by magkelly » Thu Nov 29, 2012 7:45 pm
Personal thoughts on Astor....
Well, she's not as bad as she appeared to be in the review above so it looks like I got a bit better example of the doll than the Toy Box Philosopher and the woman on Flickr did. She's not without flaws however. The difference in skin tones from the bottom legs to the tops is not as significant as I've seen it in other pics of Astor but yeah, there is a more pink tone to the bottom legs, though interestingly her arms are fine unlike pics of the other Astors. Whether or not she'll stay like this or get more two toned as she ages is something I am rather wondering right now though. Her left ankle was slightly indented from a tie though which was wound too tight but probably could be sanded down smooth if I wanted to bother. Her legs are a bit soft it would seem and I will have to really watch them for damage if a box tie can do that.
No loose joints otherwise on the contrary she's quite tight, except, and again this is what I expected from the reviews I saw, her knees are very loose and as a result she will slouch and not stand straight sans a support. (Very MT like in that respect. I can't get them to stand or sit up straight half the time either! But she has the body I wish they all had I will admit.) She is very well articulated and sits well otherwise. The TBP review mentioned her head can't look up and down, that's quite true, it's side to side only. Weight-wise she falls between a Moxie Teen and a regular Tonner girl, though she's definitely more on the MT end than the Tyler end. She was a bit heavier than I expected and is fairly well made. Her seams are not very smooth though. You can see them on her legs which are nice, particularly the knees, which are indeed very 2nd generation Fashionista like.
Hair is a bit fly away, doesn't appear gel was used at all on mine, but the bangs look good. It's very soft, very nice and the color is just lovely. It's a perfect flaming copper red. Her hair is Cleo style and hits right above the shoulders. It's a bit shorter than in some of the other pics I've seen but is pretty well done. Don't think I'd cut it shorter than that though I might even it out a little and spray it to keep it under control a bit more. Face? Very well done, not as vacant as I was expecting from the reviews and her mouth is fairly well painted. She's just toothy enough that it's attractive. I was expecting her face to be a lot cruder actually from the pics I'd seen but mine appears okay. She's quite cute actually though I agree with one thing, the bit of white under the eyes, that needs to go. She looks like her liner is incomplete and that would bug me over time. Lips and nails are a coral pink and her blush is a lit less apparent than in the pics I've seen. It's not a bad face up at all and she looks great in the sparkly number which is actually more of a light sea foam mermaid color not a turquoise color. Eye color is somewhere between teal green and blue and the paint is variegated so that's nice.
Outfits? I was not all that impressed with the way her clothes were packaged. Those pesky plastic tabs were all over the place and I had to be VERY careful when it came to removing them or she would have likely had a couple of extremely ripped up outfits. As it was with care I was able to minimize holes but yeah, this is not good. I would really hesitate to buy another outfit for her given all those tabs. Shoes, good stretchy plastic and I did not notice the red ones putting any stain on her feet. Stretchy is very good in this case because with tights putting the silver shoes on her was not easy. The tights were a bit too loose on her legs. The glitter on the whole outfit is floating off just a bit, but it's very cute. Tonner loses some points for the velcro here though. A kid old enough to enjoy this level of doll is old enough to use snaps and the outfit is on the nice side for velcro.
Size-wise I'd say she's very close to Ty Girlz and MT clothes though being slightly taller the pants would likely be a little short. Skirts and tops should fit just fine.The shoes though are much bigger, longer than MT shoes which means likely she's not going to fit into anything that they can wear. Definitely bigger than MH and Stardoll shoes too, I think, though I may try that later and see. I'm going to have to go through my shoes and see what works but I have a feeling it's her own shoes and maybe the Jakks Elle stuff that will fit. Maybe those Harumika shoes because they are actually bit long on the MT's. But she's definitely got odd feet compared to a lot of other dolls I have and will be harder to match than some.
I was not particularly crazy about the outfit she came in. The top will work with jeans and I like the shoes but I'm not liking the cheap bag, skirt or the shrug on the green outfit. I didn't notice any bad stitching, so again I think I might have gotten a good example compared to some. Overall the quality is a bit better than the MT stuff but again I was sitting there fighting punch tabs and finding tiny holes so that kind of negates the slightly better clothes for me. I mean what's the sense of making decent clothes for these dolls if they will have holes in them when they arrive? I managed to keep that to a minimum but I had to work at it and the tights they were particularly tricky. It would have been very easy to ruin them.
On a scale of 1-10 I'd rate her and her outfits at about a 7. She's better than I expected from the reviews but she's not as good as she could be coming from Tonner. There are QC issues that need to be addressed. For a kid at $30 I think she would work okay. At $50-60 I do think she'd be overpriced. Am I keeping her? Yes, I think I am, though admittedly it's more because I really, really liked the sea foam outfit and wanted to have a suitable doll to display it than because I fell in love with Astor. I like her, but I don't LOVE her, at least not yet. She may grow on me though, I think with time and with the opportunity to make her more clothes, so yeah, I am keeping her.
Would I buy another one though? No. I don't think so which is a rare statement for me to make. I usually like to get 2-3 play dolls from a new playline, so they'll have pals. But I'm just not that into getting more of these from looking at this one. As a one off I think I'll have some fun with her, but I just can't see spending $50-60 a pop to get her some friends. Half that on clearance maybe with free shipping, laugh, but not full price, no way, no how. I still think she was a bit over priced at $35 though she is a bit nicer than I thought she would be.
Pics later. I'm still not feeling great at all today and I was up all day waiting for the UPS truck. They didn't show until almost 8 so I'm wiped out now. Too tired to play anymore. I'm going to put Astor up in a shelf and go to bed for a while...
Didn't work. I can't sleep. I'm too tired apparently and my head is so congested that it aches a bit. I'm having problems laying down and breathing so sleeping is eluding me for the moment. Darn I hate it when I'm like this. Anyway, I tried a lot of shoes, Elle shoes, MT shoes, Haru, Jem shoes, MH shoes, nothing in any of my shoe boxes fits her. The larger Tonner type doll shoes are too big. The rest are too small. Some look like they might except the arch on her feet is very extreme compared to most of the other dolls I have and I can't make them work because of that. About the only thing that worked besides her own shoes was this old pair of Butterfly ring doll shoe bases. They look to conform to her feet so maybe their shoes would work but I'm not too encouraged here. Looks like this girl is going to need custom shoes made or I'd have to buy more clothes to get her a black pair which I don't think I really want to do. I'm kind of glad I bought her the extra outfit now because short of making her some it looks like she's only going to have two pairs to work with...
Last edited by
magkelly on Fri Nov 30, 2012 7:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.