Hey all, I apologize for the delay on updates I was hoping for more information to make a more meaningful update. However, now that nearly two months have passed, Ive already delayed long enough for an update. Though, I will probably have a second update after Essen Spiel (a convention in Germany, because my manufacturer contact is attending and I will get updates after they get back -_-)
So where are things at. Slowly progressing..mostly.
Keychains
You're here for keychains so updates for that first. As so far I am only aware of Phoenix plushes and phoenix keychains that have been produced (there is a chance they've gone ahead with other approved productions, but at this time I am not aware if any others have been manufactured).
Owlbear (brown) Keychain is approved for production.
Dragon Turtle Keychain (should be approved, there is a weird point where they had given us back spikes for the dragon turtle keychain, but then walked it back saying they couldn't produce those spikes in manufacturing despite that's what their sample team made. I have a version that I believe is the final, but sanity confirming.
Phoenix Keychain - On the last update they gave us some, what i call, Beardy Phoenixes... since those were not part of the production spec, I had to send my own good sample back to them. I was hoping that in the box iI received this week would have had a new model to review, but that is not the case...so I need to wait till they get back from Essen Spiele to get an udpate on whats going on with them, and any potential ability to salvage the bearded phoenixes (to not waste them), they have yet to provide me with pricing for error phoenixes or any cost to give them a little Christmas hat.
Pins
I 90% of pins I have in-hand. For some reason, I underestimated the number of collab pins (owlbear marshfrog pin) i needed when i did my first order. So doing a count on inventory and actuals I made a re-order to ensure we have enough inventory. They've already been manufactured, and are shipping next week to the warehouse.
Accessories
Last month I had recived the accessories samples, overall they were good, but the main point of issue i pointed out was that the texture of the material used is not good.
For example you can kinda see it here with the fishing rods where the texture of the their version(top), is not as 'fuzzy' as the base one (bottom)
There was also some weirdness going on with the fish, where there was some bad stiching (left) on the gullet of the fish, versus the base (right) And the bit about the magnet is that, we found that during GenCon the fishhook could barely support holding up an owlbear...and now that we've achieved that, we expect that to be the norm. As I tested their version, it was not even able to lift it up, so that made it easy to call out that stronger magnets needed to be used all around.
Owlbear Colors..
So on the Owlbear colors front, this week I got a box of the colors they were going to produce. (already had brown), Mossy and Purple. They included keychain versions of those colors, which is cool, I wasn't anticipating making keychains of the colors, but I don't hate it so wouldn't be opposed to producing some, but I also have bigger fish to fry in getting things fixed. Now this is very Fuchsia, like anime levels of neon. Now I dont hate it, but it was not what i was expecting, since they were to match the more royal purple color I going for.
At this point, with how things are going, I'm pretty much going to for sure go with an additional manufacturer to produce more plushes, and get a restock going.. so we could include the Fuchsia in this production, i have submitted a color request for them to try and match the purple of the dice/other owlbear, but konwing how long things take ....i might want to just take the credit from this purple owlbear and go to a new manufacturer.
Speaking of which, ive been getting samples of the owlbear from other plush manufacturers, given how much chaos this has been, and I've seen an available swatch that should more closely resemble the royal purple I was looking for. I am keen to get production going, so a smaller order of owlbears (as a general restock for us, and to include the purple is a possibility). On their swatch card is this purple, id have to ask to get a smaple, but curious what people think about which colors to go with...cause i think for sure ill be doing a small order of brown/snowy owlbears from them as part of our general restock. BUT WHAT DO YOU THINK (since you're the ones ultimately getting them) USE THIS FORM - https://forms.gle/Ei1QpSRmnU4CvWYc6
So yeah, thats where we're at ATM.... Sorry again for the dealys, I should have another update to answer the questions I have after the manufacturer gets back from Essen Spiele. Thanks for your patience, Andreas
