The milk has gone sour

If you were planning on buying any optional parts for your milk doll like hands, feet or busts you’re out of luck as, from the gist of his Instagram post, he’s discontinuing all milk option parts and a few other things like hand pack 3 for all skin tones, the millennium boots and those stupid knee pads are set to get the axe.

 

 

Edited September 27, 2020 by AliensOfGold

It’s good to know that people who wanted to buy milk dolls or milk parts are bad people who want to enforce sweat shop conditions on innocent artists and workers.

It's not the discontinuing I'm miffed about so much as the doing it without warning. Would it really have been that hard to post something a month ago saying "hey, our workload is really strained so we're probably gonna discontinue milk in a few weeks, if you want anything get your orders in now"?

Danny is very good about showing things like new prototypes and doll processes, but he's terrible at keeping his customers informed about the timing of things.

Apparently we were warned back in May, but I don’t remember seeing anything.

 

He could have at least done as you suggested monkey or said “hey we’re doing one last run on all the milk parts so get your orders in”

 

Instead he just did what he always does and we all miss out. The worst thing for me is I had the push up bust in the cart the moment it vanished.

Yeah, I was also planning on getting some option parts in the hope of getting a milk girl second hand, but I’m out of town at the moment and was waiting until I got home just for convenience.  Oh well.

Here is a radical thought, CJ could have not created the cramped working conditions in the first place by not creating a replacement skin color for the purpose of preventing a tiny fraction of the customer base from creating hybrids. 

CJ created this situation to achieve a business objective, and attempting to blame the “selfishness of customers” for the working conditions that resulted is just pure simple table turning. 
 

Edit: Fact checked my own statement, and hybridization prevention is speculation here on the forum. The only Insta post I could find by Danny back then makes the same workload justification. 

My husband and I are talking about the bizarre business decisions that have led to this.  I mean, I was like “CJ, the customers didn’t sneak into your workplace and fill it up with doll parts.  That was you.”

38 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

Here is a radical thought, CJ could have not created the cramped working conditions in the first place by not creating a replacement skin color for the sole purpose of preventing a tiny fraction of the customer base from creating hybrids. 

CJ created this situation to achieve a business objective, and attempting to blame the “selfishness of customers” for the working conditions that resulted is just pure simple table turning. 

I couldn't agree more.

And it's not like a full discontinuation would have been necessary - even going through with the new blue skin tone.

Something in the line of: "We're at capacity right now, so we're halting production of milk parts for now. We'll release more milk parts sometime next year, once the current situation has calmed down." would likely have resonated far better with most people.

 

The "burn all bridges behind you" approach we're seeing form Culture Japan in the recent years, where only the new stuff has any value and anything else is better buried and forgotten really feels off to me...

5 hours ago, AliensOfGold said:

Instead he just did what he always does and we all miss out. The worst thing for me is I had the push up bust in the cart the moment it vanished.

[snarkiness] A milk bust in cart, oh noes - my feels, we must discontinue now before this gets completely out of hand. [/snarkiness]

That is a real bummer for anyone still wanting milk spare parts. I agree that it would've been nice to get a heads-up to tell customers that it's a now-or-never situation if they wanted to buy milk parts instead of just saying it's too late.

 

I'm honestly getting a bit tired of his "don't like our business? Well, tough luck, we don't work our staff to death" rants that seem to accompany every unpopular business decision. None of us want that for his staff. Even if some people obviously do, they're still a minority. 

1 hour ago, Tierparkzone said:

Something in the line of: "We're at capacity right now, so we're halting production of milk parts for now. We'll release more milk parts sometime next year, once the current situation has calmed down." would likely have resonated far better with most people.

^ This. I don't know about his management strategies, but personally I think that would be a better solution.

And even if the milk parts production could not be as always in the future, Danny could handle an "under request", or a typical "limited time products" system. That way, he decreases his employee stress for a period and generate demand through the shortage of a product. It's not that complicated. I honestly wonder what Danny is thinking.

I don't understand why it is milk, when tea is almost the same as cinnamon. If there would be only milk-cinnamon-cocoa then it would be more diverse shade wise. 

 

But if it's about not making hybrids, then yeah, but sounds like a pretty small reason. I'm just not sure why dropping milk, not tea in general. 

14 minutes ago, forged_in_mess said:

I don't understand why it is milk, when tea is almost the same as cinnamon. If there would be only milk-cinnamon-cocoa then it would be more diverse shade wise. 

 

But if it's about not making hybrids, then yeah, but sounds like a pretty small reason. I'm just not sure why dropping milk, not tea in general. 

Looking at my Cinnmon and Tea girl next to each other, there is enough of a difference in skin tone that I can see. Honestly it's nice to have the tea color. It's closer to my own skin shade than the Cinnamon is. So the diversity of having Tea in there is pretty nice. 

But I do agree that it might have been better to keep Milk, and then maybe have Tea and Cocoa. 

 

What I find funny overall is that he's dropping Milk, but then adding two colors to the lineup, which are the Interstellar Blue and the possibility of "Afternoon Tea." Afternoon Tea is supposed to be a color in between Cinnamon and Tea, which does actually sound like it might be kinda nice. But the point still stands: Why claim to be getting rid of one to make things easier on your workers when you're adding two more?

Overall, he wont be getting rid of Milk completely. It's easier for them to do the original paint experimentation on Milks because they can fully see and experiment with all of the colors, which they also do with Cinnamon sometimes before they actually put them on the darker skin tones. Or rather, so that way the people making the stencils can see all of the lines better. They will also have to keep Milk around for future licensed character deals. Like C.C. from Code Geas. She's gonna have to come in milk because of the character's design. 

It's hard to get parts for them though. ;w;

I... I really don't know.

Everytime I read BS like this, where he is the hero of the working class and the customers are the evil spawn of Satan that want his crew die from starvation working on dolls parts... I freeze in contemplation.

It seems he is unaware of how the world works outside is magical Smartland, where everyone is smarter than you.

There are times when a piece is sold out, there are time when it restock, there is a thing called "HIRE SOMEONE ELSE, cause you can pay him with one garage selling", or simply the fact that many customers are ok with waiting months.

 

Why the fuss, why the problem, why the effing "😉"?

Edited September 27, 2020 by Testament

Danny would discontinue milk just to prevent hybrids.  How dare the customer use a headsculpt that isn't one of his (with one of his face-ups!) on a SmD body?  

Frankly, I hope the rumors of Obitsu manufacturing the dolls are true, and they buy up the molds and designs once Danny runs the company into the ground with his crazy anti-customer behavior.  

 

14 minutes ago, forged_in_mess said:

I don't understand why it is milk, when tea is almost the same as cinnamon. If there would be only milk-cinnamon-cocoa then it would be more diverse shade wise. 

 

Speculation has been that Milk is close enough to Volks Normal skin tone that people could make hybrid dolls, and that’s why Milk is getting discontinued. I went back and checked the original thread, and it is just speculation on this forum, so take it with a grain of salt. The Insta post by Danny on the subject back then cites the same reasoning as the current one. 

That said, the justification given does seem a bit flimsy given the two new skin tones potentially being added. You could still argue that keeping Milk means making space for three instead of two, but even then adding two seems to counter the workspace argument. 
 

 

15 minutes ago, Galvatim said:

Frankly, I hope the rumors of Obitsu manufacturing the dolls are true, and they buy up the molds and designs once Danny runs the company into the ground with his crazy anti-customer behavior.  

Obitsu making vinyl for SmD? 

24 minutes ago, forged_in_mess said:

Obitsu making vinyl for SmD?

It’s rumored that Obitsu is the actual manufacturer for Smartdolls. A few weeks ago someone asked about what it would take to have a custom vinyl doll made, and one of the answers discussed the manufacturing relationship between Obitsu and companies like Azone, Angel Philia, and that they were rumored to be the manufacturer of SmartDolls as well. 

If Danny is reliant on vinyl factories for manufacturing, as he seems to indicate he is in his own comments on the subject, then Obitsu would make a lot of sense as they seem to manufacture a lot of doll parts. 

Seems to me that Danny's workload might be strained from all the dolls he's pumping out. Here's a new girl with the same face as all the others only with slightly thicker eyebrows, and here is another doll with a different name and same face up but with slight tweaking around the eyes. The whole blue skin is cool; it's a neat aspect, but he didn't discontinue milk just so he could fit in a fantasy skin tone. He discontinued milk to stop people from 'mingling' his precious milk dolls with the horrid Volks flesh creatures.

A warning would have been nice, man. I feel sorry for everyone that has a milk doll that is going to end up in the same boat as the old cocoa skin. Yes, slight exaggeration there as milk skin has been around much longer, but parts will become more rare over time and prices will certainly go up. He prides himself on how diverse his company is with skin tones when he literally just axed milk. I guess there are more blue people walking around than people who are pale.

But bless Danny's heart for thinking of his poor workers in sweatshop conditions working 80 hours a week to bring the world the necessities of life.

Edited September 27, 2020 by Deyja

3 minutes ago, Deyja said:

to bring the world the necessities of life.

The be fair, hobbies are necessary for the human heart, but not the same type of necessity as food and medicine. XD

Two things I want with me in the afterlife: my cats and my dolls. The more I explore this idea the more I realize the Pharaohs had it right, and I’m gonna need my own Pyramid. >.> 

1 minute ago, BeyondTime said:

The be fair, hobbies are necessary for the human heart, but not the same type of necessity as food and medicine. XD

Two things I want with me in the afterlife: my cats and my dolls. The more I explore this idea the more I realize the Pharaohs had it right, and I’m gonna need my own Pyramid. >.> 

Ha, amen to that! I've been owned by many cats in my life, and I suspect they will need a caretaker in the afterlife. I volunteer as tribute!

1 hour ago, Pit said:

 or a typical "limited time products" system. 

Like he started/planned to do with the male dolls... Like once every 4 months, I think it was..?

8 hours ago, monkeypizzasonic said:

It's not the discontinuing I'm miffed about so much as the doing it without warning. Would it really have been that hard to post something a month ago saying "hey, our workload is really strained so we're probably gonna discontinue milk in a few weeks, if you want anything get your orders in now"?

Danny is very good about showing things like new prototypes and doll processes, but he's terrible at keeping his customers informed about the timing of things.

Took a while to find the posts, so sorry that it took me forever to reply, but he mentioned the Milk going away back in May, actually. It wasn't sudden. 

Here and Here. 

Also: "We plan to have milk option parts around as long as we continue to make milk tone anime licensed characters - Ichinose Shiki & C.C. will be released by end of year - both are delayed due to the virus affecting our partners Sunrise & Bandai Namco. Many of the other girls in Code Geass & Idol Master released beyond 2020 will also be in milk."

So we can probably plan on seeing some of the option parts pop up whenever he releases those other pretties. 

To be honest, I jumped into the SmD part of the vinyl hobby when I did because I saw that he had discontinued Milk and hardcore panicked because the main doll I wanted had to be in milk. I saw how badly people upcharge in the resells of these dolls and wanted to get in on it before they started charging $1000+ for them, which they're already doing now. Heck, there's an Eiji up on Ebay being sold for $11,000. And I see people charge $1000 for him all the time, even in Cinnamon. His sculpt isn't even discontinued. Just rare to come out. 

My first bits of jumping into this where actually pretty stressful because of the discontinuation of Milk Skin. @-@ 
Thankfully I got one girl, and I've got another one on the way in Cortex from someone who didn't gouge the price like crazy. 

7 minutes ago, ButtonsMcGee said:

he mentioned the Milk going away back in May, actually. It wasn't sudden. 

Knowing that it IS going away is not the same as knowing WHEN it is going

Edited September 27, 2020 by Yumeiro

50 minutes ago, forged_in_mess said:

Obitsu making vinyl for SmD?

Found the original thread.