Yeah yeah, late to the party, but apparently Hasbro and Integrity Toys are doing high-end, articulated, fashion-doll remakes of Jem and the Holograms. I wonder if they'll do the rival band too? I never got into the dolls the first time around, but I'm curious to see what the remakes look like. If they are 1:6 scale [as opposed to the original dolls, which were more like 13"] with articulated elbows [as opposed to the original dolls, who had articulated wrists, but no articulated elbows, for mysterious reasons], they could be interesting.
EDIT: Holy crap! 1:6 scale! Articulated elbows! Pink hair! Of course, this particular doll was one of those super-duper special editions available only at the 2012 Comicon, therefore now available on Ebay for $gazillion. Well, there'll be more of them in the future.
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*__* Waaaaaant….
Integrity female dolls are right at 12″, which may or may not make them genuinely 1:6 (yes, women can be a variety of heights, but…Integrity gals aren’t.) All of the ‘high end’ Integrity dolls Ive had have gotten floppy fast, too. I could go on about all the little aspects of Integrity dolls I don’t like, but I won’t–just caution you that you might be a bit disappointed in the dolls if you ever do acquire any.
Yes but…PINK HAIR! :p
N’Yenya is an Integrity doll, and I really dislike her body sculpt. She can’t stand up because her feet are pointy. Her sharp little fingers get caught in material and make her hard to dress. And her elbows only bend 90 degrees. I’m well aware that Integrity overrates itself.
I’d say it’s worse–N’enya has the older Monsieur Z/Dynamite Girls body, with shorter legs made of solid plastic; the newer bodies have even longer legs (yes, let’s make the center of gravity even higher!) and the hollow bits seem to get floppier faster.
Erm…you do know all Integrity articulated dolls have removable hands, though, right…?
I can remove N’Yenya’s hands?!
**tug tug TUG TUG TUG TUG**
No, I can’t. 🙁
They do offer a lot of resistance–the wrist pegs are probably the toughest bit of engineering on Integrity dolls… Ach, if the hands couldn’t be removed from Integrity dolls, I’m not sure if I could tolerate them at all. (That’s why I’m no longer willing to buy Pivotal Barbie bodies; Fashionistas only get a pass because they’re so inexpensive.)
I’m afraid I will pull the more flexible hands from the unyielding wrist pegs. Good thing she’s not changing her clothes any time soon.
Pink hair fan? Integrity had some blank-faced doll kits with pink hair and different complexions. The bodies are the old TNT, bend leg IT bodies though. Those dolls didn’t have articulated wrists.
I am accustomed to Jem being larger than Barbie so the IT Jem looks odd to me. Too thin and frail. Good luck though getting one though 😉
I’ve noticed that a lot of the customized dolls tend to look better than when a professional company revamps a line. I’m sure it’s a combination of cost, supply limitations, and what can be mass-produced. I saw a lot of commentary saying they didn’t like the face mould for Integrity’s Jem, while one person noted that it would look better merely by changing the face paint (lip shape, eyebrow color and shape). Customizers’ items are major labors of love, often with the person being a big fan of the character (or even recreating an old doll) since or during childhood. The passion and emotional connection makes us strive for “perfection”.
Another example of fan-made being better is with characters that don’t have dolls, or if the dolls are rare or just look bad. For the sequel to The Little Mermaid, there was only one or two dolls made for Melody, Ariel’s daughter. They’re hard to find now, and I personally don’t like the head mould. I’m working on rerooting an Ariel head to become Melody for a flickr friend. (She loves Ariel so much, she’s asked me to root multiple heads and has multiple Ariel dolls already.)
Y’know, Jem is on netflix now. I’ve only watched a few episodes so far, but I’m in love with the series.
Exactly…we’ve got the love! Even if our creations are not “screen accurate,” they’re just so much cooler than remakes because we each let our own artistic style shine through. We make the characters our own.
Re Ariel dolls: I was always so disappointed in the official Ariel dolls because her tail, rather than being a part of her body, was a removable glittery sheath. I want my dolls of merpeople to have actual tails dammit! I know that Mattel did eventually make mermaid dolls [Mermaidia? Mermaidtopia?], but, by then, I was irritated that they arms weren’t articulated. >_>
Yep, mermaidia thing was part of fairytopia from the early 2000s. (I got 2 of the pink fairies, which I’m going to customize.) They’ve had some Disney-branded Ariels with real tails, some that swim or are generally water-proof. Articulation has spoiled us as doll people, I agree.
The latest Disney store Ariel is articulated enough, but they still don’t have a “real” tail. Now I kinda wish I knew how to combine them for ya. I remember seeing ones where they could still sit normally and had a regular-shaped pelvis piece. The part where the legs attached was one piece that kinda cupped around the pelvis. Hard to explain.
On the bright side, the Disney Store Ursulas have octopus bodies. I don’t know the tail-leg situation on King Triton, though.
Yes, but are the tentacles articulated? :p You know what would be really cool? A human/octopus hybrid BJD with jointed tentacles.
They’re plush. I have seen an anthro bjd tiny on deviantART with articulated tentacles.
They’re also a little artist’s BJD on Etsy made of plastic from a 3-D printer that is an octoperson, but the tentacles aren’t really articulated.
That’s the exact one I was thinking of, actually. I saw them while browsing dA.
Crud, the arms are only articulated at the shoulders, but there might be a chance that the tentacles have wire inside.