Autumn Aesthetics

Hi all,

I'm back from an extremely challenging Spring. Those who were following my recent ita bag campaign know that I just had to say goodbye to my wolfdog Balto recently. Still grieving a bit on top of recovering from an especially hectic and clunky move, but the good news is that I should be able to finish fulfilment on this campaign very soon. It should take us a week or two to finish the remaining orders.

The rest of the pins finally arrived! I was not given an exact reason why, but my manufacturer needed extra time. Sometimes they'll remake pins on their own if they notice enough errors, and the pins I received look fine, so I'm not terribly concerned. I won't be reopening surveys this time as I really just want to get the orders out and mark this project as fulfilled, but I will have the witch sets available on my Etsy very shortly. Thank you for understanding. 

Sorry again for the bad pin photos, I'm not great at it and don't have good photo equipment.

Now that everything is here, I'm going to push out orders asap. Cheers, and thanks!
- Lachlan

Hi all!
I've unlocked all orders for the folks who wanted to add items after seeing pin pictures. Only the tea is in at this point - the witch sets are taking a little because there was some miscommunication about some of the effects I wanted to use vs the effects the manu assumed I wanted to use. As it goes, but I'm steering the ship back on course. 

Speaking of pics, here they are! 
(forgive the photo quality, I'm not a photographer!!)

I really wish I could've taken better photos - these are SO much better in person! The details and techniques are incredible!! 

While I wait for the witch sets, I'll start fulfilment on the rest of the orders. I am leaving for Anime Boston in a couple days so there won't be any substantial movement for a couple weeks, but after that I will be getting as many orders fulfilled as I can. Thank you for your patience while I deal with everything else going on - the move has been, uhhhhh, something for sure. I'm still trying to track down missing merchandise among other things. Just want this move to be over :)

Anyways, cheers for now and see you soon with hopefully better news!
Lachlan

Hi all, 

The tea set pins are in! Grading is done and they look pretty great! Very low error rate, which is awesome. 

The witches are not in yet though - they have encountered a couple delays but should be in my hands in April. They are more complicated than what I usually get, so it was a bit expected. 

I'll lock addresses once I get a closer approximation for when the rest of the pins will be in my hands.

I will be at quite a few cons coming up and bringing the tea pin stock with me so I can fulfill orders for folks in person if they want. I will be at: 

If you want to pick up in person, no further action is required although I will have you bring up your backer info so we can double check. I would recommend having a screenshot on your phone saved as data can be very tricky sometimes in these convention centres! Make sure the screenshot includes your backer name or email, backer number, and order items.

Also!!! I plan on shipping out all orders before Animazement so if you want to pick up in person at these conventions please comment or message me so I can set your order aside!

A couple notes about in person pick up: 

I'm locking and charging cards for all remaining open orders - you should get a separate email letting you know if your order hasn't been locked yet.

That's it for now, and I'll do another brief update when all orders are finished. 

Cheers! 
Lachlan

Hey all,

Thank you for your patience and thank you for your very quick work filling out the surveys!

Completely unsurprising, but the most popular item is the Mothman Tea Set! I see you fellow Mothman fans!

Here's some important info going forward:

Survey locks and charges are going to happen every Friday until the survey deadline on January 31st. One was supposed to happen yesterday but it didn't feel good to lock + charge without sending out a reminder first. Instead, a lock and charge will be happening Tomorrow Sunday 21st.

I will be ordering the pins right after Christmas. They should take about 45 days to make, making us still on time for fulfilment. I'm already going over final art and such with my manufacturer so I'm basically just waiting to pay. I unfortunately can't order them any earlier because I need to be able to confirm my new address will actually be *my* address before I send a bunch of expensive merch to it. (more on that below...)

I will unlock surveys again after the pins come in. This will only let people add more pins, unfortunately, as BackerKit doesn't have a good way to administer partial refunds. I will post photos of the pins so you can see how they actually turned out. This will be some time in February.

I will contact UK backers and sending Etsy links for their orders in February. I'll be doing this only when all of the merchandise is in.

Lastly, I will be participating in Pintopia this year in January. I will be doing a set of cyberpunk-style animals and will be posting designs very soon. You can follow the campaign here!

I am, for once, very confident that fulfilment will be as sooth as butter for this campaign. It's getting there that's killing me a bit! I think I mentioned my house woes in my last update. My spouse and I are trying to buy a house and settle in to our new town, but the first house we made an offer on was full asbestos. We were supposed to close on the 22nd, and that would be that. We decided to terminate that contract and start over on house hunting - that's been the reason I've been a bit squirrely and hard to get a hold of, and I'm sorry! 

Good news is that we found a back up and made an offer. Inspection turned out great and we should be good to close and move in on January 8th. I'm waiting on getting my mortgage re-approved before I start making plans to have things shipped there. I'm going to try to get my studio space set up asap so I can get be completely ready for Pintopia and fulfilling Autum Aesthetics. I get a WHOLE BASEMENT to myself so I don't have to stress about storage space anymore!!! And a nice space just for fulfilment!!! AND NO ASBESTOS!! YIPPEE!! 

Thanks for being here all, I really do appreciate it and am looking forward to not moving next year (haha) but in all seriousness, I am very thankful for you all. I wouldn't wish the year I've had on anyone, but you all being flexible and kind has made it 1000% easier and better. Some of you have been with me for every campaign I did this year and gosh, you folks have been troopers. I won't let you down, promise! 

Cheers, and see you in the next update!
- Lachlan

Hi all,

Smoke tests have been sent! If you didn't get a survey yet, you will tomorrow.

There's a rather high amount of errored payments still, so please use the survey as a chance to correct your payments! BackerKit is starting to crack down on folks who chronically back and have errored payments.

Here are the last pin designs we unlocked during the campaign! I put a huge amount of effort into these :D







I made some changes to Druidess, but I think no one will be bothered. I edited the face a little and added more embroidery on her jacket.



There are a couple extra pins for pre order - no minimum needed, they'll be made regardless - but I wanted to give you the opportunity to get them if you wanted.








I'm going to do my best to answer messages if there's something wrong. Commenting here on this update will be better than going through BackerKit support because I'm not sure my messages are going through correctly through that. But I do get pinged semi regularly when there's a comment now so I can see and respond to things quicker that way. 

Sorry the survey took so long, I blinked and suddenly we were a good chunk into December. Spouse and I are trying to close on a house and it's going uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh very bad. Not mortgage bad at least! But like inspection and asbestos bad. I swear, every day there's a new crisis and it's sapping all my energy. It's been weeks of high level stress for sure. Hopefully I'll have good news soon but in the meantime, oooh pins!! 

I'm going to take a nap before I have to probably answer a phone call or email concerning yet another crisis or a time-urgent document to sign. Enjoy!

Cheers,
Lachlan