Sorceress -- Haunting Familiars & Guiding Spirits

A much quicker turnaround on this update :) but I wanted to share a quick little update. I finished another one of the designs! Illumination (homing beacon) has always been one of my very favorite paintings from this series, and I'm so happy with how her pin design turned out. I hope you love how she turned out as well!




✨ Illumination ✨ also called 'Homing Beacon' - as this sorceress reminds us that home is not a place, but a light we carry within us that calls our kin home to us. With this light, we find our family, and wherever we go, we are home. Take care to nurture and feed your light and warmth as it is a source of life to those you love as well. Like the loyal and social fox, her pack is numbered and tight-knit. Together they face the storms and share in joy, carrying the warmth of the den in their companionship. All members of her pack care for the young and injured, and she reminds us to pull close to us those we love and those who need us. She gleams a signal to us through the mist and rain, to share our warmth and light, and to gather to you your pack.

With Illumination finished, that just leaves two left - Shimmer and Advent :) which I hope to have finished and ready for updates of their own soon as well.

I also wanted to take a moment and just say thank you so much to all of you for the incredibly kind and thoughtful messages and comments to my last update 🖤 It means so much to me and I feel so lucky to have such kind and understanding backers. The last few months have been very difficult, and it was such a huge weight off my chest to read all the kind words and feel that everything is going to be ok. My biggest fear is letting people down, and the grace you all shared with me gave me so much peace. Thank you so much 🖤 I am on the mend, the surgery healed super well, and things are returning to normal a little. 

Oh, and a small note on pin progress - since my wonderful vector artist has already finished a few of the vectors, I was thinking of going ahead and ordering one or two designs, instead of waiting for the whole batch to finish. Since my last pin manufacturer has been such a nightmare to work with (and I'm still fighting to finish the order), I think that it might be less stressful and safer to try a new manufacturer with just one design and see how it goes. That way I can test if they are a good fit before sending them tens of thousands of dollars and being trapped working with them. And on the plus side - we get to see how a few turn out a little faster :) I think I will start with the Astronomer. 

Ok -  I really meant to keep this short lol so going to run for now! 🖤 Thank you again, everyone 🖤 love you guys and I'll have another update soon!

Another quick update :) I have the work-in-progress ready for Advent! I'm really having fun with how light and luminous Advent feels - and I hope you guys love her design 🖤


✨ Advent ✨  She is the sorceress of the morning sun, walking past the darkness, she gathers the light to her to begin the new day. Like the glorious sunrise unfurling, her peacock familiars spread their wings revealing all the beautiful patterns and colors of the new day. She gathers the glowing feathers of dawn and like the first rays of morning light, she pushes the shadows back. Like a song breaking the silence, she is the advent of the new day and new beginnings. What joyous beginnings are dawning in your life? What new adventures are illuminating your horizons? What dreams are taking wing as you look into the future?

That is all of the works-in-progress caught up now - so at least everyone can have a good idea of the direction of each design. I will be working on getting each design finished and polished over the next few weeks, and as I finish each design, I have an amazing vector artist who will be creating the vector of each as well.

To avoid spamming you guys with tons of updates, I will wait until I have a good batch of finished designs to share, rather than post every time I finish one. But hopefully, it will be fun to see them all finished together. I've also added all these late designs to the campaign page so there is an easy way to see them all together as well, instead of having to look through all these updates. I hope that is helpful! 🖤


I also wanted to remind everyone to be sure your pledge went through. There are still a little over 20 pledges that haven't gone through yet - and it usually is just a quick check to retry your card that does the trick.

You should have received an email that indicates whether your payment did or did not go through. And if not, there will be a link in the email that says "please update your payment information". The link will take you to a page to update your info and retry your card.

I know for some people who backed a few campaigns, their banks stop the charge and double-check that you want the pledge to go through, so if you are not sure why your charge didn't go through that might be the culprit. If you have any questions or trouble though, please do not hesitate to reach out. I'm always happy to help as best I can.   


Thank you so much everyone for your support 🖤 And I hope you love the newest design to join the collection!

Goodness, thank you everyone 🖤 I wanted to start by just saying how grateful and excited I am by how much you all helped bring this project to life. We not only hit our final stretch goal and unlocked the final design but went even far past that for a great finish to the campaign.

After many a sleepless night, it was amazing to see how the campaign ended yesterday - even if I crashed shortly after from exhaustion lol 😅 but it was all worth it! And today I am fresh-eyed and ready to move to the next steps of the project!
 
So what comes next?


To begin with, I am working on getting the two designs we unlocked last - Exhale & Advent - ready as works in progress to share with you guys asap. That way curious minds will have an idea of what they will look like as soon as possible :)

Then once I have wips of those two shared, I will go back and begin polishing and finishing each design to be as perfect as possible.

I have another artist I work with who takes all my designs and turns them into vectors for me - as she is far better at vectors than I ever will be and she does a great job at getting all the nuances of my drawings just right for the manufacturing process. So I will be sending each design to her as I finish them - so the process should be quick and efficient as we both work through all 10 designs. This means I will have some pretty pictures and updates to share in the next few weeks as I finish all these designs and get them sent off to the manufacturer.

The surveys will likely not be sent out until we have 90% of the work done. I'd like to have the samples of the pins in hand and hopefully pretty pictures of everything for you guys to see the final result - before making your selections on the survey. (This also helps avoid any trouble with shipping addresses changing if I send the surveys out close to the ship date.) So I will keep you guys appraised of our progress as we go, but I anticipate this should only take a few months and be much more simple and streamlined than my last project is.



Again, thank you so much, everyone, from the bottom of my heart. Seeing so much enthusiasm for this project and seeing so many people connect with these sorceresses, who are near and dear to my heart, gives me so much encouragement and hope that I am on the right track as an artist and creating things that are meaningful to others. 🖤 I couldn't do any of this without you guys. I can't wait to send you all the beautiful, shiny treasures!! 

With love,
Jeszika