I am so sorry I didn't respond quickly yesterday (I had a migraine) and appreciate all the comments!
I am glad I am not the only one who felt it was ugly lol. I know people thought the Kitsune plush sample was very cute (in person) and I did not so I never know how people will react. I will try and adjust the colors as well as the transparency on the syrup (I kind of want it less transparent) and there will be screenprint shine areas, but screenprint is last. I also think the bearded dragon body color may need some adjustment but I want to see how it looks with screenprint. Light colors are very limited with Pantone unfortunately. Best I can do is just ask for more white.
Transparent Experience Either way I figured I'd take some time to go over transparency (with and without cutouts) and why it can be a pain.
I did my first transparent design back in 2019 with Buster Moon (I have improved a lot since then and even considered revising/updating this pin).
My photo.
First things first, manufacturer photos suck. I am not a great photographer, but as you can see, none of these photos look the same at all. I kinda really like the lighter color I was shown, it doesn't matter in the end either way. I never made samples of these - I had no idea that was a thing I could do at the time tbh. I think I didn't have a Pantone book at the time either. Either way, I've learned a lot over the years. I actually had some bad issues with this pin that apparently I didn't think was worth saving I guess (go me?) where there were big SPOTS in the moons.
Manufacturer photo in progress.
Manufacturer photo in a different light.
My kid modeling pins when she was little! My corgi pins + the fox pin from Amanda Nelson Design Co.
My second manufacturer (yes I just change manufacturers a lot) did my corgi moon ornaments back in 2020 and a 3rd manufacturer handled the gradient ones after the second claimed they could no longer do gradient despite saying they could at first.
I can't recall which manufacturer sent me this, but I was definitely given the impression not all Pantones could be transparent.
Some random example of transparent colors from a manufacturer.
I bought a design from another artist to show my manufacturer what I was after for transparency. As you can see, the sample absolutely lacked full transparency. I know those of you who backed this project back in 2020 watched this nonsense unfold lol. I appreciate you guys for being patient with me and sticking around!
In light
Held to light
Even after all that the colors didn't always work out perfectly still. I actually had a lot of trouble with this manufacturer messing up my colors even with samples but I no longer work with them. Yeah, so if people get gatekeepey about manufacturers, I generally think this stuff is why lol.
Anyways, since I can't share videos I'll at least share some photos from my old experience. This is called stained glass even though it's literally just transparent. They basically mix this stuff by hand and they have to gauge how transparent it should or shouldn't be. It's sooo much back and forth / trial and error. Even if they got the color perfect, sometimes the transparency between ornaments wasn't consistent. Sometimes it has to do with the colors too, so that was a pain.
Anyways, since this I will always slow a project down for gradient and transparent samples. I'd share videos but Backerkit doesn't have a way to do so. These were moon colors being mixed and adjusted for my ornaments back then. I was also delusional and thought my project was important but it was probably a pain for them since I didn't order thousands.
A different manufacturer for the corgi moon project. Transparency of any kind is a challenge lol. I actually used a manufacturer people make their fantasy anime pins through for this and thought they'd be better at it. I think this is when I learned WHY fantasy pins can take a year either way. It took FOUR MONTHS just to get the sample right.
Anyways, my most recent transparent designs were with the manufacturer I am using currently for this project. They did my dragons but they also did the difficult corgis from the cosplay corgi project (I used 3 different manufacturers for that one). I wanted a transparent gradient and I still think it didn't turn out perfectly. I think the fae corgi still ended up too dark, but it was mostly to my liking and really only sucks in certain lighting.
I still have a few flawed Gelatinous Necroloafs lol. I should probably card them one day instead of avoiding them, but I think some darker areas is always a risk with transparent pins. It wasn't a lot thankfully, but it's unrealistic for me to expect a 0% flaw rate. :D
Either way, I'll get the syrup looking like someone didn't just pee all over the beardie and the pancake (but maybe that's why he's so angry lol). I definitely have a different vision of how it should look.
Probably a long unnecessary post, but figured it may help people understand it's definitely a process that can either go smoothly or make you wanna pull your hair out haha. This will be the slowest part anyways.
