Tuna & Coelacanth Bags!! (2023 Release)

UPDATE 09.08.2022

Happy Thursday fish fries, here's an update for the bags! I'm sorry this post is super long ahead in advanced, I'm not sure how interesting it is to read these kinds of posts? But if you end up reading it, thank you regardless! 🐟💙

After the scrap sample was approved, we were able to move on to the next step in the process: printing/finalizing the main design of the bag. This was definitely a huge time consumer, especially with the issue of colour picking/colour differences in photography (you guys will see what I mean later).

Usually minute details are printed onto the actual PU leather itself to ensure that the bag is as accurate as possible when it comes down to the smallest detail! For both tuna designs, I was pretty happy with how the colours and printing came out so I didn't really feel like much was required with the exception of one small revision!

I had the black lines (that you could see in my original design) removed so that I could give the bag a more realistic look! I also asked the gill slit to be removed and asked for it to be sewn instead which I think turned out really nice in the final revision!

The final result after those revisions came out super fintastic! Overall, I'm happy with the minimal amount of revisions on this bag--I am slightly worried about the size overall compared to the model but it's okay--the bigger the better right? 😂 I also matched the inside colour of the bag to a nice vibrant red to mimic tuna meat (which will also match the tuna chunk coin purse itself 👀) and the results I think turned out really nicely! Overall, I'm not too sure if I'll make any additional revisions to the tuna bag after this--I wasn't too sure about how vibrant the yellow was it I'll have to see/take photos in person once I receive the physical sample before moving onward!

And now for the more problematic revision: our coelacanth friend had a huge issue in terms of colours--the colours I originally selected to be printed turned out to not match the original PU leather colour I picked! At first I thought it was an issue with the photography, since sometimes the colours can look super deceiving/unflattering under the wrong lights, but as you can tell, I was even more confused when the 4 photos they sent me all looked like completely different colours in different lighting 😂

Though I did confirm that the colours I selected didn't match at all so we did go through the process of trying to pick similar colours to the original PU leather--it was difficult to match the colours based off of photos though so we were able to resolve this issue by me asking the manufacturer to try to pick the closest pantone colour that matches the PU leather and then selecting colours around that pantone number instead! As you can see in the final revision print, the colours match/compliment the PU leather a lot nicer than the original, so I'm pretty content with it!

Colour picking is always one of the most difficult things to do in the process of bringing merch to life--as you could tell from the original drawing compared to the sample so far, there's so many things that impact the colours! I haven't received the updated photos for the coelacanth yet so I'll save that for a later post LMAO but I'm excited to share it with you all in the future! If you read through this whole thing, thank you for tun(a)ing in as always and see you in the next update!

Kir 🐟

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08.18.2023

Hi fish fries, I hope you're doing well!!

After some feedback on my last post, I decided to go ahead and proceed with at least starting on sample productions of the fish bags! I felt more happy with both tunas and the coelacanth design, but I wasn't personally so sure about the mahi so I think I'll be putting it off for the time being!! 💦💦

This post will be to update the bags and also to give you guys a little idea on the sampling process towards creating these bags! I got the photos in today so I just couldn't wait to share them with you!

The sampling process starts with drafting out the shape of the bag itself, the manufacturer uses scrap material to piece it together for approval before moving on to using the colours I picked out for the bags! I asked them for photos to compare the sizing when worn, and it's definitely a larger bag compared to my nautilus ones that I made before! Thankfully the tuna slice bag still fits too 😂 

I also got the sample for the tuna handbag/coin purse today! For the final sample I'm thinking about adding a wrist strap to make it easier to hold/for convenience! It'd be a lobster clasp wrist strap to make it easy to attach/detach from the bag! 

I really like the fish zipper too, I think it's a super cute touch so I'm thinking about also having those on the new bags when we get the final sample/revisions in! But for now I just wanted to update on the process for the first part of sampling, I hope you guys enjoy these little sneak peeks! If everything goes well, I'd love to have these available sometime in 2023! Not sure if I'd do some kind of kickstarter or preorder for them yet though, it's still really early in the process so it's all kind of up in the air for now! As always, thank you for tun(a)ing in! 

Best fishes,

Kir🐟