Production Update 14

SCULPTS

The two new sculpts that went to mold this week along with some leftovers from last time are Wu Ling Shu and Victoriana.

Wu Ling Shu

Victoriana

PROGRESS

Thanks for the proofing on the spreadsheets. It is an odd thing because some of the cells have been changing formulas without being updated by me. So far the counts and weights have been accurate, it has something to do with the percentage formulas.

SHIPPING

We have already sent out some of the backer rewards with Helen, some postcard sets and some t-shirt rewards. Unfortunately we just don't have the personnel power to notify everyone individually with an email to tell you we shipped your stuff. As of now, I believe, the only items that have gone out are a few things from the $1 RACK LEVEL, the $7 PRIMER LEVEL, the $20 CASING LEVEL and the $30 IGNITOR LEVEL. Since a lot of those still have Babes not yet made, we are not done with all those yet.

THIS WEEK

To give you an idea of what has been going on, here is a breakdown for this past Thursday:

5:15am Pack Sculpting kit and supplies, drive to Denton, TX
6:15am Arrive at Reaper factory for moldmaking
6:30am Gather moldmaking supplies and begin cutting pockets
11:45am Mold loaded into vulcanizer
12:00pm Lunch break
1:00pm Demold begins
2:00pm First test spins on the new mold
4:00pm pockets are filling at 100%
5:00pm Begin casting masters
7:00pm Departed factory for return home
7:30pm Arrived home and unpacked

Masters cast - 95% of what was needed to make production molds.

The rest of the days have been filled with sculpting from dark to dark.

PRODUCTION

Vicky and I have been the only one's casting the pieces with additional help at intervals from Martin, Brett and Brian (Inner Geek).

So far we have only been able to cast one day a week since early in January plus a couple of days last week, bringing our total casting production time to approximately six or seven days. With total mold spin of about five to six hours per day, I'm being pretty generous by saying that we've maybe spent around 42 total casting hours at this point. At 40% as it shows on the spreadsheet for that amount of time, with complete amateur casters, it should be pretty good.

We have created another self-imposed deadline to get the rest of stuff sculpted, molded and cast by the second weekend of March. This is padded to take into account many things in the schedule like added client work, tax preparation and mold-making delays.

Kevin got the Thulle sculpt to me this week and it is awesome! I will post pics of it once it has been molded since it has already been cut and keyed for production. The Rocket Bike masters arrived and I've started sculpting the rider which should go on the next mold. That only leaves Delzira, Luta & Shunkaha and the Atomic Punks creature to finish off all the rest of the Kickstarter sculpts.

See you next week!
~Patrick
The Sculptdude

Production Update 13

We have been casting things, packaging things and have shipped a few things out this week.

See you next week!
~Patrick
The Sculptdude

Production Update 12

PayPal Donations

The PayPal Donations period has ended. Thank you for your continued support! Throughout the remainder of fulfilling the Kickstarter and PayPal Donation rewards we are no longer accepting additional funds via PayPal in anticipation of launching our new online web store. All of our backers and supporters will be notified once the online store is functional so that you can get all the new Babes & Sidekicks releases along with our existing stock that was produced through the Kickstarter drive.

The Bad News . . . 

We missed our window for shipping in January, here's why. We were waiting for the first shipment of the resin base inserts from the caster in order to start packaging up some of the smaller backer rewards levels and begin packaging what we have for the Bomb Kits. Since every backer level receives a Helen Babe as a reward, and as a Babe she includes a resin base insert, this was what held up the shipping.

the Good News . . . 

The resin base inserts arrived last night.

 

In the interim we still collated and assembled the other items we had already received and have started packaging the Bomb Kits with the items we now have in stock. Vicky did most of this work by herself while suffering from a nasty winter cold over the last two weeks. She's a trooper!

We will be working all weekend to package up the orders we can now fulfill and start shipping those rewards to backers on Monday.

Sculpts Completed

These pieces have now been delivered for molding.

The Rocket Bike

The 3D prints were picked up from the printer and they are simply amazing. The level of detail and resolution of the prints are superb. According to our print vendor the fuselage alone took over 12 hours to build from the nose up vertically on the build platform. Over the weekend I will be sculpting the rider and the parts will go off to mold on Monday.

It is critical that I return to my client sculpting work in February and get the online store functional as soon as possible to keep operations running smoothly. So, our priority is to get the Kickstarter & PayPal Donate fulfillment completed as soon as possible. Reaper has just received five semi-trailer loads of plastic Bones figures at their factory and will be utilizing most of their staff to sort all these out for the next couple of months. This may affect our casting schedule as they reallocate their labor pool to these tasks. We are looking at alternatives for casting if this becomes an issue.

This week's Progress Report:

• Completed sculpts for Pussy Patrol, Tetsu Ko, Raven Skye, Mira, GhNT Spybot, Shrapnel & Flakk
• 1200 Postcard sets collated and bagged
• Relic casting 89% completed
• HLpR Bot casting completed
• Maelee casting 86% completed
• Sidekicks sculpting completed
• received 15,000 30mm bases from Armada
• received 6,000 30mm, 40mm and 50mm bases from Dice & Games UK
• received 100% of resin Ammo Dumps
• received 50% of resin base inserts
• received 6000 4 mil poly bags
• recieved bike from printer
• downloaded drivers for mail label printer, mailing center now operational
• sent postcards for autographs
• registered and set up online shopping cart

Thanks for hanging in there with us. Hopefully these updates will let you know that we are working diligently on getting your items to you. This has all been a HUGE amount of work for Vicky and I plus our small collection of volunteers and Bomb Squad talent we have been able to recruit. Our number one goal is to get these items to you as soon as we possibly can.

See you next week!
~Patrick
The Sculptdude