December deliberations

Heyo folks, old and new! 

First of all - I mentioned I'd do another hood-drop now that things are working. With some minor tweaks to the concept, we're doing it like this:
- active and >$50 lifetime...
- ...by the 13th of February, i.e. when the Feb post lands, ...
- ...and I'll drop a black hood of the latest spec as a thank you for the support! (will PM and inquire details)

Two main reasons for the advance warning/february date;
- avoiding the 'awww, I was _almost_ there' scenario with a bit of a heads-up
- hoping to have added a second hood model by then, so a bit of variation for y'all

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Now then, other news:

- I promised before/after pics last round, and now y'all can witness the kind of Tetris I have to deal with in my tiny workshop. It doesn't look like much, but jfc I'm glad to have it done. I now have the base for a 'clean room' for the printers, and the casting booth will be situated right next to all other slightly messy stuff. 

- The casting booth (SUIT-72) & pump (SUIT-100) build is proceeding slowly but steadily. The most interesting bit so far was concluding that gluing the plastic lining (SUIT-107) was waaay too risky, so I'll be welding together the plastic bellows instead. New technique learned, always a win! 

As usual figuring out & sourcing parts was a pain, but I've got most of the tricky pieces sorted now. A month or two of coding, soldering and assembly, some plumbing stuff (SUIT-108) I haven't sourced yet, and then probably like 2-3 months of 'howthefuck do I solve this unexpected problem'. The core of the build is very similar to the hood rig, but chamber sealing + pumping will be a new challenge. Looking forward to it, and I reckon Christmas etc will be spent assembling as much of this as I can :)

- Hoods etc, by now I've got the quality to more or less where I can get it with the current tech. Not perfect, but good enough. Add in that I finally serviced my nemesis, printer #3 (SUIT-84) and I can finally make brand new stuff with a good conscience. I'll definitely be doing a new base model soon (SUIT-83) simply because I need more mold-making practice for the future suits. Leaning towards another 'realistic' face design but without elf ears. Thoughts? 

Besides that, zippers (SUIT-112) + labels (SUIT-120) + maybe some nose-tube (SUIT-5, omg old) experiments oughta' be doable over the holidays. Would love to solve the eyehole punching (SUIT-115) asap, but I honestly can't quite figure out how to make the custom cutting pipes right now. Needs more latent thinking, maybe something for feb/march?

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Did I gloss over something interesting? Drop me a comment! Beyond that, I hope y'all have a great holiday season. 2022 will hopefully be a great year in many ways.

See y'all in January with the build update, and again - thank you all for supporting this weird adventure!