Doll-A-Day 82: Review of J Doll Diamante La Calle by Jun PLanning

  My birthday presents are the gifts that keep on giving! I am still reviewing the dolls I got for my birthday. It may seem like I got a lot of dolls for my birthday, (and I did.), but for the record, I did get other things too. (A Subway gift card, a Monty Python DVD,a box of my favourite chocolates, (Russell Stover), tickets to see Red Green live,a Paul McCartney Special Edition Life magazine. See? My family and friends varied it a bit.) I got today's doll, along with the 2 AI dolls I reviewed a while back, very early, because I was lucky enough to find them at Tuesday Morning. Ken indulged me a bit this year too. I don't know why.
  Today's doll is Diamante La Calle, by Jun Planning. You may have seen her on this blog before when I had Big Eye week. I was debating on keeping her because she was a bit too goth for me. I would have preferred a less dead looking doll. I was trying to find other J Dolls at other Tuesday Mornings, or even at the one where I bought her. I kept going back, but they never got any more, or at least they didn't have any when I was there. I tried another Tuesday Morning, which had no idea what I was talking about when I asked if they had gotten any J Dolls. I tried a Tuesday Morning that turned out to not be there anymore!I finally found two more J Dolls at another Tuesday Morning. One was one I had seen on another blog, and  thought I would really like. The other was nice too. I bought both, but when I compared them all to decide which I liked best, I couldn't make up my mind. They all had certain things I liked best. One had the hair I wanted, one had the eyes, one had the clothes,and Diamante actually had my favourite skin tone and lips! Also, I think the other two, which I will review in the next couple of days,both have the #3 Pullip body and Diamante has the #4. I'm still not positive about this, since I was waiting to review them before opening them, but I'm pretty sure.There are different good aspects of both of the body types, so I couldn't make up my mind there either! I actually made a check list of all the points I wanted to consider, and they all came out even! I didn't feel I could keep them all though, when I had said that if I found another one I would exchange Diamante for it. So I'm compromising and selling Diamante's dress, which I didn't like anyway.Shew!
Here is Diamante in her box.

And the back of the box.

I can't speak any language but English, so I'm in awe of anybody who can speak multiple languages. I'm not going to make fun of anybody for bad translations, but it is sometimes funny how things turn out in translation though. I found this bit amusing.

There are tape circles sealing the box, but I just pulled up the top one and opened the flap, and the insert pulled right out.

Then of course I was met with this:

Loads of tape covering wire twisty things,thread, and plastic tabs. I had to tear off all the tape circles before tackling the other stuff. The biggest pain was cutting the thread that was holding out the edges of the skirt.

 
 The J Dolls are all named after famous streets and the clothes are supposed to reflect fashionable clothing of that area. Where does this girl live? This dress is a bit extravagant for day wear.
  She had plastic on her arms, under her gloves, and from her toes to her waist under her socks and underwear. Her hair still had a couple of plastic 'tubes' on it.

 It's a good thing her limbs were covered in plastic, because the plastic was covered in black stains from her socks and gloves.

 When I tried to carefully pull the plastic off I found you can't be careful enough!

The same thing happened with one of her legs. Luckily they popped right back in.
 Her hair was pretty decent right out of the box, thanks, I guess, to those plastic tubes.

 

 The trim on her dress is sewn on a bit shoddily.Luckily it only shows on the inside.

 Her shoes just look like regular Barbie shoes, and guess what: without the socks they are waaaayyyy too big and won't stay on.
She's actually even prettier out of the box.I don't know how that works, but it's true.

You think I'm kidding about that one hair, don't you?

Her eyes actually look bluer in person, and the stripes on her lips don't really appear as stripes except in this extreme close up.It's like an impressionist painting. From a distance it just appears as a colour.
Out of the three J Dolls I bought, I like her skin tone, (It's pink! Not gray goth!) and her realistic pink lips best.I saw a picture of one of these dolls that someone had put real hair (as opposed to paint) eyelashes on, and it was beautiful.

Part of the way to recognize the different Pullip bodies seems to be the clavical, or collar bone. I'll compare the two when I show my other J Dolls, but this is one of the few differences you might be able to see when the dolls are fully dressed.

 

As I said, I don't really care for her dress, with all the oversize lace and everything on it. So let's get rid of that.

It's a blouse and skirt, but they are connected by all the stuff, so they are still sort of one piece.

  She's a little modest, so she kept the undies on, (Not that they are modest!It didn't help much.),but we wanted you to check out all her joints.

 Her head can tilt sideways and up and down.Her upper body has a joint, but she can't move on it very much. Her upper arms and shoulders can swivel on a joint.Her elbows, and wrists swivel and bend.Her legs swing out at the hips, her knees bend and swivel,as do her ankles.Without her dress she needs something else to wear. But what will fit?

A Cutie Pops shirt? A little short and the sleeves end up being mid length.

Who owns this shirt/vest combo? It fits.

I think this is a Barbie tank top, but it fits pretty well.

They don't match, but she got cold and put on this jacket. It fits perfectly on her, and Moxie Girls.

A Bratz shirt (the sleeves are too short.), a Mary Kate and Ashley skirt( for one of the smaller versions of them.), which fits, and Only Hearts shoes. They would probably fit with socks or tights.The same goes for shoes from the smaller High School Musical dolls.

High School Musical on the left, Only Hearts Club on the right.

 The High School Musical 10" dolls are pretty close body-wise.

Diamante with High School Musical Gabriella. Both are about 10" tall.

This Mary Kate and Ashley coat fits perfectly, but we couldn't find a blouse.

I think this is Mary Kate and Ashley too.

This Liv shirt is a little big, but no too bad. Don't know for sure who the vest belongs to.

 But her favourite was this Barbie Look Tea Party dress. It's a little big in the bust, but it actually works pretty well.

Oh yeah. She comes with a stand. It has a base with a stone design, and a metal stand that screws into the base and telescopes so you can use it at different heights on the body. They actually give you instructions on how to use it. Who do they think is buying this stuff?

This modelling stuff can be so boring.

 So tomorrow I'll show you another J Doll. No peeking until then.

I'm not looking!

Doll-A-Day 22: A Review of Ai Doll Leptospermum

  Yesterday I reviewed my Ai ball jointed doll Bee Balm, which I got at Tuesday Morning recently. Today I'm reviewing the other doll I bought, which is from the same series, Leptospermum.As I mentioned in the Bee Balm review, all the dolls in this series are named after flowers. I had never heard of Bee Balm or Leptospermum. They look like this:

Bee Balm

Leptospermum

  The dolls are made by Jun Planning.I detailed the different aspects of the box yesterday, so I'll do an abbreviated version today. For more detail, see yesterday's post.
  Here's the front of his book style box.It also has magnets to hold it firmly closed.

 And the back.

"The code for flowers:spiritual beauty,intellectual strength with simplicity and honesty". All Bee Balm's said was 'comfort'!

I'm calling it 'him', but I found out that, like Bee Balm, Leptospermum is actually a girl.
  Here is what you see when you first open the box.

  Again, like Bee Balm the box isn't sealed. It just has this clear plastic that lifts up easily.

  All the accessories lift out of the soft box insert: and the insert lifts out too if you're not careful!

  Leptospermum comes with a soft toy,a hat, a pair of cool shoes, and a box of eye putty, for holding his...excuse me, her eyes in.There's nothing under the picture except the doll.
The doll is tied into the box insert with two ribbons. The one around the legs removes easily, but as with Bee Balm, the one around the neck required some digging out.

Once out of the box she needs the plastic removed from her arms.

I suppose this was to hold them together so she fit in the box better.
Her hair needed a little fluffing when she was taken out of the box.

Here she is in her outfit, complete with hat and shoes.

 She comes with a vest with a pretend zipper,a long shirt,leggings, her buckle shoes,the hat, and studded cuffs for her arm and leg.The cuffs aren't attached to the clothing.If you remove the clothing it's easier to put the cuff on the sleeve and legging before redressing the doll, so that they slide on easily. The clothes are well made of good quality fabric, and the details are nice.
  The shirt is decorated with a bar code.

 

 The vest is removable. The shirt closes in the back with velcro.I'm a bit worried about the unfinished bottom. I think it will start to unravel after she's been dressed and undressed a few times and played around with a while.The leggings don't have elastic in the waist.They just rely on their good fit to stay up.

She can stand alone pretty well.

Her shoes are so cool!

  I love the shoes! They really unbuckle. In fact, you have to unbuckle them to get them on and off.(Well, I had to unbuckle one of them.) Like Bee Balm's, the shoes have nicely detailed tread on the bottoms.

The hat has studs and safety pins on it.It doesn't really fit onto her head. It just has to sit there. So you can't move her around with it on because it will fall off.

Here's the back of the hat.

The little doll is soft and squashy, but really too big for her to hold. Her arms won't close on it enough to keep her from dropping it.

Her hair is a wig, held on by strips of velcro on the head and wig.After Bee Balm's head flew apart when I was checking her wig I was more careful this time!Like Bee Balm there was a thin piece of plastic, easily removed, covering the joint where the halves of the head come together.

The construction is the same:The head is held together by a single magnet at the top, but the piece that holds the eyes in is slightly different.

Bee Balm on the left and Lepty on the right.This picture illustrates the difference in their colouring too.

I don't know that it makes any difference to how it works though.I still had quite a time dealing with the eyes!

  Her eyes are a gray/lavender colour, but she decided to try out Bee Balm's green eyes. Again, I used the pointed wooden stick to position them...

This is Bee Balm, but you get the idea.

...although I went straight for the no holder/eye putty only this time.

She has the same somewhat limited posability as Bee Balm. Again, I'm hoping that it's just because her stringing is still so tight, although I suspect it might have to do with her arms and legs being so stubby as well.She can still do loads of cute poses though.

The same detailed little feet,finger and toe nails,nipples,belly button, and...uh, parts as Bee Balm.

 I had debated on selling both of these little guys and exchanging  them for a different Ai doll I liked better.I liked Leptospermum's open eyes,(Apparently these dolls came with open eyes, sleepy eyes, or asleep eyes.) but would have preferred brown eyes and reddish hair.I preferred Bee Balm's peachy skin tone to Lept's more grayish skin.I would really have preferred Lobelia's outfit.

I know those curls would be ruined in no time though. I'm not good with hair, as I've said.Same face as Leptospermum anyway.

I'm glad I ended up keeping them though. I couldn't have replaced them for what I paid for them,unless I found different dolls at Tuesday Morning.(Some of the prices on 'that auction site' were actually lower than Tuesday Morning's before Christmas, but now they are at least $5 higher.)Besides, having these two means I can switch their eyes and hair around for a few different looks.

Leptospermum with her own eyes and Bee Balm's wig.

She looks like a very stubborn little girl.

Leptospermum with her own hair and Bee Balm's eyes...

...and with Bee Balm's eyes AND hair.I think I'm afraid to take them back.

And with just the eyes.

Bee Balm: "You stole my eyes!" Lepty: "Who? Me?"

That'll teach her!"

And of course, the Kelly coats I showed on Bee Balm fit Leptospermum too.

It's not so funny now, is it Lepty?

I might try making my own wigs. I'm not much of a beautician, but I have plenty of hair from making dolls.
So I'm really glad I found these guys, AND that I bought both of them. (Although, as usual, I feel guilty I spent the money!)