Progress Update #9 with an Anniversary
almost 4 years ago – Thu, Jun 11, 2020 at 11:17:38 AM

Greetings Backers,

TL;DR: Pins are done, Ships are close to done, Tiny Planet Mercenary is in layout, we've launched the sticker re-design. Howard still has bad breathing days, but we're following up with medical interventions. Details below.

Schlock Mercenary is 20!

This Friday June 12 is the 20th anniversary of Schlock Mercenary.

To celebrate this joyous milestone, we've set up our store with a small selection of anniversary themed merchandise. You can also use coupon code SCHLOCK20 to get 20% off any new Schlock Mercenary book in our store. Thank you to all of you who have supported us so we could do this for the past twenty years!

Most of you have filled out your surveys, Thank You! If for any reason you did not receive your survey, or if you need to update your address, you can go to https://big-dumb-objects-schlock-mercenary-book-16.backerkit.com/ and login to fill out your survey. If you've tried that and are still having trouble, email [email protected] and we'll help.

Progress Updates

We're still tucked safe at home, getting groceries once per week and generally avoiding going out whenever possible. Howard continues to have bad breathing days sometimes. He's had to focus on making sure the comic updates daily. The comic will be drawing to a close sometime in the next few weeks. When that happens, Howard will be able to turn his available creative time to Kickstarter products.

You may see us on other platforms pushing products, announcing sales, or being stressed about money in these uncertain times. This is because we have sequestered the funds to pay for printing and shipping your books and other items. We are not allowed to touch those funds for day-to-day living, they're reserved to fulfill our promises to you. Day-to-day living money is a separate fund and we'll likely need to hustle to keep that fund healthy through the massive economic shifts that are already beginning and are likely to continue through the next months. In particular we've been increasing our offerings over on the Schlock Patreon site and Sandra's Patreon, because having a stead source of income over the next six months to a year seems like a very good thing for creatives like us.

Here is the current status of deliverables in this project.

Big Dumb Objects book: The introduction is complete. Howard has drafted the bonus story and needs to find a week where he has enough energy to draw bonus story after finishing the week's comic updates. The lack of progress continues to cause Howard anxiety. We've reached the point where we have a color printout of the pages. Sandra will comb through these pages looking for errors.

Slipcase: The design is done and ready to send to print.

Confelicity/Schadenfreude Coin: Sandra spent the last couple of weeks hustling on 20th anniversary merchandise, so she is still in the process finding a designer to help with this so that it is one less thing for Howard to do. Turn around on coins is far shorter than books and the manufacturer for these is running business as usual. So as soon as we have a design these can go into manufacturing.

Warning Sign Stickers: We have the updated designs almost nailed down. Here is an example of what they will look like:

As soon as designs are finalized we'll send these off to print. Turn around on stickers is about 10 days.

Enamel Pins: Complete and arrived! They look amazing. Sandra has already sent out pins to those who only had pins in their orders.

Escape From the Friggen Jungle PDF: Complete! If this is a part of your order, you should have received an email with download information. If you did not get an email, you can use the link at the top of this update to login and download your copy.

Tiny Planet Mercenary: Tiny Planet Mercenary is now handed off to layout. After layout is done, Hypernode Media will approve the final files. Then PDF distribution and printing can begin!

Kitesfear model: 200 ships are complete only 50 left to be assembled.

Health updates: Howard continues to have good breathing days and bad breathing days. We're more and more convinced that this isn't simple asthma. Once Howard wraps the daily comic, we'll get more aggressive about requesting doctors run additional tests.

We still feel badly that we're not working at our usual efficiency and that all of you will have to wait a bit longer, but we are committed to delivering items that are worth every penny of your trust in us. The next progress update will be the week of June 29-July 4.

Thank you so much for backing our project,

Howard and Sandra

Progress Update #8
almost 4 years ago – Wed, May 20, 2020 at 10:23:18 PM

Greetings Backers,

TL;DR: Pins are done, Ships are close to done, Tiny Planet Mercenary is headed for layout, we've launched the sticker re-design. Howard still has bad breathing days because of asthma, but we're following up with medical interventions. Details below. (With a graph)

Most of you have filled out your surveys, Thank You! If for any reason you did not receive your survey, or if you need to update your address, you can go to https://big-dumb-objects-schlock-mercenary-book-16.backerkit.com/ and login to fill out your survey. If you've tried that and are still having trouble, email [email protected] and we'll help.

Progress Updates

We're in one of the states that is beginning to lift stay-at-home restrictions, but we're still staying at home because Howard's asthma continues to be a challenge. Also staying at home is how we help protect other people who can't stay at home. We're learning how to get things done despite having less external structure in our days, and we're learning to look forward to small things like family movie night rather than larger things like trips to conventions. (Neither Howard nor plan to get on a plane at any point in 2020. Too risky.)

Here is the current status of deliverables in this project.

Big Dumb Objects book: Howard's asthma is continuing to have an impact on the progress for this book. Sandra has drafted the introduction. Howard has drafted the bonus story and needs to find a week where he has enough energy to draw bonus story after finishing the week's comic updates. The lack of progress continues to cause Howard anxiety, which we're trying to manage because anxiety can worsen asthma.

Slipcase: The design is done and ready to send to print.

Confelicity/Schadenfreude Coin: Sandra is in the process finding a designer to help with this so that it is one less thing for Howard to do. Turn around on coins is far shorter than books and the manufacturer for these is running business as usual. So as soon as we have a design these can go into manufacturing.

Warning Sign Stickers: Sandra has reached out to a designer who will spruce up the designs on these and get them ready for printing. That will take one thing off of Howard's plate. This may go to print as soon as next week.

Enamel Pins: Complete and arrived! They look amazing. Sandra has already sent out pins to those who only had pins in their orders.

Tiny Planet Mercenary:

Today's Tiny PM update is good!

Writing, playtesting and edition are done. Editing took a few weeks longer than planned. Now Alan is making the suggested changes and doing a final check. Alan will pass the word document to Hypernode Media this week (estimating Wednesday or Thursday). Once approved the book will go to layout!

Kitesfear model: Jeff's schedule was impacted by some other things in the past couple of weeks, so he is a little behind where he wanted to be. As of May 15 he had completed about half of the ships. He's got a good assembly line process and should be finishing the rest soon. They look amazing and we're excited to have them arrive.

Health updates: The new asthma meds from the pulmonologist have definitely been helping, but Howard still has bad breathing days where he's out of breath and has trouble thinking. We ordered a wearable oxygen monitor and have started getting interesting graphs that demonstrate the problem. This graph represents one hour of measurements.

Orange is not good. Red is bad. Those triangles on the lower edge indicate moments when his blood oxygen dipped low enough for the alarm to trigger. We'll take this data to the doctor the next time Howard goes. We've discovered that Howard sometimes unconsciously holds his breath when drawing fine lines. Before the lung issue this wasn't a problem. Now it drops his blood oxygen until suddenly he's out of breath, exhausted, and unable to think clearly. The good news is that the finger ring will now buzz him when he's doing it so he can learn to breathe differently when he draws. That is already a step in the right direction toward making work less exhausting. We have a pulmonary function test scheduled for early June which will give us even more information.

In related news, we got the results from Howard's Covid 19 antibody test. He's negative for antibodies, which means we'll continue being very cautious about the exposures we allow into our house. Howard stays at home. Sandra runs the errands and sanitizes carefully when she returns. All our socializing is online and conversations with neighbors happen outdoors with six feet of distance. We expect to maintain this level of caution for the next six months or more.

Thank you so much for backing our project,

Howard and Sandra

Progress Update #7
about 4 years ago – Thu, Apr 23, 2020 at 10:53:53 PM

Greetings Backers,

TL;DR: Pins are done, Ships are close to done, Tiny Planet Mercenary is progressing, Howard has an asthma diagnosis, and we're still trying to find our work/life balance in a pandemic world. Details below.

Most of you have filled out your surveys, Thank You! If for any reason you did not receive your survey, or if you need to update your address, you can go to https://big-dumb-objects-schlock-mercenary-book-16.backerkit.com/ and login to fill out your survey. If you've tried that and are still having trouble, email [email protected] and we'll help.

Progress Updates

The new pandemic world is weird. Like everyone else we're under stay-at-home restrictions and trying to work. Like everyone else, this has been harder and less focused than we would like. Howard has been posting things like studio tours to Twitter. Sandra has been blogging over at onecobble.com.

You may see us on other platforms pushing products, announcing sales, or being stressed about money in these uncertain times. This is because we have sequestered the funds to pay for printing and shipping your books and other items. We are not allowed to touch those funds for day to day living, they're reserved to fulfill our promises to you. Day to day living money is a separate fund and we'll likely need to hustle to keep that fund healthy through the massive economic shifts that are already beginning and are likely to continue through the next months. In particular we've been increasing our offerings over on the Schlock Patreon site and Sandra's Patreon, because having a stead source of income over the next six months to a year seems like a very good thing for creatives like us.

Here is the current status of deliverables in this project.

Big Dumb Objects book: Very little progress on this since the last update because Howard has been struggling just to keep up with the daily comic. The cover art is done, the cover design needs Howard to free up a few hours to work on it. Sandra needs to write the introduction and fill in some last white spaces. We've been in touch with our printer and their manufacturing capabilities are at normal capacity however their US based staff are all struggling with the same work-from-home quarantine challenges as everyone else. Particularly since they're located in coastal cities. We'll still be able to get things done once files are ready, but the physical production timeline may be a little longer than usual.

Slipcase: The design is done and ready to send to print.

Confelicity/Schadenfreude Coin: Waiting for Howard to free up a couple of hours to work on the design. Turn around on coins is far shorter than books and the manufacturer for these is running business as usual.

Warning Sign Stickers: Our intended sticker supplier has currently turned all of their capacity for die-cut stickers toward creating Covid-19 stickers, signage, and alerts for hospitals, pharmacies, and other essential businesses. Hopefully they'll have availability for our project in a few more weeks which should still have the stickers arriving before the books. Sandra is keeping an eye on this.

Enamel Pins: Complete and arrived! They look amazing. Sandra has already sent out pins to those who only had pins in their orders.

Tiny Planet Mercenary:

The team at Gallant Knight Games have this to report:

As we stated previously, the chassis of TinyD6 for Tiny PM makes this a lot easier, as the core framework already exists in our space opera game Tiny Frontiers: Revised. We were able to use large swathes of text from there, only updating sophont types to the PM ones, as well as adjusting how Mayhem and weapons work.

Writing done.
Editing underway on book.Cards completed.
Playtesting completed.
Time booked with the layout artist. This has been delayed due to shifts in workload.
Art assets being selected and determined for suitability.

Once we have a suitable draft of the book, Alan will pass it over to Hypernode Media for approvals and to gather their feedback. (Anticipating next week.)

Related note, GKG is in their last 24 hours of their current Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gallantknightgames/tiny-taverns: closes tomorrow.

Kitesfear model: On schedule! All 2000 turrets are printed and all 250 hulls have been cast. Now all that remains is for Jeff to glue 2000 turrets to 250 hulls. Fortunately Jeff was able to get enough supplies of resins and glues before the supply lines got slowed down or redirected. He's working from home and plans to have completed models shipped to us by the end of April or the first week of May.

Health updates: We were fortunate this week, the pulmonologist had a cancellation and so Howard went in to be seen. The diagnosis is severe asthma, which is a much better diagnosis than other popular reasons for being short of breath. Howard has been handed some new prescriptions and a follow up appointment. The best news is that the doctor believes that we can have a better normal than the one we've been dealing with for the past several months. The doctor did not offer an opinion about the causative illness, which makes sense because he's a pulmonologist not a virologist. Howard is hunkering down back in quarantine with his new prescriptions and continuing to try to find enough energy for the ongoing comic and book project. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks breathing more easily will mean he can create more on a given day.

Thank you so much for backing our project,

Howard and Sandra

Progress Update #6
about 4 years ago – Thu, Apr 02, 2020 at 08:09:39 PM

Greetings Backers,

TL;DR: We spent time the last few weeks adapting to massive shifts in the world around us, but we're finding our footing and getting back to finishing work for you.

Progress Updates

Like everyone else, global pandemic threw us for a loop as we had to adapt to new restrictions and requirements including revamping our food resource management and adapting to schooling kids from home. So there was less progress made than we wanted.

You may see us on other platforms pushing products, announcing sales, or being stressed about money in these uncertain times. This is because we have sequestered the funds to pay for printing and shipping your books and other items. We are not allowed to touch those funds for day to day living, they're reserved to fulfill our promises to you. Day to day living money is a separate fund and we'll likely need to hustle to keep that fund healthy through the massive economic shifts that are already beginning and are likely to continue through the next months.

Here is the current status of deliverables in this project.

Big Dumb Objects book: The cover art is done, the cover design needs Howard to free up a few hours to work on it. Sandra needs to write the introduction and fill in some last white spaces. We'd hoped to go to print in Mid-April, but we lost several weeks of time to pandemic adjustments. We've been in touch with our printer and their manufacturing capabilities are at normal capacity. They are really glad to have work right now. So once we have files to them, the schedule should proceed as normal barring further supply chain disruptions because of the pandemic.

Slipcase: The design is done and ready to send to print.

Confelicity/Schadenfreude Coin: Waiting for Howard to free up a couple of hours to work on the design. Turn around on coins is far shorter than books and the manufacturer for these is running business as usual.

Warning Sign Stickers: Our intended sticker supplier has currently turned all of their capacity for die-cut stickers toward creating Covid-19 stickers, signage, and alerts for hospitals, pharmacies, and other essential businesses. Hopefully they'll have availability for our project in a month or two which should still have the stickers arriving before the books. Sandra is keeping an eye on this.

Enamel Pins: These are manufactured and in transit to us. We expect them to arrive on Friday.

Escape From the Friggen Jungle PDF: Complete! If this is a part of your order, you should have received an email with download information. If you did not get an email, you can use the link at the top of this update to login and download your copy.

Tiny Planet Mercenary:

The team at Gallant Knight Games have this to report:

Changes in GKG staff life schedules as well as our freelancers have forced rearranging and put a pause on non-essential forward moving work (basically unless it's already due at the printer, we've had to hit the pause button briefly to rearrange workloads and schedules). The biggest bottle neck will likely be layout, as our layout artist is rearranging the schedule. I am unsure if there will be a delay, but that's the most likely point. We anticipate being back up and running this week at full speed.

Kitesfear model: On schedule! All 2000 turrets are printed and the bodies are being cast. Fortunately Jeff was able to get enough supplies of resins and glues before the supply lines got slowed down or redirected. He's working from home and plans to have completed models shipped to us by the end of April.

Health updates: Howard has good days and days where he's short of breath all day. Sometimes being short of breath shuts him down completely. Asthma meds are helping. The pulmonary function test was postponed and is likely to be postponed again. We're probably at the back of a line (which will get longer) of urgent cases for the pulmonologist to asses. We may not have answers for quite a while, so we're doing what we can from home. Howard is doing light cardio exercise every day to build up stamina and lung capacity. On good days he can do a fair bit, on bad days not so much. We're being careful and quarantining because stacking Covid-19 on top of whatever else is going on in his lungs would be bad. (Yes we're aware that there may be some evidence that Covid-19 arrived in the states as early as January. We would love to discover that Howard's lung issues are because he's already had the virus and recovered. Short of someone inventing an antibody test and allowing Howard to take it, there is no way to know, so we're acting as if he can catch it.)

Thank you so much for backing our project,

Howard and Sandra

Progress Update #5
about 4 years ago – Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 08:13:42 PM

Greetings Backers,

TL;DR: We're behind the schedule we had anticipated, but Howard's health has improved and progress is being made. We have new items in our regular online store including some sketch editions of earlier books. Details below.

Big Dumb Objects book: The cover art is done, the cover design needs Howard to free up a few hours to work on it. Sandra needs to write the introduction and fill in some last white spaces. Howard had a breakthrough realization on the bonus story last night, which will hopefully get that portion of the project moving. He's excited about it, which means it will move faster. Our current hoped for go-to-print date is mid-April. Details on Howard's health status below.

Slipcase: The design is done and ready to send to print.

Confelicity/Schadenfreude Coin: Waiting for Howard to free up a couple of hours to work on the design. Turn around on coins is far shorter than books.

Warning Sign Stickers: Sample kit from the new supplier looks fantastic. As soon as Howard approves designs these can go to print.

Enamel Pins: Ordered! We expect these to ship to us at the end of March.

Tiny Planet Mercenary:

The team at Gallant Knight Games have this to report:

Editing almost done then text will go to Howard and Sandra for approval.
Editing underway on cards.
Playtesting completed.
Time booked with the layout artist.
Art assets being selected and determined for suitability.

Kitesfear model: On schedule! Test casts have arrived at Chez Tayler and are a delight to hold in our hands. The only problem is that some of the little cannons were not securely glued. Further glue testing is under way so that the problem should be resolved before we ship to all of you.

We're making a total of about 250 of these for the first run, and the plan is to have them ready to go by the end of April.

More Details:

Health updates: Howard was put on a daily asthma medicine which has helped him not be constantly out of breath while walking from one end of the house to the other. This means he can pace while thinking again, which has improved his ability to be creative. He still gets out of breath far too easily though, so we have a pulmonary function test scheduled for next week to figure out exactly what is going on. We're also being extra careful with sanitizing because with his current breathing issues and other assorted factors, Howard is in the high-risk category for Covid-19. Since this three-month-long (so far) bought with breathlessness was brought on by a flu-like virus, caution seems merited.

We're having a sale in our store: The funds for Kickstarter production and fulfillment are reserved, but we still have monthly bills to pay and we need to make space in our warehouse for the books and slipcases to arrive, so we're having a spring cleaning sale in our store. If you subscribe to our newsletter, you can even get a 10% off coupon when the newsletter goes out later this week.

We have new hats and shirts! Click the image for a closer look.

https://shop.schlockmercenary.com/collections/apparel

A closer look at the new Tagon shirt:

I'm calm in a storm because I am the storm

Back Stock Sketch Editions:

In the past we've gotten requests from people seeking to replace or acquire sketch editions prior to the one currently being made. We have a small selection of left over sketch editions that you can order using this link. Supplies are limited and sketches are chosen randomly.

Clearance sale:

We have significantly discounted our pile of scratch and dent books. These books are dented, folded, or scratched, but only to an amount that would happen through normal use. The books are perfectly readable. The low prices make this an excellent time to pick up extra copies to donate to a library or give to a friend. You can find these and other discounted items in our Clearance Section.

Note: we can combine shipping between store orders and Kickstarter orders for non-apparel items. (Apparel items come from a print on demand supplier and always ship separately.) If you want to combine shipping, email [email protected] with your order number and Sandra will help you individually and refund the superfluous shipping cost based on the weight of items you added and your shipping location. However, this means that all of your items will be delayed until everything is ready to ship in a single package.

Thank you so much for backing our project,

Howard and Sandra

Store for Schlock Mercenary Big Dumb Objects Kickstarter

Created by Howard Tayler

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Progress Update #9 with an Anniversary
almost 4 years ago – Thu, Jun 11, 2020 at 11:17:38 AM

Schlock Mercenary is 20!

Progress Updates

Progress Update #8
almost 4 years ago – Wed, May 20, 2020 at 10:23:18 PM

Progress Updates

Progress Update #7
about 4 years ago – Thu, Apr 23, 2020 at 10:53:53 PM

Progress Updates

Progress Update #6
about 4 years ago – Thu, Apr 02, 2020 at 08:09:39 PM

Progress Updates

Progress Update #5
about 4 years ago – Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 08:13:42 PM

More Details:

Store for Schlock Mercenary Big Dumb Objects Kickstarter

Created by Howard Tayler

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Progress Update #9 with an Anniversary almost 4 years ago – Thu, Jun 11, 2020 at 11:17:38 AM

Schlock Mercenary is 20!

Progress Updates

Progress Update #8 almost 4 years ago – Wed, May 20, 2020 at 10:23:18 PM

Progress Updates

Progress Update #7 about 4 years ago – Thu, Apr 23, 2020 at 10:53:53 PM

Progress Updates

Progress Update #6 about 4 years ago – Thu, Apr 02, 2020 at 08:09:39 PM

Progress Updates

Progress Update #5 about 4 years ago – Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 08:13:42 PM

More Details:

Progress Update #9 with an Anniversary
almost 4 years ago – Thu, Jun 11, 2020 at 11:17:38 AM

Progress Update #8
almost 4 years ago – Wed, May 20, 2020 at 10:23:18 PM

Progress Update #7
about 4 years ago – Thu, Apr 23, 2020 at 10:53:53 PM

Progress Update #6
about 4 years ago – Thu, Apr 02, 2020 at 08:09:39 PM

Progress Update #5
about 4 years ago – Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 08:13:42 PM