I know most all of you have probably long since forgotten about this campaign since you've had your plush for some time now, but for those of you who were stuck waiting for t...
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October
4 months ago
Finally some stuff to share!
SO! As I have said a few times now, most of the campaign is fulfilled. There have been 2 remaining hurdles:
• Jumbo Eclipse, which arrived incorrectly made
• Customs
I have...
Hi everyone! Merry Christmas, I hope you all got to eat something absolutely delicious! We put the turkey in too late as usual so I'm not eating for another 20 minutes or so ...
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October
8 months ago
No Jumbo Eclipse/Custom Dragon Packages = All Going Out!
Like it says on the tin!
All the packages without a jumbo Eclipse or a custom dragon are packed up and on their way out! We're fighting the bottleneck again because a lot...
Hello everyone! As mentioned in the last update I vended at Aquatifur this weekend. I'm in the car on the way home right now, so my brief break from fulfillmen...
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October
8 months ago
Quick Break
Hi all! I leave for Aquatifur in less than 3 days, but I've been doing fulfillment instead of prep. So this is just a quick update to say since I am waiting on tracking updates ...
I know most all of you have probably long since forgotten about this campaign since you've had your plush for some time now, but for those of you who were stuck waiting for the jumbo Eclipses to be repaired or who were waiting on their custom dragons that isn't the case.
There were still 17 packages left to get out, and those 17 accounted for some of the most difficult and hands on to get out the door. I've been running on fumes for months, but after throwing myself at what was left all packages but 1 are either ready for pick-up or are already on the way! I'm sure my goings on are not of interest so I'll avoid oversharing and keep this to order relevant info:
All the remaining orders needed fresh postage. You were not charged twice!! I paid for the second round of shipping myself and now that your orders are marked as fulfilled you don't need to worry about them getting swept up in auto card charges.
New tracking numbers have been added to the Notes part of your pledge if you received one. If it doesn't work on USPS, try UPS! Some had to go out through another carrier due to size (mostly boxed orders.)
Anyone who had scents as part of their order or an item that has gone out of stock, you already have a full refund for those items processing since I could not send them to you. Your refunded items should be noted in the same Notes area where your tracking numbers are.
All shipped custom dragons have gone out fully stuffed, which was not the original intention, but after such a long wait and knowing full well that stuffing is currently obscenely expensive I made it a point to get them done proper and fully. Especially since many ended up with shapes that are very difficult to stuff.
Any orders that never corrected their cards and had balances in the negatives have been closed. They will not be re-opened.
6 of you still have not filled out your surveys even though your card was charged. For a long while there I was sending out reminders often and have done so again. I've also reached out to the emails attached to the survey with no response. Please know you have until 6pm central on Monday, 06/16/2025 to fill out your survey or I am closing your order and the successfully charged balance will be considered a donation to the project. That is not a lot of time, but the last reminder already went out days ago and it has been over a year. I feel I've been very patient.
I've still been very busy in the meantime! At the beginning of the year during Pintopia I ran a small project for meat themed plush bags, which will be going in to the fulfillment stage in August. The pre-order store is open for it currently, which can be found here, and there is a second campaign for more designs that should be in the next Pintopia too with any luck, which can be found here.
We're just 5k shy of funding, and out of a 35k goal that feels very doable to reach! There's a 6 foot long dragon as part of this campaign, so you might like to take a look. The scope is much smaller than Comet & Friends to keep it more manageable.
With all that said, that leaves me with a single person that is still affected by fulfillment at all, and it is in a highly specific way to do with some customization. So while that means the campaign is 99.6% completed instead of 100%, I still think this is still the point where Comet & Friends is well and truly wrapped up with no more loose ends. This was my first Backerkit campaign and it was a big one with a steeper learning curve than I expected. I'm not proud that some orders lingered, but even with something as major as a 100% b-grade rate on a large, expensive design I kept the majority of things moving smoothly. I've learned SO MUCH since Comet & Friends went live and plan to put that all to the best use I can!
Thank you all again for supporting this dream of mine and giving me the confidence to pursue plush designing in a more outgoing way. It has been a pleasure, and I hope I'll see you on another project soon!
SO! As I have said a few times now, most of the campaign is fulfilled. There have been 2 remaining hurdles:
Jumbo Eclipse, which arrived incorrectly made
Customs
I have news for both!
1: Jumbo Eclipse
This has been a grueling process. I apologize. This is not a problem I have ever encountered before. When the dragons first arrived I was told it would take about a month after arrival for me to get the fixed ones back. That has obviously not turned out to be the case.
I had a lot of trouble with these. It took forever to get their return shipment arranged. Then once they were out of my hands I was hearing a lot of nothing. At one point I was even told it should have been shipped, but after bugging them for tracking it became clear that was an assumption, since all that got found out was they hadn't even received the returned boxes yet.
Whenever I asked about it after that the question got dropped. I had to really be a pest to get something other than "Let me check" only for days of silence to follow. It turns out that this wasn't negligence on my manufacturer's part, though. Customs apparently just released the package to them two weeks ago and it finally arrived last week.
I am sincerely sorry for this terrible wait. This is a first for me and it has been very frustrating from here. I am sure it has been much moreso for all of you who are waiting! I am extremely grateful for your patience so far. This means that:
Jumbo Eclipse should be 2 months max from being fulfilled! Because of all the delay the plush repairs have been prioritized. They should be ready to return to me in 15 business days, and will be shipped by sea.
2: Custom Dragons
All the custom dragons are done and most are in-hand! I am only waiting to receive the mega jumbo and an extra copy of one of the plush. I just need to stuff them and ship them. This has been delayed first based on shipping materials, then time.(hurray convention prep woes,) but currently I am being held up by sheer physical ability. I need to hand stuff them, take basic photographs, fit them in the stupid huge polybags I sourced when the boxes I shelled out for weren't up to the task, and get them brought to the UPS store since they are too big to ship via USPS.
Normally this is not a problem. However I am currently recovering my ability to, well. Move. Like at all. Over the past few weeks my chronic spinal issue deteriorated and I lost the ability to walk and even to sit up. Stuffed jumbos are too heavy for me to even comfortably manipulate to pack.
I am just now starting to recover. I am still taking things very slow. It has been ADHD hell having to basically lay still for days and days, especially since even using my phone becomes too much strain in not much time (hence me only just now writing this chunky update) but it only got to this point because whenever I seemed just better enough I stopped taking it easy and immediately relapsed. I'm at the limits of what help I can reasonably ask for too. Caretaker fatigue is a thing. I don't have much choice other than waiting.
So again, thank you for your patience. I know this has not been ideal. I will have to find some extras to pack in and some other way to make it up to y'all, my brain is fully in Survive Constant Pain mode so I will have to share what that could be at a later time when I can do inventory and crunch some numbers. But it won't be anything I delay ready shipments for!
Hi everyone! Merry Christmas, I hope you all got to eat something absolutely delicious! We put the turkey in too late as usual so I'm not eating for another 20 minutes or so haha. With the holiday season soon to wrap up on the coming New Year I'm looking to the future! In January 2025 the next Pintopia will be launching, and it is Pins 'n Plushies this time around. I will be participating and look forward to starting off next year on the right haunch!
Please consider following my upcoming project Carrion Baggage! I'll be offering all sorts of plush bags with a meat theme and a practical use focus! Follow the project here!
Prototype feedback for the new colors of bags!
Grilled Meat Bag
Doubles as a prop!
Some other awesome stuff about this:
Returning backers will be getting a free sticker!
Early backers will get 1 of 3 free badge designs of their choice!
The new full size bags will be unlocked in a community selected order!
I will be teaming up with the amazing grind3h, and backers of both our campaigns will receive a free enamel pin from each of us! They're making some amazing dragon pins, so check them out!
Here are the Premium Cut bag designs that will be done in community decided order!
Here are the freebie enamel pins for folks who back both projects!
The free enamel pins backers of both projects will receive!
Even more bag designs!
Fried Egg Mini Bag
Raw Salmon Cut Mini Bag
Raw T-Bone Steak Mini Bag
Or are you just here for Comet & Friends news? If that's the case, well, stuff has been pretty quiet! We're still waiting on those Eclipse bags. The return plush are still at sea, and the manufacturer won't be starting to make replacements until they arrive. They will be able to remove the horns and turn them back in the proper direction to avoid wasting materials. Since most every order has already been fulfilled otherwise, that's basically all we're waiting on. That and for some sites to catch up with lifting the ban on Canadian USPS postal labels being bought, and a couple other little bits and bobs (such as people having me hold for address changes.)
Some packages have bounced and been returned to me. Particularly a few international ones. They arrived in the last week or so. I have been recovering from Covid for weeks so I haven't reached out to the recipients yet, but that will be coming soon. I got my ability to taste food back just in time for tonight's dinner, phew.
Progress is good on the customs! The full size mega jumbo custom has been ordered, and most of them are actually at the shipping stage along with the single mega jumbo Comet. A couple had some minimal changes to be made and I believe that has happened so I'd be willing to bet we're about to close this particular chapter too. They will likely be getting shipped by boat instead of air, so it will probably be a bit in to February when those arrive.
All the packages without a jumbo Eclipse or a custom dragon are packed up and on their way out! We're fighting the bottleneck again because a lot of these have stuffed jumbos so only so many can get picked up at once, but they're all ready to go regardless and if I get the chance I'll be bringing them directly to the PO.
That means there's only a small handful of packages left, and my hands are a bit tied on those. Other than that we're DONE! The Comet & Friends dragons have left the nest! Thank you all again for helping make this project a reality!
Speaking of customs,
I finally got some completed drafts in for 3 of them! They nailed 2 in the first go and they're beautiful. This includes the red dragon Melissa plush. The wing limbed dragon is just the smaller prototype though- now that he's done he's going to get sized up to 6ft! The third one is mostly good, the horns just need re-oriented to be more ram-like and then it'll be good to go.
This one is nearly done, but will have the horns reoriented to be more ram-like.
They nailed it first try on this one! The details look good.
The gem embroidery and non-symmetrical scar turned out great!
Cute face!
This is the only dragon to have wing forelimbs, but they got it first try! The horn will be stitched down stateside.
Her tail ring is printed which doesn't show very well, but looking at the wings and frill the sublimation turned out good. Lots of embroidery on the face too.
What's Next?
Now that we're only waiting on the remade jumbos and the customs, which take a variable amount of time, I can focus fully on the immediate future. Specifically, I will be running another Backerkit in January as part of Pintopia 2025, which will also be including plush this time around! I would be extremely grateful if you followed my upcoming project, Carrion Baggage. Maybe get some tasty plush treats for your dragons if they catch your interest!
I'm working hard on this right now! I hope you'll find something you like.
Hello everyone! As mentioned in the last update I vended at Aquatifur this weekend. I'm in the car on the way home right now, so my brief break from fulfillment is over. On Tuesday we'll be back in the dragon business! The shipping materials I had run out of are all in now, and tracking has had time to update for all shipped orders for sure, so my current goal is to get all possible orders out this week.
If your tracking has not updated since you received the tracking notification:
Do not panic! The tracking notification only means your label was created, not that your item has shipped! Nothing is wrong and everything is proceeding as intended.
If you have questions about why there was a delay please check the previous updates! I have made an effort to be very transparent about all the victories and pain points of fulfillment since it began and your question is most likely answered there. I am happy to answer questions and will always do my best to get back to you quickly if there is anything I missed that you still want to know.
THE BASIC GIST:
Packages with a Jumbo Eclipse will not ship until the Jumbo Eclipse order has been replaced.
Packages with a jumbo custom will not ship until the custom is complete.
Packages with neither of those items that have not shipped will be shipping this week. If there is any delay it is health related and I will be getting them out early next week at latest.
