September Designs

Good evening, lion-pups!

All the designs are fully finished, no revisions left to do, and looking really beautiful! Here's a quick look at the designs before I give you some production updates:

PRETTY WINKERS: SG

This month, SG members can choose between greedy Yubaba or kindly Zeniba. I personally would rather be in Zeniba's good graces, but Yubaba's more likely to punish you if you don't kiss up to her, so choose wisely! Since the last peek, I made a lot of changes to Zeniba's design adding maybe tooooo many details to the background, but it was hard not to because her cottage is goals!

PRETTY WINKERS: PS

I'm so in love with how Haruka turned out, aren't you? This is by far our dreamiest iteration of everyone's favorite lady killer! I can certainly see why Michiru fell hard for her, can't you? I'm really glad about how everything turned out, especially since I mentioned in the last update I'm sort of taking over on final linework for Taka's sketches to give him more time for his tattoo work.

And for our final Sailor Animamate, I'm excited to present Lead Crow who will pair very well with Sailor Aluminum Siren as they are both facing one another! I did add quite a bit of extra screen print to her design because her colors are pretty monochromatic for her fuku/hair/skin and I really wanted to make sure we had enough contrast! Now I said final Sailor Animamate, but I am wondering if you all want us to do Heavy Metal Papillon? She's not in the original 90s anime, but I also know some of y'all really love your obscure characters, so we could be open to adding her to the lineup, though it'd be a very limited run, or possibly a pre-order option only. Let me know what y'all think about that prospect.

MOUJUU CLUB

For the Moujuu club, members can choose from the traditional tan Shiba inu, or darker variant. There will also be a freebie daruma pin to go along with it, though color for the daruma pin will be random. There are two colors shown in these mockups, but we plan to make multiple color options, not shown here. I'm really excited for us to finally have a proper dog pin since we only have the inu hariko pin which we can never seem to keep in stock, and our Lunar New Year dog, so it will be great to have a normal doggy option in the shop!

GENERAL & PRODUCTION UPDATES

This month was a bit of extra work because the Ghibli club gets to choose from two designs, plus the Moujuu club gets some extra love with a mini Daruma pin as well. Don't worry, Pretty Soldiers members, you're getting some extra love in your loyalty gifts this year, so don't feel left out! ;p

Speaking of loyalty gifts, I'm still waiting on some stickers to come in for Ghibli club for 3 months gifts (I admit I forgot to put them in one of my sticker orders earlier this year, so those should be in soon). And all 6 month gifts should be in soon as well. If you've read some of the updates over the last 2 months, you'll know I'm working with 3 metal manufacturers at the moment, so timing is a little all over the place for when projects are finished.

I'm beginning to put all the graded pins from last shipment onto their backing cards now that life is slowing down ever so slightly from the last month of my life that really threw a wrench into my ability to get things done. Of course, come to find that I have another big shipment coming in tomorrow afternoon with the latest batch of pins from our old main manu. I'm still going to focus on shipping out the current selection of pins over the next few days just to get them out to you all and keep you from having to wait any longer. So if you're waiting on the following designs, expect to see them in your mailboxes within the next week:

• Casual Rei
• Casual Mako-chan
• Haku
• Sen
• Kitsune
• Snake

I believe the shipment tomorrow will likely be Fish Eye, Casual Minako, Crane, some restocks, and hopefully remakes of Sailor Moon from last year! 😤

From my secondary manu that's usually more expensive, I have the 6 mo gift pins for all 3 clubs being finished up, I have my new Filipinx lingling-o pins, Filipinx parol, froggy dango & ghost dango restocks, hands of the sorcerer set restocks, as well as some of the Lunar animals I'm getting low on. Those are all in varying stages of completion, but just about done, so hopefully shipped out soon.

And from the 3rd, newer manu that I am trying out, I know that Chibiusa, Tin Nyanko, and Kaonashi (No Face) are all close to being finished and just waiting on plating. I'm really hoping this new manu does work out once I see the final product in person. For August I had sent all the August designs to the old manu since I needed to order restocks, but I think I'll be sending September pins to the 3rd manu since their timing seems not too slow and photo proofs were looking great!

OTHER NEWS

Besides pin club related stuff, I should also have the Princess Uranus pre-order up on the site early next week, and quite possibly Link (Zelda) and Anya (Spy x Fam). Outside of pin stuff, I've also been working on some new risograph prints. Our risograph prints have been really popular when I sell in person, to the point that I keep having to restock them. I'm going into the print studio tomorrow to make more, and will plan to make more than usual so that I can hopefully list them on the website because I do really think you'll all love them. I also had to order a restock of our ever-popular hanafuda cards as I'm down to less than 10 sets. I'm making some significant improvements to the sets and aiming to work on a Sailor Moon themed deck over the next couple months.

One of my realizations this summer has been that while my physical presence at events has been appreciated much by locals, I've been ignoring my online presence so much this year. Not because I want to, but sales aren't really rolling in like they used to except through all of you wonderful members. But I really need to bolster my efforts online to gain new customers that aren't pre-existing and that's been the real struggle for me. As we begin to wrap up the Sailor Moon themed Pretty Winkers next year, I'm looking at the horizon and what that will mean for themes and collections and I've already begun fleshing out some original and fan art collections and will likely be releasing new designs in collections rather than one at a time. For Studio Ghibli and the original pin club, we will continue throughout the entirety of 2024, but I believe we will come to a close on the Sailor Moon theme by June 2024. I absolutely want everyone's feedback moving forward as for what you might be interested in seeing at that time. I'm considering we do a quarterly fantasy pin, or maybe try our hand at actually doing some chibi full body Sailor Moon characters monthly, or possibly panel styles (though not redraws). Or I'm even considering sticker or stationery club in the Sailor Moon theme because let's be real, I'll never get tired of drawing Sailor Moon. It's my true comfort show/illustrations, etc.

I'll be working on a google form to get feedback down the road, but please don't hesitate to chat with me via email, comments or DM. My inbox is always open even if I sometimes am a little slow to respond when I'm busy. I really value everyone's ideas and opinions.

Anyway, I'm really excited about all the projects I'm beginning to work on and looking forward to a creative Fall season focused more on creativity and less on markets. I hope you'll all continue to join us for the ride!

Mandy & Taka