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