We have entered the final week of Pintopia and the Soft Circuit campaign! 🐺👩💻
I'm delighted to share that after the New Add-Ons went live, y'allemaal made short work of unlocking the Void and Light circuit board bandana colorways - meaning that ALL bandana variants are available and guaranteed to go into production!!
And more importantly yet, now they can be a proper rainbow. <3
To celebrate, I've finished adjusting all of the colorways to match Bandana Board 2.0, which fortuitously --
Still big, beautiful, and vibrant: now with finer details!
-- has completed sampling, and is now on its way to me in the mail to confirm that everything aligns as intended! My bandana supplier is SO speedy and I've been really impressed by their quality.
Putting together the bandana overview image felt like a great excuse to go ahead and piece together further summaries regarding our core campaign items, so I'd also like to take a moment to walk through what all we've unlocked together so far!
Which pin are you most excited for?
There was a recent question about what all qualifies as a "Soft Circuit Enamel Pin" for reward selection purposes, so I hope this graphic helps clear that up. (Thank you, by the way: please do feel free to ask any questions and make suggestions and so on, I'm genuinely delighted to hear from all of you!! 💕)
We've currently unlocked 9 pins - 7 new and 2 reprints (Byte and Pause) - and are right on the cusp of unlocking 2 more! Additionally, if you've pledged to this campaign, don't forget to maximize your goodies by backing Pods and Pots to acquire the pin of Octave (octopus) or 2 more Animal Akademia projects to receive Mini Pause (tiny paw), along with free pins from each of them as well.
Continuing today's theme of manufacturers with impeccable timing, you may notice a new image embedded in the infographic above:
The addition of glitter in the clear enamel did JUST the trick on these!
Our first look at a "Northern Lights" alternate pin!! This sample is a work in progress - it will also be receiving an epoxy coat, just like the default Void Unit Line colorway. Honeypot here and Heap (polar bear) will be produced with this treatment if we reach our next goal, which I'm confident we are on track for and then some!
By jumbo I mean: reviews of Short Circuit often included "dang stickers bigger than expected" remarks. X)
Next up is our sticker compliment: last update I discussed the new transparent vinyl sticker options, and above is everyone that qualifies as a selection from the core campaign for selective holographic and sticker sheet rewards! Just like their Void counterparts, the new Light bear sheets include kiss-cut paw print stickers alongside the robot artwork and all the text.
Then of course, a campaign unlock summary would be woefully incomplete without once again showcasing the soft, mischievous star of our show:
Behold the Child
Who I ALSO have an update on! Complete with cryptid factory lighting of course, but the exciting part here is the updated shaping:
Lookit them ankles and that CHONKY tail, aaaaa!!!
Other than running levels (white balance) in Photoshop, the photos above are completely unedited. The manu I'm working with has now nailed my requests for more of an ankle on the back legs, a nice big tail, nose shaping touch ups, and more volume to the back of the ears!
The main remaining issue is getting them to put the green ear socket on the forehead rather than the ears themselves, but that's par for the course with this process - every iteration you get some details adjusted but not everything you asked for, and you just gotta persist and find new and clearer ways to communicate the desired changes.
I'm feeling good about our chances of sorting out the last couple details on the next pass, and then the Byte prototype can come home to me for in-person inspection and a much nicer photoshoot or three!!
I'm still SO in love with these adorable depictions of Byte!
Finally, to finish off the summary, one more reminder to go check out the guest art keychains, pin banner, and stickers installed in our campaign add-ons a couple days ago! Samples of the keychains and banner should be complete soon, and I look forward to showing off the real deals once I receive pictures. 👀
And SPEAKING OF OTHER ARTISTS -- since we're on the last week, it's high time to highlight some of my fellow Pintopians in this space! There are so many campaigns I'm genuinely excited for, so I'll break them out into a few categories. This update, I'd like to focus on artists who are also here in the Netherlands.
Frogtastic Frogs #2 is a hopping amazing collection for any amphibian enjoyer to explore, and Appeltjesgroen (Dutch for "Apple Green", to match her whole frog shindig) is such a kind and friendly creator with incredible attention to detail!!
Her collaboration partner roundbirdart is also a delight, and those of you across the pond from us will enjoy these charming depictions of familiar faces in Birds of North America! I'm definitely picking up the cardinals, house finch, and possibly more. <3
An absolutely gorgeous pin set, UrskogSaga's Celebrate the Seasons caught my eye on a Reddit post long before I realized the campaign was also tied to Pintopia and a Dutch artist. I'm getting Winter, but honestly it's tempting to grab the whole core set and I encourage you to consider doing so!
Remnant fans can appease their 'yeen fix by backing The Hyena Family, but Henrieke has other gorgeous depictions of less-seen critters in store for you too, including lemurs and one of my personal favorites, the fossa!
And speaking of my favorite creatures: heck I do love me a good raccoon (my family rehabilitated one when I was a kid - long story!), and have been eying up Annadrawsstuff's delightful trash panda creations for quite some time. Extrashvaganza is an amazing opportunity to add some perfect lil goobers to your pin collection!
This was a meaty update - so if you read this far, you're one of the coolest folks around, thank you! And double thank you to each and every one of you for the love on this campaign, it means a lot that you're out here supporting independent artists, especially now. <3
Until the next time! Let's go get the Northern Lights unlocked in short order, so we can use our final push momentum to work on unlocking Python!!
