Just a quick one.

In a couple of days I'm going to be locking in orders for the pre order and add one stores. Pins are starting to come in, and I need the money to order the stickers and what not. We're looking to begin shipping at the end of May/early June, but there's still the potential for delays yet (we seem to be having a very difficult manufacturing run this time, probably because the designs are complicated). 

A couple of things didn't unlock. You won't be charged for those, but if you want to switch to different alternatives now's the best time. 

I'll be back with more previews soon :)

Just a quick peek from the factory. We have a lot of complicated designs so production is taking a long time. I had to get a few things remade due to some misunderstandings, but here's what I've got so far! Bear in mind many of them are not completed, but I always think its fun to see the WIP.

Before the screen printing stage. The one on the right is the corrected colours. We didn't sell enough to order the orange, but I kind of regret not just self funding it anyway!

The rainbow sea bunny. The epoxy coating gives a lovely finish over the soft enamel, making it smooth and more durable. Each one will be unique, because of the anodized finish on the metal. Some more green, some more pink/purple. This little guy turned out to be our most popular add on.

The gold freebie sea bunny. This one is hard enamel, and I think he looks great too. The white and gold is simplistic but I think it works.

Nigricans alternate pin. There are three shades of 'black', although the light doesn't show them off. The rest is all gold metal finish.

Cyerce Nigricans seconds pin. This one is lovely, but there was some confusion as to what I ordered - it was supposed to be dual plated, which is apparently only possible with soft enamel. They are remaking it in soft enamel with a layer of epoxy, but until I see which one looks better I won't know which one we're sending out by default. It looks very nice though.

Sneaky WIP peak, before the gradient pearl is added.

Anyone who bought one of these in the add on store, here's a look at the enamel part before the quicksand section is added. We went for a 3d effect on the rocks and I think it looks spot on. Just waiting for the screen print and the sections with glitter.

And finally, not a pin. This is the fancy Cyerce Nigricans sticker - its hot stamped with gold foil. It ended up being 3" long to allow for the foiling pattern. The stickers are nice and thick too. 

I think that's all for now! I'll update when I get some more ~

So, all of the pins are submitted and approved for production. That means the designs are finalised and I can show you the updates.

We'll start with Nigricans. I wasn't sure if they could pull the fine detail dual plating off, but they've assured me they can. So the bottom version is the default option. Its hard to see because my order sheet was teeny tiny for some reason, but the spots and the head have gold metal, and the outer part of the 'leaves' have silver.

The alternate version has just gold, and then three-four shades of 'black' for depth. The orange parts are also filled with gold. Just gold and black :D.

Frosted. Now, my idiot ass did the same thing for all the stained glass pins and totally forgot to leave a place to put the posts. So they all had to be tweaked slightly. In Frosted's case, we filled in a bottom section. The manufacturer also suggested we thicken a few lines to make it a bit less fragile, and a couple of sections had to be shifted around. Overall I think it works though. The metal itself will be silver, not black! But here you can see clearly where the metal parts will be.

Phyllo. The manufacturer preview was not very flattering, haha. We've opted for a non swirled pearl effect to achieve the gradient. I'm not a huge fan of glittery effects, but this one is pretty subtle without the swirling. Just be warned this boi is going to be BRIGHT. The red veining is going to be screen printed over the top.

Last up is Elegans. My second most expensive pin to date! As you can see I had to tweak the design here too. The silver metal should be subtle enough with the stained glass that the overall effect is fine. You can see the two layers of screenprinting too. Can't wait for this one. 

Other than that, we followed the manufacturer's recommendations for the plating colours. That is as follows;

'Crescent' Seabunnies (all alts) - Gold
Freebie Seabunny - Gold
Creator Seabunny - Anodised Rainbow
Collab Kitty - Gold
Leaf Sheep - Default Rose Gold (see below)
Flabellina - Silver
Cyerce Nigricans (default) - Dual plated silver/gold
Cyerce Nigricans (alternate) - Gold
Frosted - Silver
Torch - Brass
Blue Sea Dragon - Silver
Phyllodesmium Poindimiei - Gold
Cyerce Elegans - Silver

Now the leaf sheep, I was struck with indecision. It was designed to be silver, but I don't think the silver will show well with the green. I wanted copper, but the manfacturer said that tarnishes easily and suggested rose gold. I know some people aren't fond of rose gold so... I got both. And also normal gold for good measure. Now the rose gold looks best on the preview so that's the default; but if you passionately dislike rose gold then feel free to leave a comment in your 'notes' section on the survey for which you'd like (silver or gold) and I will send you one of the other two. 

Lastly for now; I ordered a limited number of magnets - they are literally the same mould/colours just with magnet backs instead of posts. I wanted them for an event, but if anyone really wants one, again just throw a note on your survey (you can switch 1-1 for a pin). They are not flat backed, there will be a bump over the magnets due to how they are made. I'm not sure they're strong magnets because its the first time I've tried them, so bear that in mind. 

Only the following desgins have magnets;
Leaf Sheep (rose gold only)
Blue Dragon
Creator Sea Bunny
Pink Sea Bunny

Otherwise that's it for now. Hopefully we'll get some preview photos from the manufacturers soon and you'll get a real idea of what the effects look like. 

The last thing for me to sort is stickers. I have a massive order of samples on the way, including a few different special effects. I knew I wanted gold foiling for the Nigricans alternate sticker but whew, we had to go up to 3inches to get the detailing. I'll put up pictures as soon as they get here, and then perhaps we'll do a poll for favourite effects. The supplier I'm hoping to use does everything from holo, to foiling, to transparent; washi paper, tracing paper and all sorts. The default is going to be plain matte vinyl with transparent borders. 

I think that's all for now. Please feel free to leave any questions below. 

Have a great weekend!

Just a quick one. I'm working hard in the background getting all of the pins on order. These ones were complicated, and the language barrier is proving a little bit of a challenge - but once the orders are finalised and production begins, I'll give a full run down. A few designs had to be tweaked for practicality reasons, and its going to be very hard to show you until the pictures come in, but overall I think everything works like I hoped. 

Turns out there was an error in the survey despite my checking. If you got the three sticker pack, and you haven't been given the options to pick stickers - put your choices in the notes section at the end of the survey. I'll be able to see this when I pack orders. The options are all of the deisgns that unlocked for the campaign, Elegans in both purple and orange, plus a fancy alt version of all of the designs but with special effects. I'll do a whole sticker breakdown post when those alt designs are finalised, so you know what you're choosing. I have some neat special effect samples on the way :). 

I won't have much to show you for a little while, since manufacturing takes four weeks at the best of times, but I'm expecting more like six to eight weeks after the designs are approved. The special effects take a long time to do and although I spread the order across three factories, we had a lot of pins!

The smoke tests have gone out! Everyone else should get their survey within the next day or two. If you could take the time to fill them out I'd appreciate it, so I have an idea of how many for each design to order. Cards won't be charged and orders won't be locked until its time for shipping to start (and you'll get a couple of days warning before hand). If you'd rather be charged straight away, just leave a note at the end of your survey.

There's a bunch of stuff in the add-on store, including pins from previous campaigns. If you go all the way to the bottom, you can find some of the new products we're going to be ordering in at the same time as this batch of pins. They are marked at a discount, since this is a 'test run' for some of these new items. They may not be printed again, so if you like it then grab one now. 

A couple of designs that were locked in the pre order store have been unlocked. That's because the manufacturer gave me a very good price for the new quicksand pins. 

If anything's missing, if you'd like to customise something, if you have any questions please don't hesitate to get in touch :)