Now some of you are no doubt saying to yourselves “What the heck is a Makie?”

Allow me to explain: a Makie is a 10 inch tall doll which has a customized 3-D printed head and an injection-molded body with detachable parts. Like the hands and the feet so they can be dressed easily and so that optional extra parts; like alternate pose hands* and cool shoes (some are slip on and some are like alternate feet).

Yes, I totally missed the boat on the entirely 3-D printed Makies (last ones went at the end of the summer) but thanks to a wonderful review of the new body by flyingpurplemonkfish I now have one of the new dolls.

Here is my very first Makie, named Thorn, fresh out of her box:

Please note that she is bald because I asked for her wig to be left unglued so that I could swap out her wigs (that cookie envelope on the right of the photo is a blue wig). Also please forgive the background, this is the only spot that still had enough sunlight for photos.

This closeup shows the body color vs the head color. The match isn’t too far off — I think part of the problem is that the head color has a depth and radiance due to the white nylon showing through the skin dye, whereas the body color is opaque solid plastic. It matches better than this in real life to human eyes.

And here she is with her wig on:

Now that she’s here I can see a definite resemblance to “Carla Conner” from Coronation Street though I didn’t plan it that way.

Her digital preview:

The create-a-makie on the makie website is addictive, I can spend waaaay too much time here designing faces. Oh yeah, the primary attraction of a Makie is that you design the face, including choice of three skin colors. If you try it make sure to click on the more options button to turn on the custom face screens. The ears don’t show in the digital preview so here is a screen shot of the settings I used for Thorn’s ears. Yes, Thorn is Fae, as in Faerie.

I guess I should mention that Makies cost $75 US, they ship worldwide, and that they are very poseable and fun. They also have a range of disability accessories (like hearing aids) and they encourage kids to be Makers. The new career packs (Musician, Veterinarian, Archeologist, Photographer) that they have just released for the holiday season are very cute. So are the new shoe packs and glasses packs.

So head over to Makie land and have some fun.

*The alternate pose hands for the new body aren’t available yet, but hopefully soon.