Pin sample previews round 1!
4 months ago
– Fri, May 29, 2026 at 02:51:34 PM
Hey astronomers!
I know I sent an email update yesterday already, but I'm sending another one today because the manufacturer sent me the first round of half-complete sample photos this morning and I wanted to share them! Very exciting!!
Right now, the only pins they've sent me pictures of are the standard pins. I don't have pictures of all the jumbo pins yet, so I will share those in another update later on when I have them.
These are half-complete, so here are a couple things to keep in mind:
I know I sent an email update yesterday already, but I'm sending another one today because the manufacturer sent me the first round of half-complete sample photos this morning and I wanted to share them! Very exciting!!
Right now, the only pins they've sent me pictures of are the standard pins. I don't have pictures of all the jumbo pins yet, so I will share those in another update later on when I have them.
These are half-complete, so here are a couple things to keep in mind:
- These do not yet have the correct gold plating applied.
- These do not have any screen printing applied.
First off, here are the original colorways:
I'm ESPECIALLY in love with how Dark Matter turned out, he looks SICK AS HECK. Exactly what I was hoping for!
Here are the changes I'm planning to ask for:
- Hoping for smaller glitter in The Moon's dark half. It's a bit too noisy right now.
- I'm going to make some small tweaks to Neutron Star's hair gradient - mostly the outer color looks a little to green-tinted compared to the rest, so I'll be tweaking that color a bit.
- The center of Supernova should be white with glitter instead of whatever weird purple color they have going on, though that might just be the color of the glitter coming through - still, I'm hoping they'll be able to adjust it to look more white instead.
Other than those changes, I'm quite happy with how these are turning out so far!
Next, here are the dark/alternate colorways and the cross-collab pin:
Here are the changes I'm planning to ask for:
- The Moon has WAY too much glitter and it's too silver-y and the glitter is too large. I am going to ask them to use finer glitter so that it turns out looking more like my Patience pins from my Virtutes Angeolrum campaign, so it's more subtle and shimmery instead of...whatever that is right now 😆
- Overall, the glitter is just too large and too noisy, and isn't quite the effect I was hoping for, so I'm going to do some back-and-forth with the manufacturer to make the glitter smaller/finer and look more pleasing.
I am hoping to tweak them so that the darker colors with glitter end up looking more like the clock face on this pin:
It's a little hard to see in the photo, but the effect in the clock face is more of a subtle shimmer that looks sooo pretty in real life. I am confident that the manufacturer can do something more like this with the darker glitter colors!
All-in-all, I'm pleased with the progress on these, and I am really looking forward to making the changes outlined and seeing the jumbo pin samples, too.
Surveys are still unlocked from the shipping price increase I announced yesterday, so if these pictures make you want to change your order, you can do so. Please keep in mind though that the pins have already been ordered, so any additional pin counts may result in delayed shipping and/or not having enough a-grades to cover all orders.
Anyway, that's it for this update! Hope you enjoyed seeing these progress pictures, and I'll talk to you again when I have more photos from the manufacturer!
Cheers,
Rain
