The Kickstarter closed on June 20th and it was a rousing success!

I had modest hopes going in as I haven’t run one in quite a while, but the campaign had an amazing 277 backers and overfunded by 1100%!

Wow!

If you missed it, it’s not too late. Kickstarter now allows late pledges and the basic pledge levels are still open and accepting pledges.

We passed all the stretch goals I set, so as well as the Comic Book and Artbook, backers who pledged for either version of the comic will also get 4 6×9 art prints.

There was also a Variant Cover unlocked halfway through, but it is now gone. I may have a few left over once the campaign is fulfilled, but it was a limited edition for the campaign only.

I’ve got a lot of work to do this week to get the comic and bonus posters ready for the printer. I’ll post again once the comic has been printed and added to the on-line store!

It’s been an all-consuming thing for the last few weeks, and I’m kind of exhausted, but I’m excited about the possibilities and I’m already starting to think about the next comic release/kickstarter campaign coming this fall!

The Kickstarter went live yesterday for the campaign to print THRILLING TALES OF VISTAS UNKNOWN!

So far it is doing better than I could have hoped! Well, I hoped, but, you never can tell. As of noon today, the campaign has been live for 26 hours and I’m at 45 backers and 232% funded! I set the funding goal at a modest $800 Canadian, so I expected to fund easily enough, but not quite so fast! By comparison, the Wahoo Morris campaign had 15 backers on day one and took several days to hit 45 backers. It had a much higher goal, and I think a more niche market than my new comic.

Oh, I also got a “Project We Love” badge, which is nice in an ego affirming way, but it also places the project higher on the Kickstarter homepage which dramatically improves visibility from random people scrolling the comics category.

It is fun running a campaign, but it can be stressful and draining. I’m kind of exhausted and it’s only day two!

Like the headline says, the Prelaunch Page for my next Kickstarter for Thrilling Tales of Vistas Unknown is now live. Give it a follow to be notified when the campaign goes live!

New Pin-up finished.

I used some direct figure reference for this one which is something I don’t usually do.

I wanted one more new pin-up for the upcoming anthology and was drawing a blank for ideas or inspiration. I went to twitter and scrolled the Fantasy Art Pose reference feed and found a few poses I liked and incorporated two into a scene. The seated figure I drew from scratch.

I feel a little weird about using photo reference this blatantly. It wouldn’t be hard to find the source photos if you went looking for them.

In the handful of instances I’ve used direct reference in a published piece, I’ve either shot it myself, or transformed it dramatically from the source. I feel no guilt about grabbing a photo of a gun or guitar or car and dropping it into a page for a quick trace-off, but usually I’m looking at photos of environments, props, or people to figure out “how they work and look” and not copying them directly.

I had originally sketched out a background behind the figures, column with drapery etc., but decided to leave it here as this took a ridiculously long time as it is and don’t want to add another days work to something I feel vaguely like it’s plagiarism!
It was still a fun experiment in inking, lighting, shading and modelling with brush line work, more so than I usually do.

I’d be curious to hear how other artists use reference if the reference is what sparked the composition in the first place.

I’ve been on a cover/pin-up kick the past month, with a few finished to show and half a dozen in the works.

I’ve shown these three across my socials, but now I’m posting here for posterity!