Oh shiii-

Look, new arts!
yaaayyy.

Monster High Dolls Site.

To go along with my last post, I visit a site/forum for the dolls to help me find new information about new dolls, new lines, etc. "Monster High Dolls" is one of the very FEW if not the only fan site out there for the dolls. It's the only site that really comes up. I tend to stay in the "Monster High Sighting" forum as there seems to be just to much drama in the others. You can get some helpful tips on making characters in the art sections and there is even a place to help you modify a doll. The people in those forums seem to be really nice. Another nice thing is that some of these members are even willing to help find dolls for you. Dolls that are currently hard to find, they'll try to see if any are in your area. While also giving links and helpful tips on finding them as well.

Yeah.
That one paragraph covers all the GOOD things about the site. How sad is that?

This place is jam packed with drama. Being that most of its population IS pre-teen and teen girls, the drama is horrendous. People are being accused of art theft and if not that, people are being accused of stealing their idea of a "monster parent" for their original character. That shit pisses me off. You can't stake claim on characters YOU DON'T OWN. You can't tell someone they can't use "Cookie Monster" as a parent because you already used him as a parent. You don't own Cookie Monster, you don't have the right to do that. If you don't have people complaining about their characters parents, you have people sitting their and bitching about the characters themselves. Throwing the "mary sue" term all around the place.
The moderators of the site are also hardly ever around. While a mod had a good reason why they were gone for a long time, the place still needs more ACTIVE mods. There needs to be mods for the chat as well since a ton of the young kids just loove to spam it up. Even the creator of the site itself is hardly ever on. This fan site is just one big hot mess. You also have some mods that cause a bit of drama themselves. While I understand you might be trying to cover your ass, you DON'T make topics about other members and then show screen shots of conversations between you and them. Although it seems they've stopped since then, it's still unprofessional of a mod to do something like that.
I've only been a part of this site since around maybe April and despite all the cons, the place is good for doll information. Although you'll have a few members try to bitch that the doll you have is "old news" and that they're tired of seeing topics for it.
Even then, the MH community isn't as horrible as the Sailor Moon or Zelda fandom seem to be about things. (I could probably write about that at some point. Maybe.) This site just needs to fix itself and some of the members need to grow up a little although I am amazed at how mature some 13 or so year olds seem to be nowadays.

Monster High Doll Line - My Opinion

Since I'm a girl, I'm into girly shit like dolls. Being 24, I don't play with them though, I just collect them. Monster High by Mattel has a little something for any age collector. It's a cutesy line that's different among their other line, Barbie and something that is a tad better than Bratz or the Liv dolls that have come out lately. It's a fairly new doll line, only coming out around last year. Within a year they have come out with almost 5 or more different lines for these dolls. With two SDCC exclusives. Not including the fashion packs. As of late, the newer dolls (Spectra Vondergeist and Abbey Bominable) have become fairly rare already due to hoarders and such picking them up as soon as they hit shelves:


I mean, holy shit. Why would someone need that many of ONE doll if they weren't expecting to jack up the price on Ebay.
Now onto the nicer stuff about this line;
When someone says these dolls are different, they're right. These dolls come in a variety of skin tones and facial features. Despite the body mold being basically the same. They definatly put other lines that try to be different to shame. Frankie's skin is green, Lagoona's is blue, Ghoulia's is grey, and Spectra's is white. The characters are all the children of famous monsters (or movie monsters). Which does explain their looks.


The characters do look adorable, which is one reason I knew I had to collect this line. I was first attracted to Lagoona, she was blue and her face was really cute to me. In fact, she's still one of my favorite characters out of everyone they introduced. Which is weird as I avoid swimming most of the time and that's her life. Anyway.
Their outfits are very different, they make the characters stand out so well. You can tell each outfit was inspired by different time periods and some stick true to the characters roots. Clawdeen's animal prints, Lagoona's bathing suit looking clothes, and Cleo wears bandage wraps. So the characters are still recognizable as being that character while still keeping a killer wardrobe of a variety of outfits.

Cleo and Lagoona are my favorites out of everyone that has been introduced. As I mentioned before, I like Lagoona as she's adorable and blue (which is a favorite color of mine). I've always been interested in Ancient Egypt so Cleo was instantly a favorite. Cleo's Wave II outfit is one of her best, as is Lagoona's.
A big problem with this line and most lines that introduce a wide variety of characters, a lot get underused. In almost all the lines, Clawdeen and Lagoona seem to be left out. Especially in the beginning. Although it seems now they're slowly introducing them into the lines.
Another big problem with the series is the overuse of the puns. "i-coffin", "creepateria", their names are even puns as well. "Frankie Stein", "Clawdeen Wolf", "Draculaura", "Cleo De Nile". It gets really bad. I don't mind the names as much but there comes a time when it needs to just STOP. Spectra Vondergeist is the only name that doesn't seem like a pun while still getting the point across that Spectra is a ghost.
Another problem with these dolls is the manufacturing of them. For every one doll with a good face you see, there are about 3 with wonky eyes and odd spots and stains on the face. Some people have complained that the arms and legs break off easily as well. You just got to be careful when picking out a doll and hope for the best you get a good one.
(Gloom Beach Cleo & Clawdeen are on the right in this image.)
With ANY doll line, there will be soccer moms bitching. In this case, they were complaining about Clawdeen's "flaw", which was that she had to shave a lot. They assumed that because this werewolf had to shave, it would somehow teach girls that they HAD to shave themselves to look "freaky fabulous". Considering Clawdeen is the daughter of the werewolf, her hair grows a lot and FAST. She has to shave, she's part wolf, she has fur. Clawdeen doesn't tell people that they have to shave, she does it so her fur doesn't get too extreme. Maybe I just see this all in a different way, I don't know.
Now, another soccer mom complaint was Cleo's bathing suit for the Gloom Beach line. This I understood as her bathing suit looks pretty revealing but y'know what? She's 15/16, isn't that what most teenagers that age are wearing anyway? I think Mattel is just trying to follow trends. None of the Gloom Beach's bathing suits are bikinis or those mini one piece ones, they all pretty much cover the areas they need to cover. I think people are just going overboard.

Another interesting aspect about these characters is that they have awesome shoes. Especially in the Wave II line. In Wave II, Cleo has hourglass for heels, Frankie has bolts, Spectra has a ball and chain as her heel. Dawn of the Dance Ghoulia has bones as her heels. They were really creative when they designed these characters and it really shows.

All in all, I think Monster High is a fresh breath of relief among the long aisle of Barbie and Bratz dolls. Some people consider Monster High a scary, Halloween version of Bratz but honestly, it teaches the "being different" value so much better than Barbie and Bratz ever could.

First post?

So have some arts until I can come up with something somewhat decent to post.