The boat with our shipment is scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles this weekend. They will then need to be cleared through customs before getting onto a truck headed to our fulfillment center in Arkansas where we will begin shipping out rewards and preorders. We'll be sure to send out an update as we continue to hit each milestone.
The team at backerkit is working hard to finalize any outstanding support requests, we're aiming to have this all completed / locked down / and charged by Friday.
We will be sending the 48 Hour Confirm Shipping Address Email next week, it will look like this:
Subject: Last call to update your shipping address for Articulated Icons: The Feudal Series
---NO REPLY NEEDED---
Looks like Articulated Icons: The Feudal Series is about to ship your rewards soon!
If you do not need to update your shipping address, you do not need to take any further actions. You're all set!
If you need to update your shipping address, you have 48 HOURS to make any final changes here (THIS WILL BE A LINK TO MAKE ANY CHANGES).
---
This is the shipping information we have on file for you:
>>This message appears to the backer if address is complete:
Shipping Address
[Recipient Name]
[Address Line 1]
[Address Line 2]
[City][State][Zip Code]
[Country]
Phone Number
[XXX-XXX-XXXX]
If this looks correct, you do not need to take any further actions.
>>This message appears to the backer if address is incomplete:
ATTENTION: Your shipping address is incomplete. Update your shipping address so we can ship your rewards!
Our friends at ACBA have continued to cover some of the FEP samples that they received from us (note: these were the samples we received prior to fixing the head/hand swapping issue). The picture up top is from Kolonel Krackers instagram page and Boog has video reviews of Deluxe Ninja (white), Solitaire (modern ninja), and Seijun (samurai outlaw) that you can check out below:
Thanks again to all for your continued support and patience, we're nearing the final stages and can't wait until everyone has these in hand, we couldn't have done it without you!
ninjas have moms too...
almost 9 years ago
– Sun, May 14, 2017 at 07:22:52 PM
First off, the heads/hands swapping issue has been resolved and EVERYTHING is scheduled to be on a boat at the end of this coming week.
It should take about a month to get from HK to our distribution center in Arkansas, so it looks like we will begin shipping out Kickstarter rewards near the end of June.
With that said, we will be locking down all backerkits and closing preorders at the end of May. If you need to make any changes make sure you do so before the end of the month. Just shoot an email to [email protected] if you have any questions about modifying your order.
In June we will be sending out a mandatory address confirmation, EVERYONE will need to confirm their shipping address, we will only be shipping out rewards / preorders to people who have confirmed their address, we will post an update here when the mandatory address confirmation email has gone out so no one misses it.
Happy Mother's Day and thanks again for your patience and support!
(Beardy is super happy that there was no bad news in this update)
ACBA Instagram Live Stream TONIGHT & an unexpected speed bump
almost 9 years ago
– Fri, Apr 14, 2017 at 11:26:18 PM
If you keep up with the comments section on the Kickstarter campaign page and/or the AI discussion thread on the Fwoosh, then you may be aware that we (the AI design team) decided to have the factory split off a case of each SKU (17 boxes) and ship them directly to us. Since we have full time jobs and could not make the trip to our factory to do the final inspection in person, we decided that this would be the best way to get our eyes on a decent cross section of the product before the distribution center started shipping out Kickstarter backer rewards / preorders and us seeing the final product at the same time everyone else did.
Overall, we are extremely happy with these. The 3 of us have spent a good amount of time looking over 200 individually packaged items. We even set aside some for our friends at Articulated Comic Book Art, if you follow them on Facebook and Instagram you may have seen some pics from therealdallasjames. ACBA will be doing a live stream on Instagram tonight, April 14th at 7pm PST. If you aren’t able to catch the live stream they are also planning on recording and posting a video to their youtube channel soon and we will send out a link in a future update.
With that said, as the 3 of us were looking over everything, we came across some issues that had not been present in previous reviews of samples from the factory. There were some incorrect accessory pack-outs and a minor paint issue here and there, but the bigger issue to us was the interchangeable parts (specifically the hands and alternate packed heads) were not easily swapped. With a little bit of heat (hot water / a hairdryer / a heatgun) there are no issues. However, without applying heat to the hands or alternate heads, we were not satisfied with the amount of potential breakage that might occur.
We debated between the 3 of us what to do; frustrated that this was an issue that we had not come across before. We discussed warning everyone about this issue and asking them to use heat when changing parts but ultimately decided that that is a compromise that we did not want to make. We made this line with the intention that people would be mixing and matching parts and pieces right out of the packaging. So the 3 of us decided that we would rather deal with the frustration and disappointment from yet another delay then to risk the frustration and disappointment of our backers receiving product that was not what we promised. The factory is currently making the necessary changes to address the heads and re-injecting all of the hands in a slightly more flexible PVC in order to correct the issue; they just sent along some images of the replacement hands being made:
So you may be asking, what does this all mean, when will we finally get our backer rewards / preorders? Unfortunately the answer right now is that we are not entirely sure, the factory is already hard at work making these corrections. However, we are hesitant to say anything definitively before we know more.
We are fully aware of how disappointing it is to hear about another delay. At the end of the day we promised you the best figures we could deliver, and we are choosing to stick by that promise and hope that the delays will just be an unfortunate memory that will no longer be a big issue once we can all finally enjoy the figures in hand.
Be sure to check out the ACBA live stream in a few hours if you can (and take it easy on therealdallasjames, he doesn't know when these will finally be shipping either and the delay was not his decision nor is it even remotely his fault).
And if you need to contact us for any reason, shoot an email to [email protected] and we'll do our best to help out however possible!
final inspection pictures
about 9 years ago
– Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 12:57:29 AM
We've been busy finalizing all 15 of the figures (plus the arms pack and modular base) and arranging overseas transport since our last update, per suggestions from the kickstarter comment section / our instagram page and thefwoosh.com message boards, here are some final inspection pictures from the factory while we wait for confirmation of that hard date of when we will begin shipping out all of your rewards from our distribution center.
Thanks again for all of your patience and support, the delays have been frustrating for us as well and we are eagerly anticipating everyone finally getting these in hand!
#$@&%*! - another delay
about 9 years ago
– Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 10:46:24 PM
2 weeks ago our factory asked for a few additional days to complete production, we emailed back and forth with our freight forwarder and were able to book ocean transport that would have us reach the US on February 16th and then reach our distribution center 7-10 days later keeping us pretty close to our scheduled Feb/March ship date.
Last night we received this email from our factory:
During the production, we were very regret to found that our production team had make some mistakes on the assembling for the pins and joints (due to the numerous common pins and small size part), which need us re-work from all over again. And when we getting nearer to the new year holidays, a lot of our workers had left our factory to home earlier than expected, that we are in serious labor shortage situation.
Therefore, we are terribly sorry that we have to inform you the shipment need to be postponed to the end of February. We understand that you really wanted your products to ship before CNY, but based on the current situation, we really do not want to ship your first project with bad quality product;
We are sincerely apologized for this inconvenience that caused.
Obviously this was a big punch in the gut for us. We've spent the morning in contact with our freight forwarder informing them of the delay.
As far along as they were, I imagine this was also a difficult email for them to send. I can picture them doing their final inspection and having to make the decision between shipping out our order as is or redoing what needs to be done in order to make it right.
While I'm feeling really disheartened in passing along news of yet another delay, I am glad that our factory partners are not willing to compromise their reputation or ours and are committed to making this line as best as it can be.
Their current estimate for end of February completion would likely see us shipping out all orders in April. Because of the delay we are going to open the BackerKits back up so that you will be able to make any changes, additions or cancellations to your order. Please feel free to contact [email protected] if you require any assistance. We will likely keep BackerKit open until the end of February, only closing down figures if they start to get too close to the final production number for that particular figure.
Thanks again for your understanding and support, it is much appreciated.
