Good vibrations!

What a crazy August, this one! Yesterday I was looking outside the window one of the worst storms of recent times (this is the 4th hailstorm of this Summer, my car reminds me more and more of a perfect block of Emmenthal cheese), and today the Sun is melting any living being that has to walk outdoors. Yet, my spirit is on fire not because of Apollo's fury (who's clearly trying to turn us into McNuggets, today), but for another reason: I've prepared my very first stock of products for a foreign distributor!

I know, technically there is no business without a distribution of goods, and sometimes I feel a bit weird, thinking about how much I get excited for, well, normality, but I can't describe how happy I was while preparing my almost 1000 dwarves for Volks, my new (and only)Japanese friends: each little dwarf, put in its little blister, made me smile like a child.

At least, the first 50-80 ones. After the 700th little box, I confess I was a bit exhausted.

This has been another stepping stone of DPF story: the first stock of products ordered by a big store! I feel like we are slowly growing and despite this has been a very challenging year for all of us, this was the good news I was searching for to raise morale and prepare myself for the upcoming, fiery, months: the Elf range is ready and now it's time to promote the campaign!

So, what it's like to work not for normal customers, but for "big fishes"?

Being my very first commission for a distributor, I can tell you that the anxiety has not disappeared yet: I don't know if it's normal or not, but since the first time I've been contacted by the (extremely kind) Volks' representative, about a year ago, I was overwhelmed by mixed feelings: "OMG! Somebody wants my miniatures!" (this is the standard reaction that I still have every time I receive an order, by the way), "OMFG! My Dwarves will go to Japan!!" (you know, I have a weird relationship with anything concerning Japan), "OMG! Money!!" (this is something I'm still not used to), "OMG! Can I do it?!" (sooner or later, Darth Anxious Matteo -this is my sith name- appears. He always appears), "OMG! What if everything goes wrong and they'll hate me and I won't be allowed to visit Japan ever anymore because I'm a failure to my ancestors?!".

Yes, this is how a business managed by a 12 years old looks like.

Luckily, despite my inner insecurities and naivety, we found immediately a good deal (I confess: I would have worked for free, just for the sake of going to Akihabara and seeing my miniatures there!) and the production went fine. Too fine.

You know, in my brief but intense career I experimented one indisputable truth: if you are sailing the sea and everything around you is quiet, peaceful and fine, and you think "oh what a perfect day, nothing can ruin it!", for sure your boat will be soon devoured by a killer whale.

Ancient greek expressed this concept with a single, powerful, word: ὕβϱις.

Basically, ὕβϱις means that you should always be humble and prepared for troubles because we are all pathetic mortals and if you dare to be happy or proud of something, without adding a big amount of anxiety, ruin and plague will fall upon you, delivered by the deities' envy.

Covid-19 hit us like a bulldozer driven by a 3 years old baby, and for a while I really feared that it would have ruined this first collaboration with Volks: nothing is less reassuring than waiting for a normality that you don't know when, or even if, will ever come back!

Luckily, despite months of delays and troubles, we did it: soon my beloved dwarves shall be able to fly to Japan, and I'm pretty jealous, but proud the same.

I'm still a bit nervous about and I already started to make horrible nightmares where nobody buys my Dwarves and Volks demand compensation by duel, and I have to fight to death their chosen champion (I must confess, I don't really know much about international laws...).

But, yeah, it's a good moment for me, it's a good moment for DPF.

IT'S MARKETING TIME!

As briefly mentioned above, we are approaching September, and that means that we are approaching the new Kickstarter campaign: The Elves of Inneath, and the fairy court.

From today on I'll finally be able to focus on promoting this campaign and many important decisions have to be made: how many bundles to do? What about prices? What about .stl files?! Stretch goals for everyone or for selected backers?!

I can already feel my brain trembles (cit.): we invested a lot, both emotionally and economically speaking, on this pointy-eared guys and gals, and I don't want to make the same mistakes that I made during the previous campaigns.

I want to make new, shiny, mistakes.