Discontinuing some milk dolls

I know Danny said after he created cinnamon that milk was probably going to be phased out, so this isn't surprising but I'm still a little sad and I wish he wouldn't. ... I hope owners can still get replacement parts after this.

Currently these are the milk dolls now listed as 'discontinued soon':

• Mirai (milk) - sold out
• Melody (milk) - sold out
• Kizuna (milk) - sold out
• Trinity (milk) - sold out
• Serenity (milk)
• Journey Classic (milk)
• Journey Alternate (milk)
• Valiant (milk)
• Starlight (milk) - sold out
• Katana (milk) - sold out
• Katana alternate (milk) - sold out
• Felicity (milk)

And interestingly enough, Journey classic in cinnamon is marked to be discontinued soon too. I thought that was a pretty popular doll so that's odd to me. Maybe a mistake?

I'll add more info about the phasing out here as I find it, if it becomes available. Get your milk while it lasts. : (

Edited May 29, 2020 by sunlightandtea
Updated to reflect current 'discontinued soon' page.

I very strongly recommend to get all the spare parts you need when they are still available. Some of the limited dolls will be made in milk skin tone, but Danny Choo himself will make none anymore. Who knows how long milk parts will be available.

It seems I missed Trinity! Oh no!

I was really bummed when I saw that pretty much all the milk dolls are on the way out. I knew it would happen eventually but I didn't think it would be this soon. I personally do not like the cinnamon skin tone. The joints don't match and I feel the color is "off" and it drove me nuts with the one cinnamon doll I had. The thing that sucks (or maybe not lol) is that most of the ones I love right now are cinnamon and I won't buy that skin tone.

The discontinuation of the milk skin is especially sad as that means only secondhand parts will be available for making DD/Smart Doll hybrids, or using the hands of DDs on Smart Dolls/using Smart Doll hands on DDs, as "milk skin" is a very close match to "normal/flesh".

46 minutes ago, jenlovesdolls said:

I was really bummed when I saw that pretty much all the milk dolls are on the way out. I knew it would happen eventually but I didn't think it would be this soon. I personally do not like the cinnamon skin tone. The joints don't match and I feel the color is "off" and it drove me nuts with the one cinnamon doll I had. The thing that sucks (or maybe not lol) is that most of the ones I love right now are cinnamon and I won't buy that skin tone.

I agree, I'm not a fan of the joint mismatch either. I do like the tone and it happens to work with the characters I have in mind, but I was really interested in a milk cortex doll. : (

22 minutes ago, RainbowNanaki said:

The discontinuation of the milk skin is especially sad as that means only secondhand parts will be available for making DD/Smart Doll hybrids, or using the hands of DDs on Smart Dolls/using Smart Doll hands on DDs, as "milk skin" is a very close match to "normal/flesh".

That is extremely interesting, and to be completely honest (and given Danny's hostility towards volks), I think Danny knows this and may want to prevent hybridization.

Does anyone know if this includes Felicity? I really wanted her, but I don't have any funds to buy her at all! Hopefully she'll stay around a while longer since she's not on that list...

Edited May 18, 2020 by Mame

16 minutes ago, Mame said:

Does anyone know if this includes Felicity? I really wanted her, but I don't have any funds to buy her at all! Hopefully she'll stay around a while longer since she's not on that list...

Felicity is not on the 'to be discontinued site.' I think you're safe.

4 hours ago, Mame said:

Does anyone know if this includes Felicity? I really wanted her, but I don't have any funds to buy her at all! Hopefully she'll stay around a while longer since she's not on that list...

I think you are safe...for now. If you want her though, I would work on saving up now because you never know when a doll will suddenly become discontinued. I wanted a Julia and though I had time and there was a tiny warning she would be fazed out and in less than a week she was gone

 

 

On 5/18/2020 at 12:12 PM, RainbowNanaki said:

The discontinuation of the milk skin is especially sad as that means only secondhand parts will be available for making DD/Smart Doll hybrids, or using the hands of DDs on Smart Dolls/using Smart Doll hands on DDs, as "milk skin" is a very close match to "normal/flesh".

Sorry I can't figure out how to multi quote...

This is interesting, as @sunlightandtea said above this makes me think the color change is more to twart hybridization than just wanting to update a skin tone...also the mismatched joints are interesting as well because when he posted his fantasy colors several people made comments about how the joints match and he acted like he didn't know what they were referring to.

Edited May 23, 2020 by jenlovesdolls
clarity

Hopefully this is not off topic, but could this be a reason that cortex is not for sale right now? Was there ever a reason given for that? 

Well I guess that answers my question about whether the milk cortex kit would be restocked...

@Mame I did wonder if the current situation with the pandemic had affected the production of the cortex bodies, since I can't imagine they'd just disappear forever given how much hype cortex got. I notice that you can only buy dolls with the vinyl body option at the moment, although if you do a search on the CJ website for cortex, the cocoa and tea versions are still available.

I guess I'm going to have to decide now if I'm likely to get a milk skin girl in the future and buy parts accordingly. From what I've seen on Mandarake, Smart Doll parts seem to sell out pretty quickly and I don't really fancy trying to hunt them down later on. Hmm... 🤔

 

And I've got to admit that I've also wondered if the reason Milk is being discontinued has something to do with it's similarity to Volks Normal. Of course it might just be the case that Danny much prefers the Cinnamon tone and that having 4 different skintones just makes product management overly complicated. I just hope that the joints on the cinnamon dolls will eventually match the vinyl colour.

 

Honestly since he discontinued his original Mirai, I doubt any doll he has for sale is safe or skin tone. He discontinued the old cocoa and now it appears milk is on the chopping block which is really sad, because why hate on the pale girls? While I won't buy any more smart dolls, I'd be sad if he discontinued the current cocoa skin. It's really beautiful. There are a couple things I want to buy, but can't afford them now that his prices went up. I agree with what has been said here: if there is a doll in milk you want, try to get her and any accessories that you can. Fabric&Friends does layaway, just email Iris and ask her if you can get a layaway with X or Y doll.

12 minutes ago, Deyja said:

Fabric&Friends does layaway, just email Iris and ask her if you can get a layaway with X or Y doll.

This really helps! Thanks! 

Nail on head about why Cinnamon was made in the first place, I think -- Danny doesn't want Obitsu/DD hybrids. He seems to want to keep a tight leash on the available parts on the marketplace in general, it's why after all these years we still can't get blanks and why we have to go through customer service to get replacement parts. 

As for part availability in the future, stock up now- I can't replace my SmD Moonlight's broken elbow joint because there aren't any. I know Milk has been around far longer, but it's a portend of things to come.

As for all the discontinuations, I worry that anime-style dolls will disappear entirely,, I've made a shortlist of the dolls I want to get in case that happens, but... unlike some of the people I've seen who seem to get a new doll every week -- no shade, only JEALOUSY, I'll be lucky to be able to get even one before the year's out. -_-;

I think all the cortex material is going to the limited dolls Smartdoll is making at the moment. Danny has said that all limited dolls wil be cortexes, If I remember correctly.

Danny is such a big fan of the cinnamon tone. I believe that's the biggest reason for milk skin tone disappearing. I just wish he would match the joints with the vinyl! I am really sensitive to skin colour variances. I can see the difference even from his pictures, meaning the difference will be more striking in real life. 

This is actually off topic here, but did Volks changed their skin colours too? White is discontinued and semi-white skin tone is changed to be more pink, that I know, but did they change flesh skin tone too? 

I would give Danny the benefit of the doubt that he didn't initially set out to take away the color matching for hybrids when he first made the cinnamon skintone. After all, he said that his license required a different skin tone than Lelouche for Suzaku. But once he already had both similar skintones, and was considering discontinuing one or the other, it probably was convenient that going with cinnamon would remove the ability to hybrid with other companies, even though back in the beginning he matched Volks flesh tone on purpose. That was before whatever feud they had.

3 hours ago, Lynn said:

This is actually off topic here, but did Volks changed their skin colours too? White is discontinued and semi-white skin tone is changed to be more pink, that I know, but did they change flesh skin tone too? 

The renamed the normal skin tone awhile back, but as far as I know there hasn't been an official color change. The pinkness we've seen in semi-white may just be a condition of new vinyl. I have SWS girls who when they arrived looked noticeably pink compared to my older SWS girls, but now I can't see any difference between them at all.

Edited May 19, 2020 by BeyondTime

6 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

The renamed the normal skin tone awhile back, but as far as I know there hasn't been an official color change. The pinkness we've seen in semi-white may just be a condition of new vinyl. I have SWS girls who when they arrived looked noticeably pink compared to my older SWS girls, but a now I can't see any difference between them at all.

Thanks for the info! I'm relieved, the problem I have at the moment should disappear in time then.

I believe it is stated somewhere milk is not going away entirely because many licence charterers require it from the franchise. I was shocked however when I saw Mirai milk on the discontinued list. Of all the dolls I figured that one would stay.

On 5/18/2020 at 6:29 PM, Mame said:

Does anyone know if this includes Felicity? I really wanted her, but I don't have any funds to buy her at all! Hopefully she'll stay around a while longer since she's not on that list...

Just so you know, Danny announced the Cinnamon version of Felicity on Instagram today, and Milk Felicity is now in the Discontinued Soon section of the website  

 

Instagram link: https://www.instagram.com/p/CAcq30yg76y/

(I don't know how to do that fancy embed thing to get the insta post to show up here!)

Danny gives an explanation in this post as to why dolls are having their milk versions discontinued, and there's also comment about Chitose and Danny says that Cinnamon Chi needs her faceup tweaking (which is why she's also been discontinued atm).

Edit: Also milk parts should still be available until at least December 2020 according to a post in the comments section.

 

 

 

Edited May 21, 2020 by Zaliayn

I’m a big fan of the milk skin tone (being very pale myself), but I understand discontinuing it. I do like the cinnamon tone a lot as well, but in person it is pretty distinct from milk (although the difference isn’t as stark as the one between milk and tea, of course.) 

I’m going to stock up on optional parts and maybe get an additional doll in milk while I can. 

He said the color of the joints will get updated too

4 hours ago, Zaliayn said:

Just so you know, Danny announced the Cinnamon version of Felicity on Instagram today, and Milk Felicity is now in the Discontinued Soon section of the website

 

 

 

Thanks! I was just really hoping that she wasn't discontinued foverever, in this case she's not! So that means only three SmD and bye bye to Smart Doll land! 

On 5/21/2020 at 8:27 AM, Yumeiro said:

He said the color of the joints will get updated too

Excellent, I can wait for matching plastic.

Milk Felicity, Serenity, Journey Alternate, Journey Classic are still for sale as heads only.