Casta's brother Spelldon is releasing soon! G3 Deuce is paler and slightly yellower. Miss Argentina, also omitted, is a darker tone which is a bluish teal.
The debut Venus design replicated by Creeproduction blurs the line between jewelry and natural body vines, with her earrings, necklace, and limb wraps all being the same olive as her hair and all looking equally like accessories and parts of the plant that she is. I love that idea, and, like G1 Cleo's bandage costumes, it's a clever way to fuse costume and monster detail in lieu of the body itself being thoroughly textured. For Venus, this starts with her awesome full-ear row of ring piercings, which cements her alt cred even more than the side shave.
These rings are identical, and seem to be the same mold Deuce's G1 dolls use. They're all on pegs and the gap in the ring form clips around the ear.
This might be the most earrings/piercing holes in a single MH ear. Not sure. I'm not into piercings or body mods myself, but I still think these are incredible on Venus.
The ear design is a leaf shape, which is the best of the two sculpted details on Venus's body, and is still one of G1's best monster ear sculpts. G3 translated this directly.
Venus's other ear has one traditionally-placed piercing and a long vine dangle earring shape.
Around her neck is a clip-on vine necklace.
Venus's tops and bottoms are two layers each, and the outfit works for a punk theme with some noisy, edgy patterns balanced by black and denim. It's of the time, for sure, in a great way, and almost works despite itself.
The denim vest is sleeveless and has simulated buttons on the right side. The right-side panel also has an applique logo saying "ECO PUNK", declaring Venus's theme.
Her top features the same symbol. G2 managed to keep Venus around by siphoning her punk side, though she was still Venus in a way--just less rebellious. I think Operetta was too unconventional for G2 to even begin adapting, but Venus was just workable enough to survive the taming of the brand. Fortunately, she became edgier again by G3.
Under the vest, Venus has an off-the-shoulder top, a skirt, and mid-length pants, each a separate piece. There's no belt here.
The shirt is black with chaotic doodle patterning, including the symbol on the vest and some safety pins and banners with illegible text.
The skirt is a ribbed black knit which feels nicely plain and humble between the top and pants. The pants have a plaid pattern with thorny vines as the green stripes.
An aspect of Venus's fashion sense which did not yet manifest at debut is the theme of ripped and shredded-looking clothes, which mix a punk theme with the idea of flytrap teeth tearing up her clothes. G1 sig is dressed perfectly tidy with no jagged edges or holes. I'd like to see that in this doll, but that theme doesn't feel absent.
One thing I want the designers to keep in mind for Venus is an emphasis on natural fibers and sustainability in her clothing and accessories, and it feels like maybe they did that, at least for the signature doll. The costume feels pretty in tune with punk but also doesn't have any plastic pleather coating or such (thank the heavens). That impression is furthered with the fact that Venus has one of the only Monster High bags ever which isn't a solid plastic mold! Her bag is sewn!
I had assumed this was a real canvas bag, which would be amazing. This isn't a fiber piece, but it's the next best thing, feeling like a hardy reusable-grocery-bag material. The bag has a ribbon strap and is open at the top, but it's sewn on one seam and doesn't have a rectangular bottom panel or side panels to expand the interior with four walls and a base. It's more like an envelope. I still appreciate any doll bag not being made of solid molded plastic, and this makes sense for Venus. The pattern is bones, hearts with ribcages and Earth Skullettes, while the handle is ribbon.
G1 Venus features vinyl vine wraps around her forearms and lower legs which add some texture to her body. It's a mixed result. While the coloring and dimension are fun for a plant character, it can also be read as a cop-out for not sculpting her actual body with more plant features the way Honey Swamp, G2 Venus, and G3 Venus eventually would. Honey is still the reigning champion of MH plant sculpts to me, and that's not even her whole theme because she's also an alligator! I need her here sometime. Still, I think the wraps are especially successful on the signature doll. The olive color matching her hair is the best possible choice (later dolls had different colors; Music Festival had them in the bright lime color of Chewlian) and the doll does feel complete with the vines even when otherwise nude. Coffin Bean seems to repeat the olive vine color.
The arm vines are coils that could be unwrapped to remove them, though it's easier to slide them down the arms when the hands come out. The leg vines include closed loops and must slide up and down her legs to remove or replace them.
G1 Venus has specially-molded hands unique to her...and I've never understood the artistic intent before. I wasn't sure if it was bark or leaves, and the texture seemed incongruous and unflattering. I'm not sure if the Creepro doll is molded better than my Music Festival doll, but this time, I can see the texture is overlapping leaves on the back of her hands, as if her arms are branches off a flower and the hands are the leaves at the end.
I think it still is a little too vague and granular to read well at this scale, and can be misread as damaged skin, but I appreciate the sculpt at last. This hand mold was reused for Clawvenus. I also failed to parse the sculpt in my 2023 work with that doll, interpreting it as bark (which it can be mistaken for, but which makes no sense for a non-woody plant like Venus.) Zombie Shake Venus has unique hand molds which are posed as grabby claws while maintaining the leaf texture specific to Venus.
Venus is a decently early G1 entry, but she's a contender for the best shoes in the line. She's got violet high-tops with vine-wrapped stiletto heels and toothy mouths on the toes.
I love this sculpt so much, and the colors are great. The painted shoelaces also bleed into the leg vines a bit in a fun way, as if they're entwined or one and the same. That must be intentional, right?
G3's signature boots are brilliantly made to look like concrete planters the doll is "rooted into", but they replicate the teeth because they're so good. I think the G1 shoes do it better, though!
G3's vine detail is solely on her legs as a sculpted body feature, which looks good, but I wish there was more. Her hands are the standard G3 claw shape. Knowing how high-definition G3 Robecca's hand sculpt managed to be, I wish Mattel would have tried the leafy hand design again for G3 Venus, because I'm sure they could make it much more legible than the G1 mold.
G3 Venus has vine wraps on her signature boots, but those don't stay in place well at all.
The one place where there is absolutely no argument in favor of G3 Venus is the matter of pet Chewlian.
G1 absolutely wins in that competition with her straightforward monster plant. He's got beady eyes, creepy human teeth, and a leaf mohawk. He's playing the edgy, creepy archetype straight and he's rad.
I have Chewlian's other representation from the "Secret Creepers Critters" line, with this toy being a paper shredder to destroy secret notes. As a result of this function, he's lost his stalk and looks more like a cabbage, but I prefer the facial proportions of the large sculpt.
It feels like little Chewlian's eyes are less painted and don't fill the sculpt. More coverage might make him look more like the oversize toy.
I'm gonna get some paint.
G3's Chewlian is inexcusable. He's a weird fox or cat creature with the jaws of a plant pod around his head.
I don't mind Chewlian being quadrupedal, and I like the ability to remove him from his pot. The toothy pod on the tail is also awesome. But the confusing head design and cutesy look are unforgivable downgrades. I had to cut the mammal face out of my copy and turn the head into a gaping black maw to bring G3 Chewlian in the right direction.
I did eventually fill in G1 Chewlian's eyes, and he looks way, way better. I guess both versions of sig Chewlian needed work, but G1 didn't need conceptual work!
Venus next to Amanita shows a ton of contrast. I love that we got the edgy tough spooky plant monster and a very different floral Gothic garden plant.
Now to the newest G3 edition!
Self-Scare Secrets is a new mystery-unbox line which is on the cheaper end, and is themed, as the name implies, on beauty/spa care. The dolls are packaged in closed cardboard compartments and have accessories for the theme, but not multiple outfit combos like the Skulltimate Secrets line, which seems to be on its way out. The dolls are also the "good budget" tier, with the torsos lacking a bust joint but keeping the rest of the standard G3 articulation.
Here's the package--the doll compartment on the left and on the right, a card with blister bubbles for the beauty case and two paper packets of items, staged as a scene on Venus's dressing table with an open drawer and a pot under the desk.
I appreciate the lack of plastic boxes we have to be stuck with here, though I'm not sure these being an unboxing-themed line lends any merit to them. Like with Skulltimate Secrets, there's no variable "gambling" factor (good). Every Self-Scare package contains the same lot per character, and unlike the even cheaper Buried Secrets, you know which character you're getting. The surprise aspect feels a little pointless. But Venus was pretty!
The top of the doll compartment has no design.
The back of the box has art of the first Self-Scare wave in one bedroom together.
Spectra Vondergeist has finally resurfaced this year, and has both a Buried Secrets wave 2 and a Self-Scare Secrets doll coming out, though no deluxe releases. I'm not impressed enough by Buried Secrets Spectra to get her as a rebody idea, but the Self-Scare doll looks like a big step in the right direction. No boho chic to be found, dark hair, and a face that looks more appealing than the signature design. Her arms no longer fade to clear, though.
The doll comes out of the box from the top, with Venus being packaged in a simple but attractive flat green sleeve.
She had two head tags with the big tabs you can pull onto before cutting them, which I appreciate, and two other ties around her waist and ankles. Here she is removed. She immediately makes an impression by being a totally distinct and still very appealing design among the G3 Venus repertoire.
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| I'm begging you, G3 Venus. I can't seriously be expected to get every doll of yours, can I? |
This is G3 Venus's second doll with the full-rooting head mold. The hair is her usual colors, though the reduction of green makes it a lot pinker, and the green is the darker tone introduced after her sig doll, not the lighter lime of signature G3 which matches the G3 skintone. The hair forms a big curled ball on top of her head, with a top-ponytail tie hidden in the curls to form the style. Some green streaks form curls in front. It was a bit flattened on top from packaging, but was easily pulled gently into a rounder shape.
The curls aren't as dense or coiled and springy as Honey Swamp's. Honey might always have the tightest curls in the brand's history.
I'm not sure if these curls read as a natural texture or a styled one, at least for this character. Venus has worn cornrows and full-head protective braids, which suggests a denser curl texture for Venus naturally. Fearbook also looks like a very plausible loose natural curl for Venus's hair type, given her signature design. I'd call Fearbook a fair visual on what Venus's hair generally looks like unbraided. Self-Scare's curls are lighter than Fearbook's, and so they might be a texture departure from Venus's baseline in a different way than her straightened-and-braided Garden Mysteries doll. That would mean signature and Fearbook are Venus's natural baseline textures and Garden and Self-Scare are styled departures. I'm not an expert, and Venus rocks any hairstyle or texture she chooses.
As with Fearbook, my fears about the hair not living up to promotion are alleviated. It looks just as advertised, even moreso than Fearbook, whose hair was definitely finessed for stock photos but still looks great as-manufactured. Ironically, the Self-Scare art has looser, lower curls, but I much prefer the doll's silhouette. I think there's a bit of 1980s in the style.
Cupid Asteria, going by stock photos, was supposed to have a similar ball-of-curls look, just less vertical. She...utterly did not.
I had some success curling that doll's hair pretty darn close to advertised shape, and published the review with the recurl as my final result.
Unfortunately, the fiber simply can't hold the curls long-term, so I ended up trimming her into a bob cut instead earlier this year.
I'm glad to see Venus succeed with this look, but I'm disappointed Cupid couldn't have something similar. Mattel can do curls right when it counts for Black dolls, but surely the technique could easily transfer over for an especially curly non-Black hairstyle too? Cupid is the worst case of the doll not matching the intention in recent MH memory, and I'm still sad she was failed by the factory. Self-Scare's curl type might be the same as SDCC Sweet Screams Twyla's. Freak du Chic Twyla could have used curls this good.
Venus's face features lovely dark green lips as the most distinct feature compared to previous dolls, though her eye makeup and baby hair paint also features some dotted motifs, with stars in the eye makeup as well. No two G3 Venuses so far have the same baby hair pattern.
The slash-shaped eye reflections are no longer designed to look like twigs.
Her earrings are symmetrical neon yellow-green chain dangles in a floral shape.
Venus has an off-the-shoulder knit top in pink with black ribbon trim and bows on the shoulders. The trim on top is printed to look like it has pink lacing for a more punk edge, but the fake design is disappointing. The bows are also a little awkward, but I appreciate that this piece has no decay-prone "invisible" elastic shoulder straps.
The skirt is elasticated with no velcro, but has nothing keeping it from riding up too high. I like the pattern of emerald green with green foil in a viny flytrap design, and the bow and simulated zipper strip work well.
We could have a match for that ill-placed emerald green Garden Mysteries top. It went with nothing in that doll's stock, but could make a beautiful pairing with the skirt here.
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| This tank had no business being in the GM kit, but it might have just found its reason for existence! |
Venus has nothing obscuring her leg detail (appreciated!) and is wearing black-and-white sneakers. There's a bit of vine detail on the soles, and the outer sides have white patches with Venus's personal Skullette, made to look stitched on in an edgy way.
While I wondered if Venus's G3 Skullette had a change in hair texture based on a blurry icon on the G3 sig phone screen, this rendition on the shoes looks like it might be the same as G1's Skullette mohawk.
The soles of the shoes are marked with the letter V for Venus.
The shoes don't have a flat surface to stand on, making it difficult to display Venus without a third-party doll stand.
Venus is a cute budget doll. I like her face and hair a lot, while her top is a bit clumsier than I expected, but it's workable, and this doll seems like a good candidate for building out or redressing a bit. Now to the accessories.
The first parcel of surprises is Venus's beauty case. Every Self-Scare doll has this mold printed up with a personalized design, and the case has multiple items inside. Venus's case includes the "ECO PUNK" and spiky Skullette iconography from her G1 signature costume! I love that we're also (finally?) seeing actual flies in her imagery here. That would be a really fun motif for the designers to push, but I'm not sure we've ever seen it with Venus before.
The case hinges open to reveal two items.
The first is what seems to be a fragrance bottle. The bottle is translucent green and shaped like a faceted coffin. It cannot stand up and can only be held by a doll using the stopper.
The stopper comes out.
The other item is a little jar of hair product--probably a deep conditioner or oil or some such. The label doesn't specify, but it's clearly intended as a facet of Black hair care as depicted by this doll.
The lid has a finger loop, and inside the jar is a swirled texture to illustrate the creamy product.
The label on the jar is a decal, not a print, which is disappointing. This product would go well with the hair spritzer from the signature doll, though.
The next surprises are in the form of two paper packets. The first I opened was from the "drawer" in the box scenery, though the packet was stuck in and tore when trying to pull it out of the blister shell.
Here are the contents.
To protect her hair, Venus has a hair bonnet. These can be used by anyone, but are pretty commonly used by Black women to ensure their hair is kept well, often for sleep, and can be worn if a hairstyle is in process, or just as head coverage if the hair isn't deemed presentable by the wearer at the moment. Venus's bonnet is wearable for fashion and protective purposes alike, having a nice design of silky black fabric with pink foil print of viny flytraps and Skullettes.
I like seeing this represented. This character's designs do a lot of work in depicting various styles and necessities for Black hair. G1 did very little with Black hair, and outright removed curly texture from Howleen after her first doll.
I'll admit, my first glimpse of this doll was Venus in her bonnet, and I first assumed that was her hair and hair colors until I saw the picture clearly...and I'd kind of prefer if her hair was these dark dramatic colors. A black-and-pink hair blend could be stunning, especially with dark green lips like we have here.
The bonnet is elasticated like the real thing, but can't stretch over her whole hairdo without touching, so the curls have to be tucked in by hand. I worry using this on the doll might exacerbate untidiness concerns with her hair rather than preventing them. By the second time putting on and taking off the bonnet, it did look like her hair had gotten less tidy.
With the bonnet off her ears, part of Venus's hairline peeks through, and she looks a bit less stylish. Pulling the bonnet over her ears a bit flatters the look more.
I also like the bonnet for being a more substantial piece that works as a part of the outfit as well as spa play. The other Self-Scare dolls don't have anything qualifying as an optional clothing piece.
I tried it out on the signature doll to see if her hair could be put into the bonnet, and it can, even while her hair accessory is still clipped on. It's harder to stuff the bonnet to sit symmetrically with the full-braid hair, though.
Garden Mysteries' mostly-straight hair would need to be put into a bun in order to use the bonnet anywhere near tidily, while I was too nervous about distressing the lovely curls of Fearbook to try it on her. Fearbook's hair is too awesome to risk!
Speaking of Fearbook's awesome hair, however, I was inspired to get a little bolder with it, and was finally able to actually get it to the state in the stock photos that made me want the doll so badly. Here's the stock photo.
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| Unrealistically perfect, but still more puffed out on top to form a rounder afro silhouette. |
The doll's curls are just fine out of the factory, but the final shape I landed on for Venus, which I thought was the best possible result, was more visibly center-parted and curtained around her face.
I decided to gently tease out the curls on the top of Venus's head and get some of the "curtains" away from her face. This volumized the hair more, and was able to get rid of the obvious parting and much more closely match the stock photo.
I'm glad this worked and that the doll really can match the photo, give or take some professional doll-photographer styling. The stock hair was the selling point of the doll for me, so improving the likeness is great. This post leading me to find hair fixes for older dolls was not what I expected!
The newest Venus's hair scare continues with a little comb and brush, which are cute but highly inadvisable to actually put to her doll hair. I wouldn't encourage disturbing her perfect curls with accessories like these!
The last hair tool is a spray bottle with a decal of liquid inside.
This could have had dual-molded plastic to depict liquid inside and that would look way better. I prefer the signature doll's spray bottle. They're the same molds.
All of the doll's beauty products except the bonnet and spray bottle can pack into the pink case simultaneously.
Last in this packet, which I find very charming, is a little radio!
The next packet contains...I'm not quite sure. Given the context, it must be an in-universe toy depiction of Venus's pet Chewlian, because Draculaura and Abbey's equivalents in this series are very clearly stuffed animals of their pets. So I guess this is a plushie? The look is simplified in the face and this toy version of Chewlian is also designed to look like a succulent cat-thing rather than a cartoon flytrap...cat-thing. The flower and side curls are separate plug-in parts, and the toy sits deeper in its pot than the real G3 Chewlian.
Weird. Drac's plushie is one piece, while Abbey's has button eyes you put in yourself with pegs that fit into the head. I think Venus's toy pet makes the least sense of the group. Is this the tradeoff? G3 Venus never loses, but G3 Chewlian never wins?
After reviewing everything, I found this sticker sheet, and I wasn't able to tell which part of the unboxing awarded this. Oops.
They're cute stickers, I guess.
I tried some fashion options for Venus. I amplified the eighties tones of her hair with the first G3 refresh Draculaura's puff-sleeved top.
This works really well, but I can't bear to put Venus in pleather. The fabric under the coating is white, too, so even if it peeled, it would need dye to get this piece looking the same in matte.
The emerald pieces from the G3 dolls work together. I'd prefer the top to be cropped so the combo looked more like a two-piece, and the lace has to cover the skirt's waistband to look best, but with the Garden Mysteries vine sandals, there's a fun all-green casual evening look here.
The GM pink skirt doesn't swap out well with the Self-Scare skirt.
Pairing it with the green sandals and the trusty O.M.G. Fierce Neonlicious top is a hit, though.
The perfect shoes for the pink skirt and neon yellow top aren't these sandals, but they're the best-suited G3 shoe I have.
The shoulders of the Self-Scare top don't play nice with jacket sleeves, though.
Here's all four G3 Venus dolls together.
The character's hair is a massive point of appeal, with the dedication to Black textures and the sheer variety of looks in just four dolls being truly standout. None of these four has the same texture elements as the other--Fearbook and Self-Scare have different curl types, while signature and Garden Mysteries have different braid types, plus GM being the only straight-haired G3 Venus so far. I'm not too worried about it now, but I do hope straight hair continues to be infrequent for Venus, and downplayed when used. It was a good move to give Garden Mysteries braids and cornrows and baby hairs all to make clear the hair is still a Black style while indulging in G1 homage...though I do hate the functional problems of two hair textures on one head making the style way harder to tidy. The straight hair needs combing, but the flat braids are made of the same fiber texture and can be unraveled by a comb. I'd rather G3 Venus never do straight hair at all if it means there's no need for optical tightrope walking and no user-unfriendly mix of textures.
Each Venus has a very distinct appearance and I love each one. Fashion-wise, Self-Scare is probably the weakest because she's a budget doll and has the fewest clothing pieces and the preceding three dolls' clothing lots appealed to me more, but the outfit is cute and does the job. I think G3 Venus has so far done exactly what a fashion doll's repertoire should--make every doll appealing in a different way. I think now, my hope for future G3 Venuses is more exploration of yellow, and maybe an edition with more radically different hair coloring like heavy black or a green-dominant blend. In terms of textures, I saw some cute fan designs of Venus with her hair in Bantu knots, which could be cute. I don't know if she has the personality for twin afro puffs, but I'm sure she'd wear them well anyway. Hair like Skullector Us Red's short dense curls could be fun to see, though it doesn't seem like that's intended to be a texture natural to Venus, if Fearbook is anything to go by.
I'd also be open to a more punk silhouette like a mohawk or a cornrows-on-both-sides fauxhawk, or full-braiding with sparser, larger braids. There's lots of possibilities, and many I haven't named.
Then I set to taking photos of my review ghouls.
I realized G1 Venus's wide-set upward-peeking eyes make her a little harder to photograph because her gaze is hard to connect to the camera.
Self-Scare Venus looks stunning with no effort.
I found a green botanical paper I wanted to try.
Of course, Amanita had to swoop in, and I don't blame her this time--her minidress is about as close to this pattern as it could get without being the same design!
I took the Venuses outside next. They worked well with the bleeding hearts.
Here they are on the trellis.
Because G1 Venus is shorter and her hips can fold backward, I was able to stage her buried in a flowerpot in a way G3 couldn't achieve.
I had more fun playing with G1's long hair.
Here she is rooted into the ground in her most monstrous stance.
And photosynthesizing.
Then I set up Self-Scare in the theme of the doll, showing her at a vanity working with her bonnet, as if tucking in her curls.
Then I used my reliable iron lattice coat-rack bench as a greenhouse for Venus yet again, staging a scene primarily for Creepro's benefit, as a G1 Venus hasn't had this shoot yet. I finally had the idea to use some decor monster flowers from an old Target Halloween botanical collection. I've had these for a couple of years, which were actually received in a lovely trinket package from an exchange with the Bogleech. I've decorated with these spooky flowers, on this bench, for multiple Halloweens now, and yet I didn't think to stage them with Venus dolls before. I had these flowers before I reviewed a single Venus on this blog. What was I doing???
I really liked this tender moment between plant owner and plant pet, but Venus also needed to show herself off.
Here's Self-Scare trying out the scenery.
And the two staged together for the cover photo.
Staging photos made me even more appreciative of G1 signature Venus than I already was. She's a killer design, and she gave me more inspiration and return photo-wise than I expected. I think she's definitely a G1 classic, and I understand her vibe and her strengths far better now. Music Festival was never going to get me there...though now, I have a renewed interest in I ♡ Fashion and Zombie Shake! Spare me, Venus! I don't need another focus! Self-Scare Venus is also a really nice budget doll who contributes a strong look to the G3 repertoire. I don't think she'll be the best total Self-Scare package, but she's one of the stronger base dolls that Self-Scare offers.
I'm not going to be done with Self-Scare Secrets because Spectra (finally!!!) looks like she might be the G3 doll I want from the character, and Frankie has a few unique aspects that make them worth investigating and adding to the collection of Frankies.
Frankie and Venus stay winning. I can't stop collecting their dolls!
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