MILPOM★

I stumbled upon this animated video featuring models Shiina Hikari (Pikarin) and Matsumoto Ai (Maapipi). It's called MILPOM★ and it is so cute.

I can catch some of the things they're saying in Japanese (thank goodness for English subtitles!), but we're talking of Pikarin here who has a very high-pitch voice. I think it distracts me from really listening in to the conversation, haha. Meanwhile Maapipi's voice here is much softer than her normal speaking voice. I like it.

What a funny conversation between these two characters. Only one pilot episode? Where is the next one?

80s action figures!

I got my cousin's collection of old action figures. I found them when we cleaned house days after my aunt died. My cousin had them in storage but I doubt he can bring them all to Canada where he's residing. I told him I'd clean them first then we can talk later about what to do with them.

I recognise some of them because I used to play with him when we were kids. The set I recognised the most is the 1980s The Real Ghostbusters Haunted Humans set (fourth wave).

For my reference:

• http://ghostbusters.wikia.com/wiki/Haunted_Human_Figure:_X-Cop_Ghost
• http://ghostbusters.wikia.com/wiki/Haunted_Human_Figure:_Hard_Hat_Horror_Ghost
• http://ghostbusters.wikia.com/wiki/Haunted_Human_Figure:_Tombstone_Tackle_Ghost

I don't know where his other stuff from this set went:

• http://ghostbusters.wikia.com/wiki/Haunted_Human_Figure:_Granny_Gross_Ghost
• http://ghostbusters.wikia.com/wiki/Haunted_Human_Figure:_Mail_Fraud_Ghost
• http://ghostbusters.wikia.com/wiki/Haunted_Human_Figure:_Granny_Gross_Ghost - I do remember this ugly woman, lol!

And there is a dismembered Ghostbuster figure which I can't fix because of the missing limbs. But it still have his proton pack and the blaster attached to it by a yellow cord.

There are even those transparent ghosts from the first wave in the lot, but no Slimer. It's OK because he's quite annoying, haha.

There were also some old He-Man figures. Really vintage stuff.

Most of the figures are sticky and quite grimy but I think soap and water will do.

/A photo of the whole lot of toys can be found here.

Barbie Candy Glam doll

I only realised just now that I have a reissued Barbie Candy Glam doll which I rescued from my niece's reject pile:

Pic from Ebay

I have the Summer doll, her red shirt, her cherry belt, one wedge shoe (ugh), and her sundae. I already gave away her denim skirt. Check out the doll taken out of the box here.

I also have the cotton candy accessory from another Candy Glam set. It's pretty cute and made of hard plastic. The cone has a built-in handle so that the doll can hold it.

I'm making clothes for Summer right now. I'll turn her into Honey Lemon from Big Hero 6. I'll most likely retain her makeup because I'm not skilled in faceups anyway.

Jenny's new dress, and a clothes rack!

I bought Jenny a new Takara dress from the toy seller I visit at Vivo City in Circle C Mall. It's a coordinate dress and it reminds me of pastry shops!

She is with my wooden nutcracker.

I bought the dress for P100. It was still in its original packaging and I saw on the price sticker that it was sold at Book Off in Japan for 100 yen. Wow, 100 yen? That's just P37. I will make sure that when I go to Japan someday, I will look for stuff like this at Akihabara and those Off stores.

It's just a coordinate with two pieces: a pink turtleneck shirt and a yellow and brown onepiece.

Also I tried making a clothes rack out of things I have at home. I have a box of mouth depressors, some barbecue sticks and yarn to make the rack. I also have big paper clips that I bent into hangers.

The rack is actually too low. I have to fold the dresses and yukatas in half before I could hang them.

I raised the clothes rack with a few more mouth depressors (I just stacked them at the base. No glue.) and it's still too low. Oh well. I'll built a better one soon because I bought some small and big popsicle sticks and some short wooden dowels which I could use for a new clothes rack. Should be fun.

Marin Chiclana dolls

My aunt has a small group of Marin Chiclana dolls displayed in her home. When she died this year, I rescued these dolls before they even got boxed for storage.

These are matador and flamenco dancer dolls from Spain. I only washed the girls' clothes and didn't do anything on the boys even though they need some cleaning, too.

My aunt also left behind some travel souvenir dolls which I kept. Maybe I'll post pictures of them next time.

iBesties dolls

I found this Kickstarter advertisement for a new doll line. It's good!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2085748578/ibesties-modern-dolls-to-empower-modern-girls

It's called iBesties. It's made up of 6 girls in the doll line with very modern interests at such a young age. I'm pretty sure Barbie has its Barbie I Can Be campaign before, but I don't know. This doll line might be able to reach out to more girls who are just discovering their interests and hobbies.

Here is a photo of the two prototype dolls they have:

They're gorgeous!

According to the official website, ibesties.com, Mckenna handles the business side in their group. She's the business boss doll and takes after her dad as a lawyer. I mean, isn't that what some kids do? copy what their parents do? Aside from this, Mckenna is also a cheerleader! And look at the way her outfit was made. It's not a formal business suit, but a fun outfit she is comfortable with while working!

http://ibesties.com/girls/mckenna/

The photo on the website looks somewhat different to the doll (hairstyle, colour of the shirt, style of the jacket, and the tights are supposed to mismatch) but this is all right.

The other girl's name is Jada and she is the iBesties team's graphics guru. She likes to sing, dance and skateboard. Children are usually exposed to drawing by hand during early education, and I remember the only time we used a computer in kindergarten is when we had to do word puzzles. If kids can be exposed to things like this that adults do, what are the possibilities! Give them a computer, supervise them and see what they can do with a paint or photoshop program.

http://ibesties.com/girls/jada/

On the website, she's not wearing her hair in a braid, she wears a hat and not cat ears, and her clothes look somewhat different except the pants, but this is OK too. She can wear cat ears as she pleases; it's totally fine! And it's a good thing that this doll reminds me of Clawdeen Wolf of Monster High whih I like so I like Jada too, haha.

I was pleasantly surprised that they even have a coding doll and a blogging doll.  I think it's just a grand idea to introduce such activities to young ones. The things they could do with digital tools, whoo!

Hope iBesties get the amount of pledge money that they need to produce the dolls.

For additional reading: 

http://www.people.com/article/ibesties-encourage-girls-technology-entrepreneurs

People website has another photo of Jada:

Monster High Gore-geous Ghoul 28-inch doll

I haven't written in a while and should be posting about the new photo releases of Monster High pre-SDCC but I just found out about this upcoming doll from Monster High and it freaked me out. Apparently this is so much bigger than Gooliope Jellington, the new resident giant doll which stands at 17 inches. This upcoming doll called Gore-geous Ghoul or Voltageous Ghoul Friend is 28 inches tall. Crazy! That's 2'3" in feet. Add 6 more inches and it's already as tall as Weng Weng, omg.

Link from Walmart: http://www.walmart.com/ip/MH-Voltageous-Ghoul-Friend/45033476

Photos from Walmart and social media:

Monster High Voltageous Ghoul Friend: In Box

Monster High Voltageous Ghoul Friend: Out of the Box

Monster High Voltageous Ghoul Friend: Changing Eyes

Monster High Voltageous Ghoul Friend: Accessories

Monster High Voltageous Ghoul Friend: with Child Model

The thing about regular Monster High dolls is that they are really tiny and slim. It's pretty tough to make clothes for them. I could already tell even though I haven't tried it yet because I'm still fixing my limbless Monster High dolls before I could clothe them. This doll however should be much easier to style because it's bigger, but of course it will require more fabric. And it seems like it doesn't have the special articulation that Gooliope and the upcoming 17-inch ghouls have, so that's disappointing.

I wonder if it's going to be distributed in Manila. I mean, this is a 50 dollar doll in the US. Here it could be priced at P4,000-P5,000 which is pretty harsh! But my goodness. It's quite a beauty for a mannequin doll.

I wish I could see this person really badly. I haven't even seen Gooliope yet. Ugh.

/Mommyandgracieshow received the doll before it is released and they said that the knees don't bend. Wow, that sucks.

Licca-chan bootleg Beloved

I found these dolls at SM Megamall's Toy Kingdom when I took a break from Toy Con. I had to rearrange the boxes so I could take a photo of all 4 dolls:

Her body is just the generic Bratz bootleg body. And the clothes don't seem to fit her? Her chest is exposed in some of the boxes!

I browsed online and found the three original outfits that have been copied. Here they are:

Emily-chan

Hina-chan

Nurse Licca-chan

I couldn't find the polka dot outfit. :(

The nurse uniform is the closest match. It's only missing the heart and cross detail on the chest.

I don't think I'll get any of these. I still have a lot of nude dolls to dress up.

P.S.

I added comparison photos just because.

Mimi and Jenny

Meet Mimi.

I'm not even sure if her real name is Mimi, but she reminds me of the Juu Juu and Mimi dolls from South Korea, so Mimi it is. Her label at the back reads Saerowa, and I believe it's a name of a toy company.

I found her naked and her body has already fallen apart. I've seen her before at the thrift store but I wasn't interested at the time. I thought that because her body is falling apart, I could get her for a good price. I bought her for P50.

Finally at home, I examined the body. 

Her hair is thin but is in good condition. I gave it a wash because who knows what got in there, y'know.

Her legs were really yellow. I had to use acetone and elbow grease to remove the stain!

I was thinking I could just transplant her head to a different body. In fact, I bought a 2009 Best Friends Club Ink body for the transplant. Here is the actual doll:

2009 Best Friends Club Ink Addison

First, I took photos of Mimi in her own body:

So remember the doll clothes I thrifted which I was saving for my niece? Well, I changed my mind on 3 items: this halter top that is just too big but I can turn into a shirt, a maxi skirt, and the shorts with the pink belt.

The shoes from the Elly-chan fashion pack fits her really well!

I can bend her legs! No wire poking through the vinyl!

I like the shorts. It's so dainty and cute!

She can really bend her legs. Yay!

Here is Mimi's head on a BFC Ink body. She is wearing the room dress from Elly-chan's fashion pack and a pair of slippers that I got from a cheap lot of doll shoes.

The slippers don't fit her though. Regardless, her articulated ankles can make her stand on her own!

Her arms do not bend, but they are pretty easy to pose.

Another photo won't hurt!

Here is Mimi back in her old body. Her chest fills in the dress a bit too much but I can still close it at the back properly.

She's wearing Elly-chan's waitress outfit. It's too short!

Here is Mimi in an Elly-chan pink wedding dress. I took this in the dark because I wanted the photo to look creepy, haha.

Now meet Jenny.

I found her in this yellow outfit that reminds me of Thai monks! When I found her, I was just awe-stricken. I couldn't believe I've finally found a Takara doll of this size. I bought her for P150 which I think is a good price.

I threw that tattered fabric away when I got home. It even has holes.

Her hair was gross. It was sticky and the curls were awkward looking. Also I tried to bend her legs and the wires inside punctured them, ugh. This is what I don't like about this doll. Even my Takara Compact Doll has the same problem. (I will talk about that on a different post.)

I washed her and styled her hair to the best I could do, haha. But it wasn't enough, I guess.

I gave her curls on the side, but my god, her hair won't fall down. It just has a life of its own, haha! Volume, calm down, will you please!

I like how the curls look from this angle.

But it looks like box hair from the back!

I still like her though.

Here's Jenny and Mimi together. I like Jenny's body better because the colour is just uniform and the material used is much durable. Mimi's body falling apart earlier is an indication that the quality of the doll is much inferior. Plus her arms are made of a different material. It's definitely not vinyl.

Mimi's arms are shorter and her head is smaller. Jenny's hair is thicker and I'm just not afraid of her falling apart. However, Mimi can bend her legs which makes her more posable, and I don't think I want to attempt to bend Jenny's anymore because of the tiny punctures on her legs.

I'm glad I have them both though. They could play cousins.

/I think the Jenny doll I found is made back in 1981-1982 and is possibly the Jenny by Nice Claup doll.

From Yahoo Japan auctions
http://yahoo.aleado.com/lot?auctionID=k143829086:

So her hair is styled with volume like that, ha! I might restore it that way, now that I know. A vintage Jenny, who wouldathunk!

Quick thrift store update and Dr. Blythenstein

Ah! Yesterday I found a Jenny Takara doll at this Hong Kong surplus shop/thrift store. They had new arrival stuff and it was so timely that I dropped by because I was in the area. 

Jenny was wrapped in tattered yellow orange fabric. I lifted the fabric and took a look at the back to see the label. I read Takara Made In Japan. JACKPOT! I bought her for P150. I think the cashier didn't know she should cost more than that!

I also found some Gothic Angels dolls but their box is opened. I didn't take photos of those because they're ugly. Photo: http://fucknomhfanart.tumblr.com/post/27585278790/for-knock-off-week-i-bring-you-gothic-angels-x

It's the two-doll pack on the left and the dolls that sort of resembles Lagoona Blue and Cleo de Nile. Did I already say they're ugly? I saw them first before finding Jenny so I thank God that I left them on the shelf and moved on.

I also found a Littlest Pet Shop with a Blythe doll in a [dented] box. The cashier asks P280 for it. I didn't buy it because I don't collect Blythe dolls in this scale. I don't think I will collect Blythes but I can understand the appeal. Here is the doll set on Amazon, by the way: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Littlest-Shop-Travel-Blythe-Loves/dp/B0043WG6NG.

Speaking of Blythes, meat Dr. Blythenstein from Mexico! He has the most awesome customised Blythe dolls I've seen: https://www.facebook.com/dr.blythenstein. His yarn head dolls are so charming!! I want to try making a yarn head doll for myself. Here is a photo collage from his Facebook:

Dr. Blythenstein custom yarn head Blythe dolls

I can't pick which one is my favourite. They're all so cute!!!

Pics of Jenny later! I also have an imitation Jenny doll which I picked up at a different thrift store earlier. The maker is Saerowa (My sister read the characters on the back for me), not Takara so it would be fun to see the differences between these dolls! I think this particular doll is called Mimi. Pics of her coming up soon, too!