Lagoona's Ears: what are my options here?

[pukunui]

Hi folks,

I posted this in the main MH thread, but that thing moves so quickly, it's hard to get more than a couple of responses to any one thing, so I thought I'd start a dedicated thread for it.

My Mad Science Lagoona has some ear piercing issues. First off, the factory missed her ears and pierced her jaw in front of her ear instead, and second, the piercing on the right was higher up than the one on the left. I made a new piercing on the right, before realizing that it was in the wrong place.

There are little indents in her ears where the piercings were supposed to be made. I would personally like to have her earrings there, but I'm not sure what to do about the three other gaping holes that are now in her head. Anyone got any suggestions on how to plug them up?


I also stupidly thought I could make them contract without getting her head wet by using my lighter instead of boiled water since that works a treat with plastic miniatures. All I managed to do was melt a little bit of her hair above her ear. It isn't all that noticeable, luckily.

I did try e-mailing Mattel's Australian office and they said they'd be happy to swap her but that they couldn't guarantee that I'd get the same doll back (and even if I did, knowing how seemingly plagued by defects this particular Lagoona appears to be, there's no guarantee I wouldn't get one with an even worse problem, like wonky eyes or messed up freckles).

So I'd like to keep her. I'd just like to plug up these holes in her jaws, if I can, and then pierce the spots on her ears where the indents are.

[PandaBerryInSpace]

I'd probably use clay.

[DoomBunnies]

A tiny bit of apoxysculpt would fit in there and hide it all, though it won't color match- you'll have to try painting for that. You could also use wax? though that won't last as long.

[pukunui]

I have some Tamiya epoxy putty that I use when making custom minis. It dries hard, though, so I'd be worried that it'd end up cracking off if Lagoona's head gets squashed one too many times (like if I'm pressing on her head to get earrings in and out). Same with clay. Would either of those things bond with her head plastic securely enough?

I'm actually kinda wondering if it would be possible to somehow heat the plastic up enough that it starts to melt a little bit so it runs back together and closes up. Probably not. At least, not without also melting all her hair and ruining her face paint, eh?

[DoomBunnies]

You could tryy heating like a fork or small knife, and touching it to the plastic? But it will warp, and if it's not right it'll all go wonky. Clay, even if it pops out, you can super glue it in place and that'll hold permanently. I can't say for sure how well it bonds to the head plastic, but it sticks to the bodies well.

[pukunui]

You could tryy heating like a fork or small knife, and touching it to the plastic? But it will warp, and if it's not right it'll all go wonky. Clay, even if it pops out, you can super glue it in place and that'll hold permanently. I can't say for sure how well it bonds to the head plastic, but it sticks to the bodies well.

Yes, you're right. There's no harm in trying clay or epoxy. Even if it doesn't work, it wouldn't be as permanently damaging as trying to melt her head would be. And I've got my set of acrylic paints that I bought for customizing and repainting my miniatures, so I should be able to mix up something that closely approximates the color of her face.

I'll give it a try!

[DoomBunnies]

Good luck!

[pukunui]

Thanks. I will let everyone know how I get on.

[pukunui]

Dammit! I went to pierce Lagoona's ears where the little dents were and I somehow managed to split the edge of her left ear as I was pushing a needle into it. Sigh ...

I think I may just have to take Mattel Australia up on their offer of an exchange. The classroom sets have started showing up here in NZ, so the likelihood of me getting another classroom Lagoona instead of some random doll is pretty good.

Unfortunately, pretty much every classroom Lagoona I've seen has had some kind of obvious defect, whether it's wonky eyes, wall eyes, scratched paint, mispierced ears, messed up hair, etc etc. So the chances that the replacement I'll get from Mattel will have some other problem are pretty good too. 

[DoomBunnies]

Much love dear. A lot of the dolls I have actually have their earrings more centered than the molds show they should be, and I think it's because the deeper holes hold better. Mostly it's on my Clawdeens.

[pukunui]

Yeah, I can understand that. It's just so disappointing because her face-up is near perfect (her left eye is slightly smaller than her right, but that appears to be a problem that every Lagoona I've seen suffers from). The only problem with her is those ear piercings.

I just know that Mattel will send me one that's wall-eyed or something. Sigh ...

[pukunui]

So I found a new Lagoona at a Kmart yesterday. She has a perfectly good face-up, in fact it may even be a little better, and her ears are pierced in the right places. My only complaints are that her freckles are a wee bit messier/fainter, but I think I could probably fix that with some paint, and her hair is a bit thinner at the top so there are a few slightly bald spots, although it isn't really all that noticeable.

My first MS Lagoona had the plastic hip joints, whereas the new one had elastic (although it was good and tight), so I swapped heads around and then gave the new MS Lagoona's body to my 2.0 Lagoona, who had a really loose, floppy elastic body, then I put the old MS Lagoona's head on 2.0 Lagoona's body (and swapped out the hang-loose hand), and I'm going to send that one back along with the clothes and accessories to Mattel and see what they send me as a replacement.

Somewhat slightly annoyingly, the new MS Lagoona's head is rather loose on the old MS Lagoona's body. Anyone got any suggestions on how I can tighten that up? The trouble is that because she's got such long, heavy hair, it keeps pulling her head back so she's always wanting to look up instead of straight ahead.

[DoomBunnies]

Unfortunately no. It means that lil dildo thing inside the head ('s what it looks like to me) isn't holding it in place right, and there isn't too much you can do for that, at least not in my experience. The Gloom Beach Cleos all have that issue, at least the ones I've seen.

[pukunui]

That's probably because I didn't bother heating it up first. Ah well. I'll try shoving some sticky tack up in her neck. Hopefully that'll gum it up a bit.