#Creature from the Black Lagoon Skullector

[taybatwo2]

The Creature From the Black Lagoon Skullector Review Part 1 of 2

I was very excited when I saw her leaked head sculpt. I love new monster-y head sculpts!!

Here’s her box! Despite not being an in box collector, I like the new design of being able to pull both sides apart. Review under the cut!

Here’s the side of her box (notice the little skullets in the bubbles??).

And a very cool graphic for the back of her box. It even looks like water damage from rain dripping down from the top of the box.

The inside back of the box. The “Date 2/12 Time: 19:54” is when The Creature From the Black Lagoon’s film was originally released. The location is located in the Amazon Rainforest.

The background of her box is very pretty. It has brain coral, a couple of divers, more skullet bubbles, depth measures (I think that’s what those are) with “30” on it (2024 is its 30th anniversary), with Kay’s legs dangling in the water.

And the fossilized hand that brought humans to her lagoon.

The certification slip. It’s on thicker card stock again (I don’t know why Lenore’s was so thin).

The Creature in her box (I really do like how she’s posed in here, reaching for swimmer above her).

And here she is with her hair combed and out of the box (her hair is pretty soft and I’m going to assume it’s Saran). I was a little low-key disappointed when I first saw that she didn’t have a new body sculpt to match the creature’s, but I do appreciate how the adapted the Creature’s naked body into a fairly cohesive outfit that works for her environment (it’s giving me some DC’s Aquaman design vibes -photo credit from HipComics)

…but could you imagine if they gave her those webbed feet and gave her some heeled sandals…and they gave her scales closer to what her arm bracers/shoes have (that the Creature showcased)…..it’s not like this is a seventy dollar (including shipping) Skullector doll….oh wait!

Now, her BEAUTIFUL head mold!! Look at all those new details! I love it so much!! And her face up is just gorgeous!!!

Side view of her head mold. Again, those gils are so lovely.

The back of her head and upper neck (I wasn’t expecting it to be so open, but it looks nice). Her head is stamped with 2024, I’m surprised it’s dated with this year and not 2023.

Now to the part I was secondarily most excited for! Her hands!!!! Look.

at..

these details!!!! They also pop off REALLY easy on my doll….

Well, right out of the box and she already has white stress lines in her arms and they will not snap into her socket any deeper than this (gives me G2 flashbacks).

Even the back of her leg joints have a bit of white stress lines where they rub against her calves. Those are all really disappointing….

Here she is in the nude. Again, I kinda wish she would have had the same new details on her body that her new hands and head have. I know it would be more expensive BUT Mattel is a big company and did brand new bodies for one-off characters in the hay-day of G1.

And her back.

I wanted to compare her to other scaled G1 female dolls.

CAM Dragon had the original scaled body…err legs and arms that are used as the template for the rest of her scaly brethren. She has the best mobility in her shoulders too. Lorna was the only little sister body to have scales and is a one of a kind body with detail that would have never been seen if she was never re-dressed.

Proof that Mattel can do detailed, specific body sculpting (on PLAYLINE DOLLS). CAM Gorgon was the original (I’m pretty sure). And looks to be a modified version of CAM Dragon. Then Jinafire was released (notice the scalloped belly scales and the border around them). Lastly, Viperine was released and she just has such a beautiful body mold. Her belly scales are not only raised, with a different design, but she has a completely different scaling pattern on the rest of her body (they are sharper in shape, go down farther in her feet and have the same “belly scale” pattern continues on her inner thighs and arms)!!!

Jinafire and Lagoonafire share the same body mold (minus the hands/head), but modified it so she has fins on her forearms and legs.

Then they modified it again (got rid of the tail hole) and reused the exact same body for Greta and Creature. EXCEPT it’s worse!!!! This is the closest they can put down their arms and they both have loose fore-arm joints (like MH’s G2 dolls). Should I be surprised at Mattel’s cheapness…no, but then again, these two bodies are the more expensive Skullector editions. :/

Her clothing/accessory review along with a few other doll comparisons will be in Part 2.

[lobstersexdungeon]

Changed her color palette slightly cause that red lipstick looked atrocious imo

[chocolatepyrusart]

Swim at Your Own Risk

[thenightjillcamehome]

"every man her mortal enemy... and a woman's beauty her prey!" 🌊

[tanglednlove]

My finished Creature! She is taller! I honestly did not expect that to happen.

[floozydolls]

She is everything to me 💚

[mh-dreamscape]

Fun fact brought to you by a marine biologist/marine affairs major!

Part 3: Creature from the Black Lagoon Edition!

Sooooo I ended up getting her and when I finally got to look at her details up close, I got inspired to do another one of these! Now that I’m graduated, I’ll most likely be taking her out of the box at some point! This will also be a little bit of a review too!

In my previous post, I rated her a 9.7/10 because I was confused by some design choices, like the harpoons in her heels. I feel that would’ve looked better with some type of shoe unless her feet are supposed to be like boots? Anyways, I’ll be going from head to feet with aquatic biology and my feedback!

The Fin Headpiece:

Most fins have multiple lines or filaments like that and tend to start with either a darker color or color that matches their body on the inside. That color starts to fade out the further on the fin we go because the material is a lot thinner. They can appear to have a sheen look sometimes because they can be shiny and reflect light a little!

The Face:

Probably the most informative part, the face has many qualities to it! Makeup? Iconic. Flawless. The only thing I might change about it is maybe a not-as-bright lip color, but I think I feel that way about many designs and might just be a personal preference so I’ll let it slide. Aquatic factors? To. The. MAX!

Unless a fish has a protruding lower jaw, they don’t typically have an upturned smile. Body shape and mouth position can be linked together too. Bottom feeders, like catfish and sturgeon, are usually wider and flatter with an inferior mouth or a mouth that’s toward the bottom of their face or completely under it. Fish with superior mouth types (“a” in the picture and towards the top of the body) and terminal (“b” and towards the middle). As you can see, either way, the fish will have a downturned mouth and I just love that quality on this doll. This follows with her nose as well! Her nose does stick out like a normal monster high doll. It’s flattened a bit and has wider nostril sides which goes along with the snout on fish.

Now, I know most of her design is literally based on the Creature of the Black Lagoon so I’m probably just listing facts about him too, but let’s talk about the sides of her face, the part I highlighted the most in this 3/4 perspective!

Probably the most prominent features on her head sculpt: Gills! They generally follow the rules of anatomy having the the arches and filaments, but she is missing an operculum, which is a protective covering for the gills made by a series of bones. This doesn’t mean she’s entirely inaccurate though as only bony fish have operculums!

The Hands:

While it isn’t related to fish much, I wanted to admire her hands too! On Mattel’s page for her, they mentioned amphibious a couple of times so I thought I should show that. This is a comparison to frogs hind leg and foot (I couldn’t find a good picture of a “hand” or front leg).

The Body/Clothes:

As mentioned above, this piece was called “Pearlescent amphibious body armor” and while it does resemble a frog-like skeleton a bit, I felt it looked more like a fish! The top part that rests on her shoulder reminds me of the head portion of the skeleton.

Now, let’s take a look at her tail/fin which I believe is made of some type of tulle, but please correct me if I’m wrong! I don’t know much about fabrics.

The way the tulle sticks out in the first set of body pictures (middle one) reminds me of a caudal peduncle which as described in the picture above, connects the main body and the caudal (tail). The way the tulle is spread, it looks like it would be a truncate tail. Tail shapes are connected to the maneuverability and speed of a fish and each in the third picture shows how they could work. I know it probably doesn’t lay that way when she’s taken out of the box, but it was a cool design choice!

The Feet/Shoes:

I haven’t taken her out of the box yet, meaning I don’t have any good pictures of her feet or the stand so I’m using the stock photos from Mattel’s site. The fins follow fish biology with them being a lighter or different color and the tops and bottom of her feet/shoes resemble a more amphibious or reptilian nature. Taking a closer look at it, I can now see that the harpoon is attached to a rope that wraps around her ankles! I wish they colored it differently so we could distinguish that (or maybe I was the only one who thought they just stuck harpoons in her heels lol). After finding that out, I don’t have much complaints. I think it’s kind of cool they made the feet into boots!

The Stand:

I adore the stand! I love when stands can add a bit of background or a pop of color to the doll! The kelp/seaweed was a great idea to hold her up and there’s detail on the sea floor as well! My only tiff is that I don’t quite know how stable this will be. With the usual stands, the clamp in the back holds their waist up while the bottom gives their feet something to rest on. It makes it stable in general posing of dolls. These pictures show her feet barely resting on it and I’m sure you could probably stretch her one foot out to land on the higher part of the terrain, but it wouldn’t quite look as good as the stock.

I tried making a quick edit of another way to keep the pose. I originally wanted it to be a harpoon and harpoon gun but I felt that was sort of off brand with Mattel and Monster High so I instead lifted that anchor from the terrain, colored it differently to look like it was covered in algae, and rested it in the seagrass! The only drawback would be that it requires a bit more plastic for each stand and may make it a little more clunky. Like I said, I haven’t taken her out of the box yet so I don’t quite know how stable the original stand is, so this is more so brainstorming!

Overall:

Making this post made me glad I got her and appreciate her design more. I got her about a month before graduating and it seemed fitting for my final doll delivered at college to be one that’s similar to my major (er I guess I should start saying degree now huh 😅)! I know this was such a long post and I’m sorry for it but I figured combining my “Fun Fact” series and an observational review of her in-person would be great! Her rating still stands at a 9.7/10!

What do you guys think? Do you like her design? What’s your favorite or least favorite part? What would you change about her? Should I keep doing this series??

[laciedollblog]

Creature From The Black Lagoon Skullector!

Available April 26th for 65 USD.

[misfitdollies]

🫧

[leeeeeeeeech]

PLEASE let her look good

[kryptokat96]

She has risen from the deep 🐟

[asterkurayami]

[allthemonsterhighdolls]

c. 2024

Pre-unboxing pictures. Doing mental prepwork on an actual photo shoot.

Detaaaaaaails. All the deeeeeeetaaaaaaaaaaails!

[meiko333]

Monster High Icons

Like and/or reblog if you save/use

[tanglednlove]

Doing a freaky fusion!

[floozydolls]

The euphoria of having one of your favorite fictional characters being adapted for your favorite doll line is a feeling that is completely unparalleled. I saved up so I could snag 2 of these girls at the Skullector drop a few weeks ago, and now I can have one in box for display and another to hang out on my gaming desk every day 💚

photos of her before re-curling her hair are under the cut