✿｡•*¨*•｡ Dorothy Gale, Toto and Retro Lil' •*¨*•｡✿

Here's a couple  Barbie dolls from my collection... Dorothy Gale, with her little friend Toto and Retro Lil', my "repro' Barbie".

Barbie as Dorothy Gale was released in 1999 as part of Mattel's Wizard of Oz Collection..

She  comes in a faithfully rendered outfit, albeit a little shiny, a little basket in which she carries her little dog Tot, who appears to be panting and a pair of "ruby slippers" which light up.

She also says “There’s no place like home!” and “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Retro Lil' is a 35th Anniversary Barbie, I wrote a post about these Barbies back in 2015, if you want, you read this post (35th Anniversary Barbie) for more information on them.

To my mind the older model Barbies are much prettier  than their modern day counterparts, except for some of the new Fashionistas, but in terms of comparison between the 1950's and 1960's Barbies, and the 1980's and 1990's Barbies and also the early 2000's.

 I'd probably have grown up playing a lot nicer with my Barbie dolls if they had stayed looking like Retro Lil'...

Sindy Flock Haired Tester Doll - aka - "The Old Bouffant Headbutt"!!

As this doll is a "Ghost Sindy" I thought she should be a bit Goth looking, but beyond that I really had no ideas of what to do with her, so she ended up becoming little miss experimental instead!

I had already started on her fringe but as the rest of her head was pretty wrecked and Andy aka Bouffant Headbut; a Flickr friend of mine had recently told me his secret - how he flocks his doll customs...

The two things began to gel together in my head and so poor "Ghost Sindy" became my flocking guinea pig, after all I reasoned if it goes wrong, it doesn't really matter as she was pretty knackered as she was so why not see if I could do the Bouffant Headbutt Style flocking on her, or as I like to call it "Give her the old Bouffant Headbut"!

And this is the result:

The corset top is from some stock pieces for Pullip that I bought a few years ago and had no idea what to do with ... I've coupled it with some leather look Little Big Eyes trousers that were left over after my "Alice" custom was finished,  which look fab on her and yay actually fitted perfectly!!

The first thing I tried before I'd even removed the hair was to "tidy up" her make up as the paint from her lips had bled somewhat and is quite distracting ... but after I repainted them, she looked like one of those old ladies who think they still have full lips and end up getting it on their teeth and halfway up their face!!

So I just removed it and left her without ...  now she looks  like she's gotten drunk and smeared it all over the place instead!

Hopefully one day I'll work out a "cure" for this, but to be honest I've gotten so used to her having smeared lipstick that I think it kind of suits her and goes with "her look" quite well!

After a while, I uploaded her picture to Flickr and was so surprised to get so many compliments on her as I was still thinking I should do something else to "finish her off", but after receiving invites to add her to doll groups and the amount of attention she was getting, I decided maybe I should leave her be, after all I could end up ruining her completely.

Now that she's been like this for several years I feel she really is "finished", I love the way she looks right down to her drunken lipstick smears!

☠ The Pumpkin King Jack Posable Doll Made by Applause 1993 ☠

Anyone who's seen The Nightmare Before Christmas will recognise this doll, as Jack in his guise as The Pumpkin King appears as the finale of the Halloween Town post- Halloween procession, this is the first time we see Jack in the film and it is also our introduction to Halloween Town, it's residents and the world in which they exist. 

http://christmascartoons.org/christmas/nightmare-before-christmas-wallpapers/jack/

During this scene he is seen standing on top of the straw horse he is "riding" when we first see him. He resembles a scarecrow with his head made from a carved pumpkin and his body stuffed with straw and seems lifeless when first the horse is dragged into the town square by a character with an axe lodged in his head, called "Behemoth".

the-nightmare-before-christmas.wikia.com

"Scarecrow Jack" aka The Pumpkin King, rotates slightly on top of his horse and for the first time we get the impression that this "scarecrow" may in fact be a living being... We also get a pretty good close up, but it only lasts a few seconds as Jack sets himself on fire whilst fire eating, and falls from the horse - into a pond and emerges as Jack Skellington; his true form - a lanky skeleton with extra long fingers, wearing a rather snazzy pinstripe suit. 

Film Still - Source: Google Images

The film came out in 1993, and following its success, so did several toys, one of which was a posable doll made by the Applause toy company, which was a very good likeness of Jack as The Pumpkin King, from the opening scene of the film.

Several years ago I discovered through the dolly encyclopedia called Ebay, that this doll existed, not only that I found the only listing of it, which I ended up winning!

The seller I purchased him from bought him while she was in America and while she had opened his box to view him, she had never removed his ties and taken him out  - and neither have I.

The doll is 13 inches tall and comes in a black coffin shaped box, decorated around the edges with Burtonesque skull "railings" style motif. 

Photo from original Ebay Listing

He has extremely long dark flesh tone, jointed hands (like a skeleton's only skin tone & long), and incredibly small feet. He has a fully wired body which allows for his poseability and the mouth, eyes and nose carved into his pumpkin face have been coated with glow in the dark paint, so when the lights are out a disembodied pumpkin head glows eerily just over a foot above the shelf!

 The front of the box has an almost full length viewing window and the back bears the legend: 

"Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas" and below this is written: "HO, HO, HO, BOO! 

'Tis the season to be screaming. When creepy Jack Skellington and his ghoulish pals try their hands at playing "Sandy Claws", Christmas will never be the same."

There is also the original price tag stuck to the box which reads "Puzzle Zoo - $24.95" which was considerably more than I paid for it at the time I purchased it.  I paid £5.00, which by today's conversion rates works out as a saving of £9.80, so all in all not a bad little buy!

He also seems to be quite rare in this guise as I've only seen this version come up for sale on Ebay once in the four or so years I have owned this doll, and that was a couple of seconds ago when I decided to do a bit more research on him for this post which has been in draft format for years now!

Hugs,