Review: 1:6 Continental Wanderer Portable Typewriter and Case

Flash those fingers and get yours at Monkey Depot. Ebay sharks are asking $100 for this, and with shipping Monkey Depot will get it to you for around $40. We got it here in the States in less than a week.

We were terribly disappointed the nice Korean seller on Etsy couldn't ship us the monocoque 1970-style portable (so was she), so it's a particular pleasure to get this slightly earlier portable with the same money. Still going to get the other when postal and airline lockdowns aren't such a problem.

This portable manual typewriter is the black metal frame style, openwork, with bezel keys. It reproduces the actual Wanderer model from Continental, so it has a QWERTY keyboard. (The French, for example, used a QWERTZ keyboard through most of the 20th century.)

None of the keys work, the return bar is stationary, but the platen does move so you can roll a sheet of paper around it. It comes with two, even, though the person was typing landscape for some reason. It's easy to make your own in any graphics program. So it will suit the language, period, and aims of your doll. A business letter does not look like a fiction manuscript, or even like a personal letter. A personal letter will be on smaller paper, usually, and might be a light colour rather than white.

A tiny soft ribbon runs between the spools. No ink, you will be relieved to hear.

The case is truly exquisite. It has a minute latch in the front for fingernail operation, hinges back, and a magnet holds the typewriter safely. It is sold separately (but we include it in that $40) just in case you are outfitting an office and exile the cases in the basement, so you wouldn't have one visible. That would make this c.$35 shipped.

The paper support may come off, but goes back on easily. Just face the company name toward the typist.

Yes, it is adult-collector fragile. They get like that when they are operational.
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ALR: Not Always Economizing in 1:6

Getting the 1:6 sabre for the price of dinner for two at Jack in the Box was one thing. So was buying some black label dolls at deep discount. But we bought a DID Napoleonic era hussar for the cost of two pizza weekends with champagne. Because — hussar. At last, an hussar.

Now I have to find out how to dress one of our Power Team horses to suit him, since we do have a bay. Shabrack, easy. Hungarian bridle — a bit eek.

Fortunately, I've located the Breyer (1:9) tack books by Carrie Olguin. The double bridle that comes with the cutaway saddle is just about right for that Hungarian bridle, with some cosmetic changes, mainly over the nose. Of course, you have to scan the patterns and increase the size, like you do with scanning and increasing the 1:8 or occasional 1:16 pattern in Hill and Bucknell. Bridles should be okay. Increasing size on the saddles may result in scaling difficulties, like will the aluminum-can trees still hold shape? As hussar saddles are usually hidden, I think I can start with a Power Team or Marx saddle as appropriate to the horse. But it would be fun to start from scratch in wood, simply because the French hussar tree is very high, showing a lot of medieval features. Yes, I have a book on French hussars that goes into that much detail. Hussars!

Just a little freaky about them. I suspect I was one.

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ALR 1:6 Changes

The hobby has changed while I was away, especially according to YouTube.

One change is the aesthetics. "Custom dolls" are dominated by giant round heads on wispy bodies, whether Forever High and Monster High, or the expensive Asian ball-jointed dolls. Just not my thing. Last time around we did some 1:4.5 dolls, but Tyler Wentworth style, not "softball-head" Gene.

Probably because the heads are hard on larger and BJD, a lot of vids are about making doll wigs. I am not liking this for 1:6. After a few trials, including using commercial wefts for dolls, I'm trying to replace my rooting needles and hair. Like my complete collection of DMC floss, I just can't locate my old stash.

Everyone lives on Mr. SuperClear, while acting a little afraid of its toxicity. I bought myself a new bottle of Winsor Newton Matte Varnish. You can pat it on with a brush or use an airbrush.

Of course, I don't know how WNMV works with their new media of powdered pastels and watercolour pencils. Apparently, the tiniest speck of skin oil would destroy them, until final clear coat, so these people work in surgical gloves. As my skin won't tolerate more than a couple of minutes of such close airless gloves, I'm not likely to go this route. So I'll stick to my artist's tube acrylics and regular Prismacolors. Some of my blending techniques won't work with tools: have to use skin.

Original paint is still removed with acetone nail polish remover, which must have a different formula in Asia  because it does a much better job. A YouTube assurance that it would remove Four's extensive tattoos neatly and without damage, resulted in the hard plastic body being discoloured, both bleached and smeared. I just assigned it to a project where the character can just keep his kimono on, because it wouldn't work under a white shirt.

YouTubers casually instruct "remove the head by pulling" or "rock the head off." Then they cut to the loose head. I was expecting to find that Mattel had backed off on anti-removal devices. Not hardly! Above the original button they have wider barbs than ever to engage the double flange inside the head and a really tall post now to make rocking off harder.

These people could be more educational if they showed how they so easily did the job that, for me, takes working with the doll's feet over my shoulder, looking down into the head opening, with a couple of different pry tools and a cutter to use as soon as I expose the base of the barbs. As a result, I behead every new doll unboxed just to get the job done when the vinyl is most resilient.

Then there's glued hair. People in reviews complained about it leaking out, but that's a whole blog itself: it doesn't. Let's just say that when I was last beheading dolls there was never any glue inside. It still isn't being used on short-haired dolls, like the Kens. What some people think is leaked glue stiffening the hair by accident is hair product, used very consciously to keep shorter hair or curls tidy in the box.

There is glue inside some heads, yes, thick like library paste and still sticky. It takes about a month to six weeks to dry, outside the airless environment of the heads. This seems to be a cheaper way to make long-haired playline dolls. No manufacturer adds a material and a process unless it saves money in the long run. So I suspect hair material that has to be glued inside is much, much cheaper than hair that mostly stays in on its own. Like on the Fashionistas.

The Fashionistas have devolved. They began as a highly jointed doll for sophisticated posing, both male and female. Now they are just a step above the beach dolls, with stiff hollow plastic limbs only jointed at hip and shoulder. Sitting down, other than with their feet straight out, is not an option.

The one advantage to the hard limbs is that you might do a permanent re-pose with saw, file, and glue. This is kind of an improvement on vinyl limbs, which didn't take well to surgery. Of course, this works best when the limb is covered with clothes. But it does let you create sitting dolls in trousers or longer skirts.

On the other tentacle, Integrity went from "we have African African-American dolls, and they have some other-colour friends" to high-end super-models, the Fashion Royalty, which, just from what I see casually, are mainly melanin-challenged. Clothes quality is exquisite (they always were very good), but the dolls are changing height toward moving out of scale. The women are now all six-footer (pretty realistic), the men are six and a half (passable), but they seem to be moving toward taller yet. That's out of models and into basketball teams, or 1:5. It's like they're moving on the abandoned Tyler Wentworth 1:4.5 collectors who find 1:6 too small for dressmaker details.

Finally, "action figure" doll prices are through the ceiling. $300? $400?! Ordinary 1:6 ones are generally $130 and up, with $200 common, when we used to spend $30-50 for similar dolls. Thank heavens for the ones we bought back then. (But back then we used to rarely buy Alfrex for $200. We rarely buy a high-end one now.)

But if you're customizing, and don't want the gear, it really makes sense to go the route of a $30 body with a $30-50 head, in action dolls. That was not so much available back when, and heads were far more "iconic" rather than the detailed realism we can get today.

The only permanent thing is change.
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(The photos are old-school action figures: Wai, Sir from Dragon, and LotR from ToyBiz, Arwen and now Legolas. That was the quality back then, including how poor the portraiture usually was.)

ALR 1:6 Why Customize?

Why make your own drawings rather than just buy someone else's art?

In my case, you can blame it on how I played with my original Barbie dolls. It was about the time of the fairytale theatre fashions, and the Arabian Night pink "sari" flipped a switch in my brain. I took up sewing to costume my dolls, starting with Classical Greek draperies and Egyptian sheaths and more saris. So you can kind of blame my whole seamstress/costumer life on a Mattel marketing decision that clicked with Bulfinch's Mythology.

Often, I want dolls of favorite characters.

Before the 50th Anniversary Uhura, I had a DIY Uhura starting with a Sit in Style Christie. The hair was murder. I'm lousy at Sixties hair-dressing.

Right now I'm working on Gentoka and Princess Tamayori from Scarlet Fate -- not likely to come out in a box. There will be muslins, and the mock-ups, but I think I'll have to draft it all out as a Spoonflower yard to get those patterns we would silkscreen and airbrush in a costume shop. I could make her bustle armour from aluminum drink cans but the final version will more likely be black 2mm sheet foam (called foam paper by some). We'll see how it comes out. I don't have to buy a small anvil to shape that like the can armour.

Of course, there's wigs or rooting hair, and face painting, too. Rooting is soothing repetition, like crocheting. Painting is just fun.

I did start a set of Arielan dolls for S. A. Bolich (to be a surprise) but only got T'znan finished. The others were all lined up, and Chlira had her sculpted short hair that would fit under wigs, mistress of disguise that she is. Unfortunately, came our great disruption period and they weren't finished in time. I just found the box of them last month, ready to costume ...

My customizing themes are all paralleled in my adult collecting. There's the movie and TV dolls, which from other than Mattel rarely look like the originals, though we paid three figures for an excellent Sonny Chiba as Yagyuu Juubei.

There's a quartet of sari dolls made for the Indian market, including a Barbie and Ken set, as well as the Princess of India Barbie. (Every little girl in LA plays out the Ramayana with her dolls, with plastic monsters for demons, and a sock monkey.) They go nicely with the Arabian Nights set. Maybe I need more in that line. I do have Costume Patterns and Design to work from.

We got very disappointed in historical 1:6 "action figures" (they're dolls) when they got Manfred von Richtofen so completely, beady-eyed wrong. Toy Presidents had a pretty good sculptor, though. Alas, the company is no more. So with that, if I want a Red Baron who looks like him, I have to make my own. I think the BMR1959 first wave Tango face is a good start.

Right now I'm stocking up on Finnick Odair from the Hunger Games series. See, most Kens have rather square jaws, whether Harley faces or Sultan faces. Same to be said for the Peeta Mellark portrait. But this actor face has a narrower jaw that fits other portraits, like Gentoka. How long he'll be available, I don't know. You can hardly find a Blaine face anymore, that was so good for Orlando Bloom roles. The Tango face only appeared on FAO Schwartz dolls for the longest time, but it may be the closest for Johnny Depp characters.

Also, the Hunger Games figures are wrist-posers, with jointed wrists and ankles, as well as the head, shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees of the regular posers. The Twilight series, say, has only 5 points of articulation, and their pallor prevents body much swapping. Even that BMR1959 body has too much colour, though one can make do if they are fully dressed.

I had a friend who was a face collector, so I learned fine differentiation, like telling an Angel face from a Kira face. On the other hand, I became a body collector, because it bothered me how dresses couldn't fit all Barbies. We're not even talking short or stout figures, but the difference between a Poser and a Bent Arm, or a M2M and a BBB. I'm a trained dressmaker! The fit of commercial patterns is often dreadful, even for a doll typical of the period the pattern came out.

So if I'm going to have to draft from scratch, why spend the time on a Chanel suit or hoody when I could do a Louis XIII gown? And, of course, no one's ever done a good zoot suit/zazou/swing kid suit for all the male dolls.

Dragon has more bodies than Mattel, I keep thinking: I just didn't catch them all. A suit has to be tailored, not just thrown on, considering just the height difference between Classic GI Joe and Toy Presidents. So those will keep me busy.

Then there's economics. If a simple satin cape costs $20 and I can make it in under an hour for less, buying it seems silly. If I want a series costume the $300/doll company didn't choose to make, it behooves me to start with a $30 body and $40 head and start stitching.

So that's why I customize and don't just collect.

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ALR 1:6 Reboot

This was a return. About 2006, we broke off collecting and crafting in 1:6. That was the time we moved twice in eleven months, had over a hundred miles round trip per work day (on an island!), and just existed for a few years. Patrick then got back into vintage Lionel equipment, and that kept us busy. 

Now, boom, we're back buying dolls to customize. 

Alas, Cy Girls are priced out of my market now that they are discontinued collector items, but Mattel did come out with the Made to Move Barbie body, and has had the original wrist-poser bodies for a while, though they no longer use them for Fashionistas. Then there's the Evolution line, with Original, Tall, Petite, and Curvy dolls to sew for. Alas, present Evolution Fashionistas only have 5 points of articulation, but hollow hard plastic limbs tempt me to permanent re-posing involving a saw and glue. Certainly, I need some that can sit down. 

M2M have like 22 points of articulation. Everyone is buying M2M bodies for their favorite heads, though the bodies are terribly skinny. Chee, Cy Girls are only 14 points, and Perfect Bodies 24. 

By and large, adult collectors are either box/gown collectors who stand them in serried ranks, or play collectors who like posing scenes. Those divide into "It must be all Barbie/GI Joe/whatever their happy brand is" and "It must be as realistic as possible. That's why we need properly scale furniture and vehicles. That's why we have a 1:6 helicopter and a 14"-long anthropoid mummy case that came as the presentation case for a knife. The GI Joe mummy case (with mummy that jumps out) was 1:12 and went in my old 1:12 dollhouse. (If I ever find it, it will be a child burial.) 

You can find or build crazy stuff if you really want it. I think I finally figured out how to build 1:6 llamas now that I have the power tools. 

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