Dragon Eye Dice

Almost There
over 2 years ago – Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 02:08:14 AM

Its not that we are looking for any excuse to show off the dice but here is an update stuffed full of the latest images from the production line.

As we mentioned in the last update, we are experimenting with a new system of curing and we hope to see the results from that process very soon. In the meantime we wanted to show more shots of the prototypes and take you all on a more in depth tour of the dice.

These photos are of the latest version of the dice but are still not production quality. They do, however, allow us to show you all the result of our work so far. 

Colour Saturation

We are happy with the latest results form our testing of color saturation for the Green, Red and Blue Dragons, which balances the need for color with the wish to see the detail of the eye lying behind it. 

As well as the color saturation we have also been working on the iris printing with a much more detailed end result. The challenge with detail is that the iris is printed on a 7mm sphere. If you have ever taken a 4k image that fills your computer screen and then shrunk it to 7mm, you will see that you loose almost all the detail, and the image becomes blurry. The fix is to make a less detailed image at full size so that there is less noise when you shrink it. I know it is difficult to show the exact result here but we are delighted with the end results and just how much the detail appears at 7mm.

Orientation

As mentioned in previous updates, the orientation of each eye is done by hand and so there are slight variances when you look at the dice zoomed in, but that is not where the individuality of each dice ends, as the agate stones themselves are all entirely unique.

Whilst these dice are from the last batch of the vibration curing process (not the end result), they do highlight the variations that you will have in each stone that sits inside your dice.

The packaging for all the add-on boxes has been completed and so, with the dragon egg sets, everything is now ready.

New Processes

Since hitting the 'shaking' snag our manufacturers have worked extremely hard to develop a new curing system (based on the vacuum process) to suit our new method of production. We believe they have risen to the challenge and are producing some superb results. Shortly we will see the fruits of that labour and will report back to you with those results. 

We are still on target for a fulfilment start date in July, but should that change we will let you all know.

In the meantime thank you once again for all your support and we hope you have enjoyed these progress shots hot off the press.

Jon & Oliver

& The Spidermind team

Shaken not stirred?
almost 3 years ago – Wed, Mar 02, 2022 at 03:04:18 PM

Thank you to everyone for your messages following our last update and for all your continued enthusiasm in this project. As some of you have commented, we were planning on providing final prototype images of the dice in a, January update as we looked to settle on such things as the colour saturation for the dye etc.

The reason for the change in schedule is because of a suggestion we received from our product engineer at Enventys with regards to the centring of the sphere within the resin. The standard finishing process for most dice production is to place the curing resin dice in a vibration chamber, to shake any residual air bubbles out of each die. What we found by using this process was that around 30% of the spheres were being disrupted by this process. In many cases the movement was only discernible through examination under a microscope but nonetheless, 30% was too high in our minds.

This led to the introduction of a vacuum process to extract the bubbles rather than a vibration method. The manufacturer has purchased new equipment to allow this to be done and we are really pleased with the early results. These photos are of prototypes and not the final product, but as far as achieving resin clarity whilst not upsetting the spheres, we seem to have a much lower failure rate using this new method.

This new process has taken a little longer than we had expected but we are working hard at creating a full production run, of both cuts and all colours, to be able to show to you very soon.

Nice Rear!

We have received a number of requests to show you the other side of the dice, a view from the #1. This is mainly to show what you can expect to see through the resin when you are not lucky enough to roll the highest number. These White Dragon dice, photographed on a black background and zoomed in show the type of natural veins you get in your Dragon Vein agate stones.

Pre-Order

We are constantly being contacted by people who have only recently discovered the Dragon Eye Dice and who would like to get involved in the project. Up until now this has been possible through our Backer kit partners but the interface is a little restrictive and not something we are all together happy with.

This has led to us begin to design a pre order page for the Dragon Eye Dice on our own Spidermind Games website which we will be launched shortly. Supporters will be able to back the project in every way except they will not receive any Goddess Dragon dice inside their dice boxes.

Projections

The all important and almost impossible question that will be asked is the ‘so, when will I get my dice?’ Currently our production schedule has the final dice being shipped towards the end of May. Up until Covid this would mean two – three weeks on the water and an imminent arrival at our warehouse in Portland US and Twickenham UK. Because shipping is a complete mess at the moment we are looking at various options which includes fulfilment closer to the manufacturers and not relying on shipping the containers to the US and the UK, but we have nothing to report on this just yet.

That’s it for this update but we will keep you posted with more photos shortly and any update on shipping when we have it.

Thanks again,

Jon & Oliver

Backer Kit Closing Date
almost 3 years ago – Mon, Dec 20, 2021 at 07:57:42 PM

Sunday 2nd January 2022

With 91% of the surveys completed we are going to be looking to close Backer Kit in just over 2 weeks’ time, on Sunday 2nd Jan.

Thank you to everyone who has completed the survey and we will be sending out reminders to all those who have not yet done so.

If you are still to complete the survey and you have not ever received your email invite, please use this link to have your invite resent to you - https://dragon-eye-dice-the-chromatic-dragon-collection.backerkit.com/

The Production Schedule

We have just reviewed the initial production run from the manufacturers and posted a few photos up here in the previous update. We have fed back our & your comments and have been told to expect the second run in mid-January (we suspect they will look to get these released before Chinese New Year). As soon as we receive this second production run, we will post more photos up to show the changes we have instructed.

Feedback from the first run

We have requested and chosen the following alterations to the dice:

1) The red colour is to be lighter - but we have opted to move towards a lighter burgundy to avoid the lighter red becoming pink. This colour selection is still a work in progress and has not yet been fixed upon.

2) We have chosen the lightest of the three shades for the green and the blue, giving the iris the least coloured lens to be seen through. Whilst this shade will be a little lighter than the rendered colours seen through the campaign, we believe this will be the best shade to view the eyes through. Once we have these adjusted dice in our hands we can adjust the tint further if we feel it is necessary.

3) The iris dpi has been doubled so the fidelity can be seen much more clearly through the coloured resin.

Can I Change my Dice Colour?

We have had a few requests from backers who have asked if they can change their chosen colours after the final dice pictures are released, and the answer to that is yes, as long as we have stock. As we have yet to see the final versions of each colour, it is far too early to decide now but on final release, send an email to [email protected] and we will be happy to swap out your final colour choice. Please do wait until the final pictures have been released before making that decision, as we cannot change the same order multiple times.

We shall be back with an update in Jan once we have received the next sample production run from the factory. 

Best wishes, 

Jon & Oliver

New Dice from the New Production Run
almost 3 years ago – Tue, Dec 14, 2021 at 11:09:22 PM

We have just received the first run of production dice from our new molds, and we wanted to show them off to you all. We are really pleased with how they have turned out and although there are still adjustments and improvements to be made, we are genuinely delighted with this first production run sample.

Prior to these samples, all dice up until now have been handmade, in small batches, using our 3d printed small batch molds. This run is the first batch from our manufacturing partner in China using our full production size molds.

This sample run marks the culmination of all the work we began just as the Kickstarter Campaign came to a close. The fundamental question needing to be answered was whether this entirely new way of manufacturing dice could be upscaled and what issues we would encounter on the way. The two most important elements of this upscaling were the central placing of each Dragon Vein Agate sphere and the orientation of the printed iris upon it.

The first part was technological, as we have invented a method of placing the sphere in the center of the mold during the pouring process, the test now was how this handles in large scale production. The next was the human crafting side of the process which is when the iris orientation takes place. As every iris is orientated by hand, we knew there would be small differences in each eye but what would be acceptable tolerance levels?

This is where science came to the fore and exact measurements were taken from the first practice run of the new molds. We studied the special placement as well as the orientation to calculate not only a level of tolerance but also to get a good idea of what levels this first production run was at, in terms of percentages of ‘passes’ (i.e. dice that made the cut)

In this image, you can see an example of a die closest to the pass mark.  We collated lots of information into a report and this was fed back to the factory and to our independent Taiwanese QC firm who we have asked to oversee the production.

The Next Step

After having received these first mass production run samples we will conduct another sample measurement of placement and orientation and feed these results back. We can already see from a cursory review that the accuracy has increased measurably, and this we can expect to continue further.

When it comes to the human orientation of the iris’ we expect a small margin in each dice but we are working hard to reduce this to the smallest we can. Yes we are examining these dice under a microscope and most players will not, but we want to ensure as close a perfect orientation as is possible.

With regards to the placement of each Dragon Vein Agate stone, we have noticed that on occasion the stone can shift slightly during the pouring and so we are working on addressing that although the instances of this happening have been very few and far between. If this does happen, none of these dice will pass the QC inspection.

Packaging

As well as the dice themselves, work has continued on producing the boxes that will house your little dragons. Apologies for the quality of the photos but these are the first samples coming from our packaging manufacturer.

We will be back when the eggs are done and the full set has been placed in its respective boxes with more shots, but in the meantime we would like to take this opportunity to thank you all once again for your support and may we wish you all a very happy holiday season.

Best wishes,

Jon & Oliver

Ice Dice Pre-Order - European Shipping now available
about 3 years ago – Fri, Nov 26, 2021 at 06:50:59 PM

An Ice Dice Announcement

Thank you to everyone who has taken advantage of the pre-order and grabbed one of the few remaining Ice Dice trays, but we have received requests to allow people in Europe to also get involved. We are happy to announce that we have switched on shipping to Europe from both our US and UK warehouses.

Anyone who still wants to grab a tray on pre-order, please head over to the Spidermind Games website. 

We have switched on the postage into Europe with the couriers we currently have a relationship with but many will notice that the postage is high going into Europe and extra high from a UK company, now that we have to charge European VAT and pay that every month. We are constantly looking at carriers into Europe and as soon as the prices drop we will be sure to adjust the figures accordingly. Please be aware, these prices are the exact amount being charged by the carriers and we are not adding any surplus for ourselves.

Thank you once again to all those who have taken us up on the pre-order as well as all those letting us know they have received their own trays. We are looking forward to finishing the deliveries as soon as we can.

Best wishes,

Jon & Oliver