December Updates
Hello, dear friends!
Please forgive us for being so behind on posting these finished designs. It has been a rather busy first 10 days of December (and ugh, I honestly can't even believe we are already TEN days into December). Where does time even go?! I can tell you where all our time has been spent for the last two weeks in a moment, but let's just take a moment to appreciate the gorgeous new pin designs because they're probably some of my favorites of this year. I know it took us longer to vector, so we really appreciate your patience. We are still finishing up Yuki Onna (yokai) as we need to add her screen printed details, and it's up to Taka if he'd like any color variants for her as well, but I should have her wrapped up tonight.
BUSY DECEMBER
Again, we are grateful for you all being so patient as we reveal our latest designs, and slowly reply to emails. I have tried to be vigilant at responding to emails even though my focus this week has primarily been on vectoring. This month's designs were a struggle to finish partly because Taka had just been redoing Ves Ves' face nearly 5 times to get it right, partly because we honestly were chained to our table at Emerald City Comic Con for the first 5 days of this month. I did bring my tablet to work on the vectors, but of course it's a lot harder to focus when you also need to do transactions and chat with customers every few minutes or so. That and my tablet, wonderful as it is, was designed with a terrible battery, so I only get about two hours of use before it needs to be charged again. It's a problem Wacom/Microsoft have acknowledged but don't really have a known solution for. You're not supposed to use it plugged in since it's called the "Mobile Studio Pro" but it dies within two hours, even if you're not doing anything graphically heavy. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That said, I'll begin fulfillment on pin club boxes for anyone waiting on Nehelenia, Cutie Moon 2, Luna (if you selected the light or the current dark designs and I have enough in hand--if you selected you wanted the current dark one, but I didn't have enough after grading what's in hand, I will send you a corrected Luna later), Ikuko Mama and September's Dragons. If at any time you feel you are missing something you should have received by now, please let me know. I am pretty good with my spreadsheet, but human error can happen, or something could have been lost in the mail. I'm always happy to double-check on things for you! :)
That said, I actually had another pin club member reach out to me to get photos of designs for their own checklist of what they've gotten, and I'm thinking maybe I ought to make a little checklist for you all so you can mark off on your own what you're signed up for and to keep track of what you have coming still. Please let us know if this is something you'd all be interested in! :)
TOUGH TIMES
As most of you know, we attended Emerald City Comic Con last week from Weds-Sunday (Wednesday was prep day), and to be honest, it wasn't a very rewarding con. I don't really say this publicly on our IG, but yeah, it was pretty painful. It was already a pricey con to attend, and it wasn't til end of Friday that we could make our table fees back. While I'm really glad that they were vigilant about safety measures, attendance was pretty low due to what most vendors and we believe to be a) poor advertising--like legit, there were no signs or ads, the ONLY article I saw about the event didn't even show in the news until SUNDAY, b) sudden decision only a couple months ago to move it from March to December 2021 which is a really cold and rainy season in Seattle, c) everyone is broke from Black Friday which of course affected sales for vendors, and d) the Omicron variant hitting US soil. Of course all events are going to 50/50 whether you do well or not, but for being the most expensive event we've ever tabled at, it had the least value to us. That's not to say we would never do this event again, but I'll probably wait til 2023 to return to this event as I can't foresee it being a good event til at least that point, and unfortunately, that was the overall feeling across all vendors and artists we spoke with.
That said, we did get the pleasure of meeting SlyBonsai in person, and that was probably the best highlight of last week! Taka even began working on a large upper arm piece for her that I'll share pics with you all of later! In general, late November and all of December is a busy month for Taka as he has gotten more new clients, been busy with continuing clients (since most his pieces are big tattoos). I can't recall if I mentioned before, but Taka will be heading to Japan on January 1st for about 3 weeks, so between a busier tattoo schedule and me having him work on all the January-March designs in advance, it's a busy month indeed!
His return to Japan is primarily to work and to meet with a Tebori artist living in Europe who is returning for the next month or so. Taka is planning to get his chest and stomach covered up which will be a difficult feat. He'll essentially be taking the money he gets from tattooing his main client and then giving that money to the tebori artist to do his cover up. O.o He'll also be bringing back a bunch of treats for me to disperse in the Japanese theme club boxes throughout the year! :D And of course, plenty of art books and treats for ME! I'm pretty bummed because this will be the longest amount of time we've been apart for almost 3 years! We haven't been apart for more than about 6 hours or so since we landed on US soil together in March 2019. But I'm also trying to look forward to some "me" time where I can do hobbies I've been putting off for literal years! I'm also planning to get a bunch of new designs into production for fandoms that aren't part of the pin club, so I hope you're all gonna be excited for January updates!
WICKED LADY
Ugh, it is with absolutely NO joy that I bring you a disappointing update. So, because I didn't make my manu produce the full amount of Luna remakes since so many of you were happy with the light-colored background Luna, which makes sense because she honestly is so lovely even with lighter colors, I pressed my manu about Wicked Lady for what feels like the millionth time. I think for weeks they've been trying to always evade the question by distracting me with photos, or talking about other designs, but finally because they messed up bad with Luna, and I was questioning them about how long it will take because y'all been waiting on Wicked Lady for far too long, our manu finally admitted that it's being delayed again because their machine shop didn't destroy the messed up mold the first time around. Apparently they repressed like all 300+ pins of Wicked Lady with the wrong mold when they began remakes. So he's making them destroy the wrong mold and remake the correct mold. While I'm glad my manu rep caught it before they could fully finish the pins and send them our way, I'm disappointed that they didn't just tell us this update sooner as I've been begging them for updates as I always tell our rep how important you all are to us. So, I do apologize once again for something that is out of our hands. I know you are all incredibly patient, kind and please don't think this ever goes without notice. And please rest assured, Wicked Lady will make her way to you, and hopefully this third attempt by our manu will in fact be a charm!
Alright, that was a lot! So, now I'm going finish up the screen print for Yuki Onna, get everything sent to production, and begin fulfilling all of the past-due pin boxes! Time to get hyped, y'all! :p
- Mandy + Taka
oooo i would love a checklist, especially since some of us are completionists! im sorry to hear about the issues with WL and the con, it always sucks when things don’t come out the way they should. you guys are the best for keeping us updated and the mars and ves ves look amazing 😍
Yes, I’d also be interested in a checklist/spreadsheet! I was actually going to email to double check what designs I’d gotten for the outstanding Patreon/pin club packages because I felt I might have missed the questionnaire one month. ^^; So, yes, interested! And thank you for the update on WL as well. Sorry for all the trouble you’re going through for her!
So thankful for these updates and love the designs! Any word as of yet on Mistress 9?
Yes I would love a checklist so I can keep better track of what pins I’ve received! Thanks!