MH Care & Repair: Fixing Broken Legs **OUTDATED**

** WARNING!! This post has been UPDATED and the information contained here, in the original, is NO LONGER ACCURATE. If you're looking for fixes for an MH doll's broken leg, please see here on how to fix a male doll's broken leg, and here on how to fix a female doll's broken leg using CAM pieces. Thank you! **


Howdy y'all!
So for Christmas this year, my kids gave me my gift early.

It's Battle Damage Ghoulia! Now with real amputee action!
Needless to say, I wasn't exactly thrilled with this turn of events. But it turns out my favorite dollies have some accident-prone legs, and they've been around long enough that others have had to deal with similar problems.
I found a few good solutions online but none that really fit my issue exactly. This wasn't a Wave 1 elastic break. It wasn't a peg slip-out repair. And it wasn't quite a leg modification using CAM kit parts.
But that last post got me thinking, and soon I had a plan! So, without further ado, I present:
How to Repair Monster High Doll Legs Broken at the Knee Joint

Materials:
- any super-strong adhesive - I used Krazy Glue but Gorilla Glue and Superglue are also great.
- an Xacto knife or other craft knife with a thin, sharp blade
- a pair of thin tweezers
- a small pair of pliers, any size, but needle nose would probably be ideal (not pictured)
Due to the number of potentially dangerous items on this list, it is highly recommended that you have a friend, sibling, or parent to assist you. I'm serious! Please be very careful!

Step 1:
First, take a good look at the break you're dealing with. This is a pretty clean break from one leg being pushed out to the side, resulting in a stress fracture in the joint plastic. Breaks due to twisting, pulling, or forcing the leg into unnatural positions, or eventual brittleness of the plastic, will need different amounts of preparation and care.

Step Two:
Use your Xacto knife to cut slowly along the seam on the back of the leg. This seam is easier to cut into than the front, and the damage is ultimately less visible. Once you've cut halfway up the thigh, insert one leg of the tweezers to prop the gap open, as seen here, and use your pliers to remove the broken peg, as seen below.

Step Three:
Coat the broken ends of the peg and joint with your adhesive. Hold them together long enough to cure. I used the heat of my desk lamp to hurry the curing process; you could also use a hair dryer on low heat or a portable heater or.. I don't know.. a kitten maybe?

Hey, remember when I said Please be careful? That neon green Band-aid is the result of me stabbing myself with the tweezers. So yes! Exercise caution please! And keep Band-aids handy!

Step Four:
Once the glue has cured (e.g., it no longer appears wet and sticky; the pieces can be released without sliding away from one another), you can re-attach the broken limb. Note that those two pegs will have to pass between a narrow gap to return to their original place, and if the glue has not cured, you run the risk of gluing the joint to the inside of the leg. It can be undone but it's a pain in the butt, so, don't do it.

Using your pliers, slide the repaired joint back into the leg socket, being careful to replace it in its original spot and no further. Once the leg has been returned, you can remove your tweezers and press the two halves of the thigh together again. There's going to be a slight gap.

Step Five (optional):
As you can see in the picture above, I did a pretty rad job of actually increasing Ghoulia's leg damage in the course of her repair. If you can get your hands on some Epoxy, Sculpey, or Milliput, you might wish to fill in and smooth over those cracks, which can later be painted to match her skin.

In my case I used a homemade mixture of tissue paper, glue, and a little bit of water to create a crude papier-mache mix, which I plastered over the injury. Once it's dry I plan to sculpt it down against the skin better.

And voila! There you have it. An irreparable doll returned to active duty. Don't know about you, but that just about makes my day.

Updates All Around!

Howdy y'all!

FIRST: I won NaNoWriMo (yay!) with "The Abyss Gazes Also", but it's not over yet. If you haven't checked it out yet, you can right here. We're on Chapter 53 right now, heading into the climax, and it's getting good reviews, so come along for the ride!

SECOND: Look at these fine-ass ladies who recently came to stay.

Picture Day Operetta and Music Festival Abbey.

Our local Walmart is moving out all its old stock, and both these lines are on sale for $10 each. Check your local Walmart for end-of-season deals too! Spring 2014 dolls are coming!

Here's Abbey with just the front piece of the box removed, still attached.

Here you can see everything the doll comes with. The Music Festival line is a budget, or minor, line, but I think you get a good amount of quality accessories for the lower price. She wears a 1960s style blouse with one dropped shoulder, gathered waist and elbows, and ragged-edge three-quarter sleeves and waistline. She has a blue-and-purple faux denim mini with frayed edges. Her melting ice belt in blue translucent plastic is re-used, and I usually despise belts, but in this case it helps to keep the edges of the blouse from curling up.

The one stand-out piece of this outfit, for me, is the boots. Translucent blue melting ice boots, knee-high, with removable bright pink spiked shackles. You can't tell me that's not awesome. (Her blouse and adorable headband also prompted me to get her. I just love the style!)

I mean LOOK at those boots! You can also see her VIM pass and her earrings in the shape of one blue snowflake and one purple crystal. I wonder how many other Abbey dolls don't include her signature "ice crystal" choker?

Now on to that lovely lady from the catacombs...

Picture Day Operetta! I'd been looking EVERYWHERE for her, and B wound up running into her at Walmart, which was unexpected. She was on my must-have list for the following reasons:

- One, she's Operetta.

- Two, the Picture Day sets are fairly cheap ($10 - $15 in most stores right now, $19.99 on release) yet come with some of the greatest accessories and design for their price point. The clothes in this line are consistently well-made and gorgeous. The Fearbook is worth it if only for the sheet of stickers within.

- That jacket! Finally, an MH letterman jacket for a ghoul!

- Those shoes! .. OK, basically the fact that she's 1950s ghoul cool reincarnated. Spectacular.

However, as you might guess, that cute little "hairdo gone astray" image of her on the Picture Day boxes translates to "glue-stiffened unmanageable coil of hair" in 3D, which also left her face spattered with glue; and the back of her head has been pressed so firmly against the box that any shape her carefully crafted ponytail and pompadour might have had, has been destroyed. So, yes. She's on my "imminent boil and re-do" list.

I noticed also that her left hand is deformed and will require some careful trimming with an Xacto before it can bend as normal. Other than that, she's flawless.

The coat is cut just under the bust with three-quarter sleeves. The main body is purple pleather, with an MH logo printed on the upper left breast. The sleeves are white faux leather. The coat has knit acrylic trim at the cuffs, hem, and neck. It's well-made, though I worry about the longevity of the pleather, and it looks absolutely fantastic.

The corset is a removable piece with thin velcro closure and printed white stringing. It is structured just as a small corset should be, in panels, and it fits just right.

Operetta has a handbag shaped like a red and black dripping heart, with a music-note "tail" detail on one side. The bag is small, just big enough for a ghoul's iCoffin, but I do appreciate the nifty curve in its strap, designed to help its weight balance on a doll's arm.

On her left wrist she wears a simple black bracelet, common to the dolls released in this line and around this same time. On the right wrist she wears a bead-detailed red bracelet, a recolor of Lagoona's Dot Dead Gorgeous white bracelet.

Here are her amazing shoes, with molded and painted buttons and a red seam along the inside of the ankle. I can't get over these. They're gorgeous.

Her facemask is still heart-and-cobweb shaped, but this time the spider at its edge is bright red, adding some visual punch. On her right ear she wears a long earring of black vinyl records.

This is the full complement of accessories with this doll: jacket, corset, dress, fishnet stockings, bag, bracelets, facemask, earring, and shoes, not to mention folder with spiderweb patterns and closure, stand, and brush.

The jacket, shoes, socks, and corset could easily be added to other Operetta outfits, without disrupting her basic style themes.

The dress, leopard print interspersed with music notes and treble clefs, combines the "strapless" (clear plastic straps) look of the Ghouls Night Out designs with the tulle, patterns, and ruffles of the Dot Dead Gorgeous line. It's elegant, fierce, and adorable, all at once. That's Operetta in a nutshell!

So, in conclusion, I'd say the Picture Day line are worthwhile, for your own collection or for storing as a future investment. This is the second "basic" Operetta doll and in my opinion she's a gem. It's obvious Mattel put a lot of work into her design and the craftsmanship used to put her together.

As for the Music Festval dolls, I feel their costumes make them worth the cost, but they don't offer much else. If you have a favorite character, get them in this budget line if only to have some variety; otherwise, these dolls will soon be on deep discount, so keep your eyes peeled.

Up next: Pattern layouts for common MH outfit pieces!