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hat_plays_dolls... Okay so maybe I missed 'tomorrow' a little for this review, but late is better than forgotten! (Tuesday is Errands Day and Wednesday is Both Kids Wednesday, when Mom and I have to watch my extremely strong, active, and dexterous four-foot-tall four-year-old nephew and my incredibly independent, busy, and cat-loving two-year-old niece without the help of anyone who can move particularly quickly. Fun times.)
So, third and final of the replacements Mattel's fantastic customer service sent me, going above and beyond the price point of the Lunchtime Ghouls two-pack is Tween Howleen! Which is very exciting, honestly, she counts as one of the characters I don't have (alongside Zomby Gaga, Treesa Thornwillow, and Ebbie Blue).
Instead of her canonical 14, Monster Family Howleen appears closer to the eleven-to-thirteen range, like Alivia and Kelpie.
Face, still in the box! Yes, she does have some wonk-eye, sadly, but honestly that's to be expected between Indonesia and not getting to pick out the exact individual doll I want.
Or maybe given her box art, that's deliberate? Maybe you wouldn't be smile-wincing if you weren't holding your hedgehog that way, Howleen.
And with a closer look at the box art-- FRECKLES and a BROWN NOSE and CLAWS? Okay now I just feel kind of cheated. The doll has none of those things.
Without all that glaring plastic in the way. Howleen wasn't held in place by a whole BUNCH of those snippy tabs, but let me tell you, Cushion was hard to get out of there.
... No, not deliberate, her eyelid crease is way higher on the left eye, plus stray paint in her lashes, this is wonk. Hell, I think her eyebrows are even off-kilter. And yes, Howleen has that dot-matrix look to her eyes like the littler kids do... and like Alivia and Kelpie don't.
Sweet sweet freedom! Howleen comes with a minidress, an actually very cute belt, a pair of searing-pink stompy boots, a pet carrier, and... Cushion, apparently. She's made in Indonesia and although her hair has been melted inside her head rather than glued, she is from Indonesia.
Wonk-eye aside, she's actually pretty cute! This is a new or at least adapted sculpt for Howleen, to better fit the MF Tween body, and with those Reboot values of 'easier to paint.' Her floppy ear is slightly less floppy (IE, comes out of the mold easier) and her lips aren't as deeply sculpted (easier to paint). I'm DEEPLY disappointed with the pink hair, not even because it's nylon-- I'd've loved to see a Howleen with BROWN hair at some point, even streaked with brighter colors. Tween Howleen seems like a great choice for that... but nope. Pink again.
I really like the belt and can't wait to paint it, and I actually like the dress a lot! Now, okay, sure, it's only approximately half an outfit for Howleen, given how she piles on layers, but I'm pleased to add these pieces to her wardrobe.
Also, her fur goes all the way up to her elbows! I dig it, Clawdeen's only goes halfway up her forearms. I like the way the reboot makes it seem like the older a werewolf is, the better control of their transformation they have.
Accessories overview! Boots, Cushion, and carrier. ... Okay listen I don't want to talk about Cushion too much yet so let's just go to the next picture.
I dig the boots! They're actually kind of anonymous? There aren't any puppy prints or crossed bones or triple-slashes on them anywhere. There IS a lot of detail, including molded socks.
... ugh okay fine let's get Cushion out of the way.
Cushion comes with a carrier a lot like Gigawatt, and frankly it's more like a display case than even a pretend-useful pet carrier.
As for Cushion herself...
Listen I'm just not pleased. Gigawatt is at least a new pet in the style of Watzit, only more pocket-pet. Cushion did not need a new mold, and if she HAD to have a new mold... maybe she could have looked more like a hedgehog and less like whatever the hell is going on here.
Side. Listen. Mattel. The spines on a hedgehog are not floofy fur. They're stiff and they all go one way.
Front. I can't tell if I have a decal defect or not but she's missing a fang and her mouth is crooked and one eye is... all squiggly and the painted detail of her safety pin barrette is...
Look, from the front, Reboot Cushion has enough flaws to make me forget she looks like an elf teddy bear with a mane.
And I guess my picture of the BACK of Cushion didn't make it to Photobucket and you know what? That's no great loss at all. Let's just say despite not being against the box at all, she looks like she's picked up some ink from it.
Unlike Gigawatt, Cushion doesn't need a clear rubber band to act as a safety rail for her carrier... and also unlike Gigawatt, Cushion actually needs her carrier opened to get her into it.
So this is me, officially saying that while I am delighted to have both Alivia and Howleen, I feel like maybe there could have been a better theme for their single-packs than 'let's take our pocket pets out for a walk.'
Let's get back to Howleen herself.
Back of the dress is solid black, no one is remotely surprised.
Bottom of the shoes! Actually really cute!
Howleen's bare feet. Although her hands don't really have claws, her toes do!
The rest of my pics are comparisons, so now I have to answer the question:
Am I happy with Monster Family Howleen?
Well, keep in mind that Mattel sent her to me because one 12-year-old Howleen plus one 16-year-old Operetta are apparently the equivalent of Garden Ghouls Twyla when Garden Ghouls Twyla is out of stock. I come out WAY ahead using that math, frankly, but I'm not going to argue with it.
I'm very happy to have Monster Family Howleen, because I'd sort of given up on her? Like, I was never ever going to see this doll in person again-- I saw her once in Toys R Us when they thought they were just going to be closing most of their stores, not going under, and I made the call to get Alivia instead. I definitely feel like that was a reasonable decision.
I would not have paid full price for this particular Tween Howleen. Like Alivia, between her half-printed dress, unpainted accessories, and five points of articulation, Howleen feels like she should've been a $10 doll and not a $13 doll. But I didn't pay full price for her! I didn't pay for her! I paid $10 for a moderately defective deeply discounted two-pack of two other dolls and got Howleen as one-third of a spectacular apology for that.
That said, if I'd known I was only going to see her in the wild once, back when I saw her? I'd've dropped the money on her AND Alivia.
THAT said, this Cushion is going in a box and never coming out, because YIKES.
So yes! I like her! There are issues but they're pretty much all the standard issues-- minor quality control on the paint, half-printed dress, minimal articulation. But I didn't get to pick out the individual doll I wanted, the dress almost feels like a nightshirt so no big there, and I would rather have five nice-looking points of articulation than eleven points of articulation where six of them have huge gaps.
But how, you ask, does Monster Family Howleen compare to Classic Howleen?
I'm glad you asked!
Classic Howleen stands about nine and a half inches tall (without shoes, not counting ears), while Tween Howleen (I'm not calling her Reboot Howleen, Monster Family feels like a different concept somehow) stands about eight and a quarter inches tall (no shoes, not counting ears). If not for the (very small and age-appropriate) breasts Tween Howleen has, I'd say she actually looks closer to ten than twelve, compared to Dance Class Howleen's fourteen.
Also, that's Dance Class Howleen in most of 13 Wishes Howleen's second signature outfit (I didn't fuss with jewelry for this shoot), and you can definitely see where the design team found Tween Howleen's style cues-- black minidress with bright hem, blue belt, platform wedge boots, and hot pink hair.
Faces! Since they've both got on minimal makeup (Tween Howleen definitely has on lipstick, and Dance Class Howleen has on a very soft look), you can see the sculpting differences pretty clearly. Tween Howleen's floppy ear is less floppy and her ears generally seem to have more... puppy fat, I guess? They don't taper as sharply. Her cheeks are chubbier, her mouth the same shape but with less definition. Nose looks the same, though!
And yeah, she's a hair darker, but Dance Class Howleen was made in China and very few Chinese dolls are the same shade as their Indonesian counterparts, and none of them are darker. (And yet Chinese eyes are so much more reliable. Frustrating.)
Outfit swap! Well, mostly.
Tween Howleen wears as much of the 13 Wishes outfit as she can get on-- so just the dress, belt, and tights. Her hands are WAY too splayed to put on anything with straight sleeves. Classic Howleen wears the MF dress and belt with Creepeteria boots.
The dresses go between dolls just fine, and Howleen's style obviously carries through. Although yes both of them need about a dozen more bracelets.
And as you can tell by the date stamp I didn't realize was there until I was shrinking pictures, I'm using a new camera. I DROPPED MINE and now the lens has gone funny, and I was trying to see if I could fix it and dropped it AGAIN and the battery cover broke off. So I'm borrowing Mom's camera for the foreseeable future and it registers color slightly differently; I feel like things are a little desaturated.
... Tween Howleen's hair may also be looking a little wilder. My two-year-old niece thinks MF Howleen is DELIGHTFUL and keeps running off with her.
Tween Howleen can wear-- and looks pretty cute in-- Howleen's Sister Pack Signature outfit, too! Granted, the shoes don't fit and I couldn't get her shoes to go over socks, but still. Cute!
Fair warning, the ankle of the stripey sock was not a fan of Howleen's wide instep and toes.
Dance Class is... moderately okay? It goes on fine and works with her boots, although the belt and boots are... not harmonious.
But it needs A belt because it's pretty baggy through the crotch area.
And that? That's about it for what Tween Howleen can wear out of Classic Howleen's wardrobe, at least what I've got of it-- her Geek Shriek and Creepeteria skirts fit fine, but the shirts won't go past those hands... and I don't have Ghoul Fair Howleen's outfit to try it on.
So here's Tween Howleen's outfit on Classic Howleen, with paired Sister Pack socks, Dance Class shoes, and Sister Pack hoodie. It definitely needs jewelry, but... I feel like this is is something Howleen might actually wear.
If I were even a little bit better at repainting eyes, especially in the clean cel-shaded Monster High style, I would re-root and repaint Tween Howleen into an entirely different character and fill in an age gap in the Wolf Family's kids.
And for those curious...
Reboot Clawdeen and Classic Howleen. Clawdeen does indeed look younger than her little sister.
But then, she doesn't look that much older than Monster Family Howleen, either.
(I did not grab a Classic Clawdeen for this. I am not organized, and also, I was having a minor camera-induced freakout, still.)
I feel like Monster Family did a better job of "I'm you but younger" for Howleen than the reboot did for Clawdeen. Most of the Reboot Clawdeens I've had my hands on are very soft, and their makeup isn't particularly daring or strong. And, you know, that's fine, they're very pretty and youthful-looking, but they don't look like Clawdeen Wolf. Tween Howleen, with her total lack of eye shadow and age-appropriate pink lipstick and BOLD PINK HAIR still manages to retain some of that Howleen feel. She may not know who she is YET but she's working on it, and when she figures it out, look out!
But hey, now I've got all three Monster Family Tweens, do I have any learnings on what shoes fit them?
I'm glad you asked that, too!
Front view of all three girls. Wide insteps, narrow heels, Howleen and Kelpie have clawed toes but Alivia doesn't; Alivia has a well-defined separation between her big toes and the rest that looks like she could wear flip-flops well.
Kelpie and Howleen have basically the exact same feet. Though I didn't take a pic, they appear to be the same length and width as a Classic Little Sister foot, just sculpted to wear a lower heel.
Alivia, on the other hand, seems to have the same heel height as the other MF tweens, but the same shoe size as her big sister Frankie. Alivia is the hard one to shop for here.
She can't even get her dang foot all the way into Howleen's boots.
So, I went shopping in my Weird Shoe Sizes baggie in the Barbie bins to see what I could find that would work for these girls. I tried so many weird shoes on them, I swear. Some of the results are shoes that are hilariously old, but then there was sort of an eight-year-gap between when I stopped seriously hoarding barbie stuff and when I finally let myself buy a Monster High doll. Maybe you know more modern sources for shoes for these kids! I, alas, do not. (If you do, please tell me.)
Alivia in a pair of Hasbro Shoezies (these fit DC Superhero Girls, which is why I'm hanging onto them) and Kelpie in Howleen's boots. Not really either of their styles OR color schemes, but hey.
Different Shoezies on Alivia (more her style but dang they need thick socks), and some 1990s Gymnast Barbie sneakers on Kelpie. These are not hard to find-- I have a couple dozen pairs-- and also showed up with Stacie and Skipper back in the day. ... And if you get a reasonably soft pair? They also fit the de Nile twins, Barker, and Pawla. (Barker and Pawla will stretch them a little wider than they are.)
I sold a mess of Shoezies as a lot before Alivia existed and I will admit I'm kind of regretting that as much as I'm regretting selling the two DCSHGs I had in my hands before Alivia existed, because I'm not buying another one JUST to see how her shoes fit the MF tweens.
I think these are both Flavas shoes? Might be Flavas on Alivia and Generation Girl on Kelpie. I dig the colors on these, honestly, though I'm cheating a little bit for flat-footedness.
Kelpie's heel is WAY off the ground for a flat look, but the sneaker is soft enough that I can bend it to her foot reasonably naturally to make her look like she's shifting her weight, or just swimming.
Alivia's got the same thing going on, but not as bad.
Finally, a VERY THIN old pair of Barbie hiking boots. Not a huge fan of the color on Alivia, and again I'm having to shift her a bit to make her stand properly flat, but... I really like this style on her.
And that is LITERALLY all the shoes I have that fit these girls (so far), and I went through everything from Maxie and Jem to Anastasia to Teen Skipper to Gymnast Barbie. I tried Kevin shoes on these kids. I tried handmade leather high-button boots I got in the LATE EIGHTIES onto them. Descendants shoes fit but the heels are too high and they pitch forward (I haven't tried them on Little Sisters yet but I'm kind of excited to).
These are tricky feet to fit, is what I'm saying here.
So yes! In conclusion, the worst thing about Tween Howleen is Cushion, so if you can get past that and choose your actual doll and see her actual eyes, go for it. Just be aware dressing her is tricky, particularly in the shoe department.
Like what I do and want to help me feed my cats, but don't need anything I have for sale on eBay? You can always support me on Patreon or throw some change in my tip jar.
So, third and final of the replacements Mattel's fantastic customer service sent me, going above and beyond the price point of the Lunchtime Ghouls two-pack is Tween Howleen! Which is very exciting, honestly, she counts as one of the characters I don't have (alongside Zomby Gaga, Treesa Thornwillow, and Ebbie Blue).
Instead of her canonical 14, Monster Family Howleen appears closer to the eleven-to-thirteen range, like Alivia and Kelpie.
Face, still in the box! Yes, she does have some wonk-eye, sadly, but honestly that's to be expected between Indonesia and not getting to pick out the exact individual doll I want.
Or maybe given her box art, that's deliberate? Maybe you wouldn't be smile-wincing if you weren't holding your hedgehog that way, Howleen.
And with a closer look at the box art-- FRECKLES and a BROWN NOSE and CLAWS? Okay now I just feel kind of cheated. The doll has none of those things.
Without all that glaring plastic in the way. Howleen wasn't held in place by a whole BUNCH of those snippy tabs, but let me tell you, Cushion was hard to get out of there.
... No, not deliberate, her eyelid crease is way higher on the left eye, plus stray paint in her lashes, this is wonk. Hell, I think her eyebrows are even off-kilter. And yes, Howleen has that dot-matrix look to her eyes like the littler kids do... and like Alivia and Kelpie don't.
Sweet sweet freedom! Howleen comes with a minidress, an actually very cute belt, a pair of searing-pink stompy boots, a pet carrier, and... Cushion, apparently. She's made in Indonesia and although her hair has been melted inside her head rather than glued, she is from Indonesia.
Wonk-eye aside, she's actually pretty cute! This is a new or at least adapted sculpt for Howleen, to better fit the MF Tween body, and with those Reboot values of 'easier to paint.' Her floppy ear is slightly less floppy (IE, comes out of the mold easier) and her lips aren't as deeply sculpted (easier to paint). I'm DEEPLY disappointed with the pink hair, not even because it's nylon-- I'd've loved to see a Howleen with BROWN hair at some point, even streaked with brighter colors. Tween Howleen seems like a great choice for that... but nope. Pink again.
I really like the belt and can't wait to paint it, and I actually like the dress a lot! Now, okay, sure, it's only approximately half an outfit for Howleen, given how she piles on layers, but I'm pleased to add these pieces to her wardrobe.
Also, her fur goes all the way up to her elbows! I dig it, Clawdeen's only goes halfway up her forearms. I like the way the reboot makes it seem like the older a werewolf is, the better control of their transformation they have.
Accessories overview! Boots, Cushion, and carrier. ... Okay listen I don't want to talk about Cushion too much yet so let's just go to the next picture.
I dig the boots! They're actually kind of anonymous? There aren't any puppy prints or crossed bones or triple-slashes on them anywhere. There IS a lot of detail, including molded socks.
... ugh okay fine let's get Cushion out of the way.
Cushion comes with a carrier a lot like Gigawatt, and frankly it's more like a display case than even a pretend-useful pet carrier.
As for Cushion herself...
Listen I'm just not pleased. Gigawatt is at least a new pet in the style of Watzit, only more pocket-pet. Cushion did not need a new mold, and if she HAD to have a new mold... maybe she could have looked more like a hedgehog and less like whatever the hell is going on here.
Side. Listen. Mattel. The spines on a hedgehog are not floofy fur. They're stiff and they all go one way.
Front. I can't tell if I have a decal defect or not but she's missing a fang and her mouth is crooked and one eye is... all squiggly and the painted detail of her safety pin barrette is...
Look, from the front, Reboot Cushion has enough flaws to make me forget she looks like an elf teddy bear with a mane.
And I guess my picture of the BACK of Cushion didn't make it to Photobucket and you know what? That's no great loss at all. Let's just say despite not being against the box at all, she looks like she's picked up some ink from it.
Unlike Gigawatt, Cushion doesn't need a clear rubber band to act as a safety rail for her carrier... and also unlike Gigawatt, Cushion actually needs her carrier opened to get her into it.
So this is me, officially saying that while I am delighted to have both Alivia and Howleen, I feel like maybe there could have been a better theme for their single-packs than 'let's take our pocket pets out for a walk.'
Let's get back to Howleen herself.
Back of the dress is solid black, no one is remotely surprised.
Bottom of the shoes! Actually really cute!
Howleen's bare feet. Although her hands don't really have claws, her toes do!
The rest of my pics are comparisons, so now I have to answer the question:
Am I happy with Monster Family Howleen?
Well, keep in mind that Mattel sent her to me because one 12-year-old Howleen plus one 16-year-old Operetta are apparently the equivalent of Garden Ghouls Twyla when Garden Ghouls Twyla is out of stock. I come out WAY ahead using that math, frankly, but I'm not going to argue with it.
I'm very happy to have Monster Family Howleen, because I'd sort of given up on her? Like, I was never ever going to see this doll in person again-- I saw her once in Toys R Us when they thought they were just going to be closing most of their stores, not going under, and I made the call to get Alivia instead. I definitely feel like that was a reasonable decision.
I would not have paid full price for this particular Tween Howleen. Like Alivia, between her half-printed dress, unpainted accessories, and five points of articulation, Howleen feels like she should've been a $10 doll and not a $13 doll. But I didn't pay full price for her! I didn't pay for her! I paid $10 for a moderately defective deeply discounted two-pack of two other dolls and got Howleen as one-third of a spectacular apology for that.
That said, if I'd known I was only going to see her in the wild once, back when I saw her? I'd've dropped the money on her AND Alivia.
THAT said, this Cushion is going in a box and never coming out, because YIKES.
So yes! I like her! There are issues but they're pretty much all the standard issues-- minor quality control on the paint, half-printed dress, minimal articulation. But I didn't get to pick out the individual doll I wanted, the dress almost feels like a nightshirt so no big there, and I would rather have five nice-looking points of articulation than eleven points of articulation where six of them have huge gaps.
But how, you ask, does Monster Family Howleen compare to Classic Howleen?
I'm glad you asked!
Classic Howleen stands about nine and a half inches tall (without shoes, not counting ears), while Tween Howleen (I'm not calling her Reboot Howleen, Monster Family feels like a different concept somehow) stands about eight and a quarter inches tall (no shoes, not counting ears). If not for the (very small and age-appropriate) breasts Tween Howleen has, I'd say she actually looks closer to ten than twelve, compared to Dance Class Howleen's fourteen.
Also, that's Dance Class Howleen in most of 13 Wishes Howleen's second signature outfit (I didn't fuss with jewelry for this shoot), and you can definitely see where the design team found Tween Howleen's style cues-- black minidress with bright hem, blue belt, platform wedge boots, and hot pink hair.
Faces! Since they've both got on minimal makeup (Tween Howleen definitely has on lipstick, and Dance Class Howleen has on a very soft look), you can see the sculpting differences pretty clearly. Tween Howleen's floppy ear is less floppy and her ears generally seem to have more... puppy fat, I guess? They don't taper as sharply. Her cheeks are chubbier, her mouth the same shape but with less definition. Nose looks the same, though!
And yeah, she's a hair darker, but Dance Class Howleen was made in China and very few Chinese dolls are the same shade as their Indonesian counterparts, and none of them are darker. (And yet Chinese eyes are so much more reliable. Frustrating.)
Outfit swap! Well, mostly.
Tween Howleen wears as much of the 13 Wishes outfit as she can get on-- so just the dress, belt, and tights. Her hands are WAY too splayed to put on anything with straight sleeves. Classic Howleen wears the MF dress and belt with Creepeteria boots.
The dresses go between dolls just fine, and Howleen's style obviously carries through. Although yes both of them need about a dozen more bracelets.
And as you can tell by the date stamp I didn't realize was there until I was shrinking pictures, I'm using a new camera. I DROPPED MINE and now the lens has gone funny, and I was trying to see if I could fix it and dropped it AGAIN and the battery cover broke off. So I'm borrowing Mom's camera for the foreseeable future and it registers color slightly differently; I feel like things are a little desaturated.
... Tween Howleen's hair may also be looking a little wilder. My two-year-old niece thinks MF Howleen is DELIGHTFUL and keeps running off with her.
Tween Howleen can wear-- and looks pretty cute in-- Howleen's Sister Pack Signature outfit, too! Granted, the shoes don't fit and I couldn't get her shoes to go over socks, but still. Cute!
Fair warning, the ankle of the stripey sock was not a fan of Howleen's wide instep and toes.
Dance Class is... moderately okay? It goes on fine and works with her boots, although the belt and boots are... not harmonious.
But it needs A belt because it's pretty baggy through the crotch area.
And that? That's about it for what Tween Howleen can wear out of Classic Howleen's wardrobe, at least what I've got of it-- her Geek Shriek and Creepeteria skirts fit fine, but the shirts won't go past those hands... and I don't have Ghoul Fair Howleen's outfit to try it on.
So here's Tween Howleen's outfit on Classic Howleen, with paired Sister Pack socks, Dance Class shoes, and Sister Pack hoodie. It definitely needs jewelry, but... I feel like this is is something Howleen might actually wear.
If I were even a little bit better at repainting eyes, especially in the clean cel-shaded Monster High style, I would re-root and repaint Tween Howleen into an entirely different character and fill in an age gap in the Wolf Family's kids.
And for those curious...
Reboot Clawdeen and Classic Howleen. Clawdeen does indeed look younger than her little sister.
But then, she doesn't look that much older than Monster Family Howleen, either.
(I did not grab a Classic Clawdeen for this. I am not organized, and also, I was having a minor camera-induced freakout, still.)
I feel like Monster Family did a better job of "I'm you but younger" for Howleen than the reboot did for Clawdeen. Most of the Reboot Clawdeens I've had my hands on are very soft, and their makeup isn't particularly daring or strong. And, you know, that's fine, they're very pretty and youthful-looking, but they don't look like Clawdeen Wolf. Tween Howleen, with her total lack of eye shadow and age-appropriate pink lipstick and BOLD PINK HAIR still manages to retain some of that Howleen feel. She may not know who she is YET but she's working on it, and when she figures it out, look out!
But hey, now I've got all three Monster Family Tweens, do I have any learnings on what shoes fit them?
I'm glad you asked that, too!
Front view of all three girls. Wide insteps, narrow heels, Howleen and Kelpie have clawed toes but Alivia doesn't; Alivia has a well-defined separation between her big toes and the rest that looks like she could wear flip-flops well.
Kelpie and Howleen have basically the exact same feet. Though I didn't take a pic, they appear to be the same length and width as a Classic Little Sister foot, just sculpted to wear a lower heel.
Alivia, on the other hand, seems to have the same heel height as the other MF tweens, but the same shoe size as her big sister Frankie. Alivia is the hard one to shop for here.
She can't even get her dang foot all the way into Howleen's boots.
So, I went shopping in my Weird Shoe Sizes baggie in the Barbie bins to see what I could find that would work for these girls. I tried so many weird shoes on them, I swear. Some of the results are shoes that are hilariously old, but then there was sort of an eight-year-gap between when I stopped seriously hoarding barbie stuff and when I finally let myself buy a Monster High doll. Maybe you know more modern sources for shoes for these kids! I, alas, do not. (If you do, please tell me.)
Alivia in a pair of Hasbro Shoezies (these fit DC Superhero Girls, which is why I'm hanging onto them) and Kelpie in Howleen's boots. Not really either of their styles OR color schemes, but hey.
Different Shoezies on Alivia (more her style but dang they need thick socks), and some 1990s Gymnast Barbie sneakers on Kelpie. These are not hard to find-- I have a couple dozen pairs-- and also showed up with Stacie and Skipper back in the day. ... And if you get a reasonably soft pair? They also fit the de Nile twins, Barker, and Pawla. (Barker and Pawla will stretch them a little wider than they are.)
I sold a mess of Shoezies as a lot before Alivia existed and I will admit I'm kind of regretting that as much as I'm regretting selling the two DCSHGs I had in my hands before Alivia existed, because I'm not buying another one JUST to see how her shoes fit the MF tweens.
I think these are both Flavas shoes? Might be Flavas on Alivia and Generation Girl on Kelpie. I dig the colors on these, honestly, though I'm cheating a little bit for flat-footedness.
Kelpie's heel is WAY off the ground for a flat look, but the sneaker is soft enough that I can bend it to her foot reasonably naturally to make her look like she's shifting her weight, or just swimming.
Alivia's got the same thing going on, but not as bad.
Finally, a VERY THIN old pair of Barbie hiking boots. Not a huge fan of the color on Alivia, and again I'm having to shift her a bit to make her stand properly flat, but... I really like this style on her.
And that is LITERALLY all the shoes I have that fit these girls (so far), and I went through everything from Maxie and Jem to Anastasia to Teen Skipper to Gymnast Barbie. I tried Kevin shoes on these kids. I tried handmade leather high-button boots I got in the LATE EIGHTIES onto them. Descendants shoes fit but the heels are too high and they pitch forward (I haven't tried them on Little Sisters yet but I'm kind of excited to).
These are tricky feet to fit, is what I'm saying here.
So yes! In conclusion, the worst thing about Tween Howleen is Cushion, so if you can get past that and choose your actual doll and see her actual eyes, go for it. Just be aware dressing her is tricky, particularly in the shoe department.
Like what I do and want to help me feed my cats, but don't need anything I have for sale on eBay? You can always support me on Patreon or throw some change in my tip jar.
