Toy Fiend Friday! Color Me Creepy Monster High Sea Monster

This week's Toy Fiend post features a review of one of the new Color Me Creepy Monster High sets, the Sea Monster doll.  I had some extra cute help trying out this set.  I visited DollsAhoy! (Andrea) yesterday for a dolly play date; she and her son were more than happy to help me out with my new toy, hehe.

The Child tries out the color changing legs.

In all honesty, the color changing aspect had no bearing on my purchase of this set.  I HAD to have that tentacle dress :3.  I also really love the new color of the Sea Monster girl, she's one of my favorite Monster High dolls to repaint.  Andrea's son was really getting into this set, though I think he had more fun splashing in the water than the actual color changing :).

Lots of colorful accessories!

This set includes a lot of accessories: shoes, a dress, a squishy wig, ears that pop into holes on the wig, two sets of leg and arm cuffs, and a neat new clear base stand which doubles as the water dish.  My set only came with one ear, however, but that doesn't matter much to me and was likely a fluke.  The blue cuffs have fins and a shark skin texture, the yellow cuffs are tentacle patterns.  The Sea Monster's shoes look as though they're made from kelp.

The Color Me Creepy set includes a recolored version of the original Create A Monster dolls whose limbs, lipstick, and eyeshadow change colors with icy water.  The dolls also have one little spot on their clavicle which changes color, the Sea Monster girl, here, has a tiny tentacle which shows up.  You're supposed to fill the blue pen with water and place it in the fridge, but Andrea just tossed a few ice cubes in a dish to save time.  The blue water pen also split in two and I was unable to click it back together.  Again, this doesn't matter to me, but it might be a pain for someone whose children are excited about playing with this set.  Of course, you can still use the pen, it just won't have the cool outer casing.

Using the 'friction tool' to draw designs on the doll's legs.

Icy water changes the skin color from light blue to an inky looking black.  This is facilitated by a coating on the doll, however, which I suspect might be prone to rubbing off and flaking with vigorous play.  The red 'friction' tool is moved along the skin to generate heat and turn the black color back to the original blue.  You can also just hold it in your hand for a bit to warm the piece back up.  As with all of the CAM dolls, the limbs easily pop in and out of their joints and the head attaches easily, with no anchor.

I know a lot of people were disappointed with the plastic wigs, but I love the way they look!  I really like not having to spend ten minutes making sure every hair is in place for photos, too >_>.  It's not for everyone, but it's a nice change of pace for me.  This version of the Sea Monster girl also lacks the molded tentacles on her arms and legs, which I actually prefer for re-dressing.  I'm pretty sure this is just a Create a Monster Vampire body with a Sea Monster head.

Overall, the quality of this set is a bit lacking.  The makeup is pretty awful and sparse, but I think this was the exchange in order to incorporate the color changing materials.  For kids, I think they'd have a bit of initial fun with it and probably end up tossing this into the pile of 'things which are never played with again.'  I definitely wouldn't consider it a need-to-purchase unless you're really keen on having all of the releases.

For me, I just wanted to repaint a different color Sea Monster girl and steal her accessories, haha.   If it's the accessories you're after, though, I'm positive they can be found separately second hand.  I'm also happy to see a whole doll instead of an add-on with missing or mismatched pieces (I'm looking at YOU Design Lab =_=).  Even though it's not particularly mind blowing, I also like the clear stand.  It reminds me of the stands for some of the higher end figures I own.

So what do you guys think?  Will you be picking up any of these sets?  Have you got them already?

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!