The poll for adding/not adding epoxy to the rainbow-plated pins has ended at 66% in favour of epoxy so I'll be adding that effect for a consistent look across the collection!
In case you didn't see those updates, here's a bit of info on what adding epoxy means:
Rainbow-plated pins have to be soft-enamel (enamel colours dip below the level of the metal lines) because of the plating process.
I have adjusted the Oarfish, Mandarinfish and Crab so the finer details are screenprinted, to make sure to keep the essence of the original designs.
In order to use screenprint on soft-enamel pins, they first need to have clear epoxy added to them to create a level surface to screenprint onto.
Some people prefer this effect on soft-enamel pins anyway, and since I have to use it on those three pins, we'll now be adding it to all the rainbow-plated pins so that the collection will have a cohesive appearence.
EDIT: NOTE: OK, so I thought I'd unlocked surveys but it didn't work and after talking to Backerkit Support it seems I can't actually reopen surveys after I've charged Add-Ons and Shipping. So, if you would like to adjust your pin choices or add more to your order in light of the epoxy changes; please message me via Backerkit or directly at [email protected] and I will make alterations on a case-by-case basis for you.
Sorry for the faff everyone!
-
I estimate I will be able to start shipping in mid-to-late-June, depending on how long it takes the pins to arrive and for me to quality-check and back the pins to fill orders.
I couldn't resist the chance to add designs for Manta Ray, Sun Fish, and Turtle to the collection (they lost the vote to Nudibranch during the Pintopia campaign): I hope you like them! :D
Yesterday all the lanyards arrived, as well as the Creepy Creations and Earlybird freebie Mandarinfish stickers!
Here are the full-length lanyards:
These are the wrist lanyards:
And here are the lil 2.5" stickers:
I'm really happy with how these have all turned out! The colours are all nice and vibrant. :D
Re the pins: I'm currently going through the proofing process with the second manufacturer and almost ready to give the go ahead on production.
Before I finalise everything I need to make a final decision on if the rainbow-plated pins will have clear epoxy added to all the designs to make them cohesive (the designs with screenprint - crab, oarfish and mandarinfish - will have to have epoxy).
If you haven't already please vote in the poll below to help me make the decision the most people will be happy with! (See previous update if you're not sure what I'm referring to!)
I will check the final results on Tuesday and - if epoxy is still the most popular response - I'll unlock surveys for a few days for those folks who would like to adjust their pin selections to make changes.
I have kind of a good news/bad news/good news sandwich for you today I'm afraid! 😅 It's a bit of a long one but it's important so please do skim through!
First the Good News: the Blue Lobster patches arrived and they turned out AWESOME! 🥳 Check them out:
Now the Bad News: delays. 😭 I have been working with the same manufacturer who made my Horses of the Apocalypse pins on the Warped Ocean collection from January to March and all seemed well until last week when they unexpectedly told me they can't produce these pins at this level of detail at all and cancelled my order, even though they already made moulds! 😱
Now don't panic, more Good News: the pins ARE going to be made; it's just going to take a little longer as I've had to start all over again with my other regular manufacturer. 💪 I'm confident this manufaturer won't let me down as they are the ones who produced my extremely detailed Kelpie pin:
But to be extra sure these pins will look their best I decided to do some further work on the pin designs myself before ordering them from this manufacturer. These mainly come down to simplifying some pattern elements or converting parts of them to screen-print, and increasing the size of the 1" pins to 1.5".
The Edits
Here's a walk-through on the edits I've made, which I'm confident have actually improved the designs and I hope you'll agree!
The Lobster: The patterns and eyes on the Lobsters body came out way too small in the test mould and even if filled I suspected they would have a high error rate so I decided to simplify those shapes somewhat.
The Crab: In this case I didn't feel I could keep the essense of the design by enlarging all the circle-texture-details so I decided to replace thise parts with screenprint; in red on the gold-plated crab, and in blue on the rainbow-plated crab. I think the screenprint provides a much cleaner look and you can see from the image above that the overall appearance hasn't changed much from the original intention.
The Oarfish: The Oarfish also has a pattern detail issue. Those coloured shapes on the body are just incredibly tiny once moulded so I've also switched these to screenprint for a cleaner look. There will be one layer of green screenprint on the gold-plated pin and three layers of screenprint on the rainbow-plated pin in green, blue and pink.
The Octopus:
I haven't had to add screenprint to the Octopus, instead I've managed to clean up the outlines and create larger spaces which hopefully can all be filled with enamel. I think this design also looks better post-edit so I'm looking on the bright side here lol!
The Mini Pins: Although these were potentially doable at 1" I was concerned the tiny bits on the starfish wouldn't work out well so I decided to just increase these to 1.5" in size to avoid any further potential issues holding up the process. I hope you folks don't mind the upgrade!
Mandarinfish: This pin will have no noticeable changes to the design itself but some of the finer detail elements have now been combined into the blue screenprint element this design already had.
Delay
Unfortunately the manufacturing issues mean that production and fulfillment for pin backers will now be delayed. I will update you again when I get more information from my new order but I suspect pin orders will now be fulfilled in June.
I apologise for the delay. I will know in future what level of detail I can achieve in enamel vs screenprint and hopefully avoid this problem for later projects.
If you only ordered a patch or stickers I will be packing your orders next week once the last of the stickers have arrived.
A Decision I Need Your Help With!
Now, some of you may be familiar with pin techniques and have realised that I'm going to have to make another minor change; because the rainbow-plated pins have to be soft-enamel they will now need to have clear epoxy added over the enamel colours to create a flat surface to be screenprinted onto.
I know that some people actually prefer for their soft-enamel pins to have this effect but I wanted to keep you folks in the loop and help me to decide:
1) Should I add epoxy only to the pins that now need screenprint on soft-enamel ;the Crab, Oarfish and Mandarinfish? (And leave the other rainbow-plated pins as regular indented soft-enamel.) OR/ 2) Add clear epoxy to ALL the rainbow-plated pins so that they have a uniform appearance? (So that they all have a flat, smooth surface)
Some points to consider: - Adding epoxy to all pins will slightly increase the production time - It also may lead to an increase in seconded pins due to extra opportunity for trapping dust etc (but I only send grade A pins to backers so that should only be an issue if the % is very high) - In some cases people think it can dull the rainbow-plated colours a little
Here are some photos of some of my friend Holoraindrops pins with epoxy vs no epoxy so you can see what the difference in effect is:
Please let me know what you would prefer via the poll below, and feel free to ask questions about the changes or process!
Thank you for reading to the end of this long-ass Update!
Some of the campaign stickers arrived this week and I'm so happy with how they've turned out! :D Especially the translucent holo effects on the Kraken, Octopus and Mandarinfish! Here's a little set of video clips so you can see the shiny:
I'll get some better photos on a better lighting day but here are some snaps of them too: I'm excited to send these out once the rest of the stock arrives!
In the meantime, I'm still waiting on a few of your surveys so please double-check yours has been submitted! I'll be charging cards for add-ons and shipping on the 2nd of April.
I'll keep you updated as other items arrive. Patches and pins are in production, the rest of the stickers and lanyards should be dispatched to me soon, and I'll be ordering prints soon. :D
Today's update is mostly just a reminder to please fill out your surveys I'm afraid! I'm still missing x30 and as I'm ordering add-ons this week I'd really like to get them in ASAP. 🙏
Aaaand I've also decided to join Beasts & Botanicalswith a small addendum to Warped Ocean, launching in April! (I couldn't resist an excuse to draw more eye-covered sea creatures lol) :D
I'll be drawing up a small number of pins from sketches I didn't get to use for the Pintopia project; a Sunfish, Turtle, and Manta Ray. There are some very rough sketches in the banner for now. Warped Ocean 1.2 (part of Beasts & Botanicals), launching in April:
I hope you like the new pins! (I am doing a slightly crazy number of campaigns this year lol, I love making pins so much!) All the best,
