Shipping Continued + Minor Delay for Residuals (Still Waiting on Last Remakes)
Hey friends! This is a short update just to keep everyone posted on progress. The short of it is that shipments are still undergoing and the Alchemy team is working on it still....
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2 months ago
Shipping: Gold Seals, Progress, Final Remakes
Hey everyone! We apologize for almost updating a bit too much now, but Mel and Jess at the Alchemy HQ have been doing fulfillment for the last 3 days fairly nonstop, as per the ...
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2 months ago
Update: Shipping Lockdown (Final Notices Sent!)
Hey everyone! This is just a very short update that I sent out a courtesy lockdown notice through the system, which should have included the address your package is going to! If...
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3 months ago
Update: Production P6 & Upcoming Shipping Lockdown Notice
Hey friends! We really hope the beginning of the year has gone well for you! We’re here again to update on Purrtagonists events - so let’s get to it!
To start with a positive, ...
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6 months ago
Update: Production P5 - The Good, The Bad, & The Seconds
Hey everyone! Apologies for the delay with updates - right now, it's just Mel and Venetia working on this campaign, and we've both doing our best considering what's been happeni...
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8 months ago
Update: Production P4 - Final Pins, Continued Pins, Good Pins and Bad Pins
Hey all - it’s Mel and Venetia tapping in today with an update.
Thanks so much for your patience with us over the production period; Mel and Venetia are mostly still dealing...
Hey friends! This is a short update just to keep everyone posted on progress. The short of it is that shipments are still undergoing and the Alchemy team is working on it still. We appreciate your patience while we work through everything!
More detailed info:
Right now, we stand at about 63% done with packages. We've started hitting some of the massive packages; we timed one of the bigger packages and assembling it (not counting grading time) took about 29 minutes just to punch the pins into cards, sleeve them, get them into the assembled box, write up the clearances and tape/label the box. As such, we slowed down a fair bit from the initial while starting to handle these. (It's just Mel and her sis working on these, currently.)
We are dancing timewise a bit between spring cons - each show itself is about a week since there's setup and travel, plus any time needed to prep for the show itself. In the last 5.5 weeks since the last update, there were two shows, so the remaining 2.5ish weeks of time we've done as much as we could (alongside finishing other shop tasks like pin club, braving business tax season, working with manufs for other ongoing designs - always a lot going on).
Almost all of the truly terrible pins have been graded; what remains are the better (and/or remake) ones that were delayed while wading through the (literal) thousands of bad pins. This is concurrent with packing.
We're still waiting on the Prince/King Lich remakes that were mentioned in the last update, but anything else outstanding has arrived with us. We're hoping that this is the last of the remakes we need.
Remaining timeline:
Jess is scheduled to come up for a last day or two of fulfilment toward the end of the month, and Mel is hoping to have around 80% done before that happens. There are still a lot of big packages hanging out, so we're wanting to get those out the door if possible, but that may make it seem slower progress wise while we handle those.
The original anticipated date for the standards drop may be toward the end of the month now coinciding with Jess coming up. We'll follow up again before it happens via an update (so if Mel doesn't update, it hasn't happened yet).
Because of how we're going through items, we cannot tell you where you fall in the lineup. Grading fatigue is a real thing (you stop seeing errors if you grade too long, and also give yourself bad headaches pretty easily if you're not careful), so Mel is grading in sections then packaging. We're doing our best to start as many packages as space allows so not all big packages are at the end.
Last reminder:
If you have an address change and have not gotten a label, you're welcome to email in. If Mel can change it, she will - [email protected].
If you have further questions, feel free to drop them below or in Discord, and Mel will answer as soon as she can.
Hey everyone! We apologize for almost updating a bit too much now, but Mel and Jess at the Alchemy HQ have been doing fulfillment for the last 3 days fairly nonstop, as per the previous schedule (brought to you by Dunkin' Donuts and a local tea shop)! We thankfully had some family help (shoutout to Mel's sister and mom), so with exactly 120 cumulative fulfilment hours over the weekend (plus hundreds of grading hours that is a horrific fever dream of endless b grades), we're happy to announce the first packages have been mailed! :D
This supervisor has approved this sendout.
We worked through about 180 packages (about 40%), and we may do a few more before needing to pause today. If you have a label, it should be dropped off already, or will be tonight (last of the domestics, international).
A small little feature is the gold seals! These are random!! If you find a full gold wax seal in your pack, feel free to email us with a photo of your packing slip + your seal together, and you'll be eligible for a free seconds pin from this campaign of your choice.
The gold seals look a bit like this, just with the three different guild logos.
Shipments will resume on return for the remaining 60% as Jess is returning to her place today, and Mel is pivoting into con prep. We're still awaiting some small remakes so when Mel is back, Mel & her sister will be handling everything up to what's impacted by those holds, but we're hoping we get those replacements within the late month. This mainly concerns a handful with Prince/King Lich (same manufacturer that caused the initial nightmare, same issues). (If you have these either of these two pins and don't get a label today and wish to swap to a different pin, feel free to message and I (Mel) can see if we have standards of other pins we can ship you.) - NOTE: We will announce when shipments are complete. Our target for finishing everything in between our convention schedule is roughly mid-April, with a remaining stock drop around then.
Shipping reminders & notes:
If there’s something wrong with your order, you have 30 days from delivery to contact us. If it gets lost/misdelivered/destroyed by the post demons, please follow the notes below, but contact us ASAP! Please allow for 1 week for domestic mailings (contact with issues no later than 30 days - all domestics are insured at a baseline); please allow 20 days for insured international mailings (contact for issues no later than 60 days).
One main change is that Mel did end up needing to take over the United Kingdom orders that Venetia initially had. Because of the huge issues with the manufacturer, what was intended initially on being a split wasn't feasible to split anymore since pins were rerouted to the States due to error rates. This ended up being more expensive per package for us, but still less than shipping everything over to the UK then re-shipping it out. We covered this price change internally.
Other insurance related notes:
All domestic packages had a baseline insurance of $50; and if you bought additional insurance I bumped it up according to the your package price.
International packages by default do not have insurance (are tracked to border); insurance was added on request, but I did bump packages up to insured when the difference was minimal
Packages with more than 18 pins were all insured by default.
If insured, we can handle claims within the window above! USPS, UPS and DHL are all very strict about these deadlines!
Customs are the responsibility of the client; please keep an eye on packages if you get a label! If it gets held, you will be contacted with the information you provided the system, but sometimes you can poke the customs demons to release it earlier electronically.
Other notes/clarifications:
Between everything, we are shipping several thousand pins with this campaign, and as such (especially with all the ridiculous error rates), there are multiple people helping with grading. We did our best to equalize the grading scale off of Mel's normal grading; we often rechecked pins more than once, but slip ups do happen. If something very obvious was missed, please just shoot us a message and we'll see what we can do. We are releasing the BEST of the pins we have available, no exceptions.
For the freebie D20, we did end up noting that it had a fair amount of oxidation that had occurred in the silver plating, which isn't an uncommon flaw in silver plated pins but also is something we'd normally grade down for. Due to the nature of the pin (as a free element) and the general severity (not awful), we graded specifically for scratches and underfills and really bad oxidation, but otherwise passed them.
Otherwise, things have been going fairly well in the grading and fulfilling department, and we're excited to see all of these little packages come together. A lot of the fun is having a "package" experience, so we hope you enjoy how we put things together!!
Finally - have some pictures of a cat being a supervisor while we were headed to drop things off:
With many kittens and too few braincells, Mel, Jess (& the cheerleading Venetia)
Hey everyone! This is just a very short update that I sent out a courtesy lockdown notice through the system, which should have included the address your package is going to! If there is an issue with the address, please email (or update it within the system). If you have changed states, you will need to email it in.
Jess will be stopping by next week and helping me start actual fulfilment; we are looking at starting to drop packages off from March 1 to March 5, then I'll be out for a convention week, then I'll solo finish everything when I return (I'll attempt to update when we've gotten a bit into it to update how things are looking - I'm unsure yet of how fast it'll be).
I still have a fair bit to grade between here and there, but we've hit the point where major sections can be released since most of the most-terrible-awful pins from the nightmare manufacturer have now been logged and just the remakes remain (which, hypothetically, will be less painful). I did one emergency reorder of a pin that was a tiny bit short last month (which was in the remake squad - I just didn't order enough with the adjusted pins because I assumed we'd have SOME standards from the original set... but I was wrong, we were about 2 for 400 pins as standard), so I'm hoping that makes it to me soon; this shouldn't hamper the beginning of fulfilment. I'll update on that when I know a bit more in the next update with fulfilment notes.
(These pin sendouts will happen first in one wave BEFORE the others, due to how segmenting works)
We've had a fair few questions of residuals - for standard copies, we won't be releasing them until all fulfilment is complete - we're probably looking at April sometime. There will be a joint drop on Alchemy's shop to cover the outstanding overage caused by remakes, so if you're looking to save from shipping that will be up for a limited time for ALL makers in one place. But again, it won't be before fulfilment finishes, however long that takes.
If you're interested in seconds copies, you can email in a request and I can see if I can help ([email protected]). We already have these for cons to cover remakes, so custom invoicing is available (just, again, not standards). We will also list up the extras of these lads with the standards later on. All bajillion of them.
Addresses automatically lock tomorrow at around 10PM.
In other news... I did change up the "big" backing cards a tiny bit, but I did enjoy the final result. (I started this over a few too many times before settling with this design, even though it's simple.) There are these big cards (one per guild), and then smaller cards as needed with the generalized campaign logo on the back for single pins. These, below, are the backs of these group cards.
Hey friends! We really hope the beginning of the year has gone well for you! We’re here again to update on Purrtagonists events - so let’s get to it!
To start with a positive, here’s a board Mel assembled (of seconds) of the pin designs. There are a few missing (notably Jess’s designs and a few fillers) as these are just the seconds that are sold at shows, but there’s something charming about seeing them all together. (As a reminder, no standards are currently being sold; seconds are being sold to begin covering the extreme remake costs. Even with the end-of-year sales and conventions, we’ve only covered an eighth of that cost so far so we're still largely negative with costs in the campaign and using our own funds to cover residuals.)
In general news, all of the remade/replacement pins are here for the flawed pins. While this probably seems like a “why haven’t you begun shipping” status, it’s more complex than it originally sounds. Despite having these new replacements, we still have to grade the initial batches for three reasons: to get any potential standards out of them (there are sometimes only one or two per 50, but we’ve seen bags with no standards at all, but it’s still something we need to do since we placed new orders based on their expected error rates), to provide numbers back to the first manufacturer in an attempt to get any more refunds due to their massive quality standard blunders, and to, finally, figure out if the remade counts will fully cover the errored batches.
As such, we’re working through almost double the number of original pins for Venetia’s designs, documenting the errors, and seeing if the standard number suffices. We’re also finishing grading for all of the rest of the pins (but that’s closer to done). That’s our current hurdle.
However, we are beginning to near the finish line, with many pins having the acceptable sendout amounts, so we are tentatively putting a shipping lockdown for February 18th, 2024. Please have your addresses correct in the system by this time! We’re hoping to start shipping packages by month’s end, or the beginning of next.
Some of you expressed interest in just getting a seconds batch of pins since you didn’t mind flaws. You can request this HERE which will substitute your pins for high-seconds (so just very small flaws). We will handle any requests on this list first (just due to how sequencing works, we’d have to pull them first to handle grade adjustments).
As a quick addition, with the help of Mel’s family, we have gotten all of the accessory items finished. This includes finishing the vinyl sticker packs and the thank you “quest” notes. Many of you were wondering what the “Guild” designation meant in the surveys, and it correlated to these small seals on the quest notes (Mel’s mom and sister largely did these - sister called it a “creative project,” which was her contribution to prep because she hates grading). This is obviously more of a fun thing for aesthetics. We'll have extra seals listed up if anyone wants to snag the missing seals later, but more on that later.
Again, we want to thank everyone for all of the patience you’ve shown with the campaign with all of the weird hurdles. We’re excited to get these out to you soon!
Hey everyone! Apologies for the delay with updates - right now, it's just Mel and Venetia working on this campaign, and we've both doing our best considering what's been happening. We'd both been heavily prepping for NYCC in October (with Mel attending two other events immediately afterwards), but our major hangup has still been with the extreme difficulties surrounding Venetia’s manufacturer, including being ghosted for large chunks of time while seeing some of the worst error rates either of us have ever seen.
If looking for seconds shop info, that's at the endin the backer section! Cookies if you read the rest of this though. We know it's long.
We’re echoing notes from the last update: we have a mix of bad and good news. A minor positive before going into the ouch news: at this point we have all pins that aren’t impacted by the news below in our possession. These pictured are the last ones to be showcased (everything else has been shown, unless Mel is really bad at documenting, which is possible, but there are... 55 pin designs).
In addition, attached to this update is a small poll as Mel's doing some designs for the backing cards. Would you rather have one fun "adventuring" style noting some of the stops/adventures in the campaign, or individual cards based on the three guilds? No wrong answer here! Generally large cards have less waste, but small cards are more easily reusable.
Onto the bad news. The bad news is that, unfortunately, we are still somehow waiting for the finals of Venetia’s pins to be finished with the original manufacturer. We've sent multiple emails about this to them - asking for refunds, asking for proof, asking for them to get moved along - you name it, we've tried it. They've just been extremely resistant to any compromises that admit fault on their end (which hadn't been an issue prior to the representative being replaced), and the quality (as we mentioned in the last update) went into the garbage can. This was… unexpected on Venetia’s end, as it was a manufacturer she’d had for years, so we hadn’t anticipated having any major issues with them.
The last update we got from Venetia’s manufacturer before NYCC was that Spud was the final pin waiting to be colored, but that’s the last we heard until we pushed again for another update which we finally got last week. The Chinese national holiday Golden Week did delay some responses, but that doesn’t excuse the company for taking well over a month to say anything specific.
Unfortunately, after probing and pushing for the update, we found out that Spud did not pass their quality checks and was being remade - again. Not only that, but two other pins have also been sent back after not passing their "quality checks" and haven’t finished being remade yet. Some of these pins have been in production and remade for the better part of a year, and they haven’t even been sent to us yet in any capacity. They will not send out any other pins until they are all finished (including other unrelated pins Venetia has been waiting for for 5 months - which have apparently been remade six times).
Of course, also, we’d already seen some of their “remade” and “quality checked” pins - they’d told us that huge underfills that encompassed the entire pin (shown in the last update) weren’t issues because you couldn’t see it from the side, told us these flaws were “polishing issues” (as if we didn’t know what an underfill looked like), and spent multiple emails telling us that extreme bubbling (like 5+ bubbles per pin, on average) were “normal” and scratches that were sometimes an inch long were “unavoidable”. We’ve reached the end of our sanity with this company, and are doing our best to come to any compromise that’ll take.
Hey all - it’s Mel and Venetia tapping in today with an update.
Thanks so much for your patience with us over the production period; Mel and Venetia are mostly still dealing with the main bulk of production, and we’ve been working hard behind the scenes. We’re a week behind schedule with this update so you have our apologies - Mel’s had a death in the family this week and Venetia’s dealing with her 6-month-old daughter while trying to run her business, so even writing this update was a ping pong game between us. Thank you very much for sticking with us – you get cookies if you get to the bottom of this update.
All said, long story short, we have some good news and some bad news.
Some of the good news first – Jess’s Basil, Moss and Nightshade pins are finished and the quality checks look good according to Jess’s feedback. The same goes for many of the filler pins – these have arrived from Mel’s first manufacturer and are being quality checked by Mel. The only one in Jess’s batch of fillers that we’ve seen significant errors with is the Map of Meowing, which Mel’s already worked out remakes with the manufacturer and these are nearing completion.
Mel’s pins of the DERP guild are all in production or finished and in the process of being checked. We have mentioned this before but some of the sampling processes can take a while because of the difficulties with Pantone colors, how well some manufacturers can match them, and then playing the trial-and-error game of picking new Pantones until they look right and as identical as possible to the artwork in the campaign. We also faced the previously mentioned issues where the representative was sick in the hospital for a while and straight up forgot about some pins. We have four pins being finalized for samples now from that set, but the rest are all complete/being completed in mass production.
Generally speaking, we haven't seen any excessive error rates aside from the Map of Meowing already mentioned from the manufacturer, and the secondary manufacturer working on the remaining pins (while slower) has a decently acceptable error rate as well. While not perfect, we don't anticipate needing remakes for this pin to finish getting standards for later fulfillment.
Here are some samples of pins you haven’t seen yet from this set:
Featuring: Abitail, Castor, Coda, the Health Potion, a revised Sully, and Bones (with glows)
In addition, the Guardian sword pictured in the last update is now a reality - this just exited mass production (from a fifth manufacturer that took this on).
The "loot" that was unlocked in the last update!! :D
Mel’s also working on bagging the sticker packs, and finishing up production on the microfiber cloths in the campaign (these should be shipped before the end of this month). Since these had a 1,000 MOQ, we had to wait until we were ready with a multi-design order before we could get those into production, but we had enough recently to begin them, and they should be here before month’s end.
Unfortunately the most complicated of problems comes with Venetia’s pins (centered around the pins in the Destruction guild).
As mentioned previously, we had some weird problems when Venetia’s rep who she trusted and had worked with on previous pin campaigns, where they either quit or got fired. (The rep claims she quit, the company who she worked with claims she was fired after they’d ghosted us for a time and finally came clean that they weren’t the same rep anymore.) The pins were already paid for and begun with production at this point, so we had to continue with the process. However, as time has gone on with the new rep, we have run into a barrage of issues with both this campaign along with any residual orders Venetia had with this company.
First the colors on some samples were often way off the ones we provided in the artwork, so that took a lot of juggling to sort out. Artwork was also changed without warning and sometimes without good reason with design elements. Then when production began the rep claimed through her “quality checks” that many pins were not up to standard and had to be remade (Dragon Cat went through this process three times).
Then, finally, a portion of the first batch of pins were finished and arrived with Mel. Heartbreakingly, 90% of the pins have quality issues which aren’t passable. Many aren’t passable even for seconds grade, let alone standards.
Ugh. We hurt. They called all of the above "acceptable"
All of the above errors were very common. You can probably see some of the errors above - the dragons all had large underfills in the full body or just the tail (the pastel, specifically, had almost 55% that were far below even secondary grade lines, and the rest were secondaries with only 3 as standard). We also saw extreme textures that couldn't be removed (as seen on Pesto), scratching from poor polishing, more minor underfills, and many many many bubbles that were prevalent in all pins from this manufacturer. This wasn't an issue in any other manufacturers.
Out of the designs which have arrived so far (Pesto, Prince, King Lich, Simon, Imp, Biscuits, and both colors of Cute Dragon Cat), Prince and King Lich have the highest pass rate of 40%. This means if the company ships the remaining spare pins we ordered, we should have just enough for those of you who have ordered them. The rest have between a 4 and 5% standard pass rate, which is abysmal, and means for some pins we only have about 3 which are standard grade even if we graded everything without exception.
We have been having a large back and forth both between ourselves and then with the company trying to figure out the best step to take next. This has included grading all of the pins that have arrived with Mel and documenting all of the flaws one at a time. This is already a large task to do one time (without documenting pins), but adding the correspondence and documenting has made the situation worse.
Since there were so many different issues to varying degrees of -bawling-our-eyes-out-terrible- on most of the designs, we had concerns about asking the company to remake them once again only to have more quality control issues, especially given that some had already been remade many times before being sent to us due to not passing the rep’s quality control. (With, of course, the added element that the pins shipped to us were then ‘good enough to pass’ their quality control, thus we dread to think what the original flaws were like). It was also clear from our exchanges that we weren’t considering the same things as flaws (as they called huge underfills as “overpolishing” and excused large amounts of bubbles in enamel as “unavoidable” - both entirely false things).
Unfortunately many of the remaining pins in this guild are with this company (other than Abigail and Catalina, which were with Mel’s company due to their pearl effects and precise screen printing). So our plan is proposed to them as follows:
Get the remainder of Prince and King Lich shipped to Mel to grade and set aside good copies for fulfillment
Get as much of our money refunded as possible for Pesto, Simon, Imp, Biscuits, and both colors of Cute Dragon Cat to cover the costs to remake the pins elsewhere
Have 100 of each remaining design shipped to Mel once they are finished so she can check quality, and we can then decide what to do from there (and if a miracle occurs, they’re passable). These designs are: Soot, Spud, Unknown, and both colors of Enraged Dragon Cat
The above proposal was put to the representative of Venetia’s company two weeks ago, but the rep has since replied saying she is on leave as her daughter is ill in hospital. She said when she is back she will “apply for the best solution with her boss and reply to us”... So at the moment we are waiting while anxiously biting our nails off.
Since all of the money from this campaign has gone into producing the products for this campaign, we are in a very tight situation with getting these pins sorted. However, due to the delays already caused by the size of the campaign design wise, we are very conscious of anything extending those delays. We decided to use some of our own funds to get a smaller number of the designs with issues made at another, more trusted company which Mel had contact with and had already completed their share of pins (not the one still ongoing production). These are now being sorted and we’ve already restarted this process.
We completely understand any frustration people have had so far with the delays, but please know we are working on this as much as we can (as well as dumping many extra thousands in to make sure quality is maintained), and these issues have been difficult to navigate & make known until we had talked things through with the manufacturer and had some sort of a concrete plan moving forward.
We do want to assure you that, for all pins that are good, we are making sure applicable standard/good grade pins are set aside and held in reserve for backers first and won’t be touched for any reason. We wanted to be clear that no standards will be sold until we have everything fulfilled (though we've begun tossing the excessive number of trash pins we have into the trash bins at cons); we're still deciding on whether we have the space to bring a small board of these designs to NYCC, but it will only be in seconds grades at their adjusted retail costs. This is partially necessary to just recoup some costs, as with the error/remakes, we likely won't see any returned funds for a minute with the rep being unreachable.
All said again, thank you for bearing with us until the end of the update, and we understand it was a bit of a lengthy thing to offer transparency to the situation. By the next update, Mel is hoping to have enough pins graded from the original shipments to know if anything else will have issues with errors (and resolve that if it's necessary) as well as setting aside all fulfilment-reserved standards, and is hoping to have all the remakes sampled and in mass manufacturing by then (with the remaining either finishing or finished with mass manufacturing).
- Mel & Venetia (& the rest of the Purrtagonists crew)
Hey everyone! Thanks for your patience as always as we’ve been working on things. As you may have seen on Instagram, we had almost all of the filler pins arrive last month, and a few of the larger pins as well. I’m dropping by to give another status update with things.
There is one key item that I did want to make clear with the campaign as I believe I didn’t articulate it as well as I could have, and for that I apologize for misaligning expectations. The original estimates for the campaign were for a 20-25 pin design campaign. With the campaign ending with 55 designs, that put a ton of manufacturing workload + design complications as we were suddenly finishing an additional 30+ designs. As we hand vector everything which is usually a day for each pin, that’s over a month in vectors alone - with nothing else included. Obviously, we still would have wanted earlier shipment dates if we could have, but with so many pins, it was near impossible that all 55 sets would finish early (even barring a miracle where no errors or art adjustments occurred).
We’ve also had some… minor manufacturer drama, where we had a rep who lied about being fired from one of our factories and started trying to contact us elsewhere, which led to some major ghosting and confusion… and it turns out she was illegally using the factory’s resources to make pins afterward, had notices sent to all her old contracts and… it was a mess. We did get a new representative there, but it took a minute to get straightened out. Then we had another rep from a different factory get majorly sick (like hospital sick) and stopped responding for several weeks; on returning, she forgot about a few pins for months in a sick-haze, and only realized she hadn’t submitted them when we inquired about the confirmed pins on where progress was. While both of these situations are now sorted out, while dealing with so many designs, we had to juggle a bit.
All said, my current target date is to have all items graded before NYCC (where Venetia is also attending!) and to start shipping packages out. This is early-to-mid October. That show is the first one we’ll anticipate having the pins present, but we may only bring seconds grades there (depending on how far we are with fulfillment at the time). The priority will always be securing and setting aside the best grades for backers, so it largely will depend on how far along the process we are for those pins at that time.
🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲
The last thing to get finished this last month was the Guardian Sword, as you guys voted early in the year. It was the final chest drop from our story, reimagined from Tim Kaminski’s Inktober sword sketches. The finalized artwork ended up being a deluxe pin. We won’t change the pricing on anyone, of course, and you’ll just get it for way cheaper than intended (or free, if you had a full set). We just couldn’t add in the sword in a way that didn’t compromise the design at anything less than 3”. This is in production now. :D
Other than that, the campaign by the number:
23 pins fully finished with manufacturing (started some grading)
12 in mass manufacturing
20 in sample passes and/or final adjustments - we had to do some remolding on 5 of the pins because of some close cut areas that didn’t turn out well, so we paid to redo the molds to make it cleaner
Some photos of some more of the pins:
🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲
All said, we are truly excited that we started getting these pins in. It’s weird to see the whole adventure unfolding in physical form. We’d love to know what your favorites are from the showcased pins! Let us know. :D
I’ll touch base again sometime in the middle-to-end of next month; I’m hoping to see most of the items currently in mass manufacturing complete, and most of the items in sampling into mass manufacturing, but I’ll keep everyone posted then.
Hey friends! Mel here with an update. As scheduled, we didn't have an update last month since I was largely unavailable (didn't have a computer woo), but we're back to monthly updates now; we appreciate all of your patience as we had some huge life items going on (kinda ongoing - me with a move from hell, and Venetia with her newborn). Venetia and I have been handling production and things are moving along!
For clarity (as this was a fair point): Our original ETA was about May with 18-24 designs. We had 55 in the campaign; I’ll shoulder the blame for the experimental crowdfunding design and wanting to go through with its more whimsical nature, and we’ve had slowdowns with our vector help needing to pace themselves as well (and us too, with life). I’ll probably know next month with better reworked timeline estimates, but we’ll always push for the best product first.
Largely right now we're experiencing the waiting game. Our timelines (as previously noted) are going to be extended: having 55 pins in a campaign (oops...?) has been a slug to get through since everything is hand vectored then confirmed, and (despite best efforts) the manufacturers have definitely slowed down with being hit by this many pins at once. We did split them up (largely coupling same makers together, but also with what effects and styles each manuf was known for), but it still has reflected where 1-2 week processes are taking months.
Here are some quick stats for you:
6 pins now remain in the vector queue with our vector assistant - we did have a small error that caused some delays where the source files weren't pulled from the right location (not pulling from provided links and instead pulling from old campaign files on BK's page), so we're having to go back and revise some items. These are largely what remains in the to-do docket.
8 pins have been finished with proofing but are requiring some adjustments between us and the manufacturer - mostly confirming color codes
15 pins are being waited on for samples and/or adjustments. We're not super pleased with this particular holdup, as most of these were submitted for sampling in February, but sometimes this happens. We're working on it and hope to have these to show in the next update. For the ones that are awaiting adjustments, this is mostly standard process for us - just making sure they're right (there are a notable two that we're starting over from scratch because the manufacturers adjusted the artwork in the sample process for drilling and we didn't like the result)
23 pins are in mass manufacturing! :D
3 pins are fully done
Our goal for the coming update next month is that we have everything fully into production and most of everything either being in adjustments with sampling (not just waiting for samples) or in mass manufacturing. That's the hope, but it'll largely be on the manufacturers to pick up the pace a bit.
We're definitely a bit behind where we'd hoped we'd be at this point, but with life having been more rollercoaster-y than possibly could have expected between Venetia and myself, we hope you're still excited and looking forward to these! We are still happy with the pins we've seen so far, and would love to know what your favorites are!
We appreciate all of your patience and enthusiasm for the project! <3
Hey friends! Thanks so much for your patience on this campaign! As you well know, we had a ton of designs in this campaign, so it created quite the queue of things to be completed. We've also had some notable life changes, with Venetia giving birth to her child, and Mel (me!) moving my entire house/storage unit/office into a new place in a somewhat rushed fashion. We've definitely been a bit more crazed in life than usual!
However, I did want to spend a minute and drop in some updates. We did have a large gap with Chinese New Year, so we're just seeing some updates now.
Our current stats:
Three pins in mass manufacturing
27 pins in sampling (various stages)
8 pins where we're revising the artwork with the manufacturers (almost entirely pantone codes not agreeing between us and the manufacturers, so we're trying to get that ready)
16 pins that are in the vector queue (in progress) with one duplicate
Stickers are printed and in-hand!
Microfibers - going into production soon (the manufacter takes about 2 weeks after samples, so less concerned on time on these and will probably go into production this month)
Some images:
As pins are finished and shipped to us, we'll get started with grading and getting items set up for mass shipments so we'll be ready later on when they're fully available.
We'll update in about a month/month and a half with more progress (likely when I returned from the over-the-ocean show + wrap up maintenance when I return)! Everything will be done in waves, so pins will be done in a somewhat staggered fashion (and we're pushing them to the manfucturers as we complete the artwork). It'll allow us a bit more wiggle room with things arriving and being able to complete them instead of being hit by thousands of pins at once.
Anyway, that's all from the team today! :D We hope you're doing well.
Good news: 92% of backers have filled out their surveys! In a few hours, if you've completed your survey, we will be billing any cards for add-on items and shipping. If you chose to use the Paypal option, this won't impact you as payment through Paypal was instantaneous. Thank you for being on top of it! :D
For the 8% who haven't filled out your surveys, you have until Feb. 1 to submit these. Reminders have been sent out to you if this is you! If you need help, please reach out to us.
If you weren't part of the original campaign, but wish to grab some pins, you can still get them from the preorder store. These will be fulfilled after the main campaign's rewards are done. Find the preorder store here: https://d-d-cats.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
That's basically all I have from our end at this time, as we're working through all the art! The filler pins will probably be the first samples we see of the set, and we'll update when we have final samples of everything to show. From here on out, expect updates about once a month as we work through production.
Minor Manufacturing Update:
Quotes and payments have been made for 54/55 pins based off of estimations of counts at the 90% survey completion mark. We actually went a tiny bit over the funds of the campaign (lol), but it was necessary with potential error rates to order as many as we did.
Pins are being placed into production (for art) in waves as we finish up the vectoring work.
Thank you again for being purrfectly awesome! - Mel, Jess & Venetia
Hey friends! Merry Christmas (and happy holidays) to all.
Just wanted to let you know that the surveys are formally out for everyone after a successful smoke test. The survey itself should be relatively straightforward (hopefully), but please reach out to [email protected] if you need assistance.
These are due for lockdown on January 15th so we can get accurate stock counts and payments will be processed at that time.
Some other notes:
If you successfully redeemed the promotional free D20 pin, it was added to your carts already! It will show up in your item list at the cart. This was if you signed up before launch and pledged, or pledged during the first 48 hours at 3+ pin tiers.
If you don't wish to add anything, the only thing you will owe is shipping. You can also add insurance to packages if you wish (this is part of the survey).
If you find that you're adding more than 3 standard pins, you may want to consider upping your pledge with the pledge swap function! By doing so, you get a small discount per pin with a free freebie pin.
For 3+ pin pledges, the vinyl stickers are free! However, based on past feedback on people wanting (or rather, not wanting) stickers, we included it as an optional item in the survey. Saying yes provides the stickers immediately at no cost.
If you can't seem to find your pledge response requested email, go to this URL (https://d-d-cats.backerkit.com/) and enter in your email. As long as you're pledged, it'll send you your survey.
If you missed the campaign as well, the preorder store is open! While the ala carte option won't have the freebie fillers/etc, it will still have the preorder pricing included (just no extras). You can find the store here through 1/31/23 (cards charged beginning 1/15): https://d-d-cats.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
Also, here are the stickers noted above! We did get them finished over the last week.
You guys wanted some cursed objects so.... Max made some cursed objects, lol.
Annnnd that's it! Thanks for tuning in and stay warm out there (not like me, where my furnace decided it wanted to not do its job so the house got to 38 degrees; do not suggest, lol).
Hey friends! I wanted to touch base with you because things are a bit more delayed than we really wanted. We were facing a pretty tight schedule to have things sent out (with surveys) without being impacted by the holiday onrush, and unfortunately I've had a couple of weeks (basically the day after I sent the last update) that have not been fun.
To shortly summarize, one of my cats stopped eating or drinking and turned into a lethargic potato with insane poop, and four vet visits later we've just hit the point or sort of figuring it out. However, for two weeks I was basically hand-feeding him twice a day with a blended-funtimes-catfood cocktail, while he got shots, fluids, terrible emergency food and... more. We both were... super pleased with the situation. But, all of the urgent vet visits and the 1-hourish 2x daily feedings took a huge toll on my time and energy. I'd lost another cat over the summer who had grown up with the currently sick cat, and while I did all I could then, I had a lot of panic brewing from the ongoing situation; I hope my anxiety was understandable.
That all said, Venetia and I have been working on the surveys, but we've both been trying to single-handedly run both of our storefronts for the holidays; soon we'll be free and able to refocus a bit, but we're doing our best to try to get everything out the door for the holiday deadlines. For that we apologize, and it's mostly my fault with the whole pet emergency situation.
All of the assets have been completed (compiled below) -- we ended up with 55 designs in the campaign!? -- as well as the sticker designs from the stretch goal (we are aiming to have this shown with the surveys). One pin (the winning design of the Guardian, based on Tim Kaminski's art) will be converted in the coming month. We just confirmed it with the poll, so we're just looking at it now; we likely won't have it for the survey, so it'll be more of a blind pin addition.
We're now in the process of putting together the questions and making sure they accurately work for the tiers. You're welcome to compile your list of must haves from the below. We're hoping to have surveys ready by the end of the weekend.
Spread_Standard-Pins.jpg
In addition, we have a slight surprise... basically because someone made a joke in Discord and here we are. We'll be finishing up the design for this in the next week or so for a set of microfiber cloth. Each will be an addition for $6 (retail will be $8) - all three for $15. (We'll make it a specific question along as with an add-on item.)
Still will potentially adjust some of these... patterns, maybe not? But the center design will largely remain the same!
In terms of other updates: We've continued to work on the vectoring process, and the first few pins are complete. We'll be sending them off before the year ends to get their molds made.
We do recognize that there are... a LOT of pins in this campaign, so we'll be definitely splitting these up between manufacturers to tackle. Many of these may become limited editions depending on their popularity and what we can justify stocking, so we may only ever have some of them with this campaign.
Anyway, please let us know if there's anything we can help with. If nothing else, hopefully expect the smoketests to go out by the 18th, with the full surveys to go out on the 19th-20th depending on if edits need to be made.
Hey everyone! Thanks for your patience while we worked through the next stages of the Purrtagonists campaign! There were a fair few things we had to buckle down and do in the campaign itself over the last two weeks (a lot stemming from the new campaign model we’ve been experimenting with, as we couldn’t do a lot of pre-planning during the campaign itself). We were all a tiny bit swamped by the onrush of shows and the holiday season (both with family events and shopping focused items), so things have been a bit slower than we intended. I'm wading through it as quickly as possible given everything (with Venetia spot checking my work!).
We do have some pretty big notes here today, and while we’re not quite at the survey stage yet, we’re nearly there! We’re anticipating the survey to go out early next week (it will be one of the priorities I’m working on while at the convention this weekend, since I can’t pack any orders during that time away). I will post a formal update once they have been sent!
Firstly, we’ve already finished/begun the vectoring for a fair number of the pins, and will be continuing to work on the remainder until the end of the year. We all personally do this by hand to ensure that all the pins have very accurate translations in the manufacturing process. It does take longer, but we appreciate the preciseness it generally allows, especially with screenprints.
Second: The stickers have been ordered for the packs. We ordered extras just in case anyone wanted to add them on, of course, since Black Friday deals allowed us a bit of wiggle room. :D
Third: At the end of the campaign, we did achieve both the goal for Onicake’s stretch goal bard (any name suggestions for the meow?), as well as the sword from Tim Kaminski! The sword options are pictured below, and a vote is above. What is your favorite? We’ll translate that into a pin, as promised!
Fourth: One thing we learned from the campaign is that, with this more “interactive” model… characters change a lot! From the beginning of the creation process (almost 8 months ago now, at least for some of these), these characters felt conceptually different. Adding a story to them changed the tone drastically, and eventually they went and did a lot of things I’d originally not pictured. It was a bit of a lesson for us here!
Because of how early most of the Alchemy designs were done, we decided to give some of the earliest some minor adjustments to help fit the overall vibe. We think that these tweaks bring them more in line with the later counterparts (that were more impacted by the campaign, and saw more live tweaking). We did want to apologize a bit for this, but most improvements were adding screenprints and improving character expressions (etc) to better fit the characters they’d become.
These adjustments specifically were geared at: Tuff, Fluff, Floof, Gray, Castor For Tuff: We improved the armor given how he was… actually a proficient cat in the mini-saga, and also improved the more strictly chibi-esque eye appearance he previously had. Once the full lineup was done, he stuck out a bit for that! For Fluff/Floof: Arguably the biggest changes came to these two gals. By the end of the story, both largely didn’t fit their original cosmetic (costume) choices. Originally, they also weren’t siblings (way way back like 8 months ago). They were just two options for the same cat… then the community said they wanted both. That said, we did some fussing with them both to bring them back in line, and also to let them visually match since they were twins! Gray: These weren’t big changes! He mostly just gained a belt and a few small adjusted screenprints. Castor: The elderly gentleman gained a few plants, as the resident druid friend. We also noticed the perspective of the leaf was a bit wonky, so we fixed that to be more accurate.
We did want to apologize again for these particular changes as this isn’t the norm and we recognize this; this type of experimenting with the story was new for us too, and the visual changes were ultimately to bring things in line with each other – we did our best to retain everything that made them unique and just adjust clothing, etc. If we ever do something like this again, we’ll try to think of a better solution.
Fifth: Another thing that’s notable is that we worked on getting a sizing grid down for all of the pins between all three makers additions, to make sure that none stood out oddly (so no faces were about 1/100th the size of another if it wasn’t meant to be). With that, we actually realized that some of the later pins needed some size increases to fit. We’d designated all but one pin originally to be standard pins… but some of them just won’t allow for it (or would not translate well at such small scales).
This impacted only later additions: Bones (now 2.65”), Lich (aka cutout crazy demon cat, now 2.8”), Max (now 2.68”), Coda (now 2.68”). Most of these increased about half an inch. There aren’t any decreases in size. For most of these, the increases in sizes were largely logistical. The Lich, for example, wouldn’t be able to successfully cut out so many spaces with as high of a fidelity at a much smaller size, and we focused on making the Grimalkin Hollow gang more logistically lined up with the rest of their Destruction friends from Venetia’s lineup.
To be fair to everyone (since we understand that people did pledge in for specific pins), every third pin choice will have the option of getting any one of these pins at no upcharge, similar to how Basil is also a deluxe upcharge (but that one will be always at an upcharge). We will cover the upcharges on these additions – for example, if you got the 6 pin tier, your third and sixth pin choices will allow you to pick from the full list (with these four adjusted pins) at no additional fee for the four.
Sixth: Funds have gone through, so once we finish up the vectors, we’ll be sending the pins into production in batches.
Outside of those noted items, we’ll be continuing to work on getting the surveys out, so please expect to see them next week after the shows we have this weekend conclude. We will have an option for people to up their tiers if they wish to obtain the freebie fillers that were obtainable at 6/9/12 and the set tiers. We got a fair few emails concerning missing adjustments.
Please remember that shipping costs will be due with surveys, as noted in each of the pledges and in the confirms with pledging. We will leave shipping addresses open until later to allow any location changes to be done by everyone at a backer level, and will warn when those are going into lockdown. These will be billed with any/all residuals from the campaign.
I think that's all for today, but I appreciate your patience with us as we move into the next phase of this adventure!
For all of their might, it’s clear that the lich is playing with them; it’s the same way a predator teases prey trying to escape. There’s a cruelty in its actions, as if they’d stumbled too far into its web, and now it’d finally become interested enough to torture its victims itself. The creature’s weird chortling laugh bounces between all sides of the cavern.
The lich slips in and out of the shadows, materializing behind one of them and fixing his purple eyes on them until the screams die in their throats. The ice in their veins override their urges to run, and they only can stare until one of the other party members grab them by the scruff of their necks and yank them back to relative safety. For now, the creature doesn’t follow and just continues to test their mettle before returning to its perch to watch the chaos.
Anything non-magical is useless against the lich itself, and Tuff, Grey and Beau both resort to cutting down the summons that pull themselves out of the dirt to grab at the party. Fluff is shaking, her tail curled around her leg as she struggles to hang onto her chants. Her power is clearly failing, after pouring so much into the Wand of Sacred Fire, and there’s a lilting desperation to her spells. Abitail hangs beside her, casting concerned glances while weaving her own sorcery spells.
“Bones, are you okay?” Tuff yells between waves of monsters, and ducks as the minions sweep through a wave of the undead, their little bodies glowing brighter as they absorb the life essence of these dark creatures.
Despite their glowing bodies, Bones looks haggard, using his scythe as a support. His teeth flash as he grits them together in pain. “Don’t worry about me. The lich is far above our level. We’re out of holy magic, and nothing physical will do anything. By the way it’s acting, it can read us.”
“It’s a scrying lich?” Abitail casts out her magical yarn, which stretches itself taut and slices through a few opponents, but disintegrates with the use. She points wildly at the ceiling. “What does ‘yawning and laughing’ mean in lich language, Bones?!”
“It thinks it has new recruits soon?”
Gray’s eye twitches as he drags Fluff away from the dark shadows that erupt from the ground, shoving her behind Bones. “Oh, that’s charming. Next time, maybe tell us more potentially life threatening information about our destinations before we’re there.”
Bones looks apologetic. “Max and I just knew about the curse magic, not that a lich of this grade was behind it.” The dark chuckling made him jump, but the lich didn’t move from his perch this time. “We would have brought Soot if we’d known.”
“Famous last words, ‘should have brought the guild leader’.”
A bombing laugh made them all jump. “Did someone say guild leader? Oh Gray, why didn’t you say so sooner?”
Gray’s jaw goes slack as he twirls around, bumping straight into a giant cat with a lute strapped to his back. In his free hand, he holds an… oddly familiar yarn ball, and in the other, he’s dragging a very petulant looking Simon.
“Guild Master Coda!” Tuff squints. “Wait a minute, isn’t that…”
Fluff looks incredibly confused. “We sold that to Nightshade…”
Beau raises an eyebrow. “And how did you drag Simon here?”
“Alas, my little kittens, you didn’t see this gem for what it was worth. This, little ones, is a red string of fate. And this cat just happened to fall into my path as I was traveling.” Simon scrambles out of Coda’s grip, eyes narrowing dangerously as he clutches the chest that holds the chest he’d run away with from the dragon cat. “There are no coincidences.”
They’re interrupted by the lich bellowing above them, clearly no fan of these new reinforcements or the heightened mood. Immediately the ground shakes, splitting in more spots, and the bones begin rising out of the ground.
Abitail starts to raise her arms, but her magic flickers. She gasps, knowing she’s also tapped out. She whirls to DERP’s guild master. “Please, can you do something? I know you’re a bard but–”
“Oh, but this one possibly could.” Coda grabs Simon, who had been starting to slink off, then pushes him in front of Abitail. “You won’t have anyone to drink with at Catatonic Brews if you don’t save them, little black cat.”
With a long grumble, Simon unlocks the chest he’s been guarding, and fishes out the feather wand. With a disapproving look, he swishes it in the air. The demonic cackling ceases while they all wait, and then they slowly watch as the Lich goes from being colored by darkness to being layered in a sheen the color of blueberries. The pause breaks with a roar of anger.
Coda manages to block the splash of dark magic that rips through the room. “What –” Gray struggles out, “--is that shitty thing?”
“Wand of Wonder!” Coda yells out, just as Simon says something about being trash, and throws the wand to the ground. “Does random nonsense. Sometimes fireballs? Sometimes butterflies. First time I’ve seen that particular reaction.” They all look up as another screech of rocks the entire cavern, then to the front as the creature begins to materialize on the floor while summoning more skeletons. “Well, this might be bad.”
“This is your inspirational pep talk?!”
“Would it be better if I told you the lich really doesn’t like its new skintone?”
Suddenly, a “MEROWW” cries out from beneath them. They all jump and duck again as more magic flies by, and squint through the dust to find a small odd-looking cat holding the feather Simon discarded. Slowly, it turns its head, and the wand glows as it casts. The team freezes, waiting for the next weird occurrence.
Then they wait.
And wait.
Finally, they look at each other, then slowly look toward the fight they’d been distracted from… where they find the Lich completely petrified. Beau reacts first, loading three arrows into his bow and firing – each hitting true. Everything turns to dust, except for a skull that drops to the ground, and a chest that sits closed.
Abitail immediately grabs Simon. “If you dare touch that, I will tell Catalina all of your secrets.” Simon grumbles savagely, but Abitail instead ducks down and gets on her knees next to the unfamiliar little cat. “Are you Unknown?” The creature cocks its head. “Your dragon cat friend was looking for you.”
It seems to sigh at the adventurers, and they all shrug at this weird creature. It listens to them debate on whether they should return with it, or whether it’ll just wander home after hearing that the dragon cat was worried. They decide that the danger has passed, and take back the giant skull back to Max – along with the chest that was dropped along with it.
The members of the group in turn pat the little Unknown on the head, and he meows at each of them in parting. He watches as the adventurers, one by one, walk out of the cavern, and the dark little eyes follow them, before he gets up to join them.
Slowly, the little cat smiles, the snake on his tail hissing lightly, and the cat begins to follow, stepping through a bit of smoke that reaches for him from the burnt ground, and leaves the cave behind without a backward glance.
And...I've finished the story. Just short of 10,000 words. I don't know how long I expected a "chapter-by-chapter DnD campaign" to be, but I don't think it was quite this long. Some light reading, right??
I truly hope you've enjoyed this production/campaign/...thing and it's been memorable for you! Let me know in the comments if you've enjoyed the ride. I've been holding onto so many of these plot points for SO LONG.
Much love to all of you - we'll touch base soon, but in the meantime... let's power through the last 20 some hours of the campaign. :D
Hey friends! This is the first non-story update -- the first of probably a few since surveys and manufacturing will soon be underway. However, we're dropping in this time to remind everyone (or show you, if you haven't seen) the 'stretch goals' (coined as achievements) in this campaign. Since this platform is newer (as in, we're the 30thish campaign that's been here - we've been part of their test run!), we've been learning along with you what translates well and what's confusing, and we've heard from a few people that the stretch goals weren't as intuitive in this layout. We do communicate this back to them as best we can.
All of the designs in the campaign were unlocked from the get-go; all of your choices in the polls impacted what we would make or not. (Trust me, we had about half of the fillers originally... then we couldn't resist some of the story elements. Hello, talking to you Bones.)
As another reminder, if you look at the breakdown (by chapter), you can see what are standard pins and what are filler pins based on their backgrounds - ones with illustrated backgrounds are standard, obtained items (or smol creatures) are fillers, as noted in the body info. The perk in the 6/9/12 pledge tiers is that you add a filler pin for free with each (one for 6 pins, two for 9 pins, 3 for 12 pins). So basically, each 3 big pins, you get one filler for free. You can add money onto your pledge now and this does help the campaign and will act as a credit to your full purchase in the survey!
For stretch goals, we've already hit:
$12,500 - new DnD variants options (add-on)
$17,500 - Sticker Packs (all 3+ pin packs)
The next two stretch goals are the following:
$20,000 - Pastel variants of the dragon cat
$22,250 - New design by Onicake (bard cat) (add-on, included for all dungeon clear packs) - vote above!
400 person pledge goal: New pin based off of swordtember by Tim Kaminski
However, we recognize that we may not hit the $22,500 mark given where we are. If we don't, but pass $20,000, we'll toss the design from Onicake as a sticker into sticker packs (as one of the potential options). The artwork option is below -- but we haven't decided firmly on a color, so cast your vote above!
There are a tiny few things left to unlock: Unknown, mystery filler item 1 and 2, guild master of DERP and king lich head. Those are coming tonight so I hope to see you with us for one last hurrah. <3
And, for those who need it, the current array (minus the lich cat):
