Out of the Box: "Handsome Devil" Damon (Integrity Toys' Dynamite Girls)

"Handsome Devil" Damon

It's a couple of months too late for a proper Halloween post, but rather than making him wait until 2015 for an introduction, let's pretend that this is a festive Christmas devil, shall we?  After all, red is a seasonal colour!

I've actually been considering picking up one of the Dynamite Girls boys since before I bought my London Calling TJ this past spring, but they've proved illusive (or more correctly, have always sold out faster than the girls, and had secondary market mark-ups that went beyond what I was willing to pay).  But then last month I noticed a reasonably priced listing for this doll on eBay and decided to take the plunge.

Damon has the standard Dynamite Girls male body, which turned out to be a fair bit sturdier than the female bodies of the line.  I was glad to see that - the delicacy is one of the only complaints I have about TJ.  The body has 14 points of articulation and can hold a solid selection of poses - the pose-ability was actually significantly better than I expected.

This particular release comes in their medium skin tone

In the box.

The box.

(which I believe is called "Latino" on the official site) and has little red horns affixed to his scalp.  He has rooted black and red hair which matches the colours of his (quite detailed) outfit.

The outfit quality is solid (and quite a bit more detailed than I expected).  There is a layer of plastic wrap under the body to prevent staining - something I was glad to see, although that did factor into my decision to not undress the doll (I don't want to have to try to re-wrap with thin enough layers to redress him at this point).

Out of the box and on his stand.

The face painting is well done, and gives the doll an expression that borders on smirking.  I did find myself wondering about the materials, since the doll's face seemed to reflect light in a different way than most of my dolls, but I'd have to try photographing him in a wider variety of lighting situations to say anything definite on that.

In any case, in every other way this doll exceeded  my expectations, so I can't complain too much!

With fellow Dynamite Girl "London Calling" TJ

A closer view.

Invasion of the fashion dolls

Opening the boxes

I've never had any fashion dolls - even as a kid, they were just not my thing (sure, the occasional barbie-type gift might pass through my hands, but ultimately they would be passed along to my sister).  But having seen so many interesting ones lately (the perils of meeting BJD collectors whose entry to doll collecting came through fashion dolls rather than action figures), I've found myself tempted by a few.

And now that I have access to more dealers and more reasonable shipping costs (crossing the border does have its benefits!) I found a couple of dolls on sale and decided to see what they're like.


The dolls in question:  "TJ" from Integrity Toys' mid-range Dynamite Girls line and "Martha Jones" from Tonner's Doctor Who licensed line.  Interestingly, despite the difference in size and company, they were packed in exactly the same fashion.

Dynamite Girls TJ

I was most impressed with the Dynamite Girl - she's tiny, but the face paint is still quite detailed.  The articulation is fairly natural, her hair is decent and the outfit is fantastic - loads of detail, decent materials, and so many individual pieces!  Just the details on her tights are worth raving about - I was very impressed at the quality for something so small scale.

She also fits nicely on the included stand, which is always good (the stand itself had both saddle and waist attachments)  I'm not sure if the differences between this line and Integrity's higher priced Fashion Royalty line are worth it though - from what I've heard the differences are primarily in the accessories rather than the dolls and clothes, and that doesn't strike me as a huge selling feature. In any case, I was very pleased with this doll, and would probably have been happy with her even at full price (I ordered her at 25% off).

Tonner Doctor Who Martha Jones

Unfortunately, I was less than thrilled by the Tonner.  The doll itself is of good quality - a nice smooth plastic with an even colour,  but it looks nothing like the actress.  In fact, the face is so undetailed that it could be anyone - she's a pretty enough doll, but you don't look at her and automatically recognize the character.   That would be forgivable if the focus of the doll were the outfit, but the details on the clothing were minimal.

Considering that this is a fairly large doll, the simplicity of the jeans and jacket was disappointing - there are really no details on either (there is a simple pattern on the tank under the jacket, but again: standard quality).  The zippers on her boots were also a challenge to unzip (they needed to be opened in order to get them on the doll).  As with TJ, she came with a stand, but it's saddle-type only and because of the thickness of the denim, the doll doesn't actually fit on the stand.

Because of all of that I'm not really certain that she was a good value, even at the 60% off price that I paid.  I certainly would never have wanted to pay the $175.00 sticker price.  Still, she's not a bad quality doll - just a bit generic.