Creator Set | SerialBuilder | Pre-order update #10

The EasternBrick community is growing!

Hi everyone and also welcome to our Run #02 customers! Glad to have you here! If you’re new to these updates, it’s where we take the time to show what’s going on behind the scenes and evidently for me to let off a little steam with some occasional silliness.

If you haven’t yet subscribed, we recommend you do so to keep on top of the latest updates regarding the pre-order, as well as information on future developments around the set as we’re constantly striving to make it better.

Since not all of the sections in the updates will apply to everyone, I’ll be labelling each section with Run #01 and Run #02 so that you know if that particular section is relevant to you.

Where we’re at with shipping [Run #01]

As you may have seen through some people posting about it, around half of you should have already received your sets and many of you have already started building, some even having finished all the builds. Even though the ordered bagging significantly speeds up the time it takes to build these models, completing all of them within a few weeks is still a very impressive feat.

The Speed Builder award goes to Jess!

For our EU customers, the ship is expected to dock today(!) (Edit: 20th May) and so most of you should receive your sets in the next couple of weeks. Again, truly sorry for the delay and we thank you for your incredible patience! Hopefully not much longer to wait!

We’ve heard that a few packages have gone astray, which is just heartbreaking knowing that they got all the way across to the other side of the world and then went missing at the last step. We’ll of-course take care of these slip-ups, but unfortunately it means having to wait again for another shipment, which is just quite painful. If anyone has any suggestions for really affordable local warehousing so that we could ship a few out to handle lost packages, please get in touch with us as we’d love to explore that option.

We’ve also not been too happy with the API we’ve had access to for this round of shipping and so we will be exploring more options for future shipments to have better tracking, so that you know exactly what’s going on.

If you’ve received your set, click this button please 🙏

Finally, you may have noticed a “Confirm Delivered” button on your shipping card in your Dashboard. If you’ve received your set, please go ahead and press that button so that we know you’ve gotten it. We just need the extra confirmation to track to ensure everyone gets their sets. Thank you!

Replacements [Run #01]

For the replacement hoses, we’re just in the middle of confirming the order with the factory and so are probably expecting to have them shipped out by around the end of the month. We’ve had about half of you confirm your addresses for us so far. If you haven’t don’t that, please go ahead and do that or if you’ve moved within the last month, some very confused person will be receiving your hoses instead.

I didn’t order this, fool!

Mysterious bag 00 [Run #01]

Some of you have written in asking about the 00 bags for each of the builds. This was something that got left on the wayside and I didn’t properly address what these were within our updates as I was quite overloaded with all the other things we needed to get right. But better late than never, so here you go…

The 00 bags are the leftover parts from the original builds before we made the fixes to the models. Rather than replacing them completely, we thought it’d be a nice thing to include so that you had the extra parts at your disposal. A bit like when you get your tooth after your tooth removal surgery. It’s a bit useless when it’s not in your mouth, but some people find a way to put it to good use.

I went down a rabbit hole to find this - Sir Isaac Newton’s tooth anyone?

We know that we haven’t provided the original instructions for SerialBuilder’s builds so there’s no way for you to actually build his original version as of now. It was part of the plan for us to provide you with both versions (ours and his) but we decided that it would’ve made things a bit too complicated, so we opted for the simpler offering. On the plus side, you should have a bunch of extras in case you ever need them as spares for future sets. Or maybe we can sell them to the brick fairy.

Reviews

That’s a lot of ‘what we can do better’ for a 5 star review 👀 but thanks for feedback and your reddit updates, Kye_Wolf!

Thank you all for the incoming reviews! It’s been lovely reading what you’ve been writing and how most of you are enjoying the builds. We’re reading all the feedback and are making sure that we’re addressing as much of it as we can. You may have noticed that we also leave that feedback section for all to see as we want to be fully transparent and rather than hiding any issues, we want them to stay up as a reminder to our small team that there are still issues that need addressing.

If you see a reviewer going by the name of Bilal, ignore what they say

Also notice that there’s an edit button for your reviews, so if we do fix an issue you’ve listed in your review and you think it’s worth updating your score, you have the option to do so.

The point of this is to hold us accountable and since we’re asian with asian parents, we hate having scores lower than 100% so it’ll keep us up at night until we get it right.

A is for Average

Sawtooth Issues [Run #01]

Since a lot of you are starting with the smaller builds first and working your way up, we’re beginning to receive feedback regarding the Sawtooth build, which I’d like to address here.

Looks a lot like 2B on a particularly hot day

We’ve noticed the same issue with our set, which was frustrating since we specifically made fixes to the front legs because the original build suffered from this issue. Our ‘fixed’ prototype does actually stand well, and we’re able to even pose it with one leg off the ground, which is why we were confident about the fix and a bit dumbfounded when it turned out the way it did. So I did some digging to get to the bottom of the issue.

It turned out that the hinge part we used was not actually from our chosen supplier and instead was from one of the suppliers we were testing but ultimately rejected due to tolerance issues. If you remember back from our tests, our other potential supplier had higher clutch power for some parts. Ironically, in this case, the tighter joints is what we needed. Sorry about this mixup, but I do have a solution!

Stick a bar part into the elbow joints to increase tension

If you stick a bar part into the joint hole, it provides the tension you need hold the front arms up and pose the Sawtooth in any position. Most bar parts will work, and the longer the bar section, the more tension it’ll provide. Whilst in my personal opinion, the tooth looks the best and most inconspicuous, it doesn’t hold as well as the wrench. So I ended up choosing that part for our build. You may have some of them as they may have been included as extras, but we will include these wrench parts as replacements along with the replacement set we’re shipping out to you.

Ravager update / Sawtooth issues

I know I’ve gone on too long about this Ravager update, without providing an update, so this time, I’ve made sure I have something to talk about.

I’d say it’s about 60% where I want it to be. Sean says 70% but what does he know?

Here’s the latest version of the build, but it’s not yet complete as I’m still figuring out some details. What I have found though, is a better way to build the mane of these beasts, with the panels being a lot sturdier. We’re contemplating updating the Sawtooth build with the same technique so that we can address the few comments we’ve been seeing about the side panels still being too loose, even after our fix there.

The Sawtooth brought a claw to a gun fight

Thanks for the feedback everyone, we really do appreciate it and listen to all the suggestions to try and build the best versions we can.

Placing an order with the factory [Run #02]

We’re currently in the process of placing the order for Run #02. This will take a few weeks as we finalise our parts lists and packaging solution to get the final quotation. Since we’re offering individual sets this time around, we need to create a whole set of packaging for each of them too. We expect this back and forth with the factory to last a few weeks before moving to production.

We’re still getting people asking whether we’re a scam

This one was a bit puzzling, but we’re still getting this query from time-to-time but we discovered that it’s mainly due to the fact that our reviews are only on our website and not anywhere else. So I have another ask - please engage with us and show us your build updates on our more public forums, particularly our subreddit.

2B is not happy with me because I’m appreciating photos of other pets

On a final note, I’d just like to share our page dedicated to the builds you’ve been sharing through your reviews on the website. I personally love seeing these sets in environments that are not ours as it’s proof that we did a thing. Thank you all for believing in us and supporting us! ❤️

One last thing

A real man of mystery, this one

Clement has started his own lego creator page on Instagram to document his journey to becoming a lego designer. He’s too shy to ask for followers, so do check out his page and drop him a follow if you like his builds. He’ll be designing our upcoming sets, which we’re very excited to share with you.