Back from my trip and work is done on the blue ring! I did have to overhaul the design, but here we go;
This is a mini size design, at 1.5". It'll be in a silver metal finish, with screen printed details.
All that's left is the flamboyant cuttlefish.
I am working on the surveys, I have designed a few things especially for the add on store. We have some post campaign stretch goals - pin designs that will only be made if they sell enough units in the shop. These will just be WIP sketches, until (if) we sell enough units. Including right now the coconut octopus in a coconut house, but he needs a colour tweak before I post it.
We also have some things like pencil cases and sticker/note books and stuff;
All of these I can order in small enough quantities to have them available off the bat, I'm just figuring out which designs to offer. And uh, I'll be fixing that obvious layering issue I just noticed.
Hopefully we'll have the surveys out to you in a week or two!
What comes next is a (hopefully very) short wait. I'm going to finish up the last couple of designs, and then the surveys will go out. We're moving next week so there'll be a small delay until the beginning of March.
At the survey stage there will be an add-on store. The add-on store will have some of our old campaign pins, and other products with the octopus designs like stationery items, notebooks etc. You won't be charged at this point, your order won't lock in until shipping starts so you can add/change your order around until then.
All the artwork will be finalised before surveys go out, so keep an eye out for updates with previews in them :).
Here's the large version of the Veined Octopus pin. We'll stick with rose gold/copper plating and it'll be 2.5in in size, with a loooot of screen printed layers. I tweaked the design a little and added a highlight that I think really lifted it a bit. The large version is the only large design we have for this campaign, you need to add it to your order as a seperate add-on. You can find it in the add-on store now, or upgrade to the 'large pin bundle' where you can get it at a significant discount.
Here it is next to the standard version. Both are correct colourways for the coconut/veined octopus as far as I can see, just different phases.
So what's left? Well my next couple of days are insane, so I might not have any more artwork completed before the campaign finishes, unfortunately. But, here's a preview!
The flamboyant cuttlefish.
.... I wasn't going to do any more cuttlefish but LOOK AT IT. Also they tippy tap across the ocean floor. Tiny stompies. I couldn't not. The design is going to be refined a bit, they have a tendency to curl their little tentacles up so I'm gonnna make that a bit more obvious I think. This is going to be a standard size with layered screen print.
There's also a mini blue ringed octopus, but I had to start over with it already. It was meant to have a shard of the pot from the veined octopus pin so they pair together, but I just didn't like how it was coming out. But, soon! You will see.
As always, all artwork will be finalised before surveys go out after the campaign is over. These designs are all unlocked, if we do end up over £5500 I might look at doing a few more simple minis but this is all of the rest that's promised.
What we're gonna do is both 😂. The standard size will be in the colouration you've already seen. The large size we'll do in a different colourway. I'm working on the preview for those at the moment.
The mini for this tier is a blue ringed octopus, he's causing me a bit of trouble at the moment but he'll be done soon too. Unless we lose a tonne of backers I think we can call this tier unlocked :).
I'll set up new bundles and add-ons for the large pin as soon as the preview for the design is done.
Whew, that took a little longer than I expected. But! Hopefully its worth it.
So here's the standard size and the large size previews side by side. The standard size (left) might need to be simplified further, based on recommendations by the manufacturer. But this is roughly what we'd be looking at;
So standard size is 2" vs large size at 2.5". The veining pattern might need to be simplified further, but I didn't want to draw it out again if its not needed (large is winning the poll right now, make sure you vote below!). Standard has one less layer of shading overall, and a few fewer details here and there. The veining won't have any shading, and overall the look will be flatter; and they might ask us to fill in a few more suckers with metal rather than enamel. We're going for copper/rose gold finish on this one, because I think the gold wouldn't show up so well against the octopus colours. The fade is achieved with print, it'll be the same technique we used on our fade iris and sweet pea flower pins, plus the same screen print layering as with the skulls;
Not the best photos, please forgive me. We've found our maufacturer to have very high quality results with print so far. I know that puts some people off, so just putting it out there. Also with the skulls, on the left is a 1.75" and on the right is a 2.5". You can see the difference in size and the level of detail we managed to get in each.
The poll has three days left, after that we'll announce the winner and how to add large pins to your order if it does win. If not then it'll just be in the same standard pool as the others :).
Stay tuned! We still have the mini pin for this tier, and maybe a few more surprises.
