Hi everyone!

Thank you all so much for an amazing first day of our launch!

I am so, so thankful and happy for the support that was received on just day one of the campaign! At this point of time, we have UNLOCKED ALL 11 OF OUR BASE ENAMEL PINS! Which is amazing!!

This means that these designs are FULLY UNLOCKED and available to be chosen as your pledge option at the end of the campaign:

I giggled a bit since when I launched the campaign I literally left in the description of the stretch goals, "While I do not anticipate to unlock all goals..." and this was absolutely blown away on the first day with haste. Thank you all so much for the overwhelming support on my campaign!

So now we are moving to our "fully funded" stretch-goals.

For almost all of my projects I always try to put in some funds to guarantee a successful project and this was what I assumed would also be the case and was fully prepared to do so (especially with the not easy task of having ELEVEN pins in this campaign). However, we are very close to meeting full funding at $4,500 which would be the point of the campaign where everything is completely funded by the support of you, the backers! Thank you so much!!!

As I love, love, love enamel pins. I would like to continue the journey to unlock more and more enamel pin designs, and there were some that didn't quiiiiiite make the cut for me even though they were drafted and done very early - way, way before I was even accepted to Pintopia.
 
At $4,500 I will be touching up some of the oldest designs (Espurr, Emolga, Flaaffy, Milotic) to present to you to see which ones that the backers would have the most appeal towards. We'll continue to add them to our campaign. I do want to let you know that due to just how old those designs are, it's likely that while I may or may not keep the concept, I want to re-draw them or re-visit them with fresh eyes as it's been months since I've put a pen on their designs. They may even be re-worked or scrapped completely but I intend to bring the best of my ability of my own designed enamel pins to your collections. Right now my favorite of the four mentioned is Espurr. 

What's the plan now?

So as of last night, I have already started to get my ducks in a row. Many manufacturers are away on Lunar New Year break and they're estimated to come back around the week of February 8th. That's still quiiiiite a bit of time away. I've let my primary manufacturers know to expect my project's blueprints around the same time that they come back from break so that we can immediately spring into action. I will continue to follow my plan of revising my artwork, setting up blue-prints, and will submit them as soon as they come back from break - albeit I do not expect to receive any response from my manufacturers as the only major break they take annually is Lunar New Year and I want them to have a good break and rest.

Artwork Revision

During this time, I have started to revise my artwork. It's pretty important to note that for my previous kickstarter, I didn't really change much beyond fine-tuning the colors during production and the artwork was not changed a lot. However, all great artists must grow over time. During the time from the conception to the launch-date, several designs have all gone through multiple sketches and drafts and I admit that while I set up the blueprints for these enamel pins, that is the best time for me to scrutinize how colors work together, what areas may need to be thinned, thickened, changed to make the best enamel pin possible.

I wanted to give you an example of my Shaymin pin that I was tinkering on last night to show you what kind of changes might occur during this "artwork revision" process. The concept is moreso the same, however when I'm setting up all of the artwork to submit it to the manufacturer this is when I look at every single corner and color to see how it can be better revised.

The one that is currently featured in the campaign is the one on the left. The one that I've revised and tinkered with last night is the result on the right. The red was changed to make it look cuter with the hearts. The eyes were revised to make them slightly rounder. The mouth has been cleaned up. The red inside the flowers were tightened together closer. The flowers were also puffened up just slightly and the leaves were redrawn to make them rounder. I added another small yellow dot for Shaymin's hedge. The nose ridge is a cleaner curve. All of these are subtle changes that I've made to help make the design look nicer and this will generally be the process going forward for all of the designs. 

Rationale behind changes to designs if made / Comments about Previous Mochi Pins

The designs that you see are meant to be solid concepts of the designs for sure! But I just want to be transparent with you to let you know that it is indeed, my second time working with a more complex idea with Mochi-pins. The first time I ever made Mochi-pins was with the Jack Frost / Black Frost which only required two recessed areas around the corners and a cut-out that was very easy to do so I had faith in my manufacturer to pull the rest of my designs off successfully. They came out perfectly, so I decided to move forward with my favorite of the older pin designs WITHOUT a sample, which was Skitty and Pinkbean, and I personally felt that I could do better given the outcome that I received and I discussed this with my manufacturer to see what areas could be improved in the future, and I quickly came to a conclusion that these will all require sampling to ensure the best product possible as it's higher stakes (as Skitty and Pinkbean were personal projects and were not for any pre-ordered items so I felt OK with taking the risk of a less-than-perfect product). However, I'm really happy though as it seems that my own Skitty pin is still quite loved, still and many of you have added her to your pledge and I'm so, so happy to see that my Skitties are going to good homes. Thank you so much for adopting her!

I don't intend on remaking her at this time (but may revisit in the future seeing that Skitty is one of my favorite Pokemon) as I want to continue to branch out to make new enamel pins. However, this taught me one thing which is why my goals are a little bit more padded - the funding by you, the backer, allows me to go to new heights and opportunities that I would otherwise struggle with. This means that I am getting a sample of every design to make sure that they are perfect this time. I will be getting samples made for all of my pins this time to ensure that I am delivering the best product possible. Skitty was made NOT for a project but for a personal want of mine. Now that I have all of you on my side, I want to make sure that my Mochimon pins are the best that I can deliver. This means revising designs and making edits if necessary. I know that this may seem alarming to some backers, but I will be presenting all of the final designs that are cleaned up before the campaign ends so that you can make your decision on which Mochimon pins you would like to have.

I think that that's most of what I have to say for now as I'm going to go straight back to work on revising my project for you all and preparing for a future update.

Again, thank you all from the bottom of my heart to the steam coming from the top of my head - thank you!

I will be in touch with everyone soon with some updates, polls, and discussions. When those come up, please, please feel more than super welcome to comment and leave your opinion. I'm always looking for feedback and the opinion of others!

If you have any emails about this project at any time, please email me at [email protected].

Thank you all again!! See you soon!
Jintan

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