Review Time! Dianna Effner's Pinocchio By Maru and Friends

  **As of today, 24 February, 2022, get a free outfit with your purchase of Pinocchio! Americana Cool, with it's blue chino pants, white dress shirt, and 2 bow ties,(red with stars and plaid), fits and other Mini Pals dolls. **

 I'm excited to bring you this latest review. Pinocchio is the latest doll from Maru and Friends. He was sculpted by the late Dianna Effner, one of my favourite doll artists. He also has the distinction of being the first Maru and friends doll with articulated elbows! (You may have seen my review of Maru and Friends Pepper a while back, and she has jointed elbows too, but Pinocchio came first.)  We'll get to all the details in a second.

  First of all, I should tell you that this review is courtesy of Maru and Friends, who have provided Pinocchio for review. Having said that, I have to say that this will be an honest review. I'll give you my honest opinions of everything, even if it's negative. 

  Pinocchio arrived in a cardboard box that contained his Maru and Friends box. The older Maru boxes came with plastic windows. The current boxes have no window, and instead, have a flap that closes to keep the dolls safe and clean, and are sealed with a Maru and Friends sticker, and tied shut with a pretty orange gauze ribbon. I'm glad to see they have eliminated the plastic. Some sort of  tab closure would be nice though, as the box doesn't stay closed on it's own once the sticky stuff wears out on the sticker used to seal the box, unless you tie the ribbon back on. Not that most people are going to keep their doll stored in the box, but it's nice, if you do, to be able to make the lid stay closed. That's especially important for the collectable dolls like Pinocchio, which are meant for adults. (Pinocchio's box states that he is 'a collectible doll meant for ages 14 and over'.)

   Pinocchio is held in his box by satin ribbons and protected from the ribbons by foam pieces. The ribbons untie and Pinocchio is a free, (if not 'real') boy.

  Pinocchio comes with a certificate of authenticity, stating he is a limited edition of 250.

He is all vinyl. The smooth Maru and Friends vinyl just feels like a wonderful quality doll.

He has a beautiful flesh look to his vinyl, with very natural colouring.

 

 He has a beautiful Dianna Effner face. 

Look at those chubby cheeks!

   

   I love his natural coloured lips and his skin tone.

His black hair is a removeable wig.

  The wig is nice and smooth.

It's attached with Velcro to his scalp.

  Pinocchio has blue glass eyes and 'real' lashes.

The eyes are a mixture of  blue and brown shades that make them look very realistic.

His eyebrows are made up of separate strokes, rather than a single line, and his lips are a nice, natural colour.

His ears are very basic.

  As I said, he's the very first Maru and Friends doll to have articulated elbows. 

So how well do those elbows work? Well, I had the same reaction that I had to Pepper's elbows and A Girl For All Time Clementine's knees. I feel like they should bend further and hold the pose better.

This is the extent to which his arm can hold the bend.

 Pinocchio's arms can be bent farther...

But they obviously can't hold that pose. They are strung with strong elastic cord, and it pulls the elbow back to a gentle bend.

  So he can't touch his face or anything, but his arms can be bent for some posing.

His arms can only go slightly out to the sides. The picture above shows how far.  The arms also swivel a bit on the elbow joint, for more posing.

But his legs can go quite far out to the side, which can make for more interesting poses, and also helps him stand unaided on surfaces that aren't quite flat.

The stone around this fountain was NOT flat! It was way harder to get him to balance on than you would think. It was windy too, and I was afraid he was going to fall into the algae filled water!

And this stuff was WAY lumpy!

  The pictures of him walking did require putting a small rock under his heel.

His head can tilt up...

...and down.

As well as tilt to either side in cute ways.

The tilt adds to his expressiveness.

His outfit consists of a white linen shirt...

...with an attached blue bow tie.

His shirt closes in the front with Velcro, but lays incredibly flat. I hate thick Velcro that looks very out of scale. 

He has a yellow bolero jacket with red piping.

It has split sleeves and is fully lined.

I was a little annoyed that his short cap shirt sleeves wanted to wad up in his jacket when I put it on.

  He has some red high waisted short pants.

They're a nylonish type fabric that doesn't stretch.  They close in the back with a snap.

He has a pair of blue suspenders that match his bow tie.

They snap to his pants.

He also has a black belt, (Looks like Pinocchio is taking no chances.)

The belt actually unbuckles and can come off, if you think a belt with suspenders is just too much.

  I'm wondering how it would look on Chad's blue jeans!

Of course Pinocchio has his yellow cap, with a red feather.

While the hat looks okay on his head, it does look a bit big when he's carrying it.

  I think if it were me, I might have made his hat out of only one layer of felt instead of two. Ken suggested that that might have left it too floppy, and I suppose he could be right. I would also have put the seam at the back. I supposed most people don't even notice this stuff.

  And he has the typical Pinocchio white gloves.

Looking at them before putting them on his hands, I thought they would be hard to stretch over all those fingers.

But it was actually quite easy. The gloves, (more mittens actually), are quite stretchy. 

  I have always disliked the look of doll gloves unless they are mittens, because doll gloves almost always are mittens. I'm thinking of vintage Barbie evening dresses with elbow length...mittens. I suppose it's necessary, because I certainly couldn't make fingers in gloves that tiny. I just think that if the gloves have to be mittens where mittens aren't appropriate, I'd leave the gloves out. Pinocchio looks fine, I have just never liked mittens where they should be gloves. Just a personal thing. I suppose that's another thing nobody except me thinks about. Anybody?

  A pair of red lace up boots completes Pinocchio's ensemble.

Real laces that you can untie.

They have texture on the soles.

They can be slipped on and off easily without untying them. That's good, because I am terrible at bows. His shoes will stay nice looking this way.

   My main complaint is that Pin's pants are so tight that he can't sit down all the way.

 

His butt's not touching the ground!

I guess that's not that big a deal since he's a collectible doll and not a play doll. But I want him to be able to sit down. I faked it out for these pictures of him relaxing by a stream.

  

 

 I would have preferred his pants had a little give that let him sit down.

  So do I like Pinocchio? Overall, I like him very much. His elbows could bend a little more, but it's not really a problem. He has a beautiful face! I really love his skin tone and his lip colour and his stunning face. 

I like his brightly coloured outfit. I think he looks pretty impressive.  

  As I said, Pinocchio is a limited edition, and he retails for $150. He, and the other Maru and Friends dolls are available on their website HERE.  

  Now for a little background on his photo shoot. You may wonder how he is posing in some lovely sunshine and greenery, when we are in the midst of winter and snow. Well, Pinocchio arrived back in October, the day before I left for Georgia. So he took a little trip. One day while Lori was doing something else, I ran out and spent about an hour shooting the pictures for this review. The fountain was a small fountain by the train that Tammy World showed you in this post.

You can see it in this picture Tammy showed you.

It's just the other side of this train.

  The 'stream' and 'stone wall/bridge' were just down the road in a small park. The 'stream' was a tiny crevice of water where he is shown sitting next to it, so it made the perfect doll sized stream.

  His tiny apple was a real apple.

Pinocchio would have an apple for the teacher.

  

I came across an apple tree in a parking lot while Ken and I were out one day. I picked up some apples, which were small to begin with, and that apple that was the perfect size for Pinocchio. I kept it in the fridge, hoping it would stay good until Pinocchio arrived. Luckily it was still good on the day of his photo shoot. 

  But what do you do with the apple when the shoot is over? Pinocchio! 

You're not supposed to eat the teacher's apple!

  Well that's typical of Pinocchio I guess! And let's be honest: I helped him finish it.

  I'll be back soon with more interesting stuff.