Drachtoberfest: Green and Gold

I finally got through sending my Kickstarter rewards and doing a count of available pins from The Return for events and the Pledgebox surveys.

Then after much head scratching and fumbling with said survey construction (and much help from the team at Pledgebox!), that's been completed and smoke tests have gone out to about a dozen folks.

Samples for Amber Ale are likely going into round 2, as I was unhappy with the clear enamel chosen for its belly/underside. (It's a little too yellow green.) It'll also need an adjustment to the mold; similar to what I went through with Cascadian Dark. The process that changes the metal color bled into the entire beer glass area, which overpowers the semi transparent white enamel. So while I tried to avoid it having a hard line on the shoulder/wing area "behind" the beer glass, it will be necessary to stop the color bleed.

Samples for Stout are getting an adjustment on the screenprint; both came out too light so we're tying a darker color. I will also likely go one darker on the tail's soft enamel for full production.

The enamel and screenprint color fixes I consider to be minor, the mold fix is more worrisome because if it can't be modified we'll need an entirely new mold. But I trust in the skills of the folks that work with these materials and am likely worrying over nothing.

Here are some photos!

I'm heading to Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) for Tekko this weekend, so if I don't have time to double check and/or adjust after the smoke tests before I hit the road, expect early next week the rest of the surveys will go out. I'll also have info and a link to the (now open) pre-order store to advertise at the convention. Here's the link if you want to pass it on to fellow beer dragon enthusiasts:
Drachtoberfest: Green and Gold pre-order store

Thanks again for y'all's patience while I had a ... whole bunch of curveballs thrown at me over the past few months. As always, I'm happy to answer questions and otherwise, Cheers!

Phew, I tell y'all what. Some of the survey building has kicked my butt. "Why does this pledge level translate as expected to an add-on but this one doesn't? Why is this pledge level acting exactly the opposite?" "How on earth did I make 400 variants for this one item?"
Reasons. (Backerkit CS helped me out!)

But all that has been largely resolved, and I expect to send out smoke tests next week. This is so I can wrap up fulfilling "The Return" Kickstarter rewards, and expect to offer a limited number of the Mead (special edition/SE) pin in the survey (This variant, like the accidental blue glitter Mead, won't be produced again.) Here are some photos of The Return pins!

Here's what else I've gotten done in the time between:

Samples purchased and in production. As I'm doing variants for Amber Ale and Stout I'm trying a couple different enamel combinations in the samples. It didn't occur to me until I was picking out Pantones that the green ale/beer variants should also be gold metal (instead of rose gold/silver) to meet the theme of this campaign. Y'all might end up with some super limited variants here!

Picked out the final color combos for the GBD based on the samples. It's ready to be ordered once I get the counts.
Mango, Hawaiian Hibiscus, and the Rampant Marzen Shield(s) have been ready to go and will be produced slightly larger than initially promised. (After making some at-scale printouts, they just look better at 1.6 and 2.1 inches.) There is no price difference on your end, and ordering is just a matter of getting counts.

Outside of minor adjustments, sticker and pin banner arts are also set.

I guess, other than saying I'm almost ready to launch the survey is to ask, should I add t-shirts? I produced a design with the Rampant Marzen and can offer them at XS-3X and will likely need to order more after Tekko anyway.
So! That's where things are, thanks for being patient while I handle a lot of things. Happy Juneteenth, have a lovely weekend, and I'll keep an eye out for comments/questions.

Howdy folks; I've just been working on setting up surveys and other back end grunt work, like designing new backing cards for this campaign.

I have about 10% of you who have payments yet to clear/process, outside of pay over time. It looks like you have thru 5/1 or 5/2 to clear that up. Please do so, as the extra balance would be helpful in covering tariffs, should they remain at the ... ridiculously inflated point where they are now.

In the mean time, the first sample set from the Green Beer Dragon has arrived, so here are some quick photos!

I intend to make a few color adjustments for the full production but I am overall incredibly happy with how the big guy turned out. I don't think it will need a second sample, but I will cover that if so.

Enjoy the last weekend of April, and Cheers!

Holy cow y'all, we did it!

Thank you for all your support during the last month. I feel as I've been ping pong balled around against this, other projects, and well, life. Please raise up a glass and help me and the other hosts of Dragon's Delightful Delicacies celebrate getting through the first third of Spring.

I'll be working on the survey and such in the background here while Backerkit collects and processes your payments. (Remember to check your card on file, or whatnot. I'm not positive offhand what Backerkit's grace period is.) It will be a week or two before I send surveys out, so we all have a bit of time to breathe first.
Given the current status of tariffs (???) and such, I am likely to have to adjust the fulfillment timeline of this campaign. Really that means I have the best reason to get samples in their best state before production.

Also, it's Friday so whatever you plans I hope you have a lovely one. (It's going to be almost 90 here tomorrow, even. Is it shandy time already?)

Thank you once again, and Cheers!

ps: There's 224 of you, that blows my mind!

Howdy y'all!

I've had a couple discussions with my manufacturer on how to handle some logistical issues, including another order of Mead (standard) pins. So I've added Mead as a choice in the Pledge Level for "A Toast!" of two standard pins. (I went ahead paid for them now, so they'll arrive before anything else from this campaign. For a short period I can have a Mead horde!)

I also... really wanted to lean in on the Mango and Hawaiian Hibiscus themes and made a new pin banner to reflect. (I hope to do a Hawaiian+Tiki themed pin set featuring smaller sized pins in the future anyway so...) Anyone who picks up a pin banner will have a choice from these three designs.



It went from cold and rainy straight to too warm and muggy here practically overnight.

The campaigns close Friday evening, so I wish you all a lovely week and will Update again then. As always, I'm super grateful for your support and am happy to answer questions.

Cheers!