BIG news from Makie labs.

From Jen over on facebook:

You will shortly notice (maybe a handful of you already have?) that the price of a create-your-own Makie doll is now $74.99 / £49.99. That is new pricing, it's not a sale.

We can offer this new price for a couple of reasons: optimising suppliers, and - this is the important info for you guys - changing the product. In a couple of weeks, we'll be shipping Makies with injection-molded (IM) bodies. These bodies are produced in the UK, and are fully jointed like the 3DP bodies, with a couple of design improvements. They're tough, more kid-friendly and, crucially, much cheaper for us to produce.

What this means for you guys is that for a limited period, about two weeks, you'll be able to buy Makie dolls as you know them, with fully 3DP bodies, at the new lower price. After that, all Makies will ship with the new IM bodies. We'll be doing this without fanfare, because we've learned over the last couple of years that 3D printed bodies aren't particularly sought after - it's the customisation aspect that's really interesting, and the customisation will stay: faces will still be 3D printed. IM bodies can accommodate 3D printed parts, too - however sizing of some parts and accessories will be affected, so we'll be retiring the old ones and releasing new versions.


What we know so far:

If you order before the end of the month, the dolls should still have the regular printed body. After that, they'll start switching the plastic.

The plastic moulded bodies cannot be dyed like the 3d printed ones (NOOOOooooo) so get your white Makies NOW.

They'll likely be discontinuing the white skin tone

Slip-on shoes will be backwardly compatible. Pop-on shoes like the trainers have been redesigned so that they'll work on both old and new bodies, but again, old pop-on shoes won't fit the new bodies. Shoes that require different foot heights (the trio of wedges) will be redesigned to fit flat feet, and re-released in a little while.

Old hands won't fit the new bodies, but we'll release compatible hands as soon as it's feasible.




I'm officially panicking right now. <_< Deep breaths guys, deep breaths. We'll get through this! It'll be fine!

Oh wow, well, I hope we'll get to see the new bodies soon.
Also hoping that cheaper cost combined with the fact we won't be able to dye them any more means they'll come out with more/fantasy skin tone options some time in the future.

Shoes that require different foot heights (the trio of wedges) will be redesigned to fit flat feet

Does this mean the new bodies won't have jointed ankles? If so that's kind of disappointing.

apparently no plans atm for skin tones, maybe if enough people moan (I still want something between caramel and cocoa)

from what i'm understanding, bodies will have the same number of joints.

I'm happy the price is going down, but I bought all of the available hands in the caramel skin tone and thought I'd be able to share them between future caramel Makies :/

Oh now this is interesting!

I think it certainly sounds like the best business decision, it seems that half of all discussion of makies online is dominated by complaints about the price (eh, fair enough, especially if it's a toy for your/a child!). Also, it'd be nice if it paved the way to have more choices in bodies you could pick (please please a more gender-neutral/androgynous one!).

But it also makes me a bit worried. I hadn't picked up any hand packs because I couldn't afford them at the time. I'd like hands for my makies in future, but can't really gauge how backwards compatible new hands would be. I'm sure they could fit the joint, but would the texture be the same?
Alternatively, would they sell new body kits just like they sold the V2 makie body kits? I'd either want to upgrade my existing makies to new bodies for maximum compatibility, or still be able to pick up some basic pieces that matched the original printed plastic.

I just can't tell! I'm not a member of facebook so I can't see any of the news from there.  If they post any photos of what the new body looks like, I hope they also post them on instagram.

In the meantime, I've been wondering whether I could justify buying a makie for myself for my birthday... I still shouldn't, but I'm pretty tempted if it's my last chance to make sure he matches Aurella and Elisabeth!

Don't worry guys, i'll try to post any pertinent stuff from facebook here as well.

Cheers P_M, it's much appreciated!

Now I'm just looking longingly at the third makie and trying to justify it in my head. XD

heh, well I ordered 2 but I HAD been saving up for them both AND they are both ones I need to dye (one will be green, the other blue) so it was a bit... time sensitive.

This saddens me to no end. One of the things I really like about Sage is the use of the same material treated the same way throughout her body. It makes her different from all of the other dolls I've bought through the years. Since getting Sage in the mail last week I've had hopes of slowly building a Makie army, including an all white one.

Someone in the Facebook group asked if they might keep the 3D printed bodies as an option for the people who want them and are willing to pay more for them. I haven't seen an answer but I hope they will consider this as an option.

I just talked to my husband and he told me to order what I will regret not having if they can't offer the 3D printed bodies anymore. He is amazing!

Wow, now I have to decide if I want to get another one before the body change. Decisions are hard!

I agree with you Chove, decisions are very hard. It took me a long time to decide to push the order button. I knew I wanted a white Makie and a Male with the 3D body so I ordered Frost and Robin. I had planned to buy them eventually, but at a much slower pace than this. I was wanting a coco bean and a caramel too but we are trying to save money for adult things too.

https://mymakie.com/people/forestgreen/

I kept saying I was waiting for Makies to go on sale, probably around Christmas...and I said I wasn't going to do anything expensive this month, because I've had a mini holiday. I am tempted to just call this a credit card situation and get on with it though. Because I'm sure the new bodies will be great, but a) I like the idea of mine matching, and b) I'd prefer to wait on the new ones until there are a bunch of reviews.

I'm glad they gave some notice though, then it does give people the option to choose.

(And thank you for sharing this - I can't see it on their Facebook page, but I'm a bit hazy on how Facebook works, so I wouldn't have seen it otherwise.)

Well, looks like I ordered one! With the help of a friend, since it's near enough my birthday anyway. It would have been cool to order more, but I hadn't been budgeting for this particular expense at all. 

I am eager to see what they do with the new hand sets. I wonder if they'll go down in price accordingly if they're IM made? In general, I wonder if all the accessories will now be IM made? In which case, that could make the future wheelchair much more affordable budget-wise perhaps. (Still can't wait for that one!)

Yeah looks like a lot of us are panic buying lol.

I'm rather sad about them retiring the white, it means I shall never be able to have my white boy to go with Sa'dii *sigh* unless I can scrape together funds this month but I seriously doubt I can justify it.

I do think it's a real shame though because the 3d printed everything including accessories was hugely appealing. It was so unique and different, it produced a product unlike anything else on the market and it was all technological and futuristic and stuff. I hope the accessories remain 3d printed purely for that reason, being able to print your own shoes/accessories if you happened to have a printer was awesome.
The 3d printed bodies also had huge potential for customisation if you were any good at 3d modelling. I mean, if 3d printers were cheaper, imagine the custom parts you could make! I'd have loved to see fantasy parts like clawed feet and hands, clip on wings, mermaid tails etc. They could still do that with IM but it takes a bit more prep and effort of making moulds etc.

I dunno, feels like a step backwards technologically. 3d printing felt like it was the way of the future, that we wouldn't have moulds anymore, we'd just have scanned and printed objects. I guess it just hasn't become as cheap as everyone expected the technology to become at this point. I think by now it was anticipated everyone would have a desktop 3d printer in their homes, but we don't because they're still too expensive. And that's a huge shame because if the tech was cheaper, this wouldn't need to happen. *sigh*

I know a lot of people on facebook want them to keep the option for 3d printed bodies at the higher price, tbh, i'm not sure the extra £20 would even cover the printing of the bodies anyway. They might need to go back up to £99 but for people who desperately want the 3d body, I hope the team can come up with a print on demand sort of option there. Apparently the bodies are printed on demand anyway, but presumably in batches of more than one at a time which gets the cost and time down. I dunno.
I hope they look into the viability of that though.

I'm scared but excited but yeah.. scared hah. I intend to order one when the new bodies are released though, and you guys can expect a very lengthy blog review about it.
I'm curious to see if the bodies can be painted and hold the paint (joints tend to chip after all) but i'd rather have spare parts to experiment different paints and dyes and pigments on than risk ruining a whole doll. still, I feel like if we knew that we COULD recolour the bodies people would feel a bit better and less freaking out.

I think I'm 'lucky' in the sense that I don't have any characters with unusual skin colours that would need to be dyed that are human enough to make with the makie creator (any blue or green people I have, even if they're humanoid, are beyond what the creator can make). So mostly, I'll benefit from the new body choice (I'm only rush-buying the current makie to make sure he totally matches the existing two he's meant to go with).

But it does also make me wonder about future customisation. I agree with pretty much everything you said P_M, 3D printing is somewhat more affordable now but... still not that much. Especially not for bigger pieces either. But it offers a large amount of freedom in terms of printing custom things on demand.

Switching to IM seems it would mean that future body customisation (like thicker or thinner bodies) is out of the question, but I suppose... it also might not be. I did ask them recently if they were planning on offering different body types, and they did say they were looking into it as it's frequently requested. So perhaps if they offer both IM and 3D-on-demand, the 3D ones could be more heavily customised.

I don't know, I'm just speculating! The artist in me is a little bit worried and disappointed, because this is the only product in the world I know of that allows me to realise interactive 3D versions of my artwork as well as it does.
But the consumer in me is happy, because this should make the toys much more accessible to children, especially children with disabilities, and that's always a step in the right direction.

So it's a change in focus but... I think it's probably a change in focus for the better. I just hope they can keep as many options available for adult collectors/artists/etc open as is viable for them.

I very much look forward to your eventual blog post reviewing the new body! I'm very eager to see what it'll look like/feel like, and how it holds up!

No worries, i'm also looking into a potential "makie meet" for those nearish London, plan is when I get a hold of a new body to have a "meet and fondle doll" hahaha. I'm sure a fair few people would like to have a play with the new body and really get a feel for the look and texture, the posability etc which might help us all stop panicking over change. But that won't be for a few months and depends entirely on whether I can organise it.
I think it'd be fun though, to meet and talk dollies.
They used to do them back when Makies first came out but they sorta.. stopped happening when it all changed to be geared more to kids and the team were too busy making dolls and doing real work (lol)

I'd LOVE different body types and yeah, i'm worried a little about adding new bodies in with the existing crew. I have two dolls on my shelf who still need another 3 who are part of their "world/story" but they'll have to wait and be on new bodies, clothes will probably cover most of it anyway.
One of them I can't make till they give us a darker brown that isn't cocoa anyway (I need something between caramel and cocoa, caramel's too pale and cocoa too dark)

I hope they keep the Made for You Makies up until they sell out, since those still have the 3DP body. The price is still the same for them as well. I really want one of those but I'll have to wait 1-2 months until I can afford it.

I won't be able to justify flying to London just to feel the new body in person although having the meet up is a great idea. Please remember to take lots of video for those of us who can't be there in person.

I ordered the two I've been saving up for - I wish the caramel was darker but it looks like that won't be happening for the foreseeable future, so might as well get them now.

(The picture just looks wrong though - I already have a whole bunch of boys clothes for my tomboy character, so I figured if I ordered her in a dress, I could take that and give it to the girly one. But it just Does Not Look Right.)

Ordered "BlushNano" in case I regretted not doing so. Do we think the new bodies will still fit same sized clothes etc?

Purple_Monkfish wrote:No worries, i'm also looking into a potential "makie meet" for those nearish London,

That would be fantastic - I've never been to any kind of collecting meet before, but I'm only a couple of hours on the train from London. (Used to live in the wilds up North, which was near nothing at all.)

I believe the bodies will be pretty much the same shape and size, though the articuation may actually be better because the material isn't as stiff as the 3dp stuff. It may mean less cracked shoulder joints (I have one with a cracked shoulder from bending it too far dressing her, booo)

And don't you worry guys, i'll be sure to get a lot of pics and review the heck out the new body. If I can get others feedback on it too, we can have a full sorta Q&A about it heh. Because change scares everyone and i think we need to really SEE this new body before we can decide if it's a complete deal breaker or not right?

I know everyone's panicking, or just taking advantage of the new price point (which is sweeeeet, my Makie army is gonna expand even faster if they stay this price) but it'll all be ok! If the new body doesn't work out it's not like they can't go back to 3dp and if it does work out, we get cheaper more robust makies that we may be able to take out and about without quite so much fear of breaking something. And if they do indeed have better articulation, that'll be fun.

I go to both annual MCM Comic Cons in London to exhibit every year, and I will be taking my makies along to it for the foreseeable future.
It could be a good place to organise a makie meeting? If the actual con is out of budget for some, we could have the meeting outside the excel centre entrance, where lots of meetups happen. It's usually nice and sunny.

Just a thought!  I was ecstatic to meet other makie enthusiasts at MCM in May, and even other people's makies, so it's clear that at least some go to Comic Con. It could be a great way to congregate because people are already in London for the con anyway.

Also, I seem to remember that apparently Makies did actually have their own official table there some years back? It's a shame that's not still happening. XD

For me i am worried about different  texture honestly. I am such a tactical person that the doll must at least feel about the same texture! Even with barbie type doll is the head isn't at least smooth like he body...neope!



I am tempted to get Silva arm ordered then get Eos AFTER the swap... to jsut see since she IS to be my travel girl.

I just saw the news about this last night and will be ordering ALL my to-dyes. I'm sort of sad that this means that many of my Makies won't get extra hands. I'm a little uncertain about the texture difference that Miss Henry mentioned since I really like it in a tactile sense as well as visual.

It feels sad though; like the end of an era. I'm with the people who want the option of buying a 3D printed body. Ultimately I hope they won't forget their focus on STEM, though!