Whew, we've reached the beginning of fulfillment proper!! After many long nights of work, all 3050 pins have been graded and more than enough of them have been carded to send out to y'allemaal.
Two fan favorites that thankfully had more average flaw rates (20-25%)!
An email with a form link was sent out to Nibble and Branch adopters yesterday and a ton of you have already gotten on top of responding, thank you! The deadline to do so is August 1st, at which point you will be assumed to prefer the original defaults (gold ear Nibble and A Grade Branch). Folks who have responded already and did not select to wait for remakes will have their orders ship out in the coming weeks with everyone else.
We've already gotten enough Branch volunteers to straight up fulfill that regardless of choice, so Branch in particular will not cause any order delays. I'll send out a separate email to Branch receivers only soon and close that portion of the form. If you still want to accept a B Grade to grab an extra freebie you can sneak in under the wire if you fill out your form soon, otherwise we're all set there and only Nibble ear selection warrants further response.
The Glamour of Carding Operations
The next order of business is imminent address lockdown! You should have received an email warning you of this yesterday as well.
If you need to make any last minute updates to your shipping address, please do so by Saturday night CET (around 5 PM EST). Sunday morning I will print pack lists and begin getting things sorted to mail out to you! If you need me to hold your order for any reason, reach out to me at [email protected] with your Backerkit username and email.
Arrays of Array (and Torrent)
Relatedly, this same time frame is also your LAST CHANCE to complete unfinished surveys and sort out declined cards. 8 of you did not answer the survey and 7 folks still have declined or errored cards, with some overlap in these two categories. I've just sent out a remind/retry wave on the back end for both groups. If you do not fix these issues by Saturday night CET (around 5 PM EST) I cannot guarantee you will receive your rewards. A Grades of your first choice of items may no longer be available if at all, and any orders left unresponsive or all/partially unpaid by the time fulfillment wraps up will have their orders cancelled and any partially paid balance will be considered a donation.
The shape of these friends resulted in such a satisfying pattern when unbacked and laid out for carding.
I think that's all for now. Other than the folks who have selected to wait for a gold ear Nibble, everything should go out in the next two weeks. If anything comes up that extends that timeline, you will of course hear it from me here. Thanks again everyone!!
🌿🌿🌿
Ending this update with the joy of tiny geometric toad butt, since everyone really ought to witness it.
The stickers have arrived, as have the remainder of the packaging materials I ordered, and a thermal printer for printing all the package labels. Everything* we need for fulfillment is now in hand, whoo! I will be locking addresses soon, so double check that what you've entered is correct.
A small break from grading and carding pins to organize the stickems 🗃️
I've been chugging away at getting all your bot buddies checked over and organized to ensure a smooth packing process. 10 out of 19 designs are now graded and carded, so we're finally over halfway there. Doing so for thousands of pins is quite the undertaking!
🦊🦊🦊
Carding Firewall
Carding Nibble! Shout out to Grumpy Gryphon for recommending I card on cork instead of foam, much nicer.
🌊🔥
*As I mentioned in the last update, some of the designs have had a high flaw rate, so I want to alert you folks as soon as I discover anything that might impact fulfillment. I have unfortunately encountered two such instances —
About NIBBLE (our sweet rodent friend) and BRANCH (the cross collab freebie):
First off, Nibble. These pins actually have a very low flaw rate overall and turned out beautifully!
Just a little lad. A perfect baby.
Except for one mistake that occurred on literally every single pin from the bulk order.
My pin board sneaking in here. That berner is by DutchDog Studio, and the greyhounds are by Fursona Pins!
I double checked my Illustrator files, the proof my rep sent, and the samples I originally received (seen above on my personal pin board). The back ear is correct in all three places, so this was just straight up a mistake in manufacturing the bulk order.
Nibble Army
It honestly looks great! So much so that I didn't even notice in my initial inspection when I received the pins, and it only dawned on me when I sat down to grade this bot. The green reads as "back of ear" and I'm perfectly fine having this be the pin standard instead.
HOWEVER - as this was not the initially advertised design intention, if anyone who purchased Nibble prefers the gold ear, I will add getting corrected Nibbles into my remake negotiations with my manufacturer. Everyone impacted will be emailed and given a choice to take the green ear Nibble or wait for a gold ear Nibble.
Second, Branch, the collaboration freebie that's going out to everyone who backed both my campaign and Bunnies & Branchs. This pin did have a high flaw rate - only 72 out of 150 pins can be considered standard grade, so they have a flaw rate of 52%.
Other designs were similarly hit but, because I ordered a ton of extras for later sale, we still have enough for fulfillment. This is not the case with Branch, as this pin was intended to be fairly exclusive to backing both campaigns. I only ordered 20% extra, as other artists who have worked with this manufacturer told me they had a very low seconds rate. On some designs this has been the case for me (golden child RAID only had a seconds rate of 10%, for example) but on others we got mega unlucky.
The difference between a standard "A Grade" and seconds "B Grade" can be fairly minor in a lot of cases. Enamel pins are handmade items and A Grades still may have small scratches or dings only visible from a certain angle, some little dinks in their metal lines, small bubbles and dust in the enamel, and so forth. B Grades have more visible or multiple of these deviations from the standard, and may also include things such as small areas of missing enamel or enamel overfill/underfill that change the overall aesthetic of the pin.
The difference may be hard to see embedded here, I'll email high res examples to everyone impacted also.
Above is a comparison picture of a B Branch verses an A Branch. It's subtle! The B Grade above has more dings in its linework than the A does, is missing a tiny piece of its clear enamel on the face, has more dust in the green enamel, and some scuffing. B Grades make wonderful choices for putting on vests and bags, as the wear and tear of use will ultimately do the same and worse to them anyway.
Everyone impacted will be emailed and given a choice between receiving a B Grade Branch AND an additional freebie of their choice (either a B Grade of another pin design or one of any sticker) or potentially waiting for an A Grade Branch. If I get enough volunteers to fulfill right away, amazing! If not, I will negotiate remakes with my manufacturer. Since I can fulfill 72 Branches right away, the largest orders also containing Branch will go out first, and the rest will have to wait until I receive replacements. This is the best way I could think to do it, since my work space is currently itty bitty and moving product out helps keep things running smoothly.
Thank you for your understanding! These unexpected flaws are frustrating to me as well, and my manufacturing rep has asked that I pass along an apology to you folks too. If anyone who elects to wait for either a gold ear Nibble or A Grade Branch needs to update their address sometime between locking them down and the later fulfillment caused by those items, don't panic! I can do so manually when the time comes.
I'll get those emails out within the next couple days!
Onward to more fun stuff: I took the stickems outside yesterday for a little photoshoot.
The Earth Unit Line in their natural habitat.
Whenever the sun came out they said 🌈🌈🌈
These buddies are SO gorgeous and when the light catches them just so, the holographic portions are aggressively rainbow. As you can see, they're also quite large! The more square aspect ratio designs especially so, as they're all 4" on the longest side.
Firey Friends
The Water Units are especially ambiently rainbow!
Tall boi Malware and wide boi Jump.
Sticker Sheets!! My inner child is delighted ngl.
All the Byte goodies together! This is what our initial funding goal covered.
I've also been simultaneously preparing myself for events in August and September (if you're at Dutch Fur Con or Eurofurence, come say hi!) so here's a view of all the campaign stickers together in a recently acquired wall display.
This is a teacher wall calendar pocket thing. Shout out to Abi Stevens Art for the great display suggestion on that!
That's all for now! Thanks for all the hype and support, I'm very excited to get these friends into your hands soon. <3
I'm excited to share with you all that I received the bulk shipment of Short Circuit pins this week and began the process of grading and carding them!!
Behold, here's what 3050 enamel pins looks like:
Our living room belongs to the pins now.
And here's a short video clip showcasing one of each bot board design on their backing cards:
Springing for the laminated foil overprint on the cards was absolutely the right decision, they look absolutely gorgeous with the pins. There was a bit of a hiccup in file formatting which meant I initially received all the Earth cards without foil, so I reordered them - an extra cost, but absolutely worth it for how the whole aesthetic comes together! The new backing cards arrived within just a couple days of the pins themselves, so it all worked out.
The stickers are also on their way! Bird Bot Print Shop sent me lovely photos of the fat stacks of shiny to share with you all, and I received shipment notice yesterday.
The whole crew in large sticky form!
I'm unreasonably excited for these sticker sheets y'allemaal 👀
I've also received a huge bundle of shipping boxes, and after that we're just waiting on the shiny baggies I ordered to protect the pins in style when I pack 'em up.
In the meantime, the intensive process of pin grading is underway. For those less familiar with enamel pins, grading involves checking each pin for deviations from the expected quality, also called Standard or A-grade.
Gotta check 'em all!
Enamel pins are ultimately a handmade item, as many parts of the process such as polishing and filling in the enamel paint are not handled by machines. Thus, some small level of variation is expected and rarely are pins "perfect", but flaws such as underfills, bigger scuffs, excessive bubbling in the metal plating, incorrect color fills, or missing enamel all classify pins as Seconds, B-grade or lower.
Carded Standard A-Grade Byte
I've finished my first pass examination of Byte (wolf) and Hex (goat) and am bummed to say the B-grade rate is much higher than expected for both. HOWEVER fear not: fortunately, I still have enough standard grade to fulfill Backerkit orders! Peep the beautiful pins above and below. <3
Carded Standard A-Grade Hex
I've documented the issues and sent them to my manufacturer to try and arrange replacements, as I planned to have more standard grade pins for conventions and such. If for some reason I come across a design where there are not enough standard grade to fulfill orders, I will let you all know right away and contact those impacted, but I'm hopeful that our luck will hold out! I'm now about halfway through grading RAID (tiger) and so far those buddies are almost all looking amazing, which is the quality I expected.
The grading, carding, and packing for the 335 of you will be quite an undertaking, but so far we're on track to have everything sent out by the end of July as planned. I'll push more updates your way as the process progresses. Have a fantastic weekend all!
I arrive bearing a fresh project update and seeking opinions regarding the next iteration of Short Circuit!
Let's start with some previews from my sticker supplier, who is himself an artist running a small business in Canada. Just the character art sticker sheets took up a stunning 136 feet of vinyl - here they are on the roll prior to lamination and cutting:
So many stickers.
He also showed me samples of the selective holographic stickers to confirm they all looked as intended prior to bulk production. Here's the Fire Unit Line, for a peek at that:
Jumbo 4" shiny shiny stickems, complete with an easy peel border of extra backing!
Pin production is humming right along as well, and every time I receive footage of the veritable robot army taking shape I feel kind of feral with excitement. BEHOLD:
A whole murder of metal corvids flocked together and awaiting their transparent enamel fills!
🔥🔥🔥
Rows of Pause
Bags of Zip, Torrent, and Mozzy, all bundled and ready to make their way to me!
Good progress all around!! I also recently ordered the backing cards, which are being produced locally so I should have them in hand well in advance of the pins.
The bits between the black/gray lines and the red lines are print bleed.
It took some figuring to get the files set up right, but I was determined to push through it for that sweet sweet foil overprint (as previously mocked up in this update). I also got pretty intense with making certain the safety compliance information wouldn't be punctured on the back of a given set. How I did so, for your viewing enjoyment, aka the backing card backs are out here looking like survivorship bias diagrams:
No robots were harmed in the making of these cards, promise.
Everything is coming together! ✨ The last bit of current campaign business to update on presently is that everyone should now be successfully charged, other than 9 of you whose cards are still showing up declined or errored. If that's you and you need any help getting things sorted, please feel free to email me ([email protected])!
And finally for a small announcement, if you enjoyed this series and are hungry for more designs: I plan to participate in this year's Pintober, a spooky crowdfunding collective running from October 21st to November 1st!
The guaranteed new designs on the docket are:
🦇💜 The addition of a bat to the Air Unit Line 🕸🖤 A whole new line, the Void Unit Line, which will include a spider web design for its "elemental" pin!
I've combed through your freeform survey responses again and tallied up all the animal suggestions that repeated - attached is a poll featuring the most requested critters (or in the case of the last choice, multiple critters). Backer favorites will make it into the Spooky Circuit lineup!
More on that to come. Thank you all as ever, and have a great rest of the week!
This past week surveys and pre-orders were locked and Backerkit should have tried to charge the cards you have on file for shipping and any remaining balances! These funds haven't hit my end yet via Stripe, but I can see that this was processed without issue for the vast majority of you. It looks like only 14 cards were declined or errored - if that's you, please be sure to get your card updated or otherwise sorted! I of course need the shipping funds in order to get these little guys into your hands.
8 of you still have not filled out your surveys. You are still able to do so, but please please complete them as soon as possible. Folks with surveys left incomplete by July will have their orders cancelled and your pledge will be considered a donation.
With the spooky timing messages out of the way, onward to the fun stuff: production on your robot friends is in motion!! Bulk orders for both the pins and stickers were placed this past week to the tune of 3050 pins and 2605 stickers. That absolutely bananas total includes everything ordered by you amazing folks, plus some generous extra across designs to make sure I have enough after pin grading, and then to bring to conventions and other events after initial fulfillment is complete!
For those curious about the behind the scenes of it all, here's a peek at how the formatting for the character art sticker sheets works:
Raise your hand if you're a trash goat at heart!
I spent a bunch of time this past week bumping elements around gently to ensure that all the text and mini versions of the pin art could also be viable kiss cut stickers. It was important to me that you could slap "KNOWN BUGS: HOARDER" onto something if you so desired (I know I will, because this is an accurate description of me as an entity). The red line closest to the outside is the bleed border, and the rest indicate the boundaries of the stickers themselves!
The OG Buddy who will absolutely come to life in other mediums in the future.
The red is not printed on, just a cut guideline to communicate with my excellent sticker manufacturer.
Of the elemental designs, Incubate was decidedly one of the most popular!
For the selective holographic stickers, my time was mostly spent being picky about cleaning up all the little edges. The pin versions have the reality of being made of metal and enamel paint to make them look badass with just the vectored lines. The sticker versions have added raster gradients, airbrushing, and lil hand-adjusted drop shadows to give the metal and backing board the impression of depth. They also have a mask layer that indicates which portion should remain rainbow shiny vs the areas that receive opaque white ink printing.
And now for some statistics, because it's really dang interesting to see. The two items with the highest counts were of course the cross collaboration freebie, Branch, and first 48 hour freebie, Pause. Pause was also a popular add on, resulting in a total of 285 pin orders (209 were freebies to qualifying backers, so 76 additional) and 46 sticker orders. I ultimately ordered 400 Pause pins and 150 Pause stickers.
Outside of the freebies, the top three ordered pin designs were Byte (127), Malware (117), and Circat (97). The underdog pin designs with the least orders were Torrent (28) followed by Jump, Firewall, and DDoS, all tied at 37. (Leaf and Incubate were quite popular elemental designs comparatively, at 84 and 72 pin orders respectively.) The top ordered stickers were all selective holographic, RAID (51), followed by Byte and Circat tied at 48. The least ordered stickers were the Hex sticker sheet (19) and Torrent sticker sheet (20), followed by the Torrent selective holographic (21). It can be hard to predict what's going to be popular! Torrent happens to be one of my personal favorites, and I don't really mind - it's important to make the art you want to see anyway, and sometimes what doesn't perform online mysteriously does sell at in-person events. <3
I see swans almost everyday here and I love them dearly.
Of folks who have completed the shipping address on their surveys, 237 backers and pre-order customers are from the United States. 39 are from various countries in the European Union, 25 are from the United Kingdom, 13 from Canada, 6 from Australia, and 1 from Hong Kong. Extremely cool! As an artist living and working in the Netherlands, I'd love to figure out how to reach a broader EU audience, but since my first 34 years of life were spent in the US it makes perfect sense that the majority of my audience is still there. I'm grateful to all of you for making this project a reality!!
Are there any other stats you would be interested in seeing? If so, let me know in the comments! I hope you're all having a wonderful week. ✨
