Makies

Makies are, for those uninitiated, 3d printed dolls you design.

The basic idea is that you toddle on over to the website ( www.mymakie.com) and click "make a makie"

From here you open the makie maker, which resembles one of those avatar creators you'd get for an MMORPG or Create a Sim.

You pick an gender and skin tone, then move on to outfit, wig and eyes.

But of course the real draw are the advanced sliders. These allow you to determine face shape, eye shape, nose and mouth and even ears (including an "elf" slider that determines how pointy the ears are, and i'm a sucker for some pointy ears!)

When you're finished, you end up with a digital image of your Makie which you can rename and add interests or a bio to if you're so inclined.

I admit, I found the maker itself insanely addictive and spent many an hour just making digital Makies.

Finally I decided enough was enough, it was time to have my creations "made real".

This means sending off that digital form to be turned into a 3d printed jointed doll. An exciting and somewhat nerve wracking process considering all you have to go with on what the product will look like is a digital cartoon image.

I'd been hanging around the forums for long enough to know mostly what the dolls looked like but that doesn't mean I wasn't still crazy eager to see how my own creations would translate to 3d.

I started saving, because Makies are NOT cheap. Each doll is £69 and then there's postage on top of that (a hefty £8 for uk domestic shipping)
I sold some stuff on ebay and waited.

Thankfully as soon as my ebay sales cleared, Makies lab decided to start a huge sale. 25% of EVERYTHING and free shipping.
Well, that was the push I needed.

The two Makies i'd been eying for months jumped eagerly into my cart.

I named them Nate and Gabe.

I ummed and ahhed and did some math, and husband pointed out that i'd budgeted for full price and for only a little more than i'd been originally budgeting, I could get a third doll.

I didn't need much convincing. I wanted to see a female Makie made real too, so Jian joined the boys.

Now, I hasten to point out here, that while the Maker has a wonderful selection of outfits and wigs for the girls, the boys are woefully undersupplied.

The official line on this is that girls outsell the boys by about 10:1, so the girls get most of the attention.

But there's also some sort of issue with the maker accepting the wigs on the boys and rendering as massive glitches instead. 

This has as yet, not been fixed.

So the boys only have three wig options, all fur wigs. The same wig really, in black, brown or blonde.

If you want a different one you can contact customer support who'll switch them out for another in the store, but this time of year with christmas around the corner, they told me such custom orders couldn't be done. 

Alas. So I ordered a few wigs separate just so my boys could have the hair I wanted them to have.

The boys also only have three outfit options, but I was told they could fit Bratz Boyz clothing as well as some Barbie stuff so I should be fine. 

I ordered on the 19th of November and was told to expect my dolls in "around 2 weeks"

The wait was agony.

on the 21st I got a cheerful email telling me my Makies had gone to print. 

They print each head to order, then the dolls are dyed, assembled, painted and packaged up.

All Makies start life stark white. 

December came, and finally I got my dispatch notice. 13 days after I ordered, my makies were finally on their way!

I stalked that tracking number. when it stalled at "arrived at delivery depot" at midday on wednesday I rang DHL who told me they were just loading the van now and that my order would arrive any time between then and 8pm.

20 minutes later a DHL van drove up, I almost tackled the poor guy as he walked to my front door lol.

I admit, I was impressed. Even at a super busy time of year and with no doubt a LOT of orders to make up thanks to the sale, the Makie Lab had managed to stay true to their 2 week promise. 

What a cheerful box of goodies.

All the bags and tubes have different coloured stickers, which are adorably happy and bright. 

Each Makie comes in their own tube, and I can tell you, I was SUPER excited to see how my designs had translated to 3d printed nylon.

Three different skin tones eheheh.

Jian is "Cool Caramel", Nate is "Strawberry Milk" and Gabe is "Cocoa Bean"

They came with hair nets over their faces.

The inner card slides out easily and the doll is held in with a simple red ribbon that ties at the back.

Easiest deboxing i've ever done.

Each doll comes with a light faceup done in what looks like pencils. 

It's nice they come with it, but it's not exactly striking or anything like their digital form.

However, the doll's faces and features are pretty damn close to their animated counterpart. 

The outfits are well made, though the fabric choices are sometimes a bit surprising.

With Jian's outfit her tee-shirt is made of soft polyester feeling fabric and her shorts are stretchy like lycra with printed patterning like pockets on the back.

She came with little 3d printed slip ons. 

The boys both came with cotton shorts that fasten at the front and well made tee-shirts with a velcro fastening at the back.

Neither came with shoes, though i'm informed by the lab that this was an error and they should have had shoes. They're sending me out a pair of pairs... heh.

I think they'll be identical to Jian's. 

Overall the clothing feels well constructed and though simple, each piece is cute and versatile.

The process of dressing and undressing is made easy by the Makies ability to be completely disassembled. 

The entire doll comes apart with a firm tug and goes back together with a click. 

Removable hands, feet and heads are crazy useful for dressing dolls. 

The back of the doll's heads unclip with a gentle squeeze revealing their eye mechanism and unique ID number.

Each doll has their own number which I think the printer uses to identify each one.

The eye mechanism is a bit tricky to get out, it's very stiff and I have rubbish finger strength. You squeeze the two little prongs and slip the whole thing out. I ended up pushing the top prong till it allowed me to slide the mechanism down over it instead, I can't do pinching of both AND pull at the same time, fat weak fingers and all that.

Anyway, once I got the knack, it wasn't too hard to slip these in and out. But it took me a while to get the knack.

The eyes are 18mm half rounds and this means you can pretty easily go out and buy third party eyes for your Makie.

However the lab does already produce 6 different eye colours as defaults anyway. And they sell bundles of just the eyes.

I bought a set.

Here's all 6 colours. A lovely grey, a deep blue, a gorgeous green. Then a light brown, a very dark brown and a black that shimmers when the light hits.

The eyes are really quite nice, very rich in colour and depth and quite realistic.

They're very light and plastic (I think) and they pop onto the eye mechanism neatly. 

You can adjust them with a little fiddling to achieve different eye positions. 

While the dolls feel pretty robust, poor Jian has a bit of damage to her eye mechanism present before I even opened her head. There's a crack in one side of the mechanism and the A in the middle of her ID seems to make that large tab a bit fragile. The nylon around the A is already starting to stress and i've barely touched it. Hmm. I always knew there was a reason I didn't like the letter A heh.

The Makies big ol' noggin seems to have been designed to fit circuitry inside. in fact, the original makies had hollow necks that allowed you to connect wires from the battery compartment in their back all the way up into the head.

but this made for a fragile neck joint so the design was modified. 

The makies retain that battery compartment in their back though, which you can put stuff into... perhaps spare eyes and shoes like a Mr Potato head. 

The head itself is perfectly large enough that you could fit circuitry in there were you so inclined. Indeed some people have inserted LEDs to make the Makies "blush" and glow while others have inserted servos that rotate and move kitty ears on the top of the head.

But on the whole, most people seem content not to wire their Makies up.

Still, it's nice there's the option for those so inclined.

Now I have one of these dolls nude, I should talk about the feel of these dolls.

I had read the Makies were quite light, but honestly, I found them fairly hefty to pick up. They aren't as weighty as a high grade Ball Joint Doll no, but compared to a Barbie or a Monster High doll, they're slightly heavier to me. They have a nice weight, not too heavy, not too light.

The texture of the 3d printed nylon is somewhat rough, but it feels to me like carved bone or perhaps bisque. 

The printing process leaves a grain across the doll that looks organic, in the darker skinned dolls it really looks like tree rings. In the paler ones, they look like ivory.

The heads are smoother than the body with 3d printed eyebrows. Some people hate these, I actually kinda like them because they make painting the brows SUPER easy, you just follow the shape. 

The Makies are wonderfully articulated, which adds to their playability. The joints are tight and strong and the doll can stand without support absolutely fine, even with their wigs on. 

Quite impressive for a doll with such a big head.

They can point their feet, do the splits... 

Kneel before Zod... 

Weep openly.

 set ena pol

and a hena macarena

 h and a so onapeeda

set en a pol an a hena macarena

  Heeeey Macarena!

 Ayaa!

Ahem... sorry about that.

The Makie articulation is pretty good, though they can't cross their arms or legs. 

 They can look up

They can look down.

 And even pull of a coy tilt of the head.

The boys are slightly taller than the girls, but there's not much in it. 

Legs and arms seem to be the same, with girls having a slightly shorter torso with wider hips and of course boobs.

They even have the same sized feet which is nice for mixing and matching.

The girls have much rounder heads as well, which seems pretty true to life honestly.

The similarity in body shapes suggests both genders should be able to share quite a lot of clothing. In fact, the girls fit the boy clothes absolutely fine while the girl clothes are just a tad too tight around the waist and chest for the boys.

Gabe felt left out of the nudity, so here he is bearing all as well.

Happy now Gabe?!

Action Gran doesn't approve of all this rampant dolly nudity. Everyone get dressed immediately or it's straight to bed with no supper.

Is this better?

The wigs are really nice. I believe they're a size 7 (that's what the bag said anyway) 

They have a stretchy wig cap that stretches over the head and they stay on fairly well without the need for glue. 

The Makies tend to come with their wigs glued in place but they just peel off if you want to change them. You can request the wig non glued but this time of year that classifies as a special order. 

The hair is well rooted and lovely and soft. Even the fur wigs are quite nice, so fuzzy and cute.

The printed shoes have a very rough texture. The black ones aren't quite as textured as the brown ones which came with an accessory pack I ordered as well. 

The texture kinda works for them though, makes the brown shoes look like some sort of woven material. 

Speaking of shoes, those little pegs their feet attach to? Turns out they're the exact right size and shape to fit into Bratz shoes.

Both the boyz shoes

And the girlz.

This adds even more options to the shoe catalogue.

They also fit Ken and Monster High boy shoes perfectly. 

All dressed at last, here's the gang with their faceups done (watercolour pencil and chalk pastel)

Jian's got false lashes added too. 

Her sweater is actually a christmas decoration from Asda. It fits perfectly. 

 Wheeee

Gabe's eyes make me swoon.

Gabe's hat is also an Asda christmas decoration. It fits perfectly too. 

His glasses are from the Makie lab.

His outfit is Makie lab shirt and shorts with a Bratz boyz shirt and a random bead bracelet I found.

The guitar is from a Cody Simpson doll. 

The shoes are also from a Cody Simpson doll.

Gabe got elf ears, and they're so pointy and adorable.

Nate immediately got his proper wig, that fur one didn't suit him at all. 

And I gave him his heterochromia, which unfortunately you can't do with the Maker. (hence the eye pack I purchased)

No idea what i'll do with all those spare eyes. 

I gave Nate side glancing eyes, I think it's adorable.

His outfit is a mishmash of different things.

The glasses are Makie lab.

The shirt is a repro Hatchett Sindy shirt (it's a little tight in the chest) 

the waistcoat is a sindy shirt.

The jacket is Bratz Boyz.

The pants are vintage Ken turned up a good couple of inches at the bottom and cinched in at the waist. 

the shoes are Ken.

The Makies are shorter and stockier than Monster High. Though fit the boy's shoes and some of the boy tops too (they're a bit tight).

Despite being substantially taller, Sindy and Barbie can lend the Makies clothes. Pants are way too long and dresses can have trouble with the waist positioning but a little experimenting and you can cobble together something.

Bratz are the closest in height to the Makies. Bratz Boyz can lend their clothing nicely. The girls are sadly far too skinny for the Makies to steal any of their stuff (except their shoes bwhahaha)

Bonus action shots! Jamming!

Sindy/Barbie scale furniture actually works pretty nice. Gabe's feet can't quite reach the ground but he's otherwise fairly comfy in this Sindy chair.

Overall? I'm honestly delighted by these dolls.

YES they are expensive, but damn they have personality. The process of designing them yourself lends them a charm that other dolls just don't have. They're unique, they're personal, they're like doll OCs really. 

I found that in the design process characters just started to develop, stories started to bubble up and that creativity is I think very appealing. 

I know these three are unique, no other Makie will look quite like them and that's super awesome. 

They're robust little dolls too (I dropped Nate on the hard tiled floor and he's absolutely fine). You can even put them into the dishwasher if you're so inclined! 

The only problem I did find was that the paler skinned two are prone to getting little dirt smudges on them as you handle them, and it's not easy to clean off due to the textured nature of their "skin". 

I'm thinking a Makie cleaning toothbrush may come in useful here.

The Makies are supposed to be strong enough to be appropriate for children, and I can see a child really enjoying the idea of creating their very own doll.But their price point may be a bit of a deterrent to parents.

Still, considering the price of an American Girl or similar doll...

I do love these dolls, though I can't help but wish they were a little cheaper. Still, the idea is novel and they're well made little things. The technology is still relatively new as well, so I understand why they cost what they do.

The Makie Lab staff themselves are really nice, they're a tiny group of only about a dozen people but they have a loyal and vocal community who they do listen to. Even stroppy ol' me with my constant moaning about more stuff for boys hahaha.

It's clear they care about their product and they care about their customers. And they keep winning awards too, so go them!

I can't give the Makies a 10/10, much as i'd love to, because they aren't perfect out the tube. They need a little redressing and tweaking before their character really pops but thankfully giving them a very simple little faceup is quite easy (I only darkened up a few existing lines with my boys and applied fake lashes and eyeliner to the girl) 

For any doll enthusiast, getting a Makie to look amazing shouldn't be too much of a chore.

Their wigs are good, their outfits though simple are cute and well made. They can wear a lot of other doll's stuff which is helpful and if none of the Makie lab wigs or eyes take your fancy or fit your concept, 3rd party products are easy to find. 

The possibilities are pretty much endless with these, and if i'm honest? they're kinda... addictive.

I've noticed on the forums that once people buy one, the chances are they'll be back for a second.. a third... a fourth... 

And that's gotta be a sign the Makie Lab are doing something right.

So I give them a solid 9 pointy pointy fingers (Did I mention their pointy fingers? they have seriously pointy fingers, it amuses me) out of 10.

I can um... see more of these dolls in my future. Ahem.

Ok boys, let's start earning some money!