February Preview
Hi everyone!
Wanted to share the designs for February before the end of the month!
MOUJUU
The theme is monkey, though we are trying to decide which design will be best for pin (we've already drawn up a ton). Expect it to be in style mix of ukiyo e & kawaii.
PRETTY WINKERS: SG
With January being Kiki, it only makes sense to pair her with Tombo for February! The background will feature the clock tower he was hanging on at the end of the film and the base is part of his propeller.
PRETTY WINKERS: PRETTY SOLDIER
For February, the season of love, we have a couple pairing set of An & Ail from SM R (season 2). While I could never stand An, I always though Ail was really sweet and had too much love to give. While he had eyes for Usagi, I think in his heart he truly loved An and his love for her was more pure while hers was really fueled by jealousy and need. But in the end, they could remember the reasons they loved and cared for one another. Being side characters, extras will be limited and I won't be restocking, but wanted to still create these two. I am overall happy with the artwork Taka created, but will be making some small adjustments to create balance in the design, especially with Ail. His hand is a little too big even if it is a perspective thing, and I want their face size to be balanced in the heart so they look more like a pair. :)
SO MUCH WORK
So, since early January, I've managed to receive 4 shipments, two from our main manu, and two from our back up manu. If you've read previous updates, you'll know that our main manu had a baby in November and Covid most of December. So even though pins from as far back as the July lotus and September's designs were finished even in October, for whatever reason, they somehow were unable to ship finished designs in a timely manner. What this unfortunately means for me, is that instead of unbagging, grading, packaging and shipping maybe 4-6 designs, I've got over THIRTY designs I'm working through. I've finished unbagging about 1/4 of all the new pins, graded about Princess Mercury, some of Zoisite, and 1/3 of Queen Serenity (she's the one who will take the longest to grade because I have to clean up a lot of her screenprint. It looks fine even if I don't do that, but I always like to let the metal shine through as best as I can for y'all.) I am working as hard as I possibly can to finish the process of going through all these new designs & restocks over the next two weeks before we have to head to the East Coast for Katsucon and to visit my family for a few days. I am confident I can get all this done, before we head out, but don't expect I'll be able to drop extras of any of the pins until the end of February, so expect a BIG shop update around then! :) Here's a (very long) list of all the designs we've gotten in so you can also have an idea of what to expect in your next club boxes:
Lotus: Warm & Classic Variant (July 2022)
Queen Serenity (Sep 2022)
Queen Beryl (Sep 2022)
Kiku / Chrysanthemum: Both Designs & all color variants (Oct 2022)
Star Fighter (Oct 2022)
Jadeite (Oct 2022)
Kuchinashi / Gardenia (Nov 2022)
Star Healer (Nov 2022)
Zoisite (Nov 2022)
Kiri / Paulownia: Black & Grey Variant, somehow only the left side of Purple variant arrived, right side was forgotten at the factory when they shipped (Dec 2022)
Nephrite (Dec 2022)
Star Maker (Dec 2022)
12 Zodiac Designs (Original & Blue Porcelain Variant)
Bunny Dango
Frog Dango
Ghost Dango
Kintaro / Fat Baby
Princess Mercury
Oni: Red, Blue, and new Green, Black & Pink variants
Koinobori: Red, Blue, Purple, Green variant + new Orange Variant
Pokeballs
Konpeito sets
ADDRESS CHANGES
Also wanted to give everyone a friendly reminder to let me know if your address has changed in the last couple months. While you may have changed it on the back end of your membership, I don't get notifications of any changes until the next charges go through, so if your address changed since the last box may have gone out then please be sure to email me those address changes at ShishidoCreative@gmail.com
Thank you all, I'll be working super hard to vector Feb Designs and also do all the other busy work that comes with me getting all your packages out the door! I appreciate the insane amount of patience you've all had and am hoping to have a quicker pace of getting boxes out though it's always dependent on the manufacturers. Stay tuned, friends!
- Mandy & Taka