I have a lot I want and have to say and I'm not great at being succinct! So this is 1 of 3 necessary posts I will be making over the next ~week: the next will be when surveys are sent out because I'm submitting them for review, and the last of these 3 will be about a week later when presumably the first of my pins start arriving...
Then we'll go back to a regular update "schedule" of things just being said when there is something to say, as well as reminders when surveys are close to locking.
So, this first one will be about the current status of the pins, which ones will be arriving to me first, and the launch info for part 2.
To be honest, it's a lot of me being stressed and a ton of (valid and out of my hands) excuses about why they aren't done yet, so if you only look at the pictures and don't read all my rambling I understand.
Okay! Now for the info!
Part 2 will launch October 14th. I've submitted it for review too, though I still have a lot of pics to add of course. I am rushing like crazy to try to get everything set for that. Here is the bookmark page - please sign up if you're interested! The federal govt shutting down Oct 1st is the only thing making me super nervous. 🙃 Part 2 will currently still proceed as planned but I'm...I have a lot of thoughts. Let's just say that. Thankfully, I've found a bit of a workaround (upfront paying for pin tariffs by including them in bulk payment) so I don't think I need to charge any for this campaign - but I might need to for part 2 because of the below:
I have a few new manufacturers I am using for that campaign (instead of 1). This is because the one that's making this campaign's pins severely plummeted in quality. Every time she even sends me a picture for approval, it's got so many horribly visible flaws even when the pic is slightly blurry, like missing enamel or really smeared painting or polished so low that details are missing, so I panic and ask her what's going on with those details...and she's just like "please don't worry". Most of the pics I'm showing are from me being like girl, I'm still worried - so she sends me other photos after scrutinizing more. 🫠 She is shipping the first batch of my pins with me this week along with C's spiders and I'm veeeeery nervous to put it lightly. They're currently on holiday so I don't know how much that will delay their arrival.
The new manufacturers vary GREATLY in cost. I want to say though: this manufacturer I used for this round previously made the most perfect pins I've ever received, and were already considered on the pricier end for pins at that time. Lol the highest price point manu I contacted quoted Dullahan and Mummy at almost $9 PER PIECE. Per piece!!! Noooo!! No way. I'm sorry but I politely declined. And for a factory almost entirely automated - that's just not fair.
Price doesn't guarantee quality (as I've unfortunately found out time and time again). What guarantees quality is attention to detail, enough staff to do so, and not rushing. (If your pins are arriving from campaigns <1 month after completion, the quality is unlikely to be good!)
No matter how much you pay, not everyone will do/be capable of doing that. Especially since indie small orders are the lowest priority compared to bulk pin orders by corporate customers, and we're also pickier because we're charged much more.
Something people rarely think about is that for many factories, all of these steps are still done by hand. That's not true for all - it isn't true for the one I'm currently using - but steps like the polishing before plating and setting up the pins in/on the machines for each step in the process are done by people. Often the printing is done by hand also. People who are supposed to be doing QC, but are generally too busy to do so, miss things - but it makes all the difference if they admit it vs argue until both of us are distraught over it. So I'd love to pay $8 per pin if it helped the quality, because I do believe in fair wages and I can't imagine doing that work, as a disabled person myself - but it's not realistic in this global economy...
Gorgon's sample that's otw in the mail was done with the most expensive of the new manus I'm testing. I want to get her and TV cat produced with them, because gradient print under enamel isn't something every manu's tech is capable of (see: above about handmade vs machine processes). That's closer to the astronomical $8 per pin than I'd like BUT the pics of Gorgon look great and the rep has been really good. I'm trying out 2 others that can handle varying other complexities. Unfortunately, I make my designs too complicated. Once you start doing pins with printing, you can't go back...
I need to raise a pretty penny via these survey funds for Gorgon and TV Cat, and I'm sorry to pass that burden along to you, but I think it's worth it for the quality. Gradients are a relatively complicated printing process it seems like, so the designs I've already made that have them are likely all going to all have to go through this manu. Golem as well because of the varied glitter and small details. The exception regarding gradients may be Mummy - we'll see.
(I'm actually also highly considering giving Mummy some big earrings but I'm not sure if I will.)
Elfling's pupil will no longer glow in the dark because they insisted they can't get a vibrant red with glow powder included, but really the issue is some of the colors have been so...diluted?? They're thin, so the enamel underneath is affecting the hue. Her eyebrows and fishnets also look strangely translucent, at least in photos and videos, but it isn't so bad compared to the pupil currently being 80% invisible because of it being see-through.
Which makes no sense, because glow powder is opaque and makes print thicker and grainy, yet they've shown me proof these do actually glow. Those of you that have my pins from before with glow print for sure know this (like ouija and ooze moths, lava lamp and cosmic horror fish, etc).
Very opaque, very gritty, very powdery - all 3 of these colors glow.
But I had to budge on that for there to be a visible color for the eye.
On the same note, the pink mini bat's drips are translucent and the metal can be seen through it.
They also say the highlight color is there too but it also seems see-through because...where??
This really bothered me, because I've had "drippy" printing over dyed metal on a bat before...
Bottom left - sorry, I'm on mobile and didn't want to crop this and have no idea where the original tiny photo from 4 years ago is.
...so they are going to remake them in another color since idk what they're doing with their warm tones right now. I'm going to try out a green colorway, and that one will be the freebie for return backers for Part 2 as a pair piece. Since they're an apology batch, they won't affect Part 2's base goal price, which will already unfortunately need to be higher because of the new manus. They won't reprint these in this colorway, so I hope it's okay with y'all since this was a freebie. 🥲
Once Elfling's eye is fixed she will be in with the batch shipping to me with the spiders. The bats are already packed. The others included in this first round include Necromancer, Shinigami, and I think Spider Witch.
Spider Witch and Zombie's fingernails had both disappeared, though, which is upsetting - and they left out the blue printing on Zombie's bangs that covers the metal initially and had to be reprinted.
Spider witch's freckles look great though from what I can tell!?
In the pre-print, pre-plating samples I approved of them, which were already polished flat just to show how it would look, their fingernails existed.
But her excuse now is that they weren't visible because of polishing...so, they over-polished at least the ones she's shown me. I don't know how many of them this applies to, and for that reason I'm nervous about them. They look really good to me otherwise, but overpolishing can cause a ton of issues so 🤞 that it isn't that bad for many. (She did suddenly surprise me with pictures of them with printed fingernails on shortly before I was going to publish this update, which looks better than without them, that's for sure.)
bangs are fixed too!! Why was this picture taken as she was getting ready to get into/out of her car..? Idk.
I love her! Her web turned out better than they implied it would.
Rin is being reprinted because they made all her "shadows" and blush lighter than her skin. Her excuse was that they follow the colors on the proof not the color codes I provided, which was one of the strangest excuses a manufacturer rep has ever said to me. Colors vary like crazy depending on monitor, and the codes I provided were darker than her skin... So I told her to just darken them and provided different color codes...and I'm waiting to see what the change will be.
it just pains me. She is otherwise beautiful
Last update on progress is Ghoul - they finally did her mold right, and the transparent enamel flame is great!! But...this time they left out the white enamel on her forehead around the hair swoop? On seemingly all of them? ... I'm not sure how that's going to be fixed if they've all already been plated but she says it will. The ahoge also has blue enamel under it when it should be recessed (no enamel).
she says the transparent enamel will be less bubbly in the rest of the pins...we shall see.
I haven't heard anything about Baphomet in quite some time.
Okay, now that that is disclosed, here's current design progress for the new part 2 ladies. (These are not in stretch goal order)
1) Golem - finished
dark gold is "Recessed" metal
She will have fancy glitters! I want her to have a very geode-like existence, so her colors won't all be the same types of glitter, some will have thicker pieces. I don't think I communicated it well in the mockup but sampling her would be over $100 just for 1 pin and I can't do that out of pocket. ;;;;; If C is able to finish his designs in time for Oct 14th launch she will be the cross-collab reward on my end, but if not, she will be a goal.
2) Mermaid - finished
I had to adjust her tentacles so that they'd have less teeny gaps inbetween them, and cleaned up some other things, but she's now done for real. She will be SUPER sparkly.
3) Angel - finished I changed the eye color because of the eyes of the demon right below this. They're done, and I want them to have shimmery marble-like skin and hair. Wings will be plain white with the same glow in the dark blue print as the pupils.
4) Demon - finished
the grey on clothes and weapon is recessed metal not enamel
A 2-parter!! Her mace will be connected via chain, so the spiky ball part(?) is its own mini pin.
I think most if not all of you will be able to tell where I got inspiration from for her; I don't personally enjoy drawing fanart and have been OC-only for nearly a decade, but I really enjoyed aesthetically how their demons have glowing tattoo-like "patterns," and that some of them have yellow/golden irises instead of the typical red used for demons! So ultimately, that's the inspiration I gained from it and not really anything else subliminally (that I can tell), but it was enough to motivate me to get to this point. I like her. However, it's because I decided to go with black sclera and golden irises for her that I changed Angel's eyes. I don't want to be too repetitive. Her eyes and patterns will glow in the dark.
5) Harpy - almost done redrawing I had a mild existential crisis when I realized how many 3/4 faces I was drawing, especially to the left, so I started over on her pose. I think I might actually be a little obsessed with her, I was afraid to play around with perspective but this pose change did sooo much to elevate her personality, and also makes the silhouette easier to pin.
Harpy's wings will be as realistic as I can reasonably get them, but for both her braids and feathers I'll have to mostly achieve that with print. Having too many little tiny cavities to fill with enamel would mean a super high cost yet also a high flaw rate to match. Baphomet and Angel's wings are stylized deliberately, the former being based on some of the more iconic statues of baphomet, but for her I want her to look more "sharp" and intimidating. She's currently done with lineart except for hairties, and the print locations are all vaguely mapped out.
I WILL ALSO SAY I hate the things I put at the ends of her braids and am going to do something else there. Her hair is going to be the death of me overall...
The other 3 are still WIP/haven't changed much since I last shared.
Lastly...
I have fully dropped my Onmyouji. She was the FIRST of these girls I started pin art for (besides Shinigami who only needed minor edits since her v1 pin I made in 2022), I'm pretty sure even my ghoul and baphy redraws came after, and I just don't like it. I would need to spend hours cleaning her up and that thought stresses me out.
I spent a lot of time on her already. 🥲 I can't do it. RIP pin Onmyouji. I still have her as a chibi sticker and a keychain. Will be available as add-ons in part 2.
Anyway, that's the current status of the new ladies, and Dullahan will be the base goal of part 2 along with Golem if she's the cross-collab freebie. Mummy will be next, then the new girls.
So assuming everything goes okay with review, surveys will go out early next week. They're complicated dramatically by me adding a lot of high-stock items to survey options, admittedly - but especially with my shop closed right now it's a necessity for me. I have to manually duplicate everything from campaign to the survey and then "link" every option.
It's not disability-friendly at all and is why most people do "choose from ___" listings instead, but I prefer to know the count and be able to order immediately following a campaign rather than having to rush to send out the survey immediately.
