Out of the Box: American Girl Mini Melody

I have to apologize for not being online very much this month. I've been doing quite a bit of travelling for family obligations and that's been eating up most of my free time. Still, I wanted to pop on to share the mini version of American Girl's newest historical doll, Melody (and thanks to Debbie Behan Garrett of Black Doll Collecting for the tip on finding her at steep discount!).

Melody, the newest American Girl character doll.

Out of the Box: Monster High Hexiciah Steam

Mattel generally puts out a two-doll exclusive every year for the SDCC, and this year's was the father-daughter pair of Hexiciah and Robecca Steam.  I wasn't terribly interested in Robecca, so I split the set with another collector. As a result I can't do a review of the full set or the packaging, but I did think it would be fun to look at Hexiciah on his own.

Out of the Box: Carpatina Diya

A few months ago, Carpatina - the doll and medieval fashion company - announced an upcoming new doll, Diya. I was excited enough by the hype to preorder her, and today she made her grand arrival.

Carpatina's dolls are 18" playline dolls with full vinyl bodies which are slightly slimmer than the similar-height American Girl type dolls (I reviewed this body type last year in the form of Carpatina's Veronika, so I won't go into the body in depth with this doll as the engineering and size are identical). The new features of Diya are her face sculpt and her unique skin colour. As with all Capatina releases, one of her selling features is the detail in her clothing, in this case her Anarkali Dress with what hand embroidered trim.

Before we begin, I need to apologize for the photo quality: the rainstorms that I mentioned the other day are still ongoing, so it was quite dark for most of these.

And with that out of the way, let's open this box and take a look at Diya!

Upcoming posts for August 2016

ME Minimates, SDCC Monster High, Carpatina Diya

August has been a rainy month here, so I haven't been able to take many photos, and that's translated into my not posting very much lately. I wanted to make a quick post to say hello though, and I do have three new arrivals coming soon, and hopefully the weather will give me a chance to share them.  The three in question are the Series 2 Mass Effect Minimates (which were available as a set this time versus the old blind bags), Monster High's SDCC exclusive Hexiciah Steam (I won't be getting Robecca as I'm splitting the set with someone else), and the newest Carpatina doll, Diya.

Hope your summer (or winter for the southerners) has been fabulous, and if you're following the Olympics, I hope your favourites have been doing well!

Random Toy of the Day: Batgirl (DC Super Hero Girls)

Since I've already reviewed the Bumblebee figure from this line, I don't have much to say about Batgirl here, but I did want to share a photo of her today.

Batgirl reads Batgirl.

Hard to believe that it's August already - I hope you're all having a good summer (or winter, for the folks in the southern hemisphere)!

Random Toys of the Day: Heroclix Midnighter, Apollo and Jenny Quantum

Apollo, Jenny Quantum, Midnighter

A while ago I realized that I've never shared any photos of my Heroclix game pieces outside of a few background appears in size comparison shots, so I thought I'd start to remedy that and take a few of them outside from some photo time.  They're fairly straightforward, so I won't do a full review, but I still wanted to give them some attention.

Heroclix figures are usually around 3cm in height, making them between 1/43 and 1/45 scale (also known as model railroad scale). The game that these pieces are used in is a grid-based board game - there are hundreds of game pieces available from dozens of different franchises. While I'm not a board game person, the variety of character figures that are available means that I have picked up several none-the-less.

Out of the Box: Titan Vinyl's Mass Effect Mystery Minis

L-R: Wrex, Kaidan, Liara

A year after unboxing Titan's Dragon Age Mystery Minis,  I'm looking at some Titan minis from another Bioware franchise, Mass Effect.  The figures I'll be looking this time are my favourites from the original game: Liara, Wrex and Kaidan (although he's called "Kaiden" on the packaging).

Having learned from all the duplicates in my Game of Thrones blind box collection (all of which have now been sold, luckily), I decided to trade the element of surprise for the certainty of character and picked up these three pre-opened on eBay.