Creator Set | SerialBuilder | Pre-order update #4

Phew! I know this update is a little later than usual but truth be told, we were convinced it had only been 2 weeks since the last one. When we checked back, it was far more than that.

How have we been so busy that 2 weeks flew by and we didn’t even notice? A heck of a lot of coffee, scrambling and running on no sleep to get things moving along. We ran into a teeny tiny (read massive) hiccup last week (scratch that - 2 weeks ago) but we’re over that hump and can take a breather to share what happened.

New business, new risks

About half of you may have gotten a notification from us regarding payment issues - what happened, as far as we can discern, was that we were getting flagged as a new business with no previous evidence of delivering any products. The fact that we were routing the money to Malaysia, where we’re based, apparently made it even more flag-able. So we needed to switch to our UK account for customers paying in USD. This required orders to be recreated, which is why we set up the ‘Complete payment’ flow. Making a live fix was super nerve-wracking, but I just want to thank everyone who assisted me in providing feedback and helping me get some bugs rectified - super appreciated!

Why am I explaining this? I think it’s really important to be super transparent so that everyone knows what’s going on and can rest assured that we’re always working to make things right.

Cards have been charged, mostly

So we managed to resolve the payment issue for most of you, and are now down to only a few customers who haven’t yet confirmed their payment - Sean and I will be following up with you, so if you want to not wait for that, please go and confirm your spot! This payment is critical for us to be able to make the order with the factory.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you to all of you for believing in us to get this done and for helping us to take our first big step in turning our idea and mission into a proper business. A pre-order is really the only way we could’ve pulled it off and we’re so grateful that you’ve taken the first steps with us to make this a reality.

For the Creator

SerialBuilder is just the first Creator that we’re working with, but by providing a more legit way to source the bricks and reward the Creator, we’re making an option available to people who want to support the original creators. Up until now, customers had to choose between paying a premium to source official Lego bricks through the painful process of purchasing them bit-by-bit through third-party sellers or the more convenient, but also much riskier way of buying unauthorised sets through shady e-commerce platforms. The downside here is that the Creator loses out entirely due to (often) stolen instructions and the buyer must deal with opaque info on what the quality of the bricks will be and whether they’ll get decent after sales service, if at all.

EasternBrick is all about removing this crappy choice entirely and making it convenient for the buyer and rewarding the Creator all-in-one-go. We hope to be able to support more Creators with our future pre-orders whilst also providing a kick-ass customer experience for all of our customers.

What’s next?

You may have seen some videos relating to the fixes we’re making for the models.

Whilst we think SerialBuilder’s builds are incredible, what I find fascinating is to see how his skills have developed over time through his builds. What this means is that the latest build, the Tremortusk, is probably the most impressive in terms of build quality. As we go further back, there are a few things we’d fix for the other models to help bring them up to the same level of stability. Since we’re not just here to sell bricks, but incredible builds, we think it’s crucial that we make these updates before shipping the sets out to you.

The fixes are coming

We’ve been hard at work creating a few fixes to the sets and have been sharing some of those details with a few of you who have been inquiring about them individually, so we thought we’d create a more in-depth look for everyone to see the fixes we’re making and how it’s making already truly impressive sets even more epic.

Here’s a summary of the fixes so far...

Tremortusk

We discovered an opportunity in the setup for the Tremortusk to make it more stable. We went through a few issues of it collapsing on us when we tried to move it for our photoshoots.

To be fair, Nik does warn us, but we don’t listen.

The fix was a fairly straightforward one and involved burying the axles that hold up the feet deeper into the base. Still a little bit of wiggle room, but much much sturdier overall!

We would still recommend trying to not move it and finding a permanent spot for it, but in case you do need to move it, we’ve got a bit of peace of mind for you.

Apart from this the build is probably the most stable of Nik’s builds and it’s clear to see the progression in his skills as a designer. It’s top tier for sure and precisely why we wanted to work with him as our first Creator.

Sawtooth

If I’m completely honest, this one was the one I was most worried about, because, look...

But I’m happy to say that we’ve resolved all of those major issues and the Sawtooth went from being my most frustrating to position correctly for a photoshoot to my favourite to display.

Now just imagine me asking it ‘who’s a good boy’ as I’m petting it all over…

Tallneck & Thunderjaw - in progress

We’re currently working on the Thunderjaw and Tallneck fixes. They’re huge builds so we need to make sure to be meticulous with our edits and ensure the sets are still buildable. We’ll update you on the next one!

Priorities for November

Speaking of which, thank you for all your feedback regarding the beasts you’d like to see next. It gives us a great starting point to think about the upcoming builds. Our plan is to release them slowly over time, with an emphasis on slowly due to us needing to prioritise other things, like our main thing right now which is to get the sets to all of you. Building models for work is my dream job, so you can definitely expect those to be releasing at a somewhat regular cadence as things settle down a bit.

Packaging design draft

Along with the fixes and the parts list, we also need to submit a design file for the packaging. Since we’re so busy with the fixes and don’t have a lot of time (or money) to do anything too fancy with the exterior box, our current thought is to go with a minimal black box with some sort of a pattern for now.

Please let us know your thoughts, and if you’re really keen on something specific, do let us know in the comments and we’ll see what we can do to make it happen. Just remember that it’s only me doing all these things and writing these updates for you, so reasonable requests please :) Actually unreasonable requests are fine too, just so we can identify the trouble-makers ;)