On American Girl's Create Your Own line

Today American Girl launched (after some delays, I've read) the Create Your Own line.  The Truly Me line offers a lot of nice options including three bald dolls to simulate cancer and alopecia patients, but up until now one had to specially request a custom doll or make one themselves.  Not anymore!  According to both the wiki and to Lissie and Lilly one can cherry-pick a doll's features with the Create Your Own option.  There are to be five face molds, three skin tones, seven eye colors, thirteen hairstyles, six hair colors, six outfits, six accessory sets, and options for other things like glasses, braces, earrings, hearing aids, and freckles.  That's a lot of stuff to choose from, folks!  The hair alone has 112 possible variations based on the large number of styles and colors.

I don't know about y'all, but this custom option looks pretty darned enticing.  I can think of multiple companies that offered dolls that were at least semi-customizable...and as far as I know none of them are in existence anymore.  Lorifina, Make it Mine, and My Twinn are discontinued, Mattel's custom Barbie line has been out for at least a decade and a half, and the Makies appear to be gone as well.  I'm particularly miffed about not getting a Makie when I had the chance, by the way.  I'd loved to have seen if they could share clothes with a Hujoo Berry.  Monkfish might know...she has a Berry like mine and several Makies.  I'll ask her if they can share.

The main problem with this custom option is that it's quite expensive.  At the time of writing the asking price for a Create Your Own doll is two hundred bucks.  Compare that to the eighty-two bucks that my parents paid for Felicity back in the day, and to the one hundred fifteen that Felicity's reissue costs.  One-fifteen is a hefty chunk of money for a doll, but two hundred is even steeper.  Nevertheless, the idea is still an interesting one, one that I've already been tinkering around with.  If I had two hundred bucks to spare, here's what my custom doll would look like.

My doll will likely have a medium skin tone with green eyes and red hair in a pixie cut.  Her head mold will likely be the Josefina mold (referred to online as the "B" head).  I'll want her ears pierced and her nose freckled, and it's hard to tell from that picture, but I picked braces as well.  She will be dressed in this green "flower child" outfit (Let's Daydream) with the matching hippie-style accessories (not pictured).  And since I'm going all out with this little gal I even filled out options for a background (I chose the farm), a favorite hobby (arts and crafts), and a favorite pet (cats, of course).  Hmmm...maybe two hundred dollars isn't such a bad price after all considering what all I can pick!  I can even pick a doll that has heterochromia if I want, which is an option that I don't think My Twinn offered.  As for a name...well, I've always been fond of the name "Nevaeh," and I don't yet have a doll named that, so this doll may be my Nevaeh.

It may be a long time before Nevaeh gets to come home with me, but she'll remain a pipe dream of mine for the time being.  Maybe some sort of present for myself, maybe something to celebrate my first year heading Malden Library without a huge screwup, or to commemorate finally getting my driver's license.  Something silly like that.  When I do order this dolly I'll let y'all know.  If y'all want Talolili's opinion on this, give me a holler and I'll ask her what she thinks.  She's a big American Girl fan herself.  I'm also curious to see what Miss Emily thinks; she has Keira, Lea, and some neat accessories already, but this customization option looks like something she'd like.  Beastsbelle has already had some fun with the options; her post and some of her creations can be found here.

Much love,
RagingMoon1987