I've been putting so much pressure on my manu to have remade these pins, but they're still not done!! 🙃 Honestly I have long since fully lost my mind because of it, I am so sorry. Because I don't want to majorly put this manu on blast, our correspondence showing timeline is censored and attached below as backer-only.
I very strongly emphasized that I NEED at the very least the remakes of Baphomet, Elfling, and the additional 50 Ghoul I paid for that they didn't initially make me, before CNY. Of course, also C's white dango spider and hopefully the lemonade spider too - prioritizing the pins that are currently entirely unfulfillable to attempt to instill some sense of urgency... I can't believe how many months it's been since the campaign ended, I can't apologize enough. This is actually crazy.
I do have 2 updates to share though, they FINALLY at least showed me what Baphomet and Elfling's eyes look like now in order to preserve the glow effect: The eyes have been reversed essentially, the enamel is now glow and what was print before will be inverse. So, the black sclera of Baphy will now be print, iris of Elfling will be print and pupil is enamel. However, she told me for the Elfling pic above that it's the old print colors still but not to panic, so I think...they gouged out the enamel of the samples they held onto, in order to confirm the eyes first? I don't actually know if that's possible, but to save time and money it makes sense to me.
I don't have updates on anything else yet ........
The good news is... that I received Chocolat Chaud's giant package of US orders!!! So I will be able to bundle those with as many remaining as I can.
Japan is not shipping to the US right now except via the very expensive Kuroneko Yamato, which is why this unfortunately had to happen, it was far more cost-effective to send that box to me (and incur a giant duties cost on top of it) than to charge, then spend, an actual fortune sending out each individual small package from her home in Japan. Her health is far more at-risk than mine and I really want to get this done for her, so we really appreciate those of you who have been super patient and understanding. Early Summerween seemed to have a bit of a fulfillment curse, but we are FINALLY all getting everything settled.
Because the current plan is to keep this group event pin-centric and I won't be doing pin-only crowdfunding again, I am unlikely to return to this group project this year. I love everyone involved and I hope despite the hiccups that you'll continue to support those who do participate again 💖🎃 Growing pains (and finding new manufacturers) suck, but these designs were still fun for us all to make, and Cryptic is happy it went so well as his very first online sales venture. 🥹 Though that is still being fulfilled also. Thank you!!!
PS: for some of you, I'm unable to pre-emptively credit you free shipping from the MGR2 survey to combine the two pledges, because I don't know how much your package will weigh once all 3-4 (including Chocolat Chaud's and ALSO possibly Cryptic Compendium's) orders are combined. USPS costs also unfortunately rise every Jan. I WILL give refunds of overages to everyone who was overcharged on shipping, each night that I'm doing batch-printing of labels. Because of Katsucon, most orders containing MGR2 pins are going to take a while still as I unfortunately only was able to send out the survey just this week. I apologize for it being extra convoluted!!
I just got the correct Gorgons in and their quality is...much worse (in terms of flaws like wrong colors in random spots), I'm assuming because the manufacturer is just as over me as I am her, but she should still be completely fulfillable! So since TV Cat is also here, and good, I can fulfill quite a few!
From campaign 2 I also JUST got Dullahan and Mummy and I'm trying to get that one's survey out within a week. I'm a bit later than I planned to be but we've got so much happening right now, I apologize. I'm hoping that for some of them I can actually bundle your pledges if you backed both and are still waiting on Baphomet and/or Elfling. I would just nullify your shipping charge for the 2nd survey.
I put pressure on the manufacturer making the remakes of the girls and told her I need Baphomet and Elfling done this month because they are unfulfillable currently. She said she can prioritize them and I will continue bugging about it because this is ridiculous.
Sorry for the silence!!! I hope everyone who has theirs so far is happy with them!
These were the images I was sent for approval of her print in November, in this order:
These were all sent to me within the span of an hour on the same day.
1: I said the purple looks great but the pink might be a bit strong 2: I said it wasn't good and washed out, could tell something else was wrong but didn't put my finger on it...The most recent proof was approved with this purple here which I should have noticed and is why I apologized before, but as you can see they did actually send me a proper one first. 3: I said this one looks great because the purple is vibrant, and had looked back at the OG sample and decided the pink was actually fine. Note the pink snakes visible.....and apparently the one with the purple ones was the covered up one on the bottom!!
My poor memory didn't remember this in the slightest. I had to look for it just now. She'd already been quoting things at me that I'd said as approval without including the pictures, including this, and I trusted that.
My only excuse for not noticing in the progress pics further along is blurriness and lighting and fatigue. Not great but it is what it is.
So remakes of her have now been approved.
Sorry for the dramatics :( I really thought all hope had been lost. When you're getting things made, always triple check and don't trust your memory even if it's better than mine. This kind of thing happens all the time and is a large part of why I'm quitting!!
Hopefully they'll be done in early Jan barring any other hiccups.
TV Cat is done and will ship to me around the end of this month, she looks great via pics.
This is hard enamel even though the pearly areas look soft in head-on photos.
Gorgon was made wrong. No one including me caught it in progress photos because it wasn't what I was looking for. They completely changed the UV print pattern on her hair, the gradient is inconsistent now and goes top-down instead of aligning with the direction of the snake hair, so most of it is purple.
Top is final. The bow change was on purpose.
The manufacturer is really upset at me over not noticing (keeps repeating "but you approved the proof") and is really unlikely to agree to remakes. I'm still negotiating because they never should've sneakily changed the art on me like that after I told her it had come out well in the sample, and all I wanted was for it to be more vibrant (adjustment of color gamut). I did tell her I have serious issues with memory due to poor health which is true and that did nothing in my favor. She was nearly $6 per pin to get produced so I can't afford remakes on my own.
I'm really beating myself up over it because the end quality of the pin is good but this is wrong and I feel so stupid for not noticing. I almost never miss proof details like this but this is the 2nd I really screwed up on because of being sent them the week of Cupcake's death, I should've taken that time off work but wanted to keep the ball rolling. Don't have an excuse for not noticing the change in progress images. No one I showed them to noticed either, I think the lighting and blurriness contributed because it's super obvious in person.
I can't ship anything with Gorgon in it right now so I'll have to wait for TV Cat and the other manu's remakes before I can do much else. I'm sorry.
Packages sent out Friday (meant to publish it that day, oops!!):
My backers: 17 Backers of both me and Cryptic Compendium:10 Total: 27 (27% of pledges that actually were paid for via campaign + survey)
Not as much of a dent as I planned to make BUT at least it's >1/4 of the way there. I sorely underestimated something: how much it would hurt my hand removing and replacing the rubber clutches and even just the fine motor skills of having to pinch at small things. Should've anticipated it because typing hurts but it REALLY caught me off guard somehow. I feel really embarrassed about how helpless this is making me. I'm trying a new med, have some procedures/tests booked for Jan and Feb to narrow down the issue, and hope I get some real answers soon. Winter always makes arthritis much worse for me but heat isn't helping, so I think this is primarily my nerve issues ⁉️ . . .
All that being said I'm pretty much at my first "wall" for fulfillment. The ones that can go out without Baphomet and Elfling were almost all covered in this first batch...TV Cat will ship to me soon with remakes of C's blue moth pin but Gorgon is shipping to me next week with Demon, Golem, and the first of his candy moths! So I should be able to get another ~dozen pledges out (after they're graded) for this campaign and also a few for the 2nd! Baphy and Elf and the Ghouls they shorted me on will probably take a while again... they only JUST started the remakes this week apparently. 🫠
Those who qualify for the bat coins will be receiving them in their order from Fantasy Fox Creations!
Honestly, looking at these girls, even though I'm mega bummed about the flaw rate I'm actually quite proud and even more grateful. I've always been very shy to show character illustrations which is why I mostly focus on "designs" (vagueness intentional because I'm truly all over the place creatively).
Next update I'll include a bunch of pictures of the finished pins together, since I should at least have Gorgon in stock then as well!
Here's what I got sent of her before I got shipment notification! The purples and greens do seem to work together much better now, so sampling was a great idea and I'm glad I did it!
Thank you so so so much for being a part of this!! I should have remake updates soonish 🤞
