#Just ordered a proof for an acrylic charm with this one (+ some others with a Mercury piece that I'll be posting later)

[voskhodart]

My awesome horse.

[moyashidoodles]

I just ordered some proofs for double sided acrylic charms of these. One side will have the one blurred and the other side has the face blurred.

Idk if people actually want this but if not then I’ll have some charms for myself hehehe

I did that last boop pic and needed to make boopstarion variations.

[buzzdixonwriter]

Everybody’s A Critic [FICTOID]

The chief obstetrician at Manhattan Maternity Hospital called the department head. “The damnedest thing just happened,” the obstetrician said.  “We delivered a baby with a copy of Bruegel’s The Fall Of Icarus painted on its chest.”

“You mean a birthmark that reminds you of Bruegel’s work?” the department head asked.

“No, I mean an actual oil painting -- well, I suppose we need to wait until the lab runs an analysis to make sure, but it certainly looked like oil paint.”

A long, long pause before the department head spoke again.  “I’m ordering an inventory on the narcotics cabinet.”

“No, I mean it!  An actual bona fide reproduction of The Fall Of Icarus painted on the child’s chest.”

“Do you expect me to believe a child with The Fall Of Icarus on its chest?  Why, that painting is at least two-and-a-half by three-and-a-half feet wide.  The infant would need to be a giant!”

 “Of course not, that would be ridiculous.  It was a miniature painting.“

“If you’re trying to perpetrate some hoax -- “

“I have proof!”

“Proof?”

“The father.  We gave him permission to record the birth on his iPhone.  His video documents the entire thing.”

“You mean other people saw this?”

“Yes.  Him, me, two nurses.”

“What about the mother?”

“She seemed preoccupied at the time.”

Another pause, this not quite as long.  “So why call me?” the department head asked.

“Well, you are the senior member of the department.  I thought you might have some insight.”

“You think being the head of the department makes me an expert on 17th century Flemish painters?”

“No, of course not…but I had hoped you might have some idea how the painting got there.”

“Oil painting, you say?  Not acrylic or watercolor?”

“No.” “Do you still have this remarkable baby?”

“Well, of course!  We weren’t expecting to send the family home for another forty-eight hours.”

“I want to see this painting for myself – “

“Er…that might be difficult.”

“’Difficult’?”

“Wrong choice of words.  Impossible.  As is standard procedure, we wiped the afterbirth off the child soon after it emerged.  The oil painting hadn’t dried so it came right off.  I told the nurse to send the wipe to the lab for analysis, but…”

“The painting is gone.”

“Except for the video evidence, yes.”

“Bad news.  Bad news, indeed.  Do you realize how much mileage we could get out of something like this with the press?  Better than cojoined twins.  Could have worked wonders for our next fund-raising drive.”

“We have the video.”

“Yes, better than nothing, I suppose.  But let’s get down to facts:  How did the painting get on the child?”

“I couldn’t say.  The amniotic sac remained intact.  Besides, how could one get a paintbrush up there even under the best of conditions?”

“Hmmm, good point.

“And it couldn’t have been on the child’s chest long, either -- the infant’s in utero movement would have smeared it.”

Another long pause, this time broken by the doctor.  “Do you have any ideas?”

“I’ve got nothing.”

The doctor sighed. 

“Why The Fall Of Icarus?” the department head mused.  “Is the artist trying to tell us something?  A caution against hubris?  A sign the most extraordinary events are ignored by the hoi polloi?”

“You sound philosophical.  Are you an art critic?”

“Only in my spare time.  Perhaps it’s a cry against modernism?”

“That’s one hell of a choice of canvas for that, if you ask me.”

“What about the father?  What does he know of this?  Is he some sort of kook?  Radical?”

“He seems like a nice, charming, thoughtful young man.”

“He’s the only wild card in the scenario, the only person one doesn’t typically find in a maternity room.”

“You think he might have something to do with it?”

“Why not?  You yourself said he took video.  That indicates some sort of artistic bent.”

“I hardly think that is the case; he seems to be more of an impressionist, if you ask me.”

  © Buzz Dixon

[bananafishzine]

Our vendors

Hello everyone! For anyone out there looking to run their own zine, I’d like to share a bit about our process throughout the last few months :) Let’s go!

I’ll give a little background about the timeline for the project, then I’ll give some descriptions about the vendors we used and our experience with them. 

So we (@limedumplr​ and @redsketches) started the zine. I ( @limedumplr ) originally thought I’d handle everything myself but Red volunteered to help me and I’m so glad she did - It’s a lot to organize for just one person. We began around September of last year and wrapped artist’s final drawings in January. One of our artists asked me why the timeline was so long and it was honestly because I was attending a wedding in the middle of that which I was a large part of (so I’d have to split my time to focus on that). Orders opened January and closed February, we wanted to send things out in March but we ended up sending things in April because we needed to re-print the zine. 

When we recruited for the zine, we only used Twitter and Tumblr. I definitely noticed a decrease in Tumblr traffic after the great purge :p Next time, I’d probably use Tumblr as a backup instead of a ‘base’ and also use Instagram and Discord which is where most fandom seems to be migrating. 

As for our venders:

For the acrylic charms we used Acorn Press

Link: https://acorn.press/

Our experience:  We loved the quality, and the price. They don’t include any sort of clasp so be aware you only get the acrylic. It was easy enough to buy a set of cell phone straps on Amazon though. Customer service was very friendly and they held our shipment when Red and I were both on vacation for a week. I’d definitely use them again for our next project. 

For the magnets and stickers we used StickerMule

Link: https://www.stickermule.com/

Our experience:  Their customer service was excellent. I talked to a few of their team members since I wasn’t happy with the original proofs they sent. All of them were very accommodating and revised my proofs multiple times to give me something I liked. Similar to Acorn press, they took care of the shipment when I asked them to hold it while I was on vacation. The products also came out great!

For the prints we used MOO

Link: https://www.moo.com/

Our experience: We’ve used them plenty of times before and I’ve come to expect great quality and price. I’m sure others have used them since MOO is pretty popular. I especially loved that we could customize the matte back sides of our prints. 

For the enamel Pin and Lanyard, we used Erichgift

Link: http://www.erichgift.com/

Our experience: They were very responsive and great to work with. The only caveat is that their turn around is pretty long so you have to be willing to wait about a month after you begin talking with them to when they finally ship out your products. They are China-based so it may be hard to work with the time difference if you are US-based like we are. However, the quality of the products were great and I have NEVER seen prices as low theirs. They are also very nice and sincere. I’ll most likely be using them again but next time I’ll account for how long I’ll have to wait for the products :P

For the laser cut magnets, Red used her own laser cutter to make those for us :D

FINALLY, for the Zines, we used Smartpress

Link: https://smartpress.com/

Our experience: Their customer service was a little tense, I wouldn’t say it was bad, just not friendly. However, They’re prices are the BEST I’ve seen and they were very good about re-printing our zines after we pointed out the error in the first set. They also have a nice proofing process.

To sell the zines, we used BigCartel and I liked it a lot compared to other platforms we’ve sold on (Big shout out to one of our artists, @JUSTN4Z on twitter, who recommended it to us). Etsy makes you pay-per-post and doesn't have as much of a fandom culture around it. You also don’t have as much freedom to customize your shop. The last time we made a zine, we used Tictail and I HATED it. The user interface appeared friendly but it really was not :/ It was also difficult to set up shipping. 

Overall, this was a low-scale zine compared to some of the others I’ve seen. But I think the product came out fantastic and I loved being a part of something that brought so many people together. 

If anyone has any more questions about our process, recommendations, etc, please don’t hesitate to ask! We’ll answer as much as we’re able to :)

[abkdkzine]

UPDATE LOG

Hello guys! We've got a lot of notes for this update! We hope this helps catch everyone up on how we are doing! The moderator team has been quite busy once again due to our new individual schedules and real life responsibilities, so we want to apologise if our activity is a little slow! We promise we’re still working behind the scenes as much as we can.

♕  — Pre-orders Period Extension

Pre-orders are still open everyone! However, we’ve recently decided to extend our PO’s until September 22 because we wanted to push for our third stretch goal, which is a cute acrylic standee, and to accommodate the moderator team’s new schedules (since school semesters have started and Mod Grim has recently moved). We also did this hoping that this extension helps others get the chance to purchase from our store, so be sure to use this time wisely!

⚔  — Future Leftover Sales

After we’ve ordered all items from our manufacturers, shipped the bundles to our contributors, and start shipping the rest of the packages to the rest of our customers, we’ll only provide a limited quantity of bundles (as well as make new ones based on previous demand) for sale! We may have a flash sale for a very short time during that period, so be on the lookout for that update or post!

♕  — First and Second Stretch Goals Unlocked

We made a post that we’ve reached our first stretch goal, which is a romantic holographic postcard designed by Sepharic, and we also posted about reaching our second stretch goal, which is an adorable enamel pin designed by Sulkingmoon! We’re pretty excited that we get to include both items in all physical zine bundle orders, so we hope everyone enjoys their extra goodies! We’re well on our way into achieving our third stretch goal though; we’re at less than 50 more orders to go!

♕  — Payment Processor Switch

We’ve also made a post about it as well, but we’ve encountered some issues with PayPal which caused our account to be temporarily limited. We had to take it out of our store as a payment processing option, so our main processor will now be Stripe. 

⚔  — Early Shipment

Unfortunately, PayPal will not let us accept anymore payments unless we ship some items ahead of time, and that’s what we’ll be doing soon! There are only 8 people in our list and they will all be receiving emails about their packages in a couple of weeks; however, we would like to ask them to refrain from sharing pictures or spoilers in social media or with others until the rest of the packages reach our contributors, as they will also receive their full bundles early as well. We’ll contact them when all our contributors have received theirs! Should we be able to ship the bundles required for us to send, we may be able to have PayPal up as an option once again during our leftover sales!

⚔  — Production Updates

We’ve gotten quite a few shipping supplies already and we’ve ordered physical charm proof from our manufacturer! They’ve provided us a photo and videos, which we will show in a separate post soon! Mod Ari will be doing the shipping and she will have lots of help from her friends!

♕  — Ko-Fi Rewards Reminder

Hey guys! We’re just giving everyone a quick reminder that all donators will have to fill out the form we’ve provided in our Ko-Fi page! It helps us keep track of who will be receiving our rewards in their bundles. We also want to make a reminder that there are some emails that we cannot reach due to Google bouncing our emails back. For that reason, not everyone has received their rewards, but please know that we are currently working on giving our lovely patrons their rewards as soon as possible! Please stay patient with us!

About — Schedule — Twitter — Ask — FAQ — Guidelines

[africanherbaloil-blog]

african herbal oil in pakistan

Africa herbal oil price throughout Pakistan, side effects, evaluations and also everything you desire to know.

african herbal oil in pakistan

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[nurplenurple]

Stickers + Acrylic Charms Info.

I was typing this up to send to someone, but I figured might as well post it here in case anybody is interested. :D

Anyhoo, it kinda depends on what approach you want to take.

But before I get into that, I just want to point out that any and all artwork, no matter what method you choose, has to be saved in CMYK mode, NOT RGB. Reason is that all printers print in CMYK. If you have never done that, when you do you might notice that some of the colors in your artwork might change. If a color changes, it's because it doesn't "exist" in CMYK and cannot be printed, so the software you use will default to the next closest color in CMYK. So you may have to tweak your artwork a bit to get it to look to your satisfaction.

If you have access to a printer, I would HIGHLY suggest to do a test print of your artwork on regular printer paper and with the settings set to the highest quality.

Now that that's out of the way. For both charms and stickers, you can either do the DIY method or the professional printing method.

Both have their pros and cons, but in the end it’s up to you and your personal preferences.

-DIY-

Pros: You control the quality and the amount of the items. Can produce as many or as little as you want. Have that personal, handmade quality, cheaper start up cost. Cons: Overall quality and durability of item is not as good as professionally printed items, more work for yourself, and while it is typically cheaper to start producing items the DIY way, you also have to consider the costs in the long run. Consider the cost of printer ink, paper, materials, etc. It all adds up.

-Professionally Printer/Supplier-

Pros: Overall superior quality and finishes. Less work for you (example: you can choose to have a service cut out your stickers for you vs cutting by hand yourself, or have them add key rings to charms for you vs you doing it yourself). Cons: Typically way more expensive to start producing, most services have a high minimum order (bad  if you only want a a few of one thing) and have a limit to how many different designs you can order (bad if you want to order many different designs to be printed), and for the most part, cutting out the stickers for you/adding key rings to charms/etc are additional services that you would have to pay extra for.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++ There's plenty of resources online, here's some tutorials I thought would be helpful:

DIY Stickers

https://youtu.be/tGngXu3sXAE https://youtu.be/H5KfuVX_714 https://youtu.be/5c2C5aR3QCE

DIY Charms

https://youtu.be/xsgCy0N7dCk https://youtu.be/7RieJq5qN9E https://youtu.be/urVS4E14dKc (note: I see a lot of ppl recommending to glaze with nail polish a cheap varnish, but I would NOT recommend this. I've bought charms before that were glazed with nail polish and THEY REEK OF FUMES!! I would suggest going with resin or some other type of varnish)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Professional Printing Services/Suppliers

There's a plethora out there of printing services out there, I recommend going through these tumblr account for resources and other info. http://howtobeaconartist.tumblr.com/resources http://artistsalleyinfo.tumblr.com/

As for setting up files, each supplier has their own requirements and often their own templates along with instructions and tutorials on how to format your artwork.

For stickers, I've used LordSticksALot.com and CatPrint.com.

I used LordSticksALot to make the holo stickers in my post here: Pros: Really high quality! Die cut so you don't have to cut them by hand yourself! Holo prism is SUPER sparkly and pretty! Minimum order quantity is 1, so you can order as many or as little as you like! Files are easy to set up with their template! Cons: Price per sticker is a bit expensive compared to other methods/suppliers. Service is only available certain times of the month. Maybe not a con per se, depends on personal preference, but the stickers do turn out thicker than most others.

I used CatPrint to print these stickers:

With these I fit as many designs as I could within an 8.5x11" document and had them print them out on holographic label paper. I could have chosen to have them die-cut the stickers, but I chose to hand cut them myself to save money. Pros: Also really high print quality! Customer service is A+++ (they emailed me before printing to double check with me if the files were as I intended them to be, rather than just printing them out and sending them to me as is), cheaper if ordering large quantities. Cons: Shipping cost is a bit high, but the more you order, the more affordable the overall cost is. (Again, better for larger quantities.) Die-cut is more expensive and handcutting is a pain in the ass. The holo prism is BARELY visible, especially compared with LordSticksALot. They do say that it shows up better on darker colors, but even then it's still barely visible. If using CatPrint, paying extra for the holo might not even be worth it tbh.

Acrylic Charms!!

The ones I see most commonly used/recommended are ZapCreatives and InkIt Labs. I've never used either of these but from what I understand...

Zap's are the most widely used. Prices are pretty reasonable, and allow for multiple designs within an order. Files are easy to set up with their templates, you can customize the cut-line/silhouette of the charm, etc. Quality, however, has been slipping recently I've heard.

InkIt Labs are a newer supplier I think, but I've heard their quality is A++++!! They are more expensive, though, and have a higher minimum order quantity.

The one I have USED myself is Vograce. They are a Chinese supplier found on Alibaba.com and are probably the most affordable. They also only have a minimum order quantity of only 1, so you can order as many or as little as you like. They can also add key rings or phone straps for free, so less work for you. They are also reaaally responsive and often respond within a day to inquiries.

Do I recommend them? Ehhh....not really. 

Print quality was pretty bad. Now, it could've been that my design probably wasn't well suited for being made into a charm, but the colors came out waaaay darker than expected. You can't customise the cut-line/silhouette, they don't have a template or ANY instructions whatsoever, you kind of just send them the artwork and they do the outline for you (which works for some ppl, but not for others who had something specific in mind). They also messed up my order. I asked for double acrylic board (meaning the artwork is sandwiched between two layers of acrylic for added durability/protection) and I only got the single board. Also, although the price for charms are waaay cheaper, express shipping is the only option so the shipping from China is pretty expensive.

If anything, I suppose the only thing I would recommend them for is maybe proofs/test runs of single charms before placing a large order with another supplier.

Hope this was helpful to someone! ^^;

[yoshi4sushi]

(purupurupuru) (purupurupuru) (gocha!) (coo!) (coo!)

 Howdy! Howdy Nakama! Happy Monday! Hope everyone had a good weekend. The weather is getting hotter and hotter so be sure to stay hydrated and drink plenty of fluids. Avoid sunburn and wear plenty of sunscreen and bug spray. With that said, let’s get down to business. We got some “HOT” stuff going this summer so you know the drill. First off, the chapter resumes this week so we’ll continue off with the Reverie gathering and the mysterious all-mighty figure above the elders, Im-san. Next, this past weekend’s episode was getting close to its doom! Cesar was close to escaping, but no luck. The Vinsmokes were trying their best to fend off the Big Mom pirates, but no luck. Push comes to shove until they shoved even harder. At the end, just when things seem to be over, an unknown explosion has destroyed the pillar of the castle due to the cause of the Tamate box. The castle is going down! down! down! Next time, as the castle falls, Streussen used his cook cook fruit to turn the building into soft cake to save the villagers from getting injured. Don’t miss it! Now on with the goods! Look who showed up to visit! Yup, it’s our fellow tower mascot, Tongari-san. What the sizzle my friend? Tongari-san says that loads of fun, hot events are going on this summer. First off, the tower is also getting hyped up to celebrate Nami’s birthday. First, the café will be serving her birthday dish which is her creamy custard tangerine pizza with some fresh oranges. The tower will also be celebrating the loving Corazon’s birthday. The café will serve his delish cranberry calm calm squash with some jelly hearts w/ his adorable chocolate silhouette face. If you visit the tower and shop at the Straw Hat store, you’ll be given a free large birthday card of Nami or Corazon. You can only choose one & you have to show your entry ticket so they can stamp it as proof. Also, the tower will be having two day special events to celebrate One Piece day. On July 21st & 22nd, they’ll have a special live talk show, and the special guests will be the voice actors of the Staw Hats. On the 21st, they’ll invite Hirata-san (Sanji) Yuriko-san (Robin), & Yao-san (Franky). On the 22nd, they’ll invite Mayumi-san (Luffy), Kappei-san (Ussop), & Akemi-san (Nami). The talk show will be held on the 5th floor. Details of entry will be revealed later on. They’ll also hold another talk show with the cast performers of the live show of OP at 8:45 pm. Last but not least, the tower will be holding a special corner exhibition of Marineford that will have a statue of Marco will have a memorial wall of the intense moments of the war. GUA! The phoenix finally makes his entrance! Birthday buttons and goods of Nami & others will be released this week. Next, Straw Hat stores will be having shopping good events: one is street festival & the other is summer festival. They’ll be selling limited edition goods from both events. The street festival will have awesome like this straw hat t-shirt in white color and this hot pink color shirt with a straw hat along w/ head phone with the logo Mugic. They’ll also sell this cool red rubber wristband. The other event will be summer festival goods. New buttons and summer goods will be announced later on. Next, new mugi mugi goods will be in stock such as this metal button decorated PC pouch perfect to store your laptop with cute pins of Luffy, Zoro, & Sanji w/ bronze stars. They’ll also sell this adorable mugi mugi phone case good fit for 6/6s/7/8 with Luffy, Zoro, & Sanji. It’s so mugi-rrific! Next, new ukyo-e frame has been released. This time, it’s Rob Lucci w/ Hattori. It will be released in August. For those who live w/in Japan, we’ll leave a link for pre-order. You can also request the Straw Hat stores or the store at the tower for pre-order. If you live abroad, have a friend ship it to you. Next, the stores will be selling this alluring long towel of Nami as part of her birthday goods. More will be revealed very soon. Next, new 2019 calendars will be in stock this fall. First they have this daily calendar of Every Day OP. It will be released on Sept.4th. Next, they’ll sell this big comic calendar flip book. It will be released on Nov.30th. Next, the 3rd Jump exhibition will selling loads of OP goods such as acrylic stands, coasters, graphic stone coaster of Luffy, charms, long towel with adorable chibi heads of the Straw Hats, coffee mug, a steel mug, manga folder, ticket folder, water bottle, phone cases, pouches, special Jump strap, reversible eco bag, and posters. If you visit the exhibition on OP day, you’ll get a free present at the entrance. Last, but not least, all arcades will stocking this CII figurine of Nami in her bikini. If you pour warm water, it will change into see thru like Robin’s figurine. Phew! I think we covered. Well, that’s all we got for now. Tune in for more news and upcoming events. Special thanks to Tongari-san. We’ll see you around, my friend. Kikko! Momon! Marvelous job as always! Let’s get some rest.

 Ukyo-e frame: https://hkds.tokyo/wbp-onepiece.html

Jump Exhibition: http://shonenjump-ten.com/vol3/index.html

[freezecooper]

Acorn Press Charms Review

Hey everyone! So I thought I’d make a review about my first time ordering Acrylic charms online from @acornpress. This review will include details of the whole process, from first email to finally receiving and unpacking the charms.

INQUIRY AND ORDERING PROCESS

So the whole process started with my email to Acorn Press on January 18th, 2017. I sent them an email inquiring about ordering the charms, but I also had a few questions about how to prepare the files for print as well.

I waited about a week, but hadn’t received a reply back. I understand people get busy and I wasn’t ordering charms right then and there, so I sent another email just to make sure they had received my original message. That second email was sent on January 24th, 2017.

I received my first reply back on January 26th, 2017. They gave me a copy of their colour profile for Photoshop because I had concerns about how the colours would transfer from digital to print. I drew and coloured all my charms in Paint Tool SAI, then transferred them to Photoshop to convert them to CMYK (because SAI only saves in RGB).

I had a few too many questions about transferring the charms from RGB to CMYK, so I’ll spare you the details in this review. However, they answered my questions the best they could even if my questions were a bit redundant.

My last reply to them about the inquiry was on February 5th, 2017. I then filled out their order form and received an invoice on February 6th, 2017. I quickly paid for the charms the next day.

 After a few days with no confirmation, on February 10th, 2017, I followed up with another email to make sure the payment had gone through and that I had organized my files correctly. A few hours later on that day, they emailed me back with a few concerns about the file setups that I had done wrong. (Missing layers and the canvases weren’t flipped.)

I replied back the next day on February 11th, 2017 with an updated Dropbox link with the PSDs having the correct layers and flipped canvases.

I waited another week and didn’t receive a confirmation or reply, so I politely sent them another follow-up email on February 17th, 2017. Later that day, they sent a reply apologizing for the fact that they had replied earlier but it didn’t send. The email they meant to send earlier confirmed that they would update the proper files and mentioned that they strive for giving people the best printing experience they can.

After that I didn’t send or receive anymore emails about the charms. On February 28th, 2017. I received an email from Paypal saying that my packaged had been shipped. The package delivered on March 2nd, 2017. I finally got to opening the package on March 3rd, 2017.

So the whole process from inquiring about the charms on January 18th, 2017 to receiving the package on March 2nd, 2017 was roughly 43 days.

UN-BOXING AND OPENING CHARMS

So the day is finally here! I got my charms in this little cardboard box.

My cat used for size comparison.

I opened the box to see all 5 of my charm designs wrapped up in their individual bags and cushioned with bubble wrap. In addition to the 5 charm design bags, I received another bag labelled ‘peeled proofs’ with one of each charm design per-peeled.

I was actually surprised with how many extra charms I got. Including the peeled proofs, I received about 20 extra charms. (I only ordered 100 charms).

As you can see, the charm bags are labelled as well as the total amount of charms per bag. In this case, I got 4 extra Hawlucha charms than I initially ordered. I’m not complaining!

I knew from reading other online reviews that the charms would have a blue plastic cover on one side and a clear film on the other to protect them from being scratched or damaged. However, I found it a bit interesting that a few of the charms had a clear plastic cover instead of blue on one side.

Both of these charms still have the protective plastic covers on them. This really isn’t a complaint, I’m just a bit curious as to why some of the charms had the clear cover compared to the blue ones.

I don’t really have long nails/my nails are really flimsy, so at first it was a bit hard to peel the covers off the charms, but, eventually I got the hang of it and was able to peel them pretty easily. I was also a bit concerned about scratching the ink when it came to peeling off the film cover on the ink side of the charms, however, I quickly realized the charms are pretty durable and you need a bit of pressure in able to break the film in able to peel it off of the charm.

This picture better shows what the clear plastic cover looks like as it’s rolled and peeled off the charm. Also a look at the plastic stars I will include with the charms. :)

One of the things that I was a bit sad about when it came to opening my package, was that I didn’t receive a business card or candy with my order; Which Is something I’ve seen other people who ordered from Acorn Press receive with their charms. It’s really not a big deal, but I thought that would have been a cute treat.

FILE SETUP

So there were a few bumps in the road when it came to setting up the files for print. A few of them were my misunderstandings of the instructions, but I do feel that there are a few things to say about the process.

You can download the file templates for your charms through Acorn Press’s tumblr page here. They have basic instructions to follow on creating charms, but I feel like if they had a more in-depth tutorial a lot of questions would be answered. It is fairly confusing to a first-timer and would probably mean less emailing and explaining to customers about how to setup and properly organize PSD files.

If you originally create your files in Photoshop, make sure your colour profile is set to CMYK. However, if you’re like me and used a different program like SAI to create your drawings, it is best to keep them in RGB and let the good folks at Acorn Press deal with the conversion because it may ruin the colours you were going for if you do it yourself.

Something that is very important to note to first time customers: The “front” of the charm is the side that shows ‘under’ the Acrylic, not the side that the Acrylic is actually printed on. This means, as an example, if your original design has the character you want facing screen-right; you will have to horizontally flip your canvas so that they are facing screen-left when you send it in to be printed. 

I originally designed this Hawlucha charm to be facing screen-right. Here it is horizontally flipped in the final PSD file.

For those who are just ordering plain double-sided charms, this is what your layers should look like in Photoshop.

You have to include a ‘White Ink’ layer in between the Artwork A and Artwork B layers. I just duplicated the Artwork A layer and used a black overlay to fill it in.

However, when I emailed them with my questions, they did answer them all and to the best of their abilities! My criticisms are only aimed at the fact that I feel like I would have had less questions if I had a more in-depth tutorial to follow.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Overall, I’m impressed with the quality of the charms. I mean, it’s probably easy to say that because it’s the first and only time I’ve ever ordered them, but I am genuinely happy with how the charms turned out for the most part.

The only thing that that I’m not excited about though, is how the colours of Scolipede turned out. It became very red-hued and its purple markings are very hard to see on the charms. This may have been my bad, but I made sure that the file I sent to them was in CMYK and it looked fine on my computer; so I’m not too sure what happened there?

Original Scolipede charm file, You can see the purple markings more clearly.

The Scolipede Charm Print. As you can see, the purple markings are a bit hard to see unless in certain light. As well, the base body colour is a bit too red, rather than the purple-burgundy colour of the original. The other charms didn’t get altered as much as this one did, so I wonder what caused such a drastic change in this specific charm?

One other thing, just as a future note for myself or anyone reading this, but it’s probably a better idea to have thicker line art than what I had for your charm designs, at least for these 1.5in designs. I suppose that’s why people like to make chibi charms, because the simpler designs and thicker lines translates well into the small sizes.

All the charms with attached star pieces and cellphone straps as I’ll be selling them. If you would like to purchase one, please follow the inquiry process here.

Overall, I would like to say I felt like the charm ordering process took a bit longer than I expected. I understand people get busy, but I feel like the fact that I had to check up on my emails a week after I sent them on multiple occasions was a bit… unneeded? I didn’t rush order or anything to meet a con deadline, so I don’t know how the ordering process would have gone had I needed to meet a deadline. Their main tumblr page says turnaround is 5-10 business days, however, the turnaround was about ~25 days from paying the invoice to the charms being shipped out.

Again, I don’t want to sound rude or ungrateful. I’m sure that they’re busy with multiple other orders, but I just wish I got responses from them on a quicker turnaround than I had received, even if I wasn’t in a rush to receive the charms.

TL;DR:

~File Organization is confusing and would greatly benefit from a step-by-step or video tutorial.

~Charms received were in good condition and I got a lot of extras .

~Some of my charms had a clear plastic cover, while some others had blue covers. This really isn’t a pro or a con, but I’m still intrigued by it.

~ I didn’t receive a business card or any candies with my order unlike I have read in other people��s reviews.

~One of the charm’s colours got significantly altered from the original design.

~I had to send follow-up emails in order to get replies back to my original emails, making the ordering process take a bit longer than expected.