Urban Vita Doll Review

Specs: 16.5 inch mechanical BJD fashion doll, 19 points of articulation, full range of motion 
BJD: Ball Joint Doll, dolls with ball joints are BJDs regardless of whether they are mechanical or strung together with elastic. Obitsu dolls are hybrid, using a combination of ball and hinged joints. Mechanical BJDs and hybrids tend to be the most posable and often, also the most durable.

As anyone whose done research on the Horsman Urban Vita doll knows, this is a doll collectors either love or hate. Reviewers describe her as being constructed from the "finest vinyl and ABS plastics" or "cheap plastic like an action figure." The reality falls somewhere in between.

When reviewing any doll, it is important to realize that everyone has different tastes and that what is beautiful to some will not be beautiful to others. Additionally, people who love a particular line of dolls, tend to love them passionately, so being overly harsh about the appearance of a doll will hurt someone's feelings. Out of respect for Vita fans, I will admit that I find the Urban Vita head sculpt to be cute and appealing, but not beautiful at the level of something produced by Robert Tonner for example. That is simply a subjective opinion, based on my taste, rather than something that is empirically measurable. 

I recently purchased my Urban Vita through a trusted, well established, eBay vender. She is the new "In the Buff" Urban Vita. She's bald and nude! Her head size takes standard wig size 5-6, so there is a vast selection of wigs available that will fit her. I've included numerous pictures of my Vita in this blog so that you can see how attractive she looks in a wide range of wig styles and colors.

She has a very fair complexion with light green eyes and intensely red lips. The face up is painted in a simple, bold manner, which is too harsh for my taste. Although the wigs soften her appearance, I still don't really like the way she looks in comparison with my Asian, Tonner, and Madame Alexander dolls. My taste runs towards subtle, natural appearing face ups, so Vita looks a bit like a tart to me. With that said, she's still very cute, as you can see.

One of the things that I feel make an Urban Vita a good purchase is her price (this one ranges from $60 to $80) and her posability. She can be a great doll for those who like to photograph their dolls in natural settings. Her body is also a very affordable option for those who are considering purchasing a JaimeShow replacement body for their Tonner fashion model heads.

She is equal to an Obitsu doll in posability. In some areas she exceeds the Obitsu. For example, she is outstanding for seated poses, which an Obitsu does about as well as a Tonner. She can assume relaxed slouched and draped positions better than any doll I've worked with. Her knees are easily kept together for ladylike poses, her feet have a full range of motion allowing them to be curved to the side gracefully when she's sitting. The Obitsu can assume a few more poses than a Vita, but doesn't look as graceful or as natural.

Her joints move more freely than any doll I have in my collection. She holds her poses nearly as well as an Obitsu. Unlike the Obitsu, once she's posed moving her can cause the pose to shift a bit. Obitsu owners know that once you've posed that doll, you can move it around without disturbing the pose. In fact, someone told me you could throw an Obitsu against the wall and it would still keep its pose - I have no plans to test that theory.

The Vita stands independently almost as well as dolls that have fixed ankles. She is well balanced and can stand well in heels. (As with all my dolls, I don't display her standing without a stand and only pose her free standing when I take pictures. Free standing dolls will ultimately topple over.) Because she is well balanced, the Vita can stand in a variety of poses. Unlike some of my Tonner dolls, I am not limited to just a couple of poses - her arms don't tilt her over if her torso is kept fairly straight.

Her head, hands, and feet are made of vinyl. The rest of her body is constructed of a hard polymer material (plastic). The plastic is not fully rigid and will not split under normal stress or fracture easily when dropped. You don't need to be as careful with Vita as you would be with a resin doll. However, she should not be manipulated into position with the firm hand you might be used to using with a far more sturdy Tonner or Obitsu product.

It's my opinion that Horsman should actually look towards the higher quality vinyl and plastic products used by Obitsu, Tonner, and Madame Alexander. The same doll, made using better materials would be a far superior product. Nonetheless, this doll is still a good addition to a collection, espeicially if you are looking for an affordable, highly posable fashion doll.

Horsman has engineered the Vita's joints extrodinarily well. In fact, in this one area, they exceed Obitsu, in my opinion. She moves with a fluidity only seen in strung BJDs. But unlike strung BJDs, you don't have to hold (or tie) her in her pose. You can let go and she stays!

Her body is beautiful, she is slender and toned with shapely, graceful legs that are somewhat longer than those on the average fashion doll. Her breasts are medium sized and she is moderately curved at the waist, so that she looks like a normally proportuned woman. Her hands are very well proportuned. They are naturally sized instead of being abnormally small and short in length, which is a common problem with fashion dolls. The hands have wonderful fingernails that extend beyond the fingertips. Unfortunately, they were so poorly painted that they may as well have been those little depressed square shapes found on most other dolls. Her hinged feet are very cute. They are shorter and chubbier than most dolls her size making it difficult to find shoes that either fit and/or look good. I have found that it's best to just test shoes from your existing collection. You will find Sybarite, Tonner, and Gene shoes that will work and ones that won't. She cannot wear Madame Alexander shoes. She is also one of those rare dolls that can wear thong sandles. (I so love this feature!)

Now on to the totally unacceptable feature of the Urban Vita. Her entire body is painted! Yes, this is true. Horror or horrors! She is molded from flesh toned vinyl and hard plastic and then everything is airbrushed with a flesh toned paint. This is not done because her plastic body needed to be matched to the vinyl head, hands, and feet, it is done to speed up the manufacturing process. I know of no other producer of fashion dolls for the adult collector who engages in this practice. In my opinion, it is done to conceal sloppy manufacturing. The finish sanding was poor and their assembly area must be unclean because dirt had been glued into some of the seams. Basically, they take a beautifully designed and engineered doll, make it out of second rate polymers and then try to paint it to hide the flaws.

In the picture shown above, you can clearly see that she is a beautiful doll. The dark blond wig softens the harshness of her face up. But I am still not satisfied, since she does not go well with my collection of Tonner (Ellowynn Wilde, Evangeline Ghastly, Tonner fashion dolls), Madame Alexander (Alex Fairchild Ford collection), and Asian dolls. She looks harsh, in my opinion. She doesn't have the subtle, finely executed face up that all my other dolls have.

Because of my disatisfaction, I had someone with professional expertise in vinyl and plastic completely strip her of all paint and remove the face up. They also finish sanded her so that she now looks smooth. There are still a few areas where a faint trace of dirt can be seen in the seams, but these are so faint that you can only see them up close. The body looked so much better afterwards. In fact, just looking at her "new" body had me online ordering a replacement head. She now has a Tonner "Death Becomes Her" head (Magnolia face sculpt) and she looks wonderful. The Tonner head's pale skin tone is a near perfect match; it is so close that the difference has to be pointed out before it is noticable and it actually matches better than the original Vita head. She became a different doll with her lovely Horsman body and stunningly realistic head.

The "Death Becomes Her" is a special edition zombie doll head. She was given a face up designed to make her look aggressive and...well...dead. Her hair is wonderful - very thick and soft. I like the face up, it is bold without looking trashy, but I am planning to give her a new face up once I've refined my skills a little more.

Right now, my Tonner/Horsman hybrid doll is sitting in my display cabinet wearing a black and white Goth body suit, black thigh highs and brown leather boots. She's waiting for me to sew the rest of her ensemble for her. I was so excited that I immediately designed her a special Goth outfit! It will be months before I get to it!

It is remarkably easy to put a Tonner head on a Vita body. Use the hot water soak method to temporarily soften the Tonner head and then pop it onto the Vita body before it cools and resumes its rigidity. The Urban Vita's head is made of a much softer vinyl and can be gently eased off without soaking in hot water - it took me two seconds to gently remove it. The Vita's neck and neck knob are nearly the same size as a Tonner doll's, so the Tonner head fits so well that looks like it was made for the Vita body. The Tonner head will not flop around and will as move as freely as it did on a Tonner body. In fact, installing  these heads on Vita bodies produces far more satisfactory results than putting them on a vastly more expensive JaimeShow body. (If you've never done this before, please research Tonner head removal before trying this. Please do not attempt this with boiling hot water - it doesn't need to be that hot and you could scald yourself!)

WIGS - With the exception of the short platinum bobbed wig shown in the picture above, all of these wigs were manufactured by Monique. They range in price from $10 to $30 dollars. All are high quality. A customizable silicon head cap was used to keep them in place. The short platimum bobbed wig was manufactured by Hujoo. The band around the outer edge of the skull cap is tighter than the internal bands and this causes the wig poof up. The hair is also unacceptably coarse, so I won't recommend this company. With the exception of the Hujoo wig, all of these wigs were purchased from the Doll Peddlar an American vendor who offers exceptional customer service. 

 

JEWELRY: I strung the necklace using glass beads and findings purchased from JoAnne's.

CAT: Not manufactured by Chinese people using dog or cat fur.

SHOES: Manufactured by Tonner. Part of the Ellowyne Wilde "Bright Lights, Big City" outfit originally sold on a Prudence Moody doll. 

OUTFIT: Custom made for DeeAnna Denton dolls by a Scandanavian seamstress. I've actually lost her contact info and will add it if I find it. Stockings, panties, bra, and corset are all part of the same set. This lady is known for creating wonderful outfits for DeeAnna and Silkstone dolls. Wish I could find her info!!!