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Miscellaneous doll art I suppose

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The world is beautiful and full of magic… ヾ(｡✪ω✪｡)ｼ

All thanks to her…

Genuinely one of the most fun experiences I’ve ever had ✨

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Gracie and the pixlings

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She's down to below $30! How low will she go...

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And with that I have all of the Pixlings once again! This is the only line I’m a completionist on and I’m always down for more Pixling. Hoping for an actual star or alien themed one in the next wave!

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New Pixlings display!

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An Analysis of the Pixlings' Faces, In Rough Chronological Order, pt. 1

The Originals

Of course, we first have The Original Three, the ones who started it all: Unia the Unicorn, Marena the Mermaid, and Deerlee the Deer. When I first saw images of these girls in mid-2023 I associated their makeup/faceup style with what I saw at the time of popular custom doll faceups, wet eyes and heavily blushed, especially on the nose, and especially using soft pastels. I didn't (and still don't) really like how soft pastels look on doll faces, maybe because I most often see people who use them going for a more exaggerated realistic style that just doesn't appeal to me. For those reasons I was skeptical of the Pixlings at first glance, though I wryly thought that they would be a guaranteed hit because of their similarity to a popular custom style. Well, I obviously got over that skepticism since I'm now such an avid Pixling fan. For some more irony, my least favorite at first look was Deerlee, and I put off buying her for a while because of that, but she is now my second favorite Pixling of all time.

They all have blushed pink noses (less noticeable on Unia because of her pink glittery skin tone), and a combo of blush and thematic decals below their large eyes. These early stock photos are a bit zoomed out so they're blurry here, so I'm consulting my own dolls. Apologies for the not great lighting.

Unia has three stars and a wing under her eyes in pink, and a smattering of stars and a single crescent moon over her nose, in white. Marena has pink blush and a blue scale pattern, which also repeats above her eyes. She's also the only one of the three with a slightly open-mouthed smile. Deerlee (my beloved) has blush and brown fawn spots under her eyes, mirroring the white ones on her forehead, as well as a pink flower under her left eye and a couple pink flower petals above both. Later Pixlings would heavily feature designs on the forehead, but in this first release Deerlee's simple white fawn spots and two-toned face are the most intricate thing on offer.

All three of them have heavily pixelated faces, as was standard in early Pixling releases. Their blush is drawn in a rather harsh semicircle that doesn't blend very well, with the exception of Unia whose pink face helps it look more natural. Marena and Deerlee's blush can look like awful eye bags in certain lighting. Unia and Deerlee are both close-mouthed, and though it appears at first that Unia has an additional line between her lips that makes it look a bit like she's biting her lip, I believe Deerlee also has it, but the printing is just slightly different and makes it less visible (at least on my Deerlee).

(All series 1 Unia's also have a different skin color between her hands and the rest of her body, which is because her torso and arms are made of bright pink vinyl to build her shirt, and then her hands are painted a pale skin color that doesn’t match her pink head and legs. Many future Pixlings have a similar effect where their torso is colored for their outfit with any patches of skin separately painted, but none of them are as egregiously mismatched as this original Unia.)

In conclusion, the original trio are slightly rough in execution, but they were doing a lot that was unique and are still very cute looking back on them! Outside of just their faces, they all have unique ear sculpts plus an extra animal feature, the horn for Unia, leg fins for Marena, and antlers for Deerlee. Their molded tops and fashion are basic compared to what the series would later give us, but still fun and give some unique touches of personality to distinguish them from each other. This is not the place for me to go in depth on their outfits unfortunately, but suffice to say there's a lot to love and to be confused by there too.

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An Analysis of the Pixlings' Faces, In Rough Chronological Order, pt. 2

The First Exclusives

I was all ready to start writing up a second post about Amber and Faye, until I realized wait, someone's missing...there's someone I've forgotten.

I guess that tells you my general opinion on these two, if I almost forgot them in the timeline. Flitta the Butterfly was a Walmart exclusive, released at the same time as the original trio, so I guess it ought to be an original quarto, but honestly? She's just less iconic. Wynter the Bunny, on the other hand, is an interesting case. The first "deluxe" Pixling, she cost $25, came with an all-fabric dress and additional accessories (cape, headband, and wand) and was exclusive to Target. Unlike the others who stuck around quite a long time, Wynter disappeared rather quickly around the start of 2024, and shot up in price second-hand. I was lucky to pick her up at Target that December, and she's quite interesting as the Pixlings' first foray into more deluxe features/gimmicks, but I've honestly never particularly cared for her. She's...messy. Let's take a look.

Flitta has particularly intense nose blush, and the same harsh under-eye blush as the first three, though it blends more smoothly with her skin tone. Her head is a slightly glittery vinyl, and her under-eye decals are just two swipes of...something? A butterfly's wing maybe? Some flower petals? It meshes well with the rest of her eye makeup, but it's not very clear what it's actually meant to be. My Flitta is also VERY pixelated, but her lip paint is so clear and defined compared to the rest of her face that it actually looks a little jarring in person. It's a new lip shape, with a smooth upper lip and a much smaller bottom lip, that we will see again down the line.

Wynter lacks the harsh under-eye blush that all before her had. She does have some very slight dark shading under her eye, but it's much closer and subtler. She has pink heart freckles above her lightly blushed pink nose, and fainter pink hearts under her eyes, along with bright white sparkles and circles. Just beneath her left eye is a pale blue and yellow circle? Again, it's hard to tell what it's meant to be. It's border is too fuzzy to just be a circle, maybe it's misprinted? Her overwhelming theme is hearts, but it's nowhere near that shape. I'm throwing in the towel here. Her lips are pursed with a bit of teeth visible, and I will point out that it's very cute that the hearts in her eyeshadow are stylized to look more like bunny ears.

Flitta continues more of the same of what the original three were giving, since she released simultaneously, so there isn't much to say. Wynter was trying something new, but I'm afraid that her faceup instead turned out washed out and uninspiring. There's no clear tie to what animal she's meant to be (a bunny, in case you forgot like I tend to), and I think the bright white skin tone is more boring than striking. If she wasn't released in the heavily pixelated era of this line I think she could have done much better, as the non-pixelated stock photo looks much more coherent. In fact, the stock photo even has pink under-eye blush and yellow eyeshadow that my Wynter just...doesn't. A step in a different direction, but not exactly a win in my book.

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An Analysis of the Pixlings' Faces, In Rough Chronological Order, pt. 3

Good Things Come

Faye the Fairy and Amber the Dragon were sort of "Series 1.5", releasing a few months after the original trio (and Flitta), and the first wave packaging's art was updated to include them in the lineup with the others. The heavy pixellation in the faces improved a bit at this stage, though it was still present. Declaration of bias, Faye is my absolute favorite of all the Pixlings and she can do no wrong in my book. At least this version of her can't.

Faye has light pink skin, which as seen before helps with the blush that is still being used. She's heavily flower themed, with daisies as well as pink and yellow flower petals under her eyes. She also has pink freckles sprinkled above her nose and below her eyes. Her blush is not as heavy as in the previous dolls, nor is Amber's; we'll see if that continues going forward. She has a new lip screening, with an open-mouth wide smile.

Amber has the same lip screening as Flitta, but with two-toned pink lipstick. She has the lightest nose blushing we've seen so far, it's barely noticeable in person. There's yellow feathering beneath her eyes and a faint blue-green scale pattern, which continues on her forehead, though it's mostly hidden beneath her gelled-down bangs. She also has purple eyebrows under there, the same shade as her eyeliner. Ironically these hidden forehead details are the first instance of forehead designs that would be featured more heavily in the future, and they're almost entirely invisible here because of her hairstyle.

In my opinion Faye and Amber are two of the best Pixlings ever made, both in their faces and their outfits. Faye's sweet scrunchy-eyed smile is the best faceup they've ever done, and Amber's scaled top with little epaulettes, delicate arm swirls, and almost filigree wings are fantastic examples of what the Pixlings pull off with molded detail, and why I can never agree when people lament that they have molded tops. The intricate molds are the point, not a limitation!

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An Analysis of the Pixlings' Faces, In Rough Chronological Order, pt. 6

Double Trouble (The Unia's)

Unia the Unicorn received a redesign as a Shimmerverse release in a 2-pack with a pegacorn...dragon...thing. Then Moose Toys did the most insane thing they could have, and made a Limited Edition Unia that was randomly seeded in normal Shimmerverse boxes (the dolls from part 4), with a total of 1,000 of the limited edition dolls made. One thousand. That's the equivalent of the Barbie Platinum Label at it's most restrictive. It's such an absurd move that I'm tempted to not even believe them that there's so few, except there's only maybe a dozen posts online of people finding one, and half of those are influencers who were sent free PR that just oh-so-coincidentally happened to include the limited edition doll. That's where I got the photo below from, Zombiexcorn was one of those influencers who was sent the ultra-rare doll, and he provided actual up-close photos of it to Dollect, which was very nice of him since the stock photos are inexplicably difficult to find. And needless to say, I do not own her.

I have Thoughts about this whole thing. But we're doing face analysis here.

The 2-pack Unia has the same skin and eye color as the original Unia, though her faceup is sharp and clear compared to the og's pixelization (as with some before, slight pixellation is visible in the zoomed in photo above, but just looking at her in person you can't see it). Original Unia also had a slightly glittery vinyl for her head, while new Unia has the same smooth vinyl as the other new Pixlings. She has nose and under-eye blushing in pink, dark enough to be noticeable but not nearly as harsh as the og. Even though her hair is primarily pink with light blue and yellow streaks, her eyebrows are dark blue that shade very slightly lighter at the inner ends, and have spots of lighter shading underneath them. Under her eyes she has three yellow circles, a blue sparkle, and a pink swoop very close to the outer corner of her eye. She has three pink swoops and sparkles on her forehead between her forehead gem and her horn. Her smile is open-mouth (slightly misprinted on mine), and is the same screening as Shimmerverse Faye.

LE Unia appears to be primarily based on the 2-pack Unia (same hair blend, forehead gem, and color scheme). She has pink under-eye blush, and very light or no nose blushing. She has white dots and a heart over her nose like freckles, yellow clouds(?) traced under her eyes, and more white sparkles. Between her forehead gem and horn the area is a bit blurry but appears to be speckled with blue sparkles, pink dots and maybe white hearts. She has the same lip screening as 2-pack Unia, and purple eyebrows.

2-pack Unia continues Shimmerverse's trend of de-emphasizing blushing and increasing intricate details and forehead decoration. LE Unia takes it up a notch as the ultimate, unobtainable deluxe doll, and goes ham with both cheek and forehead decals with intricate details. They're both going for "rainbow" as a color scheme, but really only including pink, blue, and yellow as colors, which I just think is funny. It reminds me of new Rainbow High dolls ditching half the rainbow as characters.

Like I said, I have plenty of problems with how Moose Toys went about implementing a limited edition chase variant, but I have no objections to the actual face design.

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A short tangent about Magic Mixies Pixlings and molded doll clothing

This is a reminder that Pixlings are six inches tall, have only seven points of articulation, molded tops, and (except for Wynter) universally cost $20 or less. I maintain that good art needs adequate resources, but great art thrives when there are restrictions to be worked around.

Pixlings are cheap dolls whose already lower than average retail price must also fund their potion-making packaging gimmick. I'm positive that Pixlings are made with molded tops because it's cheaper than fabric. I'm also telling you that the designers behind these dolls moved mountains to make those molded tops into a feature instead of a drawback.

The molded designs on even early releases of the Pixlings would be inordinately expensive or even impossible to produce on the 1/6 scale out of fabric. And if they had to dumb down their designs to something able to be cheaply produced out of fabric, the dolls would become much less interesting and it would reduce their creativity and uniqueness: I know because that's exactly what happened when they made the Pixie Supremes, and we all know how those turned out!

TL;DR: Pixlings’ molded tops are a feature, not a bug, and I honestly believe that a lot of people are just missing the point of these dolls when they complain about it. Not every doll line needs all-fabric outfits, just like not every doll line needs Monster High level articulation. I will die on this hill.

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All the Pixlings who got redesigns!

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How to remove Magic Mixies Pixie Supremes from their box without going through the gimmick

Pro tip: Don't. Do not do this. It is not worth it. Just cover the confetti hole and go through the gimmick reveal, it will be a thousand times easier than the surgical extraction I just went through.

My journey started by removing the screws from the back of the magic mirror case. Be warned, some of them are set in deep so you'll need a long thin screwdriver to reach them. (I had to go out and buy a new one) There were about a dozen screws total at this step. Now you can remove the back plate to access the insides.

There are more screws on the top and bottom, also recessed but with some tugging and jostling of the outer case you can reach them with your long screwdriver.

Do not mess with this thing. It's the spring-loaded confetti that launches at the end of the reveal. I tugged on it and the confetti went everywhere which was, coincidentally, the exact thing I was trying to avoid.

Here you can see the top, and some of the screws that need to be loosened. All of these screws you're unscrewing are to pull the front casing off. Now, on the front of the case to the right of the mirror is a door you can force open (it's propped closed with tabs like door jambs, but pull persistently with gentle force and it will open). You can also push on the mirror to move it back and make more space between the front casing and the doll compartment.

The doll is on the right side of the mirror, held in place for her reveal. All that's stopping you from opening the door all the way and getting her out are two of those white pegs, one on the top and bottom, holding the door shut. I don't think you're meant to ever get in this way, so I just sawed through the side of the peg holder with a sharp utility knife. Again, I do not recommend doing any of this.

With the white pegs no longer holding it together, you can pop the whole front of the case off so you can fully access the doll and cut her loose. I highly doubt I could put it back together and expect it to work again.

(And after all of that, her stand is bent and her mouth is off-center)

I actually really like her, her hair is pretty much the usual Pixlings quality, which means nice soft nylon, and I find the off-center mouth placement endearing and unique. I got her on sale on Amazon for about 35 bucks, but as someone who is not going to interact at all with the magic mirror gimmick, I would still consider that way overpriced for the quality of articulation and clothing, not to mention the amount of waste generated. I didn't get a picture of it, but these magic mirrors are easily five or more inches thick, they're MASSIVE, and you are very clearly not meant to access the doll by any means other than the gimmick reveal.

I kind of destroyed this one figuring out how to open it, so as much as I like the doll, to buy another one I would have to find it on sale for far less than thirty dollars, which I don't imagine will happen. This one is Skylar, the amazon exclusive, and I believe she's still on sale. I got her because I like her face the best and she's the only one to come with a second dress. If you get her, please don't destroy the gimmick and just donate it to a thrift store or a kid in your life or something. I actually feel gross and very guilty for how much waste I made here. Brb gotta donate to charity or something.

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I finally have a proper final display arranged for my full collection of all the Pixlings!

I just washed the Pixie Supremes' hair so it was time to rearrange the shelf to be more coherent now that I have everyone. This bookshelf I keep them in is quite deep and tall, and I'm very glad the Pixie Supremes fit on the highest section of the riser so they can stand in the back and overlook the others. I'm missing some of the Pixlings stands so a couple of the standing ones at the front are just propped up, and I have a single Magic Mixies Mixling I bought once that I thought was cute so he gets to sit at the front too, along with the mini Mixies that the Galaxy Hair line came with.

I'm so glad to have them all cleanly displayed now, this line is one of my absolute favorites I've collected and seeing them all together is a real joy.

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Magical Girl May Doodle-A-Day #28: Sienna (Magic Mixies)

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I got a Magic Mixies Genie Lamp today! I found it on eBay for a song, and the listing did not say that it came with a Mixie, but it did!! Meet Glitter, my newest Mixie!

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They can wear some of the Monster High clothes, too! And all three can share shoes.

Wasn’t really feeling the dress that the tall pixling came with and discovered that she can (with some coaxing and leaving the top part of the Velcro open for her wings) fit equestria girls clothes?! I had thrifted this tiny Celestia dress back when they used to have the bins, and held onto it ‘just in case’ and it actually looks so cute on her and she can now use her knees plus you can see her cute shoes n_n