Makies, Customizable, 3D Printed Avatar Doll Creation Site Alpha Launches: Make Your Own Makie Today!

Makies, the customizable avatars that become 3D printed dolls, just Alpha launched, so you can go to the site and create a customized avatar of your own -- and when you're ready, you can get it printed up, and sent right to you in a tube in the mail. Makies are the brainchild of my friend the lovely and brilliant UK game design star Alice Taylor, who co-founded the company with Sulka Haro, formerly lead designer for Habbo Hotel. And Alice has a special message for readers of this blog:

"As trufans of the genre -- avatars and virtual worlds -- we're really excited and nervous to hear what your readers will think. Obviously we're at maybe 10% of what we want to be: Selections and actions are currently super alpha, but over the next 12 months we're going to be building all sorts of things: creativity tools, games, unusual items in both digital AND physical.

"No one's done this before with dolls/avatars/poseables, so we're picking our way through the void here, but we're so, so excited to even be bringing the alpha launch set into the world. And we'd love to hear what people want to see."

So go here to start making your own Makie today, and share your thoughts in Comments. I'd love to see SLers create a Makie version of their avatar in particular.

Pictured: Alice and me with a Makie.

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Comments

[Andrea]

Woah small world, I think I bumped into Sulka once in a while back in our Ultima Online days *grins* Cool to see what he's up to!

[Hitomi Tiponi]

If they could have a way of creating a doll of our SL av I think that would be even better.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I like 3D printing and I applaud Makies for pushing it forward.

But I think it's going to stay niche until two things happen: they get the quality above and price point below mass-market action figures and fashion dolls, and they hire a Svengali with a knack for getting all the major game producers to sign licensing agreements and enable character export.

I also think point one, price and quality, is the easy part. Getting the major studios to agree on an export format (much less the licensing boilerplate)? Good luck.

[Uccello]

@Hitomi Your SL shape can be exported and turned into mesh for re-import into SL, so I imagine someone could figure out how to send the data to a 3D printer.

[Adeon Writer]

The typical SL avatar would be a little too complex for a 3D printer, I'd think. I mean many have delicately modeled hair with alpha and stuff that dosn't translate well into a solid.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Ideally, at least from my perspective, an SL doll would be fabricated nude and bald, with changable hair, clothing and accessories added after "printing".

Of course, making custom wigs and clothes for dolls is more labor-intensive and undercuts my mass-market competitiveness argument. Oh well. Barbie's no fun if you can't change her clothes!

With Second Life, there's the fairly unique quandry that the elements of design that you use to create your personal looks are usually created by a host of other users.

While that might create an infinite array of headaches around rights and permissions, it's also a gateway out of the walled garden for some highly-skilled texture artists and modelers who might not even realize that their SL skills are transferable and marketable in a much broader context.

[Emerald Wynn]

Anyone who is familiar with the world of Asian Ball-Jointed Dolls is familiar with this type of customizable doll — it seems to me to be kind of an evolution of (or even largely inspired by) the Volks Superdollfie concept — or any one of several other ABJD makers — which also allows owners to customize their dolls with various heads, bodies, hands, feet, hair, eyes, skin color, etc.

Granted, you can't see a 3D model on screen as you design an ABJD or get as specific with nose and eye shapes, etc., so, yeah, those aspects are pretty cool. The Makies also are much more affordable than ABJDs, so I'll give them kudos for that as well. I went over to the site and designed an elven one — I'm tempted to buy her except the skin color is kind of off-putting. It was fun though.

Would I like to see my SL AV as a doll? Hell no. I struggle with the fact that I'm so involved in a virtual world — and what it says about my level of RL fulfillment and stunted RL social skills — as it is without manifesting that dysfunction into a DOLL. (Pardon my cynicism today. My birthday is Sunday, so I'm feeling kind of bitter about everything.)

[allfrog]

price point still ridiculous. as it was when people did this 5 years ago.