News of and from the Future
over 2 years ago – Fri, Jul 30, 2021 at 01:52:17 AM

Hello backers,

As you all are probably aware, the initial fulfillment dates offered during the campaign was July, 2021. I'm writing to inform you that as of now we will officially be late.  I've asked Lotrek to give you a detailed account of the issues we've faced and you can read that below. Before we expound on the bad news let me inform you of the good:

The Cartamundi Decks (Ocean, Dusk, Midnight, Treasured editions) are all printed and look spectacular. They are either sitting in a warehouse in Germany (for rest of world fulfillment) or on the way to Gambler's Warehouse for USA/Canada/Mexico fulfillment. 

The Metal cards and coins have been ready for some time and are also awaiting fulfillment from the warehouses. 

The Wylenti Editions and the Prism editions are ready and awaiting shipment from Greece to the fulfillment centers as soon as everything is ready to go.

The 777 Dynastinae decks however are not ready.  Lotrek will explain below.

I know what some of you are thinking (and what has been voiced by some). Why can't we ship out the decks that are completed as we await the finishing of the Dynastinae. Originally the idea was to keep shipping costs down but as things 

A Note to Backers From Lotrek.

Hello Tempest Backers,

First of all I want to thank you for your patience and support, but I think it's time for you to hear some news from the usual source of the all trouble: His Royal Delayedness,  Lotrek himself!

Although technically we're still not late (it's still July and it will be for a few more hours anyway) we understand that you're super excited -and some even super impatient- to get your decks. Veterans of Lotrek projects here are probably already having a laugh with that introduction, I'm sure. 

One reason why the decks I print can be so expensive -and get more and more expensive in the aftermarket- is that they are supremely complicated and difficult to produce. Americans have a saying: "Don't bite off more than you can chew". I have a slightly different motto: "Bite more off than you can chew, and then chew it!" It takes time but eventually it works.

So, here's the story: 4-5 days ago, I was ready to deliver the good news to Omar: "Buddy, we're almost done!" I had overcome tons of troubling issues and obstacles with all the decks I printed and I had only the back side and a small portion of the front to print in order to finish Dynastinae, the last of the decks. 

And then, the disaster happened: After applying a layer of varnish in order to prepare the sheets for the back foiling, an unexpected chemical reaction caused all the sheets to stick together and portions of ink and foil were transferred from one sheet to the other, destroying all of them, back and front! A few meters before the finish, I fell.

For the record, because every deck I print is unique and requires different techniques in different order, I've had to print the Wylenti decks 2 times, the Prism decks 3(!) times and I'll have to print Dynastinae for a second time of course. In total it's as if printing full runs of 7 complicated decks! The Wylenti and Prism were not reprinted because of any disaster but because I was not very pleased with the result.  Some imperfections that perhaps the average backer would never notice were enough for me to warrant reprinting.  I know I need to see a doctor but I don't have the time for it. I promise to do it when I relax a bit!

If you're interested in how the Dynastinae disaster happened here follows the story. It's a bit technical and if you find it boring you can just skip it and go to the end where I provide the schedule for the next steps. Those in the printing industry will find it interesting and may shake their heads...

I had a problem from the beginning. Dynastinae is printed using 6 UV inks: 2 white layers and CMYK on top. After printing almost half of the sheets, I noticed that there were areas in the faces of the courts that the white color had some marks. It looked a bit ugly... We decided instead of scrapping all the printed sheets to reprint on top of the existing printing. White UV ink is opaque anyway so I figured there was no problem in doing so.  Indeed, it worked and the final result was amazing. Then, I took the sheets for foiling. Here we had the second problem, which was -and remains- a mystery. In the second half of the deck, the foil wouldn't adhere as it did in the first half! Same stock, same printing, same foil but there were little areas that the coverage was not perfect. We tried various solutions until I realized that we had spent too many sheets trying to solve the problem.  Now, I had to reprint half of the deck to replace the missing sheets. I did that printing and hell, it didn't go well... The black background of the courts and ace of spades left some ink marks on the back side of the sheets as they were stacked together. It looked bad. Really bad:

The only solution was to do a pass with black ink on the faces to cover the imperfections of the black ink. But now we also had to print a black background on the back side to cover the ink marks. I thought that instead of using black and gold foil on green paper, I could use gold and green foil on black background. Not a big deal... And this was the end. After doing the printing, we applied the necessary varnishing for the foil. This destroyed everything. Now the sheets, old and new were garbage. Period.

After discussing with my printers, we concluded that since UV inks are drying with polymerization through UV radiation, when they're repeatedly heated, they "melt" again. Therefore, this is what we should by all means avoid in the reprint. PRISM which didn't go through all that treatment, didn't have any of these problems...

Next Steps

Obviously, I am reprinting the deck. Unfortunately, in August all the printers close for the summer season. Even if they weren't, I need to go in a secret place to hide from Omar's wrath as I feel he's sailing to Greece with "Tempest" any day now! Besides, I need the specific stock for the Dynastinae deck, since all of the sheets in question were trashed, which is, due to global shortages, isn't available at this moment.

So here's what's happening:

1st of September the new paper stock arrives in Athens. This is confirmed. I will do the ink printing immediately. I will let the sheets dry completely for a few days before I start the foiling. 4-5 days are enough, just to be safe.

6-7 of September I will begin foiling. With the sheets completely dry I don't expect any problems with the foil. This process will take a week.

14 -15 of September I will do the cutting and assembling of the decks, hoping to finish in 3-4 days. Then, I will send them via UPS at my expense, in order to have them in the fulfillment centers around the 20th of the month, when we will -finally- begin sending the packages.

I don't need to point out how sorry I am for this big delay but I am also absolutely confident that once you get the Dynastinae decks in your hands, you'll say "damn, it was worth the wait". Okay, with the exception of Vjose of course, our official complainer! 

That was the whole story, Wylenti and Prism are ready, waiting to ship with their siblings, Dynastinae decks.

Thank you for your patience and congratulations for reading this all!

Wishing you a great time while I'll be struggling with the monster!

Lotrek

Production/Fulfillment Update!
almost 3 years ago – Sun, Jun 27, 2021 at 02:06:56 AM

Hey Lovely Backers!

Finally back with more information. It's been a longer road than anticipated to get the Tale of the Tempest in your hands. Here's where we are.

• Cartamundi has finished printing, boxing and packaging the Ocean, Dusk, Midnight and Treasure editions. The custom brick boxes are cellophaned as well. The decks are shipping for the fulfillment centers this week. Due to global shipping delays all around the world the decks will be a little bit late in arriving to the fulfillment centers. Initially we had said July would be when our fulfillment would happen and there's still a chance it could but all signs are pointing towards an August fulfillment.
• The Metal cards and coins are produced and already at the fulfillment centers.
• On the Lotrek front: the Wylenti Editions are printed and boxed and I should have some samples soon. The Dynastinae and Prism editions have lived up to their billing as being INCREDIBLY difficult to produce. Lotrek has had to reprint the Prism edition a few times now in an effort to get them to the standards he expects. Both of the tuck boxes for those decks are in production and hopefully all will be wrapped up on that end by mid July which again puts us in the August fulfillment window. 

I want to apologize for the slight delay in fulfillment. There were some unforeseen complications due to the global pandemic outside of shipping. I know Greece was in lock down multiple times and printing the Lotrek decks ended up taking much longer than anticipated.  We can't wait to get these decks into your hands! Thank you so much for your understanding and patience!

LAST 2 WEEKS FOR PRE-ORDERS.

In anticipation of the arrival of all the decks in the fulfillment centers we will be officially closing any additional pre-orders via the link on the main campaign page. If you still want to snag a Dynastinae or Treasured or any other edition NOW WOULD BE THE TIME.  Otherwise the decks will be unavailable from us for a little while while we transition to an online store. 

Address Changes.

If you are moving or have moved in the interim between the campaign and fulfillment you can still change your shipping address if you haven't already. You will be able to do this up until the moment decks start to be processed for fulfillment. Also about 2-3 weeks. I would advise that everyone have all of there info locked in by July 15th! 

Thank you again!

I have a lot planned for later in the year including the launch of a new campaign; The Gentleman Wake presents The Successor, designed by Kevin Cantrell Studios. There will be a lot more info about that campaign as soon as the last Tempest decks have left the warehouse. But for now I leave you with a few  pictures to entice the imagination! ONCE AGAIN--this campaign will only happen AFTER the Tempest fulfills!

Production Update!
almost 3 years ago – Wed, May 19, 2021 at 11:34:57 PM

We are getting close!

Hey Backers!

Just circling back to keep everyone updated as to where things are!

Here's what's been finished:

Cartamundi is done printing and gilding all the decks in their charge. That means the Dusk, Ocean, Midnight and Treasured editions are printed, tuck boxed and cellophaned.  The Gaff packs are also complete. Lotrek is finishing up the Brick Boxes this week (see pics of the final below) and once Cartamundi receives those they will box up the bricks and be ready to ship to the fulfillment centers.

Lotrek has recently finished the Wylenti edition printing! The cards will be cut and boxed and cellophaned soon. That leaves the finishing touches on the Prism and Dynastinae editions. We've had to go back and make some additional improvements along the way to make sure Lotrek is happy with the ultimate result.  More on the improvements to the Wylenti edition below. Either way all three decks should be ready to go by end of this month. 

The coins and metal cards as previously reported by me are ready and complete and waiting at the fulfillment center. 

Improvements to the Wylenti Edition

As recently unveiled on Lotrek's IG, the Wylenti Edition decks are looking gorgeous! See pic below. There has been a small adjustment Lotrek made in order to make the deck more special and increase the quality of the foil stamping. He added the wave pattern seen on the inside of the standard tuck cases onto the poker borders! And frankly I think it looks spectacular!

More info as soon as we have it! We are still on track for our projected July fulfillment! Crossing fingers it may be earlier!

A Beautiful Companion to the Tempest: The Eye of the Ocean by Stockholm17!

We are proud to point our backers to another amazing kickstarter project! The Eye of the Ocean is a beautiful multimedia project consisting of fantastic decks--previewed on the TGW youtube channel--a novel, and an interactive puzzle! If you haven't backed the project yet head on over to the  Eye of the Ocean campaign page and pledge today!

Thanks for all the amazing support!

-TGW and Lotrek

Cartamundi has printed all the decks! Lotrek is almost finised as well.
about 3 years ago – Thu, Apr 08, 2021 at 11:38:31 PM

We're still on time!

Happy to report that Cartamundi has completed production on all of the decks they were charged with printing. In fact, Lotrek has sent all of the corresponding tuck cases and the decks are being packaged! That means they should be on the way to the fulfillment centers soon!

The metal cards and coins are already completed as well. 

That leaves the Dynastinae, Prism, and Wylenti decks.  I believe the Dynastinae and Prism decks will be completed shortly and then Lotrek will complete all the deck printing with the fantastic Wylenti editions. See the in gorgeous progress pictures (taken with a cellphone btw) below:

This all means that we are still on time for our July fulfillment--although to be honest it may come sooner! But let's not jinx it!

Shipping Addresses will be LOCKED soon!

Based on the above news we will be going forward and locking the delivery addressed on Backerkit in the coming days to get everything ready for fulfillment. This means that the pre-order store will also be closed. So if you have any friends and family who still would like to get in on the Tale of the Tempest let them know to do it ASAP!  

If you need to change your address or want to double check it don't worry before the addresses are locked a 'FINAL NOTICE' email will be sent out.

What's next?

Funny you should ask! The Tale of the Tempest fulfillment is PRIORITY ONE! 

But after the Tale of the Tempest is fulfilled the TGW brand will once again be launching a new campaign! The Gentleman Wake presents The Successor by Kevin Cantrell Studios. Super excited for this amazing collaboration; the THIRD TGW BRANDED deck of playing cards. We have some beautiful editions planned for this COMPLETELY CUSTOM DECK and, make no mistake, we have learned from our first two campaigns and will be implementing improvements and better systems on this next campaign! We hope to launch it in July. Here are a few pics to whet the appetite!

The above are still in the process of being completely finalized but Kevin and I are beyond excited to bring you what Kevin Cantrell believes is his BEST DECK DESIGN ever! We have some amazing surprises in store. We hope to see you there for the launch! Don't worry I'll be sure to let everyone know when it is via Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and more. So make sure to follow me on all of those platforms if you don't already! IN FACT...

Back to making videos! 

I'm finally back to making videos on the channel. To get a run down on what's been going on and where things are going be sure to watch the video below if you haven't already! There's some more Successor pics in the video including a look at the card backs!

Thanks again and we will be updating you as soon as there's more info on The Tale of The Tempest fulfillment!

Best,

TGW

Printing is UNDERWAY!
about 3 years ago – Mon, Feb 15, 2021 at 12:59:06 AM

Hello Backers!

Hope you are having a fantastic Valentine's Day! Just wanted to drop in and let everyone know that Cartamundi now has the mechanical files and printing will be underway soon! We've approved the electronic proofs and will soon get a look at physical proofs!

Also underway is printing at Oath Playing Cards for not only the Dynastinae and Prism editions but the tuck boxes for all editions as well.

Check out the amazing interior pattern Lotrek has designed for the inside of the tuck cases!

The Great Wylenti Coin!

As some of you have seen on my social media the TGW coin presented as a free gift to every backer has been designed and executed and we're really please with the outcome! More pictures to come soon!

More info soon! Looking forward to getting images of the Prism and Dynastinae editions from Lotrek as soon as they are ready!

Best,

TGW & Lotrek