Shooting Star
September 15, 2000 - December 25, 2000
I was very fond of Shooting Star. Her costume was beautiful, and her hair was lovely. She will be sorely missed.
Reviews and Commentary:
Introduction: As explained in My Gene Experience Part II, after waiting until my 17th birthday in September of 2000, I finally got Shooting Star. I chose this doll because the outfit is lovely, because I felt that it really reflected Gene's era, and because I'm from Texas! But then, on Christmas Day 2000, her arm broke off at the shoulder. We contacted the dealer from whom I had bought it on Ebay, and she was wonderful about the whole thing. She let us keep the costume, get our money back, and gave us 30% off any other doll we purchased from her! It was then a merely a matter of choosing a new doll, which I did (you can read more about my choice, and how I made it). This review will cover both Shooting Star, the doll (since I did own it for a while), and the outfit.
The Doll: Shooting Star is a really nice doll (as long as you don't get one who's arm breaks off). The hair is lovely, and is actually pretty historically accurate (much more so than Simply Gene's). I think that the arm breaking off was a freak event, because I have heard almost no reports of something like that happening before (except, of course, in the case of the new elbow joints, where problems have occured more frequently). In some ways, I wish that I simply had Shooting Star, but that's mostly because of the hair (which, by the way, was a dark, dark brown, but not a black, as it looked in the publicity picture). But what I like about the Simply Gene that Shooting Star didn't have was the poseability of the elbows. Oh, well, can't have everything.
The Costume: This outfit is really gorgeous. It is beautifully constructed of a "suede"-like material, and it is beaded and embroidered on the jacket and the skirt. The jacket is lined. The accessories are great. The spurs take a little practice to get them to stay on the boots the right way, though. You can untie the rope from off of Gene's belt (I did so). The accessories, by the way (the belt, the holster, the gun, the rope, and the boots) look really great with Safari. The hat, however, is not the same one as in the publicity picture released by Ashton Drake. The outfit really comes with a brown, low-crowned, wide-brimmed, 'flatter,' felt hat which has a gold sequined band, and a bunch of colored feathers. I don't like the way it looks on nearly so much as the way the hat in the Ashton Drake picture looks. The one in the Ashton Drake picture is black, with a much higher crown, a shorter brim, and a less 'felt-y' texture. It looks like the kind you can buy at craft stores, and in fact, I did buy such a hat at a craft store, and it looks much better on Gene.
Conclusion: This is a really great outfit, and even if you don't buy the doll, you should try to get the outfit separately, if you can!
Pictures:
You can see that the hair on this doll was very nicely arranged.
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Gene and a Bryerİ burro named "Brighty"(I think). The fence may also be Bryerİ, but at any rate, it and the burro are from my "horse" days. If you look closely you can see Gene's rope around Brighty, and that is Gene's brown hat (that comes with Shooting Star) on the right of both pictures.
In this picture you can see (but not very well, I admit) the beautiful embroidery on the jacket and skirt (those little yellow squiggly things are the embroidery.
A really beautiful doll. :-)
I am in no way affiliated with Ashton Drake or Mel Odom other than as a proud owner of a Gene Marshall doll. I am also not affiliated in any way with Bryerİ Horses.
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These pages were last updated on 05/11/01