Hello everyone! We're in the final 15 hours of the campaign, and I have a few updates to share!
Toffee Hognose Pin Final Design: I have a finished the toffee hognose design for our 4th pin.
Hognose Pin #6 Poll Results: Sunglow won the poll for the final color morph, so our last little friend will be orange and yellow! I'm currently working on it, and the design will be finished in time for Pledge Manager selections!
Axolotl Mini Pins: I have confirmed pricing on the axolotl mini pins. (These use the same design as the earrings and stitch markers, but will require a new mold because the circular hole at the top of the earrings and stitch markers would look silly as a pin.) These pins are sold individual and are now available as addons. They are $8 each. Those who pledged for 3 blind bag or 3 pin pledge levels can purchase them at the discounted rate of $7 each. Those who pledged at the 6 pins, 6 blind bag, or 12 blind bag pledge levels can purchase them at a discounted rate of $6 each.
Surface Finish Test Pin Samples: I have been working with my manufacturer since August to get test samples of the leucistic axolotl dragon pin to ensure that all of the details reproduced well at the intended 42-48mm size of most of the pins of this campaign. The red copper metal is so beautiful with these pins!
Hard enamel is what was advertised in this campaign, and will be available for everything except the adonized rainbow chrome axolotl mini pins. Adonized rainbow chrome is difficult to produce with hard enamel.
I may opt to make the soft enamel with epoxy version available as an option as well. (If this happens, you will choose what designs and finishes you want for your pins in the Pledge Manager.) The soft enamel with epoxy has the advantage of having thinner, more delicate lines. The hard enamel has the more polished, clean surface. I'm waiting to have the samples shipped to me to decide if the soft enamel with epoxy is a finish that is something worth offering as a second option, as it would involve a second production run.
Hard Enamel - A metal pin where the recesses are overfilled with enamel, then polished smooth. This results in a pin that is polished and flat. During the polishing process, a small bit of the metal lines are polished away, which results in the lines becoming slightly larger.
Soft Enamel with Epoxy - A metal pin where the recesses are filled as close to the top as possible without overflowing. The surface tension while the enamel cures means that the middle of each recess is slightly lower than the enamel that touches the edges. Clear epoxy is then added, which makes the surface smooth and flush with the metal. No polishing occurs, which means that the final metal lines are thinner. The clear epoxy creates a "faux hard enamel" finish. When viewed at most angles, the colors filling the pin appear flush with the metal surface like a hard enamel pin. At certain extreme angles, you are able to see that it's a layer of colored enamel that is slightly below the metal's surface, and that the transparent epoxy is a separate layer, bridging the difference.
Surprise 9K Stretch Goal Additions: We have reached 9K in pledges, which means I have a bit of wiggle room to sneak in a couple more designs! Thank you guys so much! I wasn’t planning on adding another stretch goal, but since we have the funding, it seems only right that the hognoses get some mini pins, earrings, and stitch markers too!
I am going to add a final pair of designs for a pair of hognose snake molds. These two designs have a natural hole in them created by a loop in the tail, so I will be able to use the same molds for both earrings/stitchmarkers and mini pins. Like the axolotl mini pins, I will be offering a second color variation of each pose. A snow & axanthic hognose with silver metal for one pair, and a normal & sable with gold metal for the second pair. Right now I have a sketch and a thumbnail for these designs, but they will be finished for you to review before Pledge Manager selections occur!
And beyond my expectations by a million. I want to thank all of you for the one last big push, it turned out that we were in overtime with the campaign for over 4 hours (that's CRAZY)
Big props to everyone who has joined our little grasshopper family. You all are incredible and we wouldn't be here without your incredible support, excitement, and push for more things... like yuri
At the end of the campaign there I was slowly starting to lose my mind with marketing. It's honestly the hardest part for me personally, and it sort of drives me coockoo if I do it too long (if you saw my tumblr posts well... thank you for surviving them) This is honestly what spawned bug yuri into existence. I love to add a little fun flare to things, a little silliness, and that silliness is going to manifest into bug girls kissing
The spontaneous goal of €4,800 for yuri was ambitious, and I can't believe we actually surpassed it- I'm shocked! So now I will be in the business of delivering yuri to you all. And not just a single sketch either- I'll do a short comic about these girl, or die trying.
Sketch from social media marketing in the last 24h
So what happens next?
I'll be working on finalising the artwork and sending it off for samples! Both pins and socks. Once samples are produced I'll be setting up the surveys and opening the preorder store. Hopefully all goes smoothly. For the moment you can rest easy and know that lots of bug stuff is brewing under the hood <3
Thank you so much again everyone, I'm truly grateful to you all for coming along on this journey with me <33
Hi lovely people!! The project ended and I want to say again a huge THANK YOUUU for all your support. 74 people backed, 1,739€ to create this project and we unlocked the cassowary! You're great <3
I've been preparing the surveys these days and I will send them once I receive the funds. I've also made the pre-order shop available, where you can pre-order the Narwhal and Sea Sheep pins, if we reach 10 and 15 backers for these designs, I will be able to make them!
So that means that Apollo and Artemis expansion sets will get made!
Apollo pack
Artemis pack
If we get to 5.5K, we also do the Soviet set as well. I love those weird round ships.
Soviet pack
Thanks to The Planetary Society posting to their newsletter, which gave it a big boost over the weekend. That's how we hit the two stretch goals so suddenly.
Don’t forget my daughter and brother have projects in the Science League as well:
Just wanted to thank everyone who followed and pledged for this project. I'm sorry to those who wanted the items, but I think it's safe to say this project has failed to reach its goal.
This was my first BackerKit project, and I made some mistakes: making too many pins for a first run, not fully understanding the project setup and procedure (though I have a much better grasp on it now), and not searching for a lower manufacturing quote. There are a good handful of other things I shouldn't have done—like making a uniquely weird and unknown character the feature of the entire project.
To those still interested or curious, I will be trying another set of pins this October called "Puss & Books." My hope is that these designs will be generally more appealing to pin collectors. It's an old concept I played with a few years ago but never fully developed.
If that goes well, I hope to launch a more ambitious project for Pintopia 2027. As a toy designer of 20+ years, my goal is to develop a pin and plush toy project. More info on this in the coming months!
So, thanks again to all who backed and followed the Murf•Bot project!
Hope to see you around again soon.
Take care,
Jim "Arrrggghhh" Romer
PS: I really did have fun designing the pins . . . and SO MUCH TOAST!
. . . on to the next venture.
I can't help but think that it bit on to the shaving cream can and got covered in it.
I want to bring attention to the clover pin. I kind of need 20 people to want this. I might have to cancel it for now or I think BackerKit has a thing in the store where I need X amount of people need to get it type of thing. I haven't looked into it yet. Even if we cancel it, I'll bring it back on a later project or if I'm doing well, just get it. But here is the reference sheet:
I got the locking pin backs and tried them out on the Para pins. They work nicely and hold on well. Here is a look of them on my hat.
Lastly, I was thinking of changing the design for the foldable back to this? I have a poll to see if you like it or not. I would add this to the post but I can only do one at a time. lol
A Big "Thank You" for Your Support! Herpetology Dragons has been funded! Not only that, your love of these little creatures has allowed us to unlock all of the hognose pin stretch goals. This means that there will be a collection of 6 hognose dragon pins, along with a corresponding Herpetolgy Dragons: Hognose blind bag!
In terms of your pledges, this means that if you pledged for an enamel pin, you can choose any of the 6 axolotl designs, and any of the 6 hognose designs for your selections.
If you pledged for a blind bag, you can choose any amount of axolotl or hognose dragon blind bags. These pin sets will not be mixed together in the blind bags.
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Hognose Dragon Pin Designs: Here are the previews and current design status of each of the hognose dragon pins. At this point in time, only the lavender hognose pin has been completed. Pins 2-5 have final-ish drawings, and will be completed in the coming days.
3rd & 4th Hognose Color Results: Voting for the color morphs for hognose pins 3 & 4 has concluded, and you chose toffee and snow to accompany the previous lavender & sable!
5th Hognose Color Morph Vote: Voting is currently open for the color morph that we will use for the 5th hognose pin. Voting for this color will remain open until Sunday, September 20th at 12:00pm PST. Shortly thereafter, we'll begin voting on colors for the sixth and final pin! You can find the 5th pin color vote in the link above and at the bottom of this update.
New Earring Color Addon: I've been speaking with my manufacturer, and we'll be adding in a second color variation for the earrings. The black axolotls earrings will feature adonized rainbow plating. This type of plating works best with soft enamel as soft enamel allows the electroplating to be peformed before filling with enamel, rather than after. Soft enamel also allows for thinner, more detailed lines, as the lines are not ground down during a polishing stage. For the black version, we will be using a combination of soft enamel + transluscent epoxy. The transluscent epoxy creates a smooth surface and finish that's very similar to hard enamel.
Though the plating on the charms will be a red copper and rainbow finish, the fishhook earrings that go into your ears will be gold and silver colored respectively. These fishhook earrings are hypoallergenic 304 stainless steel hooks from Fire Mountain Gems. Upcoming Addons: Mini Pins - I'll be adding mini pin versions of the axolotl earrings in both colors. This requires a separate mold to be created for each pose, as the mini pin versions will not have the built in circular hole for the earring findings. Currently getting these priced out with my manufacturer!
Stitch Marker Set - I will also be adding a stitch marker set utilizing the earring designs, The stitch markers will be similar to those offered in my previous campaigns. I already have red copper colored stitch marker findings available. Right now I'm finding out if it's possible to source anodized rainbow stitch marker findings, or if those will need to be a black or silver color.
Sticker Sheets- Finally, I'm working on a sticker sheeet for both the axolotl dragons and the hognose dragons. For the sticker sheet design, I wanted versions of the artwork that had colored linework as well as some simple shading. Getting the artwork updated for this purpose is currently in progress!
These addons will be available in the next update, as well as for the results of the 5th color vote!
Thanks again for your support of this project. Let me know if you have any questions, and I hope that everyone has a great weekend!
If you think you might like to grab a T-shirt as an add-on, then let us know which PEST! you would like. If you don’t think so… choose no tee. Keep in mind this is only a poll. We are not adding a tee to our reward here.
Hoorah! We've now unlocked the special double layered female Ruddy Darter dragonfly pin, it is now available as a separate pledge level and add-on option if you'd like to get one!
We've now got just two stretch goals left to try and reach and unlock the rather unique and colourful Dicarnosis erythracephala wasp and the Blue carpenter bee....
Before I add any more stretch goals to the line up I wanted to check in and ask you lovely lot what you'd be keen to see, so I've added a poll at the bottom for you vote in, and don't forget you can always comment with your ideas on this post.
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