Finally the Horses of the Apocalypse have arrived! :D They had a brief holiday in one of the shops below my flat because the UPS driver got confused and then didn't note where he'd left them (yaaay unnecessary anxiety lol) but now I have them! 🙌ðŸ˜
They've definitely been worth the wait as I'm so happy with how these turned out! 😊 Here are some quick photos I snapped while I was checking and backing pins all day yesterday:
I already packed and sent out all orders without horse pins in them last week, but now I'll be in full-on order-packing mode to ship all the remaining orders! There's about 140 of you but I think I can get them all out by the end of next week! 💪 I'm excited for you all to get them! :D
Where are you planning to put them? Mine are going on a banner where I collect one of each of the pins I've made. 😊
P.S: it seems silly not to mention my current campaign again with this update, so if you haven't checked it out already I'd love for you to consider backing my Warped Oceans Pintopia project! All the pins have now been unlocked! 👀 All the best,
I got some more photos from my pin manufacturer today! The War, Famine and Death pins are all finished, and the Conquest pins will be electroplated tomorrow, so they should be shipping out to me soooon! XD
I'm really happy with how these are looking and wait to get the chance to see them irl. Here's a look at the three finished pins:
War
Famine
Death
nothing to see here
I think the colour-adjustment on the Famine pin has worked out great! I hope you think so too! :D
All the stickers have arrived with me too so here's a preview of how those have turned out:
Conquest Sticker
War Sticker
Famine Sticker
Death Sticker
Death Head Sticker
Furbtaur Sticker
I'm also going to be collecting and unwrapping the prints tomorrow! XD I'll take some photos of those to share with you soon too!
Recently the horse cookie mini pin and the furbtaur pins arrived so here's peek at how they've turned out:
cookie horse mini pin
Furbtaur 1
Furbtaur 2
I've also just ordered the backing cards for the horses and furbtaurs so here's a peek at what they're going to look like:
Backing card design
I hope you like them! The horse pins should be with me by the end of the month! It'll take a few days for me to check and back them, then I can start shipping! :D
First the boring bit: I've processed payments for shipping, extra add-ons, and US tariffs. Cards will charged on Wednesday! If you're A US backer this gives you time to notify your bank of the impending charge to prevent payment being refused as 'potential fraud' if you need to (this seems to happen with Backerkit charges a lot for some reason!)
The fun bit: I got another photo from my manu of the Famine test pieces! Below you can see the original grey on the left, and the new - much darker- grey on the right for comparison. I'm much happier with the look of this one so I've approved them for full production! :D
Two samples of the Famine pin: on the left with the original grey, on the right with the new much darker grey
I also got some photos of the finished Furbtaur and mini cookie pins, which are being shipped out to me this week! XD
Hello everyone, and Happy New Year for tonight! :D
I had some more photos from my manufacturer just before Christmas, this time with finished colour proofs for me to check before main production begins!
Here's how Conquest and War look so far:
Conquest colour proof
War colour proof
I'm happy with how Conquest and War have turned out, especially Conquest! However there was a small misunderstanding and the War horse proof is missing the white enamel fill from it's halo. That will be fixed for the full production set.
Here are the proofs for the Famine and Death pins:
Famine colour proof
Death colour proof
I'm asking for some minor adjustments to these two as well:
- For the Death horse I've decided the flames from the eyes would be better in all black, rather than partially grey. It will have more impact. You may also notice I've made the more distant legs have light green instead of white bones. I hope you approve of the change!
- For the Famine horse I'm a little undecided at the moment but I want to change the grey highlights on the body. The grey has baked lighter than I anticipated for the Pantone I chose and I think it's muddling the image somewhat instead of adding depth as I'd intented. My manu is currently putting through another sampe with a darker grey on those section for me to look at but I'm also debating just making the whole of the horse's body black instead.
I'd love to know what you all think about the body colour decision for Famine so vote in the poll below if you have an opinion on the options!?
(Side note, I'm still waiting on 15 surveys and some people's payments haven't cleared so please check on your pledges folks!) I'll be charging cards for shipping and add-ons on the 5th of January.
My pin manufacturer has sent me some work-in-progress photos so I can share a bit of the process with you! Here are the Famine and Death pins as metal molds, ready for colouring:
Famine
Death
And here are some of the pins filled with enamel:
Several of the pins in the colouring progress
You can see in this photo that the enamel colour is flooding over the silver metal outlines. Once the enamel has hardened the pins will be sanded down to create a smooth level surface of metal and enamel, and then the metal will be electro-plated with gold.
This sanding process is why I had to thin down the lines of the manes and tails from my original design. Because hard-enamel pins are sanded down the metal lines turn out a little thicker than the original mold when finished, which in the case of fine detail means you sometimes end up with lines blurring together. My manufacturer was very careful at the proofing stage to make sure we avoid that.
It's been lovely to get more WIP photos from my manufacturer this time around, so that I can check the colour palettes and designs are turning out as expected! I can't wait to see the finished pins! XD
I hope you find the WIPs interesting. All the best,
I'm trying out something new with this project and inviting you all to follow along with me as I develop the designs for this pin collection all the way from reference drawings to sketches to finished pin art!
Follow the campaign to get notified of updates as I work and you'll also get to provide feedback on my designs and even help me make turning-point decisions via Polls as we go!
I hope that you'll enjoy coming on this journey to the Apocalypse with me. :D
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If you haven't come across me before my name is Abi and I'm an illustrator who loves to design enamel pins. I've run 12 successful campaigns over on Kickstarter but this will be my third campaign since my move to Backerkit and this time I really want to take advantage of the Updates feature to get you all involved in the development process! :D
(If you want to see/shop my existing pin designs you can find me on Bluesky and Etsy!)
You can check out my Updates for a more detailed breakdown of my process but here's a peek at the designs so far:
