I just got back from a week up at Aspenhearted's studio where with the help of our friend Crys we inspected and graded over 5,000 individual pins and mounted them on their backi...
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Kim Kuzuri
about 1 month ago
Fulfillment Timeline Confirmed
Pins should be arriving in Carrie's studio within the week! Then begins the grading process. Each pin gets inspected by hand, ensuring that everything going out the door is the ...
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Kim Kuzuri
about 2 months ago
Pin adjustments made & shipping timeline
Below you're going to get some updates and some photos from the manufacturer, but first since I know y'all love that manananggal and this project traces its roots back to a Fili...
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Kim Kuzuri
3 months ago
Zine Layout & Contributors
As we're waiting on the pin manufacturer to provide the requested changes, Carrie and I have been working on polishing up the mini-zine. We've got a draft laid out with a second...
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Kim Kuzuri
3 months ago
Project Update - Pin samples have arrived!
Exciting news: samples of all the pins have arrived at Carrie’s studio! She had already received all the stickers, and has now inspected the pin samples thoroughly. We have some...
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Kim Kuzuri
5 months ago
Locking orders and starting production
All but a few straggling surveys are in, so I’ll be locking orders later today and any additional pending charges will get processed shortly.
At the start of next week pins go ...
I just got back from a week up at Aspenhearted's studio where with the help of our friend Crys we inspected and graded over 5,000 individual pins and mounted them on their backing cards! Whew. A pretty intense task for a campaign this size, but really nice to see that only a tiny fraction of all the pins were considered "seconds" and not fit for shipping out. Here's a look at the naughty board where we housed the pins that had loose posts or flaws on the metal or the enamel.
seconds go on the naughty board
a selection of the pins all mounted
Before I left we managed to pack up more than two-thirds of all the orders, and Carrie will be working on getting the rest shipped out over the next week.
When you get your pins, if you look on the reverse, the backstamp will show which pins were designed exclusively by me or by Carrie, and which ones we collaborated on together. We love working together, so if there's anything you might like to see from us in the future, please reach out and let us know!
Pins should be arriving in Carrie's studio within the week! Then begins the grading process. Each pin gets inspected by hand, ensuring that everything going out the door is the highest quality possible.
From April 25th to the end of the month, I'll be in Carrie's studio helping with any final grading and to pick, pack, and ship out orders. If you want to follow along as we work, Carrie and I will likely be sharing on Instagram (you can find us there as @kimkuzuri and @aspenhearted).
Not long before I head up to Washington for the big fulfillment extravaganza, our Pintopia 2024 campaigns will be wrapping up. Carrie's Just Say No has been blasting through its stretch goals, and my niche little project HEX! is over 600% funded!
Returning backers from Folkgore get free stickers on both of our projects. Folkgore backers can get a free "Don't Touch Me" snake sticker with Just Say No, and for those of you interested in HEX! I'm finalizing the design next week. Let me know which one you like more in the poll!
Below you're going to get some updates and some photos from the manufacturer, but first since I know y'all love that manananggal and this project traces its roots back to a Filipino horror zine, I wanted to share BALIKBAYAN a comics project I backed over on Kickstarter which is going into its final 24 hour stretch with only about 1500 USD left to fund! If you like horror and vibe with the cultural and diasporic roots of Folkgore, please go check it out and help it meet its goal! BALIKBAYAN features writer Jeff Estrella and artist Fabian Lelay.
BALIKBAYAN is named for the care packages that Filipinos living overseas send back to family in the Philippines. This book is the 24-page opening chapter of a story that draws from traditional Filipino folk tales and is inspired by films like Hereditary, The Wailing, and The Farewell. It explores the often-strained relationships between the children of immigrants and their parents, and the difficulties of reconciling those two worlds. It asks: What if those old stories of ghosts and monsters from back home were true?
BALIKBAYAN art by Fabian Lelay
BALIKBAYAN art by Fabian Lelay
Okay, now for Folkgore's project update:
Pin adjustments are done! Sharing with you all some photos from our manufacturer showing some of the minor adjustments we requested after we received the samples. For the manananggal in gunmetal, we swapped the setting of the blood drop charm to better match the metal of the pin and adjusted the length of the neck on the rokurokubi. I love the rokurokubi design a lot, but it was definitely tricky to anticipate how it would look in person. If I designed another pin like it in the future, I'd definitely mock up more of a physical prototype in the studio.
Estimated delivery to Carrie's studio is roughly one month from now (4/20 give or take a few days). Our fulfillment team (aka Carrie, myself, and our friend Crystal) are coordinating our schedules. If my request for time off from the day job is approved, we're aiming get together the last week in April to grade all the pins, get them on backing cards, and then pack each and every one of your rewards. I'll send out a reminder when that date is firm and we're looking to lock addresses.
Next up for us will be zine files going to the printer and then we go right into launching our next pin projects. Whew. Can't believe I'm prepping to do this all over again so soon, but we both got invited to be part of Pintopia 2024 here on BackerKit. If you haven't seen it, Carrie & Crystal Tea have a fun collection called Just Say No and I just sent out an email to about my project, HEX! which is letting me indulge my feelings about tabletop games and cute stuff.
Thanks again for all your support along the way for Folkgore. I'm going to be so thrilled to start sending these gorgeous pins out to you all.
As we're waiting on the pin manufacturer to provide the requested changes, Carrie and I have been working on polishing up the mini-zine. We've got a draft laid out with a second round edit pass and proofs expected to be done in the week to come.
Here's a peek at some spreads, featuring my own art (final now versus what you saw during the campaign), and some contributing artwork by Emily Schnall (https://emilyschnall.com/), an illustrator and comic artist who does really some amazing creature and horror work. If you follow horror comics, you may have seen her work in the Dark Horse series Tales from Harrow County: Fair Folk.
Bringing the wordsmithing is writer Lor Gislason (https://lormaggot.ca/), author of Inside Out (Darklit Press) and the editor of Bound In Flesh: An Anthology of Trans Body Horror (Ghoulish Press). So thankful to have two awesome horror folks contributing to this project.
Illustration by Kim Kuzuri
Illustration by Emily Schnall
We're almost there!
So, what am I going to be up to after this? You may have noticed a bunch of amazing pin creators gearing up for Pintopia 2024 on BackerKit. I was invited to join, and I'll be doing something a little more cute than creepy. Here's a peek at my project if you want to check it out:
Exciting news: samples of all the pins have arrived at Carrie’s studio! She had already received all the stickers, and has now inspected the pin samples thoroughly. We have some minor fixes and adjustments for the manufacturer to address–further lengthening the chain on the Rokurokubi, making sure the metal is recessed on a few places on the Sirena–but overall, they’re looking absolutely gorgeous in both the gold and the gunmetal. Here's a peek:
I’ve been really thankful for Carrie’s help and expertise throughout this project, but an extra shout-out for their involvement in making sure the pins are the premium item backers are expecting. I’ve known Carrie for a long time and while I never expected anything less than the best working with them, in helping fulfill her other campaigns I got to experience firsthand the care and high-standards for all the pieces going out from her studio.
We don’t have a firm timeline yet on our requested changes, but it’s clear that Lunar New Year celebrations will slow down our production a little more than I hoped. (Happy Year of the Dragon!) As always though, I’ll keep you all informed with how that looks in the weeks to come.
All but a few straggling surveys are in, so I’ll be locking orders later today and any additional pending charges will get processed shortly.
At the start of next week pins go into production. Meanwhile, all stickers and the bulk of our packaging needs have been ordered. At this time, depending on whether or not production gets slowed down by Lunar New Year, we expect to be shipping out your rewards in late February or early March.
Up next from my partner in crime:
While I'm here, let me signal boost Carrie's next pin project launching in a couple weeks here on BackerKit: Tidal Treasures! If you liked the Sirena or have any merfolk pins, it's a beautiful set with some super fun accent pins so go sign up to get notified so you can score the super cute sticker sheet. Despite religiously watching the Monterey Bay Aquarium's ottercam, I gotta say, I love the octopus here so much.
Back in the first 48 hours for a free 4x6 sticker sheet!
Hi folks, a few production updates across our items:
Pins: The full set of design proofs we received from the manufacturer have been thoroughly reviewed and a few minor aspects clarified and adjusted. I've now signed off on the final proofs which means we are ready to move into production when we have a solid sense of how many pins to order for each design. We've gotten a majority of surveys back, but if you haven't filled out your survey yet or have been considering more add-ons, the sooner the better! It would be great to have a few more surveys in so we can be even more confident about our quantities.
Stickers: I received a reasonable quote for a lenticular sticker of the Kitsune design, so we're going to move forward on ordering that. If the quality once it arrives at Carrie's studio isn't what we're hoping for, we'll fall back to the same vinyl sticker style as the others and make a call ourselves whether we produce the fox version or lady version.
Zine: With pagecount in mind, most of the illustrations will be what are called "spot illustrations" and simpler images we can work the text around, but I'm doing some outreach to some other artists to see if I can wrangle a couple additional full page illustrations in a few different styles so I can free up more of my time to better prep for the fulfillment stage. I'm not sure if anything will come from this, especially with the holidays and such a tight deadline before going to print, but we'll see!
Other things on my to-do still during this stage are: finalizing the backing card design, researching some additional packaging options that build on what we learned last week in fulfilling Carrie's Nocturnal Nouveau collection, and once those final order counts are in, crunching some numbers to estimate how much of a bonus the contributors on this project can expect to receive thanks to all the backer support.
I'm excited to get these orders to the manufacturer, and hope you are too! Happy Holidays!
Thank you everyone for your patience! We finally sent out the “smoke test” surveys and caught a few little issues with shipping estimates and other minor things. We’ve resolved those and now the surveys will be going out to everyone.
I’m up in the PNW this week visiting Carrie’s studio and helping them grade and pack the pins from their Nocturnal Nouveau campaign. I’m learning a lot about how to spot manufacturing flaws and also thinking about how I can make the Folkgore backing cards look great with the variety of pins in this campaign.
I was also excited to see the display sample Carly created in person. It looks so good!
Short artist for scale
Pins testing the display space are from BackerKit creators who were in Pintopia earlier this year (and others)!
I’m more of a one-off pin collector myself and don’t really display them with a lot of intent. I think I collect figures and comics more often, although that’s such a space challenge for me when living in an apartment! To make this update a little more fun, here’s a poll. Let me know what you all like collecting and feel free to shout out your favorite indie creators in the comments!
PS - If you missed the campaign our pre-order store is now open. Backers got the big discounts but there are still some deals to be had and since I’m not a full-time artist this may be the only chance you’ll have to get these pins!
I was hoping to get surveys out earlier this week, but ensuring that people who purchased sets can decide on a pin-by-pin basis what metal choice they want took me longer than expected. With the folks at BackerKit on break for the holiday, we likely won't get our survey okayed until next week, so thanks in advance for your patience. Happy to confirm that if you purchased one of the sets or the All-in Nightmare Collection during the campaign, you will be able to decide whether you want gold or gunmetal on a per-pin basis!
On the manufacturing front, we've already received the first round of proofs on the batch of pin designs that were unlocked during the campaign. For an idea that started out with "what if a mini-zine and a few chain pins" seeing the full range of everything that ended up in this collection has been really damn cool.
Here's a look at the proof for the 2" hinged kitsune. What I'm looking at when reviewing these proofs is whether or not placement of the backing pins should be adjusted, if any parts of the submitted design needed to be changed for manufacturing (none on this batch, since we learned a ton with some tricky bits on a couple of the original designs), and double-checking that everything looks correct with the color and cut-away areas for chain attachment points. So far, so good!
While I'm sending this update, for any of you who are art collectors or interested in unique holiday gifts for people who love nature, please know that my partner-in-crime Carrie has a bunch of her original paintings available at 50% off right now on her website. They're gorgeous!
It's been a couple weeks since the end of the campaign, so I wanted to let everyone know what's been happening! We're getting everything into the pledge manager in order to send out the backer surveys. Expect to receive your survey around the 20th!
While preparing for surveys we realized we liked how the sticker designs looked so much with grey outlines that we are now offering the collection in your choice of metal: gold or gunmetal. This choice will be reflected in the upcoming surveys.
What else is going on? Two big pre-production milestones have already been completed:
All stretch goal designs have been sent to the manufacturer. We're now awaiting proofs of these designs.
The printed zine will be A6 (4.1 x 5.8 in). This fits our packaging without increasing anyone's shipping cost. We anticipate a length of 20-28 pages.
Since you helped us unlock so many designs, we received a question about whether or not all the pins will fit on the display. Here's a mockup showing what it could look like. It's a little tight, but we think it still works! Thanks again to Carly K for designing the amazing double-sided display for this collection.
More updates to come! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to comment or reach out.
Folkgore is now the second highest funded pin campaign on BackerKit and it wouldn’t have happened without you. Thank you for the support, the encouragement along the way, and putting your trust in our designs! We succeeded in all our major stretch goals, including unlocking the Kitsune and upgrading three of the designs to glow in the dark.
So, what’s next?
The most important thing for you to know is I'll be sending out Backer Surveys in a couple weeks, so keep an eye out for that.
In the lead up, Carrie and I are in the process of reviewing proofs from our manufacturer for some of the designs and finalizing additional refinements on others. We're also preparing to submit the latest unlocked designs and convert that artwork for stickers to round out the collection.
Tomorrow I'll assemble the final list of content for the zine to send to our writer/editor. Once I have that, I can test out specs so that I can make sure that not only will it look great, but it will fit in our packaging without increasing anyone’s shipping costs.
I plan to update around major milestones from here on out, but if there's anything in particular you'd like to know about as we prepare for manufacturing, please let me know.
Hi friends, we are in that final 48 hours and things are still going strong! The Tengu is nowavailable as an add-on and again, anyone who is backing at the All-In Nightmare Collection level will get this design added to their collection at no additional cost.
We're about 1.5k away from unlocking the final pin design: the Kitsune!
Carrie and I are refining the artwork further, but we've settled on this design. I'm hopeful we'll achieve the unlock and be able to make this pin as part of this campaign before it closes! As we continue to get last-minute pledges and pledge-adjustments, we also added some last few stretch goals to upgrade some of the designs to glow-in-the-dark pins. You can see them all on the stretch goals section of our campaign's story.
Lastly, Carrie and I will be doing a YouTube livestream on the page on Halloween, at 4pm Pacific Time to countdown the end of the campaign. Hope to see you there!
We're in the final stretch now, backers, and again your enthusiasm for this project is AMAZING! I sincerely hope you've been enjoying seeing all the new designs, as you've not only unlocked the cucumber-loving Kappa this weekend, but the ghostly glow-in-the-dark Peony Lantern! Our next stretch goal is the Tengu, and it's up to a vote whether we go with recessed metal on the fan or colorful enamel.
I can't wait to see these pins in person, especially the kappa. I thought I'd share with you all some of the old kokeshi dolls I keep in my studio. The one on the left with the bather and the little kappa next to him is my favorite. I have dozens of these little dolls, rescued from my family's curio cabinet. The cabinet was handmade in the '50s by my grandfather who was a really skilled woodcrafter (he made dolls too, although none of these). I didn't have space to take the cabinet in when my childhood house was sold, but the person who rescued it from the scrap pile and made it a part of their own home is none other than Carrie, my partner-in-crime on this project!
handmade kokeshi dolls
I hope this gives you a little more insight too into why it feels extra special to be working with them on such a personal project. Despite how different our art styles are, we work very well together, and bring different strengths to the collaborative pins. I know many of you are interested in sketches and the design process (I always am too!) so here's a bit more insight into how we collaborate and—just for backers—a peek at how the kitsune is developing.
One of the most fun and creatively rewarding things for me at least, is when I toss a sketch at Carrie and they come back with one of their own that builds upon my concepts. Sometimes it's been small changes like adding a fun new idea to my design (the splashing water at the top of the kappa's head is a great example), and sometimes we manage to get each other past stumbling blocks like trying to figure out the angle for the fairy ring.
(One of us is also clearly better at drawing skulls, I'm just sayin'...)
The concept here evolved too as we chatted and traded sketches, going from blood soaking into the stems of the mushrooms to more of a focus on mycelium and the concept of decay, and the skull went from predator to prey to give it a fiercer look.
This week I've been playing a lot of catch up. Some of the crunchiest deadlines I've encountered in my day job are in the rearview, and as of yesterday so is yet another Folkgore stretch goal. Baba Yaga's hut is now available as an add-on!(All-in Nightmare Collection backers, you'll automatically receive this pin in your collection.)
We've got roughly a week and a half left in this campaign, and besides the kappa and his little cucumber, Carrie and I are finishing up refining the tengu and kitsune, as well as a design for the botan doro (peony lantern) ghost story for some final stretch goals to carry us through the end of the month. We've also got a little poll to see about adding something extra to those last three stretch goals if people are interested.
There have been a ton of awful things in the news lately, and since art is one of the ways I destress, working on this project has been a really lovely way to remind myself of the collective joy (and power) that people find in art and storytelling. Thanks again for being a part of this project with me! Carrie and I will have more art to share with you all soon. :)
Shrieking (in a good way) because the banshee has been unlocked. Up next is Baba Yaga's house, and as of posting this, we're just 1k away from unlocking that too!
Baba Yaga's house was already close to finished, and we decided to release it as a standard pin so we'd have more flexibility around size. If you check out the add-ons, you'll see that we also updated the rough sketch of the Okiku and Banshee with their final designs. Okiku's nine plates are represented in the design of the well which also pays homage to Himeji Castle's architecture.
I'll post another poll this week, but before that, I thought I'd share some of the other design concepts that are a little rougher. Here's a look at what I've been playing with for a Kitsune (left) and a Tengu (right).
I've been trying to find a good way to incorporate the Tengu's fan into the design, but I find myself coming back to this simpler version. I really like the motion in it and how well it fits with the cloud motifs. If this design moves forward, it won't change much in shape and concept.
The kitsune is another story. For this design I wanted to do a more Noh-inspired version of Tamamo no Mae, but Carrie and I are still tossing ideas back and forth. Since they do such beautiful animal work, we're going to try some concepts for a double pin with both the fox form and woman form.
Thinking ahead, some other ideas we have for future pin unlocks include something for the Japanese ghost story about the girl with the Peony Lantern, and Carrie has a sketch for the Lidérc to expand more into the Slavic folklore of her heritage.
Are there any other fearsome folklore creatures from the regions we've been exploring that you're interested in? If so, please tell us in the comments!
