Out of the Box: Monster High Vandala Doubloons

Vandala Doubloons

In the past I've said that I didn't think I needed more than one Monster High doll (famous last words), and then it was two, and then three, so for now I'll just say that four is a good number but that I'm making no promises for the future.

Today's doll is Vandala Doubloons, the pirate ghost from the "Haunted" series.  This series is interesting in that, unlike the bulk of the Monster High dolls, there are no bright colours on the dolls.  Instead, presumably to go along with the ghost theme, they're all combinations of faded and muted tones. 

Vandala's body is a pale seafoam green while her hair is a darker green with white highlights.  Her dress is patterned with the same colours, while her purse and left shoe are a green tone that's in between the other two.  She also has a pink armour piece, pink hat (with a blue-green boat), a brown-pink prosthetic right leg (detachable in the style of the Create-A-Monster dolls), and a sea-blue stand.

In the box.

Her face screening is similarly muted, to the point that I actually had a hard time photographing it since the lack of contrast with her base colour made it hard to see if she was actually washed-out by the lighting in the photos or if it was just an accurate capture of her ghostly self.

The armour, purse and doll stand all reflect the nautical theme, and are sculpted with anchor chains (the purse and armour remind me of the barnacle-covered, semi-scaled characters from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies).  The stand differs from the standard Monster High stands in that it keeps the doll's feet off the base, so she "floats" rather than stands - appropriate for a ghost!

She's floating!

Unlike the hard plastic of the purse and armour, the large floppy hat is a thin, flexible vinyl (although the ship that decorates it is in the harder material).   Although it's a lighter shade of pink than the armour, it's a very close match to the doll's lip colour, which I thought was an interesting choice.

The hat.

I've mentioned before that I specifically collect dolls and figures with prosthetics, and this doll is an interesting addition to that collection.  The promotional material refers to it as a peg leg, but it actually isn't one since it has a foot.  I'm not sure why they elected to not make it an actual peg, since the main reason I can see for not doing it (allowing her to shoe-swap with other dolls) doesn't apply since a shoe is sculpted onto the foot. The sculpting it nicely done (in addition to the shoe, there's a chain and anchor pattern running the entire length of the leg), and I love the concept, but the shoe part baffles me.

A closer view of the "peg leg".

Annoyance over the sculpted shoe aside, I really like the concept behind the doll, and I'm impressed at how well this doll and the others in the "Haunted" series work with the rest of the main line Monster High dolls, even given the very different colour palate.