Callie McSpookerson has arrived.

Okay - that last name might not stick... and Callie is just short for Calavera. I am also tempted to name her Lola Daydream. I'm not going to name her until I have customized her a bit... so her personality can emerge.
(pardon the bad photos - had to take them with my webcam or nuthin' - long story.)

Here's how she arrived - all wrapped in sheets of Chinese newpaper with a faux Hermes scarf as a free gift - or perhaps a wrap?  She's perfect... since she will become a calavera girl... why not start life spooky?!

I've never been creeped out by my other dolls before - but I must cop to it.  This girl kind of freaks me out.  She needs a lot of love.  She probably needs to be smudged with sage smoke, banished, exorcised or aura cleansed or something... she evokes a troubled spirit... like a wounded animal.  I've never unwrapped a doll like this before.  It was strange and surreal to get her out of her plastic costume.

She is covered in plastic having plastic nightmares from behind her strange lazy sleep eyes... poor girl. 

She has pretty good quality hair, but it is thinly rooted and isn't really thatched, so it's kind of impossible to style.  She may end up with a Sleeping Elf wig that I had imagined for Charlotte - I am still waiting on it, even though I found the Guava scalp for her and she became adopted sisters with James.

Her faceplate is really nice, despite the hideous eye makeup & having lots of strange scuff marks.  Her lips are really nice - I almost hate to change them... but calaveras usually don't wear lipstick (or have lips!).  The quality of the faceplate plastic feels nice and substantial and solid like Blythe, but it's not a Blythe as the back plate claims. And the shape of her eyes is a pit different than Blythe - closer to Icy, almost.

(I feel kind of gross that she is a real knock off.  The Blybe/Basaak are obviously different - but she is claiming to be a Blythe - the mark on the back is trying to copy a real Blythe mark. Why or why?!)

Anyhow, her faceplate plastic is heavier than Char-Char's faceplate plastic... but her body is junk.  First off, the knees don't bend at all. I read some people say it was better quality than a Basaak... but I disagree.  Maybe it's better than CCE... but Charlotte's body is way nicer than this one.

I see where they are coming from maybe thinking it's better - it's heavier - I'll give it that much.  But the plastic is badly molded & the joints where her legs attach to her torso are really floppy, so she doesn't stand very well - there is no definition to her hands & feet and she is even missing part of a thumb!

Poor thing!  I think she will get in line before Mesmer for the first of my girls to get a body transplant... or I could get Mesmer a new body and give Mesmer's old Takara one to her. That is probably what I will end up doing so I don't have too many dolly parts around... but I am still steeling myself for the prospect of taking Mesmer apart in order to change her.

So I will start with taking apart Miss Spookerson. I think she has a lot of potential and I am motivated to get started because this girl *needs* some love.  She's had a rough life. In fact, I feel like she has come to me as a bit of a corpse and so the calavera theme is perfect.  I have been sketching today and daydreaming of colors and eyechips... I really want to paint some ideas on canvas first before I paint her...  but she does have a sweet skully girl in there somewhere and I will let her out!