Kickstarter

Good afternoon all,

Unfortunately, this is Chris, which means that things aren't all that great.  I talked to Tom's wife last night and he had to be rushed to the hospital and was readmitted.  They are keeping him over the weekend for observation.  He has developed an internal infection to go along with dehydration and they're treating him with antibiotics and fluids.  If this condition doesn't improve, they will need to immediately proceed with surgery to remove the infected areas.  So, please keep Tom in your thoughts. 

Ed says they only have one or two moulds to go (ravens and a dragon) and that most of the Type 2 figures are cast.  The plan was for Tom to drive over from Indianapolis to St. Louis to pick them up (saving a lot on shipping) but that's clearly up in the air.  It's possible that Ed may end up delivery them once Tom's health is recovered.  We'll see, but we're getting close to the point that production is complete. 

Elizabeth is working hard and has three new pictures for you.  Enjoy.

So we need to special order the T-shirts and the fulfillment page has been open for some time and only 22% of the backers have not locked in their fulfillment page.   So in order to make sure I can order the T-shirts and get them in a time period that allows us to have this KickStarter fully shipped as on time as possible we have to set a deadline to lock in your reward selection and let us know what T-shirt you are getting if you are getting that reward level.

So on May 20th, I'm going to place the T-shirt order.   Anyone who is supposed to get a T-shirt with their reward who has not locked in by May 19th.   We'll figure something out to replace the T-shirt with the reward (or they can pay a bit extra for me to special order just the one shirt for them).    I don't like deadlines ... but this one we have to deadline to get it done in time.

So after my last update where everyone was great and told me to take it easy and that you all understood (thank you for that).   I didn't get a choice in the matter.   Woke up the next morning after the Update in pure pain.   Called doctor ... says "its a side effect of the surgery ... you'll just need to grit your teeth through it".   So I spent the last week practicing my mediation techniques I learned back in college.    Today is the first day I've been able to get any Impact! work done since the last update (I know you all said to take it easy ... but man this was not what I had in mind).

Okay so that's sort of the bad news .... let's move to good news.

1)  Elizabeth Beckley is helping us with getting the Chibi painted in time for Gen Con.   Here is her first finished piece the Zombie.

2)  We did a KickStarter months before the Chibi that got very delayed by China in production and it landed in our lap just as I got seriously ill.   My wife stepped in and even though she's never packed orders for Impact! before, she learned quickly and is only 26 rewards away from being done with our D14 / D18 KickStarter (which also had 700+ backers).    So late next week ... my wife should move to Chibi and start helping getting your rewards out the door regardless of my health.  (YEAH!!!)

3)  A gamer friend of mine have volunteered to come over this Saturday with a couple buddies and get the multiple part Chibi bagged up so my wife can easily start shipping next week.   He is one of the backers and when he read I was not recovering quickly from my surgery he volunteered to come assist.   So thank you very much Bryan Mitchell ... you are awesome for this assist.

So while I might be messed up health wise still ... we have progress to report ... so I'm looking forward to moving forward.

Good day everyone ... this is Tom from the recovery bed.   Apologies for no update last Thursday.  Chris was flying across the country for his day job and I was Day 1 home from the hospital and all I did that day was the absolute survival minimum.

I'm also going to apologize up front because I have my Windows 8 laptop which hates KickStarter so very soon I won't be able to create a new paragraph and its all going to run together.

So shipping for the KickStarter was pushed back a good 3 to 4 weeks due to my health and that is no small amount of time.   So I think you deserve the quick version of why your orders were delayed (ie what the heck happened).   Late March, I start coughing without stop, my mouth was the Sahara no matter how much I drank.  The coughing kept causing me gag reflexes so I was pretty sick and down for the count.   After a week ... my wife says its not just a virus ... go to the Doctor.   I get diagnosed with bronchitis and TYPE II Diabetes.  (if you get diagnosed with Diabetes as an adult DO NOT go the internet to see what you cannot eat ... as a grown man I spent a couple hours crying thinking I would never eat anything good again ... so take it from me the internet is evil).   Anyway they didn't give me any information other than "be good" for a week and come back and we'll confirm the diagnosis.   One week later I am still coughing constantly so I'm still not getting to keep my meals and now my side hurts really badly making it difficult to walk for very long at all (which I assume is strained muscles from the coughing).   My blood sugar from a week ago was 300 (that's really high) and they start me on drugs with nasty side effects and better drugs for my bronchitis.  Oh and let's send you a CAT Scan of your side.    CAT Scan comes back ... oh Tom on top of the bronchitis and diabetes ... you have a 3.2" (8cm) abscess in your colon that if it ruptures could kill you.  I was admitted to the hospital April 22nd and they did surgery via CAT Scan (that was a new one to me).   Several days recoup in the hospital along with being told that this is round 1 and in June I get to come back and have a few inches of my colon that was badly damaged from this permanently removed and they send me home with VERY strict orders to not touch anything related to my business until Monday if I value my health.  On Monday I started packing Chibi orders because you guys have been so patient and I appreciate it.   My packing ability is limited by 1) my energy as I'm still in recovery definitely (I have tubes coming out of my body on both sides as of this moment which is a pain) and 2) working on pulling together orders from my bed is not the fastest packing method know to man.   That said I'm happy to say I've got 5% of the Chibi orders packed up and they either have shipped out already or are tomorrow and I'm should be able to keep rolling unless something else breaks in me.     For all of you that have a level with one of every TYPE II unlocked during the KS ... Ed is still working on the moulds and castings.  I will definitely let you know as soon as the TYPE IIs are ready but until then ... any level with that as part of the reward is still in holding for Ed to say "done".   I'm working through the Pony pack levels first and then the Adventurers and then I'll work on all the levels without one of each of the TYPE IIs in hopes we can get these levels out the door before the TYPE IIs arrive.   So the short version of the above ... 5% of backer orders with minis shipped and a long winded explanation of what the heck happened to Tom that pushed back when shipping started.   Apologies to you guys and gals.  I'm being as open as I can on what is happening so you know as much as possible.    I will mention one last thing ... so this was round 1 at the hospital as I said and it looks like the medical bills will be after insurance around $6000.   I don't have $6k ... not even close ... so I'll be working with the hospital to get a way to pay that.   Why do I tell you this ... its because ... no one in the world wants to get this KickStarter shipped out to the backers so the Chibi can be put up for sale online and to stores more than me right now.  Daddy needs a lot more than a new pair of shoes and I'm going to be working as much as my body will allow to hopefully get to a place where Uncle Chibi can assist and I need to get the orders out to the backers first to make that happen.   So don't worry ... you guys have my full attention to get your orders shipped.   Thank you to everyone for the well wishes on my recovery.    I really appreciate it and hopefully by next Tuesday I'll be tubes coming out of my body free.  ;-)

Good morning all,

As promised, this morning I bring to you photos from Adepticon.  These are all courtesy of our good friends at Blue Table Painting.  First the full case, and then the pics of each row. PLEASE feel free to share these however you like. 

Chris @ Impact!

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