The audience takes their seats and the performers take the big top stage! Vote for your favorite design preview to determine the order of their introduction (and unlock order!)
We are officially one day away from Midnight Festival 2's launch and the rest Dark Carnival event's great showing! There's a magnificent selection of projects featured in this event, so we've included a link to a few of our favorites down below at the end of this update, be sure to check them out! <3
Now before we get into our competition poll, here's a quick update/reminder of what we will be featuring during this project :3
The Pins:
We plan to unlock each of our pins in 12 milestones in the order seen below. Each milestone will feature a standard 1.5" dual-prong hard enamel pin designed after Yokai within Japanese Mythology, accompanied with it will be a mini 0.75" single-prong hard enamel pin designed from festival foods and snacks :> If we unlock all 12 milestones, we have some additional stretch-goals being worked on behind the scenes, fingers crossed we'll get to share that with you all!
Other Products:
Each of the following treasures will be available to backers with the unlocking of our first milestone, some will be included in higher tier pledge levels, but all will be available through add-ons :>
The Artistic Spirit Competition Poll
Firstly we'd like to thank each and every one of the artists who shared with us their works! Tokii and I had a marvelous time looking at all of the talent among the members of our supporters :>
I had unfortunately gotten some of my wires crossed last update when it came to timeline shenanigans, I thought there was a little more time than there actually was, so if you're seeing this announcement we are no longer taking submissions for this competition. I apologize for any inconvenience.
There was so much more that these artists sent to us, and all of them were a sweet treat for they eyes! We've narrowed it down to one piece from each artist, and now it's your turn to decide the winners! you can do so in this poll here! :3
Projects we Love from Dark Carnival:
Now as alluded to earlier, there are a menagerie of awesome talent being showcased in the Dark Carnival, we are so grateful to have this opportunity to display our work beside theirs! Here's a few in particular that we are super stoked to see launch!
As big fans of all things extraordinary, Tokii and I are super excited to see our friend Abysmal Kaiju showing of such a eyebrow-raising collection of mystique! Kaiju is a talented artist with lots of experience making pins, we're proud to have backed them in the past and would highly suggest their work to you as well! :>
If you have a love for the creepies and chained pins Royarach has more than what you wanted! their use of chains in the designs they've shown is jaw-droppingly cool! Their use of soft enamel allows them to be very creative with their line art, and their hard enamel bear pin comes in two pieces connected by chain - almost allowing them to juggle in real time! :0
Steakjoke has been a personal friend of Tokii and I for years, and we are super excited to be partnering up with them for their very first crowdfunding campaign! Now, biases aside, we are so excited to see a campaign featuring the legendary Fae - a criminally underdone theme in our opinion! Be sure to show Steakjoke some love as they start their pin making journey! (coughcough and you also get two free stickers for backing both of us coughcough) :3
When I was younger I had a marvelous bug collection, and while that collection has long since disappeared my memories of it as well as my love for dragons hasn't begun to leave my mind! Snapling brings both interests of mine to the table with their elaborately clever Taxidermy Dragons campaign! From butterfly and river dragons to wings and eggs it is awesome how well executed Snapling's ideas are, and I for one am so excited to see them launch >:D
With one of us having a lengthy history with sleep paralysis demons and other night terrors, the themes of this campaign send a shiver up our spines! Rainy Day's design work for their Endless Chase pin is mesmerizing! and their Funnel Cake pin is unfortunately good enough to eat! ^u^
Last but not Least
We'd like to take a moment to thank you all again for the love and patronage you have shown to our team and for our work. We're excited to revisit our roots with you all during the Midnight Festival 2 campaign, but we want to reiterate that we could not have gotten here without the overwhelming support you guys have for us. We'll continue to show our gratitude for this love by pouring our hearts into every project we do. Thank you <3
And thank you so very much for your support for this project! Tokii and I had to step away from the computers momentarily only to come back and see that we've fully funded! It was a very exciting surprise from all of you to us here at CritCreations <3
At this time every design, add-on, and product featured for this campaign have been fully funded and will be made available to the backers during the survey phase of this campaign - However, as we've been dropping hints throughout the lead-up of this campaign it's time to announce the stretchgoals we've prepared for you!
Stretchgoal #1 - Artistic Spirit Winners!
Once we reach $8,000 in funding, the colorways for the Artistic Spirit winners will officially be available to our backers, and the winning artists will each receive their reward with their orders! Those winners, along with the details of Stretchgoals 2-4 will be revealed once the Artistic Spirit poll has closed later tonight :>
Stretchgoal #2 - Colorway Crew #2
Once we reach $9,000 in funding, the next three most popular designs from this campaign that have yet to get a an available colorway will receive one!
Stretchgoal #3 - Colorway Crew #3!
Once we reach $10,000 in funding, the next three most popular designs from this campaign that have yet to get a an available colorway will receive one!
Stretchgoal #4 - Colorway Crew #4!
Once we reach $11,000 in funding, the last three designs from this campaign that have yet to get a an available colorway will receive one!
Stretchgoal #5 - Bring Back the Originals!
Finally, as our last stretchgoal once we reach $12,000 in funding, we will order a second wave of production for the original Midnight Festival standard pins through our new manufacturer. These pins will be made available as add-ons for our backers at their original price - this will be a backerkit exclusive discount! As an additionally cherry on top - each backer will receive a digital copy of the exclusive print from that campaign :>
Once we've reached this stretchgoal, the next three most popular designs that haven't gotten a colorway will recieve one and be made available to backers!
Goal: $9,000 reached! — We did it! This project reached this goal!
Once we've reached this stretchgoal, the next three most popular designs that haven't gotten a colorway will recieve one and be made available to backers!
Goal: $10,000 reached! — We did it! This project reached this goal!
Once we've reached this stretchgoal, the last three most popular designs that haven't gotten a colorway will recieve one and be made available to backers!
Goal: $11,000 reached! — We did it! This project reached this goal!
Once we've reached this stretchgoal, the standard pins for the original Midnight Festival will get a second run of production and be made available to backers as addons!
Goal: $12,000 reached! — We did it! This project reached this goal!
It is with great excitement that I reveal to you all the official winners of the Artistic Spirit Competition as well as the rest of the colorways of the pins already fully unlocked at this point! We're grateful to have such an engaged community :>
Without further ado, lets continue!
Congratulations to Anne R, Tabby, and Fairfaxleasee for their contributions to this project! Your art will become the official colorways for the Tsuchinoko, Chochin'Obake, and Pipefx. Each of you will also receive your reward, a freebie of the colorway you designed, added to your order at the end of the campaign :>
Since all of the colorways have been unlocked we have revealed one additional pledge level with a steep discount for anyone hankering to get all the designs and their colorways!
More to Come!
at the point of writing this, we are nearly to our final stretchgoal which will unlock a second round of production for the Original Midnight Festival designs! We may very well have a full roster of pins for you to choose from by the end of this campaign, my best wishes to all of you who have to make the tough decision between which ones you'll be getting!
Once we've reached this stretchgoal, the standard pins for the original Midnight Festival will get a second run of production and be made available to backers as addons!
Goal: $12,000 reached! — We did it! This project reached this goal!
Oh gosh!!! I was expecting to set up some polls and see who was unlocked and what order but... you guys got it all!! Thats amazing thank you so much. A great thing to wake up to today! Since we powered through them all so fast I was wondering if maybe we'd want more trinket pins or another large one? If you have any suggestions for things to add Im all ears :] I have a few thoughts i can mess around with, but honestly wasnt expecting it to go so fast.
I am so happy to announce that the first two goals have already been met- this means that the River Dragon Mounted Heads, Butterfly Dragon Wing Display, Wet Specimen Oddity, AND the Ram Dragon Mounted Heads are all unlocked!!! This also includes all color variants for those pin designs!
The next unlock is for the Mounted Wings Wing Display, which we are less than $300 away from unlocking as of typing this! So if that pin is the one you were holding back for, this is the perfect time to pledge for it! ^^
I'm super happy with how things are going so far and feel very confident that every pin will be unlocked before the end! Thanks so much for the support!
Btw, please check out my wife's beautiful and spooky nurse project while you're here!! :]
Thank you do everyone who supported this campaign on day one! We had a great launch and are already very close to unlocking our second stretch goal. This will be a short update since I'm busy preparing for BookCon in NYC this weekend.
There are two polls posted in the campaign's "Community" section to determine the unlock order of the remaining designs. Don't forget to cast your votes!
Just sharing the message, the group decided to bump back launch day for the Dark Carnival. Still super soon! I’m excited! Adding some new info today <3
Sir Barkley the Spectacular Barkley is himself a feature of the Faire. Professional greeter at the ticket booth, famous for his acrobatic and juggling skills, and renowned good boy. Even the ever-cool Winter Queen can’t resist a smile petting his soft minty ears.
He was raised from just a tiny Fairy Puppy by his handler, Marie Buttons, who has adored him since before he fit his tutu.
Barkley’s pin will be 1.5 inch hard enamel, with gold colored nickel plating and screen printed detail for his patches.
