Hey robot enthusiasts,

As promised - I've taken some of the individual photos my manufacturing representative sent me, and edited together an image of everyone!

A catalogue of each unit's name, from left to right, top to bottom - EARTH UNIT LINE: Byte, Circat, Nibble, Leaf, Pause, Branch. FIRE UNIT LINE: Hex, Mozzy, Cloud, RAID, Firewall. WATER UNIT LINE: Torrent, Zip, Array, DDoS. And last but certainly not least, the AIR UNIT LINE: Python, Jump, Malware, and Incubate. A few of these little guys are in perspective, but I tried to keep the images consistent in lighting across unit lines.

General reminder that the pre-order store and backer surveys will lock on Monday, May 5th. This is your final call to update your selections! 12 of you still have not completed your surveys - if you do not get those in by Monday, I cannot guarantee your choice of items and you will not be able to receive a refund.

After orders lock, you will be charged for the remaining balance on your account for any additional add-ons and shipping costs. This should occur within 2-3 days of lock down. Shipping addresses are the one detail that will remain editable up until July when fulfillment begins.

In other news, I have been accepted as a dealer for this year's upcoming Eurofurence in Hamburg, Germany in early September! If you're attending and would like to say hey and pick up some art goodies in person, my table number is slated to be B2/309. If you're a campaign backer who's planning to attend, you don't mind grabbing your pins a little later, and you'd like to save on shipping - you can pick up your Short Circuit items in person! Just email [email protected] with your backer info and I can arrange to waive your shipping costs.

Have a lovely rest of the week, all! I hope your weather is as gorgeous as ours has been here in the Netherlands over the past few days. <3

Hey robot lovers,

Short but exciting update for you tonight: all remaining pin samples are complete!!! 🎉🎉🎉

My rep also sent along individual pictures of each design in a couple different lighting situations, so I'll be using those to assemble an image of all the samples together, including the four I already had on hand before the campaign. I'll have that ready for you all within a day or two!

The individual photos do the results even more justice, so have a sneak peek at a couple:

They turned out so beautifully!

In the mean time, a quick visual reminder of the original set as well:

The count down to locking surveys and the pre-order store has thusly begun! As promised, I'll leave one week of wiggle room for you to make your final selections, so the order lock date will be May 5th. Cards will also be charged for shipping and any post-campaign add-ons at this time.

If you're in the 7% of backers who still need to complete their surveys (with the exception of pay over time customers who haven't received them yet), please make sure to get those in asap. If you don't fill them out by the order lock date, I cannot guarantee that you will receive your preferred selection of items.

One step closer, and still on track time wise for fulfillment to begin in July! I'm definitely excited to get these hoards of lil bot friends rolling.

Hey bot believers,

As the time to lock down surveys sneaks ever closer, I have a whole line up of updates to share with you wonderful folks!

Artwork wise: the Mozzy and Malware robot sticker sheet art is complete! For those who missed their character introductions when the sketches were revealed, I've included them again here as well:

Mozzy's model is programmed to fetch items - but has a tendency to apply a bit of creativity in interpreting user requests. A order of vodka may result in a bag of potatoes, and if the supply depot is fresh out of toilet roll? Well... you wanted something for cleaning up, so Mozzy is liable to decide that a scouring pad should do the trick!

Malware is a model designed to correct other malfunctioning robots. He was intended to infect and commandeer their operating systems, and ultimately force a fresh reinstall.

Malware finds these units to be delightfully unique rather than broken. Instead of hacking into buggy bots to change them, he acts as a sort of guardian, identifying and patching their vulnerabilities so they can secretly carry on as they are. Some systems may indeed wind up prey to Malware's viruses, however - databases tracking buggy bots go offline now and then, and suspicion is growing around whether this model is functioning as intended.

Both of these buddies are available as add-ons via your backer surveys - or if you missed the campaign altogether, can be purchased via the pre-order store.

Sample wise: after quite a bit of back and forth, my manufacturer and I have landed on the final pantones for the Air Unit Line! For those curious about what that process involves, here are my notes from the first couple of passes:

In the very first sample, the clear paint was much too primary yellow rather than the intended antique gold vibe. When I edited it to be a bit darker I also found the purple was a bit cold to match, so requested a slight adjustment of the hard enamel pantone as well.

My manu was kind enough to sample multiple pantones at once to speed things up, and so I started requesting a wider range of possibilities to hone in our intended effect.

After that it got a bit more granular - literally mixing 75% of the one pantone that felt the best and 25% of the other, searching to see what pantone was closest to the result, trying that, then finally asking for more of a clear finish vs the cloudy translucent.

And aaaaaa HERE THEY ARE! The sample I approved in a couple different lighting situations!! I'm thrilled, and looking forward to seeing the rest of Air Line finished.

As a reminder, once I do have photos of all 19 design samples, the count down to survey closure will begin. Survey completion has stalled out at 92%, so if you're in that last 8% don't forget to fill yours out!

Next up, another item I'm preparing for manufacturing: pin backing cards!

Each Unit Line colorway will have its own backing card style. The circuit traces on these cards all vary slightly per Elemental Line to account for all the pins in that set - and I've decided to spring for foil printing on both the circuits and the "Short Circuit" title itself!

Above are photos of my chosen foils from the sample book I purchased from my printer: bronze for Earth, gold for Fire, silver for Water, and rose gold for Air. A lot of shiny to look forward to! 👀

Lastly, on fulfillment: if you backed other campaigns for physical art goods recently, you've likely been inundated with updates about the uncertainty caused by tariffs. As I'm in the EU, this should impact less on my end. I do pay customs fees upon receipt of the pins and stickers, but that hasn't changed outside of expectation and was already padded into the goals of the Short Circuit campaign. 

Backers in the US needing to pay tariffs upon receipt of their items will depend upon whether or not the $800 de minimis threshold remains in place - it was removed, then reinstated, and apparently is set to be removed again in May? When the time comes to ship (still slated for late July) I'd be happy to work with any US backers who would like me to hold their shipments until the status of that is more certain or to find the best window to ship. We'll get through this together!

Thank you all again so, so much for supporting a small art business. Due to the economic turbulence of present times, sales for artists across the world have dropped drastically, and I appreciate your patronage immensely. I'm really looking forward to getting these pretty little friends into your hands!

That's it for now, have a wonderful week all! More sample photos soon. ✨

Hey robot lovers,

Our smoke test is now LIVE, meaning that 5% of you should have received your backer surveys! If everything looks as expected, the rest of the surveys will be sent within a day after that. Thank you for your patience as I pulled the final details together - a cold going around managed to catch me this past week, slowing down progress, but I am on the mend now. <3

For those of you with a lot of choices to make, the pin/sticker lists are LONG (18 designs!!) but are in alphabetical order other than the ridiculously cool backer sponsored pin added at the end, RAID, so I hope that makes things a little easier to find.

If you're one of the remaining 9 backers with errored payments, you can still correct your card information at the end of your survey. Your card will NOT be charged for additional items you add-on during the survey or for the cost of shipping until surveys lock down, which will occur after I have approved manufacturer samples for all pin designs. The current estimate for this is late April. After that point, I will provide one week of notice for you to finalize your choices - your surveys will remain editable until then!

Surveys left unfilled by the lock down period will not have guaranteed selection of their rewards, so please be sure to get these in. Surveys that remain incomplete by the time fulfillment begins in July 2025 will forfeit their rewards.

Speaking of RAID earlier —

My manufacturing representative was kind enough to send me some sneak-peeks of the sample production process! Here's how the front and back of a pin mold looks!! The channels on either side are for charging the liquid zinc alloy.

And here are freshly stamped, unplated pins! My rep called the blue substance a protective "ink", which is covering the areas that will ultimately receive sandblasting and transparent soft enamel. Hard enamel paint is apparently difficult to wipe off, so this masking fluid prevents contamination of those areas. Really dang interesting to see!!

If you did not pledge during the campaign period and still want to grab some of these little buddies, the Short Circuit Pre-Order Store will remain open for the same duration as the surveys.

That's all for now - if anyone has questions or runs into snags, please reach out and let me know. Have a wonderful weekend!