[wired]

A startup called Makielab is hoping to disrupt the toy market by 3D-printing customised dolls to your exact specifications and offering an identical online avatar doppelganger. Or dollpelganger.

“Makies is currently what looks like an action-figure builder, but it’s a bit more than that,” explains Alice Taylor, CEO of the company and former commissioning editor for education at Channel 4, in an email to Wired.co.uk. “While Makies means a customer can come and build and create the action doll of their choosing, they also get an avatar version too, which happens to be standing in a 3D space. Stuff that you do digitally will result in physical unlockables, and vice versa.”

Taylor has been experimenting with the idea of dolls that can talk to the web for some time. In early 2000, she set up stortroopers.com, which allowed users to build Creative Commons-licensed avatars on the web. A decade later,  …

However, she cautions that 3D printing shouldn’t be seen as the future of manufacturing. Neither of the two main types of 3D printing are as cheap, fast or produce as smooth a finish as injection moulding. Nor can they cope with the range of colours often required in toys. “So 3D printing is not exactly ready to replace injection moulding today,” says Taylor. “And won’t be until it can compete head to head with those factors — speed, price, colours. Our action dolls are made in London, and we send a batch of faces to print and have them back within four days. In the future, with our own machines, it’ll be same-day stuff. Boy is that an exciting thought.” …

See the full story here: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-05/24/makies

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