Good evening, criminals!

Well, it's about 2 months from our wrapup. I'm fighting whatever respiratory seasonal crud our new hire dragged in. Whatever: the show must go on. 

I got a bunch of factory photos earlier this week. The new manufacturer knows there have been some concerns (to say the least) about accuracy of colors, so they did a complimentary test batch. These are test fills and plating on a bunch of our criminals, and they're missing their final polish and UV print with their crimes.

While everything is still being photographed in the balmy yellow basement of a Midwestern church with a Nintendo DSI, there's enough to get a good idea of colors. Our gray background sub seems to be working well enough, with about the same amount of contrast as the old CRIMES line. I'm happy with it.

Here. I'll be nice. I'll give you the daylight picture of the Little White Dogs. The cream tone isn't nearly as Gatorade yellow as the other pictures make it out to be.

Fun fact: you know you have to ask a rep to "go outside" verbatim, pretty often? And sometimes, they have to say no and they send you a video of pouring rain in Hong Kong? Somewhere, totally across the world, some poor idiot got asked to walk outside and take pictures of a metal dog trinket and they had to get their socks wet about it. Xenophobia is stupid: we're all the same, we all hate our stupid jobs.

Sorry, Kaylee. You're a real one. Must have been nice to get out of Captain Clark's ottoman empire for a little, though.

So, barring any major issues, we are probably going to see pins stateside in mid-late November. I know it probably sounds wild to say DOG CRIMES is a fairly small project, but compared to CHALLENGE COIN CRITTERS, this one is going to go fairly quick.

HUSTLE regulars know the drill: stickers will get set aside first, pins will arrive and get graded, and then we'll start getting things shipped. 

I can't guarantee this will be a Christmas fulfillment, but, with the pins' schedule and mine, we might be seeing DOG CRIMES in time for them to sneak their way under trees. You will probably see fulfillment progressing for everything I have active thru the end of the year. And, hey: I have a lot of wrapping paper to use up, so your pins might have a little bit of festive packaging this time around :)

I'll hit you guys back up when stickers are in or when I get a shipping estimate for pins.

Go get your flu shot.

Good afternoon, gang!

DOG CRIMES' pins are well into production, and we got a little sneak peek of one of our suspects yesterday.

The DOGGUST freebie 1" pin had a plating sample done, to make sure everything looked good. Dark colors on painted or full-plating pins can be a gamble, and the new factory wanted to make sure I was happy with the design. Luckily for them, and for me, I think it turned out well - a little bit of tripping hazard invisibility is the goal here, anyway.

Now, less fun. Over $900 of charges are still in the red for DOG CRIMES. That's almost 1/7 of our base funding goal - that's not a small number at all.

Some of these pledges are incredibly heavy hitters, including a 10-pin sponsor. Usually, things aren't this rough. That number is enough to cover postage for the entire fulfillment of this project, and then some. If you have a pledge over $35, I'll be sending you an individual reminder on October 15th with a warning.

Your deadline to get everything fixed is October 20th. I'll be cancelling any pledges that don't reach out to me for help or extensions by then. The economy's fucked, I know some of you might need a little longer, but, you gotta talk to me.

Until then, I am waiting on European pins for CHALLENGE COIN CRITTERS' final fulfillment bracket. Henrieke's project is looking good, but, if you're a backer, you should check about remakes and substitutes for her Aardwolf pin. I believe she is reaching out to all buyers via email. Give that a look.

Anyways, November project is in a decent state right now. I have an updated teaser if you want to go follow it. This one isn't gonna be for everyone, it's a fanart tribute passion project, but, if you're a JRPG person, give this a look. We're launching November 7th - there are Early Bird and Returning Backer bonuses to claim.

Good afternoon, criminals! It's a horrible, humid, cold day over here in New York. You can't be cold and humid. Pick a damn struggle.

DOG CRIMES' shipping and addon funds were charged Tuesday. Most of you guys are in good shape, but, as always, we do have some stragglers.

Did your payment fail? Go double check for me, if you can! I have a few extremely high-ticket pledges, including one of our sponsors, who didn't have a successful charge. BackerKit will automatically send you an email badgering you about this, and how to fix it.

You have until October 30th to get cards fixed. I won't cancel pledges until then. But, after that, all bets are off - you will forfeit any pins at campaign price, as well as any freebies you might have picked up.

Pins are in production, and I'll be checking in with the new factory after they get back from a break on October 7th.

I'll contact any egregiously large pledges with card fix instructions next week. If you have questions, or need a hand fixing things, reach out at [email protected].

Good evening, criminals!

Just a quick one - we are charging cards for DOG CRIMES in the next 48 hours. You already covered your pledge, but, it's time to collect the remaining addon and shipping balance.

You should get a warning from BackerKit, but, this is your warning from me.

Contact me at [email protected] with any issues or questions. We've got 'till October 30th to fix declined cards or bank issues, but, the quicker we get stuff handled, the better.

Good afternoon, criminals!

Been meaning to get this one out for a couple days, but, I'm tired, shit's busy, and it's been sitting as an empty draft with a title since Tuesday. Oh well.

If you missed your survey, you have until October 30th to contact me. I'll chew you out a little, but, you still have time to fix funds, pick your pins, and get anything on the back end corrected. Contact me at [email protected] if you need a little leeway.

Speaking of October 30th, that's the estimate the factory gave me for all of DOG CRIMES' pins being finished. Now, I'm taking that with a grain of salt, since shit happens and I have some samples that'll need to ship with them, but, good ballpark. 

Proofs were approved, and production started last week, and I'm going to do my best to make sure my little problem children are workshopped and don't hold up the thousand-something pins backers are waiting for.

Now, there are a couple of fun things to go over for DOG CRIMES.

If you're a veteran on CRIMES projects, the previous pins have been sepia-toned hard enamel with screen printed text. We are making a couple of changes to this run.

First off, we're slightly changing the background color on pins. Pantone is a color system that relies on ratios of pigment drops put into a base, and each code has an assigned amount of primaries. We had a gray with a white % mix on BIRD CRIMES and CRITTER CRIMES. This is a pretty common technique in enamel for getting pastel colors, but it's something that can create unwanted variations. After many hours of "I'm going to harass Doreen from the other bird business for her pastels book," we're moving CRIMES' background color to stock 9100c going forward.

Second, I'm making the choice to transition to UV printing. It's cheaper, it's more reliable, and it solves some issues we've had with scuffing, scratching, and misalignment knocking B's out automatically. UV can have some undesirable "comic book dot" effects depending on the manufacturer and colors used. But, I have some samples from this new factory, and they can get very sharp edges on text. 

Neither of these changes will make DOG CRIMES a black sheep in your collection. However, some of the reprints may have noticeable differences in color or text texture - so, please don't be surprised! It's to keep these troublemakers consistent in production, and keep them in good shape longer.

If none of that matters and your eyes just went in two different directions: don't worry about it. We'll probably be grading and fulfilling pins this winter if all goes well.

The HUSTLE store is open. If you want to snag anything from me, you can do that now and request combined shipping with your DOG CRIMES pledge in your order note.

Make sure if you do, you specify you want your stuff in with DOG CRIMES. I still have about 190 combined shipping orders for CHALLENGE COIN CRITTERS waiting, and if you backed both, let's cut the confusion.

Other than that, I need to go crunch my November project and get that ready enough to link it to you fuckers. We're in the boring waiting game now. Thanks for reading.