And thank you so very much for your support for this project! Tokii and I had to step away from the computers momentarily only to come back and see that we've fully funded! It was a very exciting surprise from all of you to us here at CritCreations <3

At this time every design, add-on, and product featured for this campaign have been fully funded and will be made available to the backers during the survey phase of this campaign - However, as we've been dropping hints throughout the lead-up of this campaign it's time to announce the stretchgoals we've prepared for you!

Once we reach $8,000 in funding, the colorways for the Artistic Spirit winners will officially be available to our backers, and the winning artists will each receive their reward with their orders! Those winners, along with the details of Stretchgoals 2-4 will be revealed once the Artistic Spirit poll has closed later tonight :>

Once we reach $9,000 in funding, the next three most popular designs from this campaign that have yet to get a an available colorway will receive one!

Once we reach $10,000 in funding, the next three most popular designs from this campaign that have yet to get a an available colorway will receive one! 

Once we reach $11,000 in funding, the last three designs from this campaign that have yet to get a an available colorway will receive one! 

Finally, as our last stretchgoal once we reach $12,000 in funding, we will order a second wave of production for the original Midnight Festival standard pins through our new manufacturer. These pins will be made available as add-ons for our backers at their original price - this will be a backerkit exclusive discount!
As an additionally cherry on top - each backer will receive a digital copy of the exclusive print from that campaign :>

We are officially one day away from Midnight Festival 2's launch and the rest Dark Carnival event's great showing! There's a magnificent selection of projects featured in this event, so we've included a link to a few of our favorites down below at the end of this update, be sure to check them out! <3

Now before we get into our competition poll, here's a quick update/reminder of what we will be featuring during this project :3

We plan to unlock each of our pins in 12 milestones in the order seen below. Each milestone will feature a standard 1.5" dual-prong hard enamel pin designed after Yokai within Japanese Mythology, accompanied with it will be a mini 0.75" single-prong hard enamel pin designed from festival foods and snacks :>
If we unlock all 12 milestones, we have some additional stretch-goals being worked on behind the scenes, fingers crossed we'll get to share that with you all!

Each of the following treasures will be available to backers with the unlocking of our first milestone, some will be included in higher tier pledge levels, but all will be available through add-ons :>

Firstly we'd like to thank each and every one of the artists who shared with us their works! Tokii and I had a marvelous time looking at all of the talent among the members of our supporters :>

I had unfortunately gotten some of my wires crossed last update when it came to timeline shenanigans, I thought there was a little more time than there actually was, so if you're seeing this announcement we are no longer taking submissions for this competition. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Now, let's show of your art for the competition!

Tabby's Link: digitallyfanged.com

There was so much more that these artists sent to us, and all of them were a sweet treat for they eyes! We've narrowed it down to one piece from each artist, and now it's your turn to decide the winners! you can do so in this poll here! :3

Now as alluded to earlier, there are a menagerie of awesome talent being showcased in the Dark Carnival, we are so grateful to have this opportunity to display our work beside theirs! Here's a few in particular that we are super stoked to see launch!

As big fans of all things extraordinary, Tokii and I are super excited to see our friend Abysmal Kaiju showing of such a eyebrow-raising collection of mystique! Kaiju is a talented artist with lots of experience making pins, we're proud to have backed them in the past and would highly suggest their work to you as well! :>

If you have a love for the creepies and chained pins Royarach has more than what you wanted! their use of chains in the designs they've shown is jaw-droppingly cool! Their use of soft enamel allows them to be very creative with their line art, and their hard enamel bear pin comes in two pieces connected by chain - almost allowing them to juggle in real time! :0

Steakjoke has been a personal friend of Tokii and I for years, and we are super excited to be partnering up with them for their very first crowdfunding campaign! Now, biases aside, we are so excited to see a campaign featuring the legendary Fae - a criminally underdone theme in our opinion! Be sure to show Steakjoke some love as they start their pin making journey! (coughcough and you also get two free stickers for backing both of us coughcough) :3

When I was younger I had a marvelous bug collection, and while that collection has long since disappeared my memories of it as well as my love for dragons hasn't begun to leave my mind! Snapling brings both interests of mine to the table with their elaborately clever Taxidermy Dragons campaign! From butterfly and river dragons to wings and eggs it is awesome how well executed Snapling's ideas are, and I for one am so excited to see them launch >:D

With one of us having a lengthy history with sleep paralysis demons and other night terrors, the themes of this campaign send a shiver up our spines! Rainy Day's design work for their Endless Chase pin is mesmerizing! and their Funnel Cake pin is unfortunately good enough to eat! ^u^

We'd like to take a moment to thank you all again for the love and patronage you have shown to our team and for our work. We're excited to revisit our roots with you all during the Midnight Festival 2 campaign, but we want to reiterate that we could not have gotten here without the overwhelming support you guys have for us.
We'll continue to show our gratitude for this love by pouring our hearts into every project we do. Thank you <3

Stay adventurous,
- Jacob & Tokii

Today marks one week until the campaign launches, and to get us moving right along we would like to announce the beginning of the Artistic Spirit Competition - an event that put's your artwork in the spotlight!



For access to a pantone website, I've linked one here!

Additionally if you submit your art and would like us to include a link to one of your socials in the announcements, polls, and updates featuring your work please include your link in the email! :3

I plan to have the Artistic Spirit Poll up when the campaign launches, and winners announced about a week into the project :!

Stay adventurous,
- Jacob & Tokii

We are only two weeks away from the Dark Carnival's grand opening! With it so soon around the corner we'd like to reveal the final collection add-ons in store for Midnight Festival 2...

So on our last update we asked for your suggestions or thoughts for this campaign's competition, we've got two ideas that we're debating on, but we're going to let you decide!

Option 1 - Domestic Yokai
In similar style as what we did for our Infernal Invasion campaign, this idea would involve backers submitting photos of their pets for the community to vote for a winner which will be used as a reference for colorways to be unlocked as a stretchgoal. We would be looking for a pet dog for the pipefox, a pet cat for the Maneki Neko, and a pet fish for the Ningyo. The winning pet's owners would receive a freebie of the pin their pet inspired added to their order, or in the scenario that the pin isn't unlocked, a suitable replacement.

Option 2 - Artistic Spirit
As suggested by commenter Emily, this option would include a drawing competition - making you the artist this time around! Everyone will be given the blank outline for each of the yokai to choose from, and will have the opportunity to send us their take on one yokai of their choosing. Tokii and I will gather our favorites and put them up for you all to decide the winners via a poll. The top 3 will be the competition winners, and the artists for each will receive a freebie of the pin that they created added to their order, or in the scenario that the pin isn't unlocked, a suitable replacement.

Let us know your thoughts! Vote here :>

We apologize ahead of time if we have been / will be less available to update and communicate. we've been preparing for a trip to Sakura-Con where we'll be setting up a booth in Artist Alley! We're very new to this so it's been a quite chaotic getting everything packed up, but we're finally ready. We fly out tomorrow morning and should be back to work by April 7th. If any of you are planning a trip to Seattle we hope to see you there! :3

Check out our partner's project! Right here :>