Hey :) I hope everyone is enjoying the summer and if you're in the States that you had a fun holiday with your loved ones <3
***********************
I thought I'd post a little update to let everyone know how things are progressing. As I said during my campaign, I work towards making things as nice as possible rather than as fast - so I know I'm quite a bit slower than most of the other Pintopia campaigns, and I don't want anyone to worry along the way.
{{Quick tldr 😊 we are at the step of waiting for the vectors to be completed by my wonderful vector artist and sent back to me. Then next step I will send them to the manufacturer for samples.}}
I'm terrible at vectors lol - seriously! - the few I've done in the past took me weeks to do per design (which with 25 designs would take a lifetime to complete lol) and struggled every minute of it. So I've learned that is a step best hired out for. And I've been so lucky to find an artist who does an amazing job with all the vectors I've ever sent her - keeping the designs super accurate to what I drew, while also ensuring they meet all the requirements needed to translate well into metal and enamel. She has the finished files now and is vectorizing them and preparing them for production. She's also an artist who does conventions - and will be doing AX which creates a slight delay for her working on the vectors - but our hope is to have all the vectors finished and sent to the pin manufacturer by the end of July :) So we are getting there!
After that, the next step will be getting samples from the manufacturer. Since there are so many colors and this is also my first time using the UV gradient printing on pins I think the samples are super important to ensure that these turn out as beautiful as we hope. The pin manufacturer has been very easy to communicate with thus far and is eager to start production - so I anticipate (knock on wood) everything will go smoothly :)
While I wait for the vectors, I'm working on getting the backerkit survey page and pre-order page set up. I always make the mistake of making my campaigns more complex than I should lol and that comes to bite me when setting up the survey page 😅 but I am making good progress on getting everything set up for that as well.
*************
Those are the main brush strokes. I also thought I'd share all the final art all together here for you guys to see them all polished and shiny :) There could still be some very slight variance if, during the vector phase, some areas are too tight for metal and enamel - but these are very close to what the final will look like. A few of the early designs I worked on a little further since I did them all in such a rush and blur during the campaign and they needed some polishing to make them on par with the rest of the set. Most were pretty subtle changes, but some are more noticeable - for example - the dove, I went back and added more peony to the design rather than just the little bud sticking out of the head - and the jade vine, I added in a few more blossoms so it looked more like the vine and fit with the long shapes of the other two designs better. But I think all the designs are as nice as I can make them and I'm really excited with how everything turned out and fits together! And I hope you guys love these all as well! <3
Whew - Its been quite the process to get all 25 of these designs created and polished lol but it will all be worth it when they are turned into shiny little treasures. Thank you so much everyone for joining me on this adventure and for your patience as I strive to make these as nice as possible for you <3 I am so glad to have had the opportunity to create this whole series all together and it is thanks to all of you <3
That's all for now, but I hope you guys enjoy seeing all the designs and are happy with how they all turned out! Thanks again <3 Love you guys!
