All the way from Barcelgroana: Viperine Gorgon

Yesterday, one of my favourite stores over in the states was having a sale, so my husband and I hopped on over the border to check it out. Of course, there happens to be a Target right next to the mall and well..I had to go in! Sadly, I'm currently on a really tight budget, which of course means that they had almost everything I could have wanted! Viperine Gorgon, Jane Boolittle, Sweet Screams Draculaura and Frankie, the new Ever After High C.A. Cupid...All of them! With the help of my husband, I narrowed it down to two, and decided (for now) to go with the two new ghouls, Viperine and Jane. They were also the two with a biggest price difference after factoring in exchange and the Canadian prices, so it felt like a pretty good deal to me!

Anyways, without further ado, I've decided to review Viperine first. I can't believe how many new characters we've gotten lately! Four in the FCA line plus Jane, seems like a lot all at once, but I am not complaining!

So let's get to it!

 

Standard in-box shot! I always take this as SOON as I get home with my dolls so I can unbox them as soon as possible, I'm not good with this whole patience thing! Because I got these dolls over in the US, I get the regular boxes and not the international ones, which is always a fun change! It also means I get the full diary, which is something I always miss with the international ones.

We learn in Viperine's diary that she is from Barcelgroana, and that her mother is Stheno, and she's Deuce's cousin. In mythology, Stheno is even more fearsome than Medusa and killed more men than her sister, but in Viperine's diary we're told that in the MH universe, it's only Medusa and Deuce who have the ability to turn people to stone with their gaze. I love these little tidbits!

So, here she is with all her stuff! She comes with a brush, stand and diary as always, but also a makeup palette and brush, and a little carrying case. Viperine is a makeup artist for Veronica Von Vamp, as per her diary, and it's fun to see these accessories! Also, I just wanted to mention that I totally approve of these accessories that the dolls can actually HOLD. Too often dolls come with really cute accessories attached to their hands in the boxes with rubber bands, but what play value does something have if the doll can't really interact with it? And it was such a simple fix! The brush has a little ring to fit around Viperine's finger, and the palette has a flat loop on the back. Easy peasy!

I think I'm going to kind of start at the top and work my way down with Viperine, 'cause there is a lot going on with this lovely lady! Her hair is long and parted in the middle, with two spiraling tendrils in the front. The two pieces in the front are a bubblegum pink, and the rest of the hair is a very pale platinum blonde, almost white.

 

The texture isn't great, but it's not terrible either. It's a bit crispy at the bottom, and there are a few gluey spots, but I think the glue at least is owing to what we're going to look at next. I also felt like it was a bit thinly rooted at the top. but it was impossible to get a picture of her white hair against her white scalp.

The snake that acts as her headband is actually attached to her head with a little plug, which means...

She has a not-insignificant hole in the side of her head! The hair around this whole is pretty hard with glue or gel, but that does keep it out of the way of the hole, which is nice. It would be easy enough to wash out and style the hair to cover the hole if that was your bag!

Along the base of her head, there's a plastic strip attached to her head that has the rest of her snakes on it. This is glued on as well, but I didn't notice any glue seepage around it. I LOVE the snakes so much though, they all have little faces! Very cool.

Her sunglasses are attached behind her head with one of those plastic strap things, which was not the easiest thing in the world to remove, once you add the snakes into the mix. Her hair does tend to get a bit caught up in the snakes, which can get a wee bit annoying. The glasses are super cute though! They're trimmed with snakes, and the ear pieces even end in little rattles!

Without her glasses, it's easier to get a good look at Viperine's face. The first thing I noticed is she seems to have a rather large forehead compared to other dolls. You don't notice it with the headband on, and I suspect it's actually the reason she can wear such large glasses and the headband without them interfering with one another. Her skin is a pale, oyster-y colour with a slight sheen. It's very pretty and I think very unique amongst MH dolls. Between her eyebrows she has a pattern of scales in pink and purple, kind of like the scales Deuce has printed on his arm. The bridge of her nose is quite wide and flat, and I think it definitely gives her a more reptilian appearance without going full Voldemort.

Her eyes are kind of seriously fascinating. Of course she has the slit pupils, but her irises are really neat. They're done in shades of pink, and there's a pattern over them. I can't really make out what it's meant to be, but it looks like small dots over the centre of the iris. Whatever it is, it adds a lot of depth to her eyes and I really like it.

Viperine's makeup is really subtle, done in shades of soft taupe and brown, with a bubblegum pink lipstick. It's pretty, and I think anything bolder would have competed with her loudly patterned dress.

In profile, you can see the distinct shape her her nose. It almost comes to a point at the tip. I had a bit of a time pulling her hair back to show her ears for some reason, but you can see that they're very pointy, and very elongated. Different from the subtle points on Draculaura's ears or the ruffled edges of Jinafire's ears. There's a mark where a piercing would have gone, but I'm not upset about the lack of earrings here. I think they'd just have gotten in the way with her hair and the snakes.

The style of her dress is very simple, and definitely goes with the Bohemian style Viperine says she has. It's long by MH standards, coming to just above her knees, and is very loose-fitting with elbow-length sleeves. The top portion of the dress is a paisley pattern with peace signs over a light background, and the lower portion is black, with an all-over pattern of...a lot of stuff. I see flowers, masses of snakes, snails, and some abstract patterns as well. The hem is finished with a light blue ruffle and a pink ribbon, and the whole thing is very cute! Over this, she wears a pretty massive necklace that I really almost want to call a breastplate. It's actually curved to fit nicely over her chest, which makes it stay in place really well. It's light pink and is basically a mass of snakes. No real way around describing it that way! Something weird about the necklace though, is that it actually doesn't come off. It's one solid piece of vinyl, so you'd have to either cut it or remove Viperine's head to get it off. Good thing I like it!

Her boot are predictably awesome, but for some reason all my pictures of them are terrible. Ah well. They're the same light pink of her snakes and her necklace, and have laces up the front. There are snakes draped over the top, and white fangs painted on the front of each toe.

Now, with any doll who has a new and interesting body mold, I had to find out all the details and compare her to some other scaley ladies in my collection.

I grabbed Jinafire and the Gorgon CAM for comparison, and it's interesting to see how different all three are.

There's an obvious difference in the shapes of their belly scales. Jina's are more pointed, Viperine's are almost rippled, and the Gorgon CAM's are straight across. The Gorgon CAM's look the most straightforward snake-y to me.

The shape of the smaller scales on their bodies are different as well. It's hard to see, since Viperine's don't stand out as well in photos, but her scales are more of a diamond pattern, whereas with Jina and the Gorgon CAM you can see the edges where one scale lays over the one beneath it more clearly. It's subtle, but it's definitely different! The Gorgon CAM's scales also go all the way down her feet, which neither Jina's nor Viperine's do.

The other major difference is that Viperine has areas on the inside of her thighs and her arms are larger, smoother scales, much like the scales on her belly. Neither Jina nor the Gorgon CAM have those.

I thought I'd do a quick comparison shot of Viperine and the Gorgon CAM's faces too, even though they really look nothing alike. The Gorgon CAM is much more snake-like, with large scales on her face, no ears and those thin lips. However, I can definitely see a similarity in the bridge of their noses, they definitely have the same wide, flat thing going on!

After I got Viperine back in her clothes, of course I had to take a bunch of random pictures, just to see how she photographs. It's tricky, because her glasses catch any little bit of light and cause a reflection, but I greatly prefer how she looks while wearing them!

Her gaze is pretty intense without the glasses...good thing she doesn't have the power to turn people to stone!

And here she is doing what she does best...

Come closer, you've just got a little shine there she needs to fix!

And a little touch-up for herself! Gotta look good when you're a makeup artist to the stars!

And she's off to the Black Carpet, to make sure Veronica Von Vamp looks her best!

Now that I have all of the Frights, Camera, Action "New Stars" dolls (Clawdia, Honey, Elissabat and Viperine) I can say that I am really impressed with the line overall. These are four great dolls with a ton of awesome detail, particularly Honey and Viperine. I think that Honey has to be my favourite, because I just can't get over her fabulous hair, but Viperine is the really close second! I love the snakes in her hair, and her fascinating eyes, and I definitely love her hippie-chic style!

What do you think of Viperine, and the Frights, Camera, Action dolls? Who's your favourite?