Update: Molds & Sample Progress, Surveys This Week
Hey friends! Thanks for hanging in there with me on this project! I have some Chinese New Year updates to bring to everyone. This, finally, is a mostly positive update on how th...
2
0
2
Alchemy Art
5 months ago
Update: A Long-Awaited Touch Base!
Hey friends! I really apologize that this update has taken so long - things have been messy (but cleaner now) in the last few months, both personally and professionally, and I’l...
2
0
2
Alchemy Art
9 months ago
Production (Note on Surveys and Shipping, Apologies!)
Hey friends! I apologize for taking so long to catch up with you. Things are underway in production here, but also have been incredibly insane the last few months. I've posted a...
3
0
2
Alchemy Art
about 1 year ago
Very Quick Update while on the Road
Hey friends! Just wanted to update -- the surveys will be going out soon(ish) as I've finished them (weeks ago) on the backend, but I've had a few massive life changes (a 10,000...
1
0
6
Alchemy Art
about 1 year ago
Surveys this Coming Week!
Hey friends! I hope you're doing well and are excited for this project!
Just wanted to touch base since it's been a few weeks! It's been pretty crazy on my end because I manage...
4
0
1
Alchemy Art
about 1 year ago
Here’s what to expect next
Thank you for supporting Saga of the West Wind - Venti, the Anemo Archon which was 1 of 20 projects participating in Pintopia 2023. Thanks to your support 100% of the projects w...
Hey friends! Sorry for the silence in the last two weeks. I've been a tiny bit of a danger to myself and pulled a hip disc, and needed to drive out for a convention. Wouldn't suggest it! Absolutely terrible fun to drive 8 hours with that injuiry.
That all said, we're in the last few hours of the campaign, and I'm excited to push this into production! The next steps will be to finalize the vector art - which is something we always do in-house - and we'll be working on that in the coming weeks. I'll also be sending out a survey to finalize addresses. To keep things simple, you'll just be limited to this pin set this time around to keep fulfilment as contained and easy as possible, with the optional additions of the unlocked microfiber cloths and stickers (the full set will come with the microfiber automatically).
Due to the hard cap that exists with production, I won't be opening up the preorder store for this project. Any extras will be offered once I'm sure we have enough items (since there won't be any second runs in this color/metal variation). The drop for the remainder is something I'll announce once grading and fulfilment is done.
I cannot assure standards past this campaign of this pin. The best of the batch will be used for the campaign.
We are looking at ideas for future additions, though I'll note now that no preorders will open before a sample is completely finalized so that we can get the aesthetics to match, as well as provide realistic expectations for things. Next will definitely be Liyue - a sketch is below - but a poll is above for thoughts on pins to follow! If you have other ideas, I'd also love to hear them in the comments!
That's all I have for today, and am excited to see all of you in the last few hours of this project. Cheers and happy adventuring! :D
Hey friends! Thanks for hanging in there with me on this project! I have some Chinese New Year updates to bring to everyone. This, finally, is a mostly positive update on how things are progressing. Phew.
As outlined in the last updates, there was issues with the first manufacturer and the pin had to be moved between manufacturers (but was delayed since we were having severe issues with fund holds due to the issues with Purrtagonists, which caused for an almost $20,000 hold between the two projects), so I had to wait until the first manufacturer refunded me (minus the first sample set) to restart with the second. I do, again, apologize for that and for my silence as we figured it out - we’ve had some individual problems occur with single pins before, but not entire sections fail that badly (or as dramatically) as with the Purrtagonists campaign. It was very poor timing to have two projects concurrently with large issues, and we were strung along for long periods to hopefully get an answer “soon” and funds being effectively hold hostage.
Of course, in the last update for this campaign, things were already moved over and started again from the point of art. The big issues I was concerned about from the initial manufacturer as noted in the last updates were as follows:
The cuts in the pin molds not being as exact as I wanted;
Some alterations in the art that made it problematic to sit side by side (which obviously is fairly critical with this design);
The colors being pretty off in the initial, but ultimately when the mold was having issues it didn't matter (since the mold was the bigger issue);
And some general concerns with flaw rates (with the old manufacturer) as they were becoming more popular and thus more inconsistent (it happens).
Moving with the new (one of my other main) manufacturer, we’ve already worked to complete the mold… but as you notice below, there’s a second mold now present! I did actually have to adjust one of the molds purely, this time, because I was an idiot (entirely me, I forgot one of the triangles in the edits somehow and it got translated into the art):
As a quick note: I know this probably doesn’t look like they fit initially, but they were designed to fit a tiny bit displaced apart, and the center on both images is sitting a bit higher than the left and right panels. This was a big concern in the first manufacturer because the lyre ends did not fit and it just looked… well, not wonderful. These are a lot better in that respect!
Why two molds? The second mold will have a silver sandblasted background (which resembles a more glittery background) versus the stained glass gold-plated pin. I know that this is something that sometimes feels different once you see it in sample form, especially with a non-white metal plate, so the silver will offer an alternative option for those that find that they prefer sandblasting more. The last manufacturer was also struggling with the stained glass color theory, so I wanted to potentially get ahead of the issue for those people who many not like the final look and offer something tried and true. (I don't believe it'll be an issue with the new manufacturer, but I'm choosing to be wary.)
I will be working to send the surveys in the coming week now that I have the photos above to show you for the initials, but I will allow for you to swap between the gold plated stained and the silver plated sandblasting in the survey. I won’t have a fixed deadline for this yet to get those surveys in, so if you want to wait for the samples themselves to decide which you'd like, that’s no issue. I know I said last month for the survey, but I was waiting to see the revised adjustments so you guys would have an informed update. I figured it would be easier if you all saw both options being worked on, over wanting changes later.
We have begun the back and forth for the color samples! There are obviously some errors below in the colors below since they aren't matching the art, but that’s why we sample things and adjust. The manufacturer is on break for CNY, but has noted all my edits/requests for checks for when they return in a week or so. They just didn't have enough time to adjust before they went on holiday.
Ignore the fact that this is currently gold - this specific variant is silver. The test sample was just misplated (another reason why you sample).
Obviously, after the pantone edits to the base enamels, we'll have adjustments to the transparent enamels, then we'll have the screenprints. I know it's a bit like saying "trust the process," but this manufacturer has done some complex screens for us in the past - of which the biggest point for a pin like this is a very smooth non-bulky screen. A good example is the one we've been working on alongside this one, just so you can see how the screens lay in a different pin:
Sample manufacturer, reference for the screen effects.
That all said, I've been happy with how their screenprints look in the past, so I'm fairly confident that it shouldn't be an issue here.
The minute I've approved the final sample for production on either variant, I will let everyone know and show those off! I appreciate you trusting the process for now, since highly complex pins are a bit bonkers without their screenprints. And thank you again for your patience.
Hey friends! I really apologize that this update has taken so long - things have been messy (but cleaner now) in the last few months, both personally and professionally, and I’ll admit that I’ve been a bit underwater trying to get things sorted as it was a lot of things all at once, and I’m a single human that’s been trying to dig myself out of it.
If you’ve been following along with our other campaign Purrtagonists, it was just an unfortunate mess with one of the major manufacturers of Venetia’s pins where some of the pins they returned had a 90%+ error rate. It created a lot of initial hangups with its multitude of designs; it has been effectively locked for months getting back funds and struggling to make headway, and we were set back a substantial amount (about $14,000 plus the remake costs). Normally this wouldn’t impact anything but itself, but it was far past the normal line and impacted a large amount of things since I was covering the costs of remakes (and the overage that the campaign incurred). We’ve started to see small resolutions there (plus having an end of year sale where some of those costs were recouped) so things are looking better.
Initially the other campaign wasn’t an issue that impacted this one, but the manufacturer I’d originally chosen for this campaign was having issues with the cutouts with the Venti pins. Normally we could work around this, but in a pin where it’s relatively prevalent, it was an issue we had to work on and try to fix. After a long back and forth, it was clear it wasn’t happening and the altered art that kept happening wasn’t going to cut it. As such, I ended up needing to cut my losses on the sample, refund the remaining costs, and go to one of my other manufacturers that has been more reliable in the last year (one that has actively shown good and normal progress in the past half year) - normally I’d start on this process while asking for a refund, but due to the issue with Purrtagonists and how far into the red that had dragged me during that time period, I had to wait until some of the funds were returned. This part of the migration is already done, and I’m hoping to have a new sample to show very soon. I’m sorry for not touching base sooner, but there were weeks I thought it might work, then others I was fighting to get funds back, and going around in circles about it. I’ll update here the same day I have the new sample. The art hasn’t changed!
My goal is to have the surveys for addresses out in the beginning of the coming month; I’ll honor initial requests for add-ons (to complete the set or get additional sets), but anything through the separated preorder store will be adjusted for the additional sampling costs that were lost. (TL;DR - That won’t impact you, but people outside of the campaign.)
Hey friends! I apologize for taking so long to catch up with you. Things are underway in production here, but also have been incredibly insane the last few months. I've posted a long number of updates to socials, but I was waiting to get a firm update for you guys here before posting... then got caught up waiting for the "right" update. This was supposed to go up last night, but we got hit by hail that took out some power, so apologies for the Sunday-to-Monday delay which I'd communicated to those who asked.
The first thing I wanted to mention that this project did get delayed because of my involvement in (and running of) Purrtagonists. You have my firm apologies on that. What started as 26 designs turned into 55 art designs, vectors and sample passes with that campaign (with we admitted there and in all updates was something we didn't predict correctly) and caused waves on anything that followed it. We've caused a few of our manufacturers to actively melt a bit (55 designs, even split up to 4 manufacturers, proved to be too much for them to keep track of).
It's been almost entirely just myself and Venetia handling the Purrtagonists campaign - and we've had some insanity in our lives in big ways. I had a surprise move that took up all of March and most of February since it was over 10,000 pounds of stuff... all on a pulled hip disc (so I was relatively heavily medicated during March when I repulled it the second time), and Venetia had her child in January (of which still is trying to turn her into a zombie prematurely, with love). I've still been finding and assorting things from the move even this month since I had to get help packing (which meant nothing was labelled correctly). Bluntly put, our lives became a chaotic mess for a minute.
The artist-friend we hired on to assist with vectoring also has going through some abrupt life changes with medical related items, so the vectors for the previous campaign were only finished out last month. However, before their latest scheduled medical operation, we pushed through the last of the translations of the Venti pin, fleshed out the detailing, and pushed it into production. I've included the generalized artboard in the backer only body (sans codes) just so you can see how that looks - we typically never show these artboards from having had things stolen before, but I just wanted to show that progress had been made.
We're currently tweaking some design aspects in the sampling process.
SURVEY & EXTRAS ADDITIONS: I'll be updating surveys (as they mainly take shipping funds) once the samples have been fleshed out. I found out in April (so shortly after the last update) that there were some serious changes happening to how first class mail (going to Ground Advantage), as well as priority changes to rates. Our UPS contracts have also updated, so largely their rates actually are better than Priority rates going forward.
Because of this, I've opted to pause collecting those funds until we have a better gauge on when we'll have these in hand (probably know in 2ish months depending on how samples go and how quickly they're completed). The fear right now is that I'll either overcharge massively, undercharge massively, or the service will change significantly by the time we roll around to it. Billing closer to will allow this to be more accurate, as if UPS is actually cheaper, insurance is included and so on (while USPS isn't inherently).
All said, the wait on surveys was intentional on my part with watching the situation, but I do apologize that I wasn't clearer while running around that I'd planned on delaying them for this reason. It also gives me time to work on the (addition!) display box that I'd been looking into and seeing if we had enough residual funds to offer that to the full set backers, and offer it as an option to anyone else. Thankfully box turnarounds are far shorter than pin turnarounds, but it will impact shipping.
NEXT UPDATE TIMELINES: I'll try to tune in again in the coming month (at latest in early Sept) with further progress!
Hey friends! Just wanted to update -- the surveys will be going out soon(ish) as I've finished them (weeks ago) on the backend, but I've had a few massive life changes (a 10,000lb house/office/storage unit move + currently in Hawai'i for a convention) so I didn't want to send them and not be able to answer questions adequately if they popped up since adjustments require a computer. Things have been very busy (not a vacation, despite the location).
Things are moving along and the vector queue is getting smaller overall (this is getting nearer to the top). The Purrtagonists project is finally almost complete vector wise which landed 55 designs on us right before this. Once we have samples to show, I'll definitely post them up here.
I'll try to aim for surveys once this bout of travel ends, as it's a bit harder for me to source and check/respond to questions when on planes/in between airports and hotels. Gotta love 27 hours of no-real-sleep segments! I'll try to get this out to you on April 12th. Thankfully this campaign is very simple and largely most of you I anticipate just handing over shipping funds and info (which can be adjusted up through the shipping date).
Hey friends! I hope you're doing well and are excited for this project!
Just wanted to touch base since it's been a few weeks! It's been pretty crazy on my end because I managed to pull a hip disc... a few days after confirming I was moving my full house/storage unit/office into a new location. 6-week recovery time injury came at a really, really poor time. ^^;
Thank you for supporting Saga of the West Wind - Venti, the Anemo Archon which was 1 of 20 projects participating in Pintopia 2023. Thanks to your support 100% of the projects were fully funded!
There are a few next steps I wanted to share:
Expect an email letting you know your payment has been charged. If there are any issues with your payment we will notify you with next steps.
We will need to collect some additional info such as your pin selections and shipping information before we send rewards. In the coming weeks we will send you a survey to collect that information.
Since all Pintopia projects were 100% funded, you will be getting a FREE Pintopia 2023 pin from BackerKit. And if you backed 3+ pins you’ve earned some additional pins. Stay tuned for more information from BackerKit about how you will receive those pins.
Again, thanks for your support and stay tuned for more information soon.
Hey friends! Thank you so much for jumping into the early birds for the campaign! These have been something I've been pushing around in my head and working on/poking at for over 2.5 years, so it's nice to finally get them into production. It was a bit of an unexpected campaign on our end, but I appreciated the push from Pintopia to finally get it off the ground.
Also! Already got to the sticker milestone, so huzzah! :D
Before I ramble more, there are incentives for pledging into more than one campaign! This is the first campaign grouping of its type to have multiple campaigns all tied together, so that's been a lot of fun to see. So if you like freebie pins, that's open to you - the incentives are at the bottom of our story blurb. I personally grabbed some cats (as a surprise to... who?) and I think it let most of you know that (oops).
That all said, there are a few small things that I wanted to clarify with campaign:
The MAXMIMUM number of pins that I'll take on during the campaign is roughly 150 per pin (with a slight tolerance). There wasn't an ability to individually flag quantity counts in tiers, so I'll be keeping an eye on them. This is because there is a 250 LE quantity cap for individual fan merch items, as directed by Genshin itself, and I intend to stick to that. 150-175 is roughly what I'd be comfortable with while having a buffer for defects. If we cross the 150/pin threshold, you'll see tiers vanish, even if there are days remaining.
The pins, even if there was additional interest at a later date, will not be restocked for a second run for any reason (unless the pins need to be remade, of which we'll handle and communicate that if it occurs). There likely will NOT be a preorder store, and will NOT have (many?) standard in-hand due to how strict my grading scale is.
Because of this LE cap, I wanted to know whether or not you guys would like the central piece stamped with an LE number on the back. Since it's an additional cost to do so, it will just be the center piece featuring this detail, not the left or right sections. You can vote in the poll! (We would absorb this charge, if it's something you guys would like.)
Lastly, due to the sheer complexity of the pins, please note that timelines are anticipated to be around September (but can be longer), as noted in our initial information. I'll keep everyone up to tabs with this, and will include any production updates as I get them. I also always post product shots to Discord when I get them, and you're welcome to join at any time if you want to take a peek. You'll probably start seeing these in a few months once sampling has progressed.
Sometime in the coming month I'll be making a channel to cover new projects from this year, so you can keep up-to-date there. Regardless, you're always welcome to ask about progress. Our last year was very complicated with chronic illnesses trying to be far too friendly, alongside multiple life changes at every turn; it's a new year and it's one we're hoping will be filled with less stressful situations and 85 hour work weeks (lol).
All in all, thank you for being part of this experience! :D Super excited to bring this one to life.
