What Inspired You to Get a Makie?

i don't really remember exactly how I found the site when it was in its infancy, but I do know it was related to me wanting a BJD from Volks. 

I created tons of dolls in the maker, but never got one because of the price back then. I kind of regret it to be honest. I missed out on a lot of things I would of liked to have.

My biggest inspiration, was actually Sioux's doll, Mushroom. I remember it being prominently featured, and all I could think is "I want one just like that." Of course, not realizing it was a full on faceup customization.

Ooh, great question! I had seen Glythia, and then Effie, on Toybox Philosopher. I also regret not getting a classic, but I was doing other doll things at the time. Once I saw Effie, I went back to the Makies site and made a ton of Makies. I bought my first, Lizzie, once I started basing them on my rats.

I love my OC Madison so much I decided to make a doll out of her. I googled something like customizable ball jointed doll, and the Makies website came up. But they were expensive, so all I got around to doing was designing her and a few other OCs. Then this year there was a sale, I actually had money on hand, and I got the guts to buy her she got me hooked into makies.

I was following the Toy Like Me campaign on facebook, and they mentioned that this 3D printed toy company had responded to a request for disabled dolls by making hearing aids, a sight-assistance cane, and a doll with a large birthmark. Then I started reading up more on them...

(I sent in an email with my first order explaining this was how I'd found them, and got a lovely response from Jen - they seemed to be really pleased to get involved with this kind of thing.)

Can't recall how I found the site. I thought it was a cool idea but couldn't get into the classic faces, all the ones I saw i felt were a bit... freaky. (they were almost all girls) so I sort of wandered away and when I came back there were cuties too. I liked those better, the girls looked well.. cute and girly. I had a great time making loads of digital ones, reading everything on the forum and pondering the expense before finally I decided I liked what there was to offer.

I was saving up when a sale hit, and husband pointed out I could afford 3 with what I had saved. So uh... 3 happened lol. One of each skin tone, 2 boys and a girl. I kinda wanted a boy and a girl for review purposes and to get a good feel of both options.
I worried, I fretted but when they arrived it was love at first sight.
and then I got addicted lol.

I first saw some on a friend's Flickr page....that would have been over a couple of years ago as it took me a couple of years to order one, (Wren) although I had designed some.  It wasn't until another friend got one and I had her Makie to stay for a week that I finally decided to take the plunge.  Having had some BJDs and being frustrated with the difficulty posing them, seeing how well the Makies pose in real life was a clincher for me.   I was only going to have the one, Wren, though...but well 'only one' didn't happen! 

My BFF had one and at first I wasn't that keen on them but they grew one me especially because I could give them a custom face. I have four now, oops.

I saw the 'Toy Like Me' Makies on Tumblr and loved the concept immediately. I made a ton of Makies, thinking I wouldn't buy one because of the price, but I just couldn't leave my Aya in the maker. She wanted to come home so badly

My younger brother is really into Mario, and wanted Mario Princess dolls (Peach/Daisy/Rosalina) so he could play dolls with my sister. I started to try to look into doll customization and a bunch of make-your-own dolls. Somehow or another, Makie Dolls came into the list, so I had to research them.
Dolly Confessions and Toy Box Philosopher are the two main sites I remember first finding as well as Monkfish's Dolly Ramble (thanks Purple_Monkfish!)
I had one character that showed up in a lot of sketches and always wanted to make her face something official. I had some extra cash and figured lets just see what happens. I was a nervous and impatient wreck for the two weeks (of course). To my shocking surprise, I loved her the second she arrived. I was never really into dolls and never thought I would be, but the customization aspect of this doll has really appealed to my artistic/ocd side and has become a slight addiction . 

I'm part of a community that is into things like 3D printing so the term always catches my eye. I've always loved fashion-type dolls but had burned out on Barbie. The early things I read about Makies sounded interesting. I found a thread about Makies on another doll board I read and I was intrigued. The idea of a 3D printed, customizable BJD that doesn't cost as much as a month's rent appealed to me. I couldn't afford one at the time but I was obsessed anyway. I read up on Makies, watched videos, found the old forums, and basically drooled all over my keyboard every time I saw pictures. I also really loved the idea that the heads and bodies were made of the same material and the description that kept popping up about them having a grain instead of seam lines made me drool even more.

I was finally able to buy my first Makie, Sage, in July and I loved everything about her. When the news came that the Lab was planning to switch to an IM body I panicked. I talked to my (very wonderful) husband and he told me to go ahead and buy what I would regret not having, within reason. I decided on two more. Robin (male) needed to match Sage, and I really wanted a white one before they disappeared.

Strangely enough I first found out about Makies through my BJD Lue becoming a pen pal with one of StacheRabbit's BJDs. She happened to mention that two of her dolls were off topic dolls called Makies. So I did a web search and found the Makie website. I played around on the old version of the Makie Maker, but because I was mostly on my IPad I couldn't open an account on the Makie website, and save any of the dolls I'd created. Which meant I also couldn't order any of them either.

I was getting pretty frustrated, and had sort of stopped even bothering to design any Makies since I couldn't do anything with them. Then they came out with the first Makie online fashion game, and it worked on iPad! I was a little bummed that you couldn't create an actual male Makie character, but I went ahead and created my character for the game. Lol, because I've got a bit of a rebellious streak in me, I went ahead and made him a male anyway. That was Ryuu, and the more I played that FabLab app, the more attached I became to him. So when I noticed the tab in the FabLab app for making your game Makie real, I just had to get Ryuu made real.

Unfortunately, I forgot to log in when I got to the MakieLabs website, so Ryuu didn't automatically get added to the My Makies gallery in my account when I made him real. Lol, I had to go back and try to recreate him so that he would appear with all the rest of my Makies. I'm still not sure I re-created him exactly right. So to see the real virtual Ryuu, you'd need to look him up in the FabLab game.

Anyway, when Ryuu arrived, I was quite pleased to see that he looked younger and even more like a boy than he does in the FabLab game. I was so pleased with Ryuu, that I had to start ordering him some friends.