this northern boy

Illustrations for an imaginary age

Tag: weird field world

About Kickstarter

I’m currently working on my Innsmouth story, and debating what form the final ‘thing’ may take. It’s being written directly to twitter, and also catalogued here in a regularly updated blog post. I do want it to be a physical product at some point. My initial thoughts were that I’d publish each chapter in a little book. Nothing fancy, just an A5, stapled, two colour book, printed on uncoated stock. Maybe collect all the chapters together in a slipcase at some point along with some prints or postcards. Sounds pretty nice I think? As I’ve been writing more and more of the story, I’m also thinking that perhaps, maybe, it’s becoming and actual book. The kind of thing I’d approach publishers about. That’s maybe a bit further down the line though.

You can follow the Innsmouth story on Twitter, or here on the blog.

In the meantime, while thinking about how or what to produce, I got to thinking about Kickstarter as a funding avenue for it, and it struck me that I’d never shared the stats from my last project. My Weird Field World book, surpassed all my wildest predictions. I set the funding goal high enough to cover all my costs if I sold 150 books. In the end I sold 800 exactly through Kickstarter, while having enough funds to order a couple of hundred extra copies that I sold through my store. I really enjoyed the process of crowdfunding, and Kickstarter was a pretty simple but powerful platform for it.

So here are some stats about the campaign. Nothing particularly scientific, but interesting – particularly if you have any thoughts about running a campaign of your own.

Original funding goal – £2500

Final total – £32102 

Backers 900 (ten withdrew after the campaign ended)

Initial goal reached in just 36 minutes.

527% funded in 24 hours. 

Average pledge – £35.67

34% of backers came from Twitter.

Just 4.5% from Instagram and 2.4% from Facebook.

8.5% organically through Kickstarter.

8% of backers went for a digital download of the book

57% went for just the physical book

33% went for book plus other rewards

36% of backers were from the UK

28% from the USA

4.25% from France

3.6% from Canada

2% from Germany, Australia and the Netherlands.

Furthest a book travelled – 11,659 miles to New Zealand

And least travelled – less than a mile.

US states with most orders – California 41, Texas 23, Washington 19, New York 15, Illinois 13.

US states with zero orders – Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, N Dakota, Rhode Island, S Carolina, S Dakota, W Virginia, Wyoming.

If you’re thinking of running a Kickstarter I would highly recommend it, and if you have any questions – feel free to ask.

Rob

You can find prints of my work here

I also have a Patreon page

And you can find more of my work online…
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Blog, interrupted.

Hi all, just a quick update to say I haven’t forgotten about my blog, or those who read it. It’s been a bit of a crazy year, and time for writing, and the headspace I sometimes need to do so, has been in short supply.

I am intending to get back to writing more regularly, and hopefully I can kick that off in a few weeks time.

Until then, here’s a recent mecha illustration for you. Drawn on the iPad, in Procreate. I’m working digitally quite a lot at the moment. Commercial work – I’m doing some concept art for games – means fast turn arounds and frequent iterations and amends, so digital works well.

One last thing, you can now buy digital downloads of my book, Weird Field World, and an accompanying colouring book, through Gumroad.

You can find prints of my work here

I also have a Patreon page

And you can find more of my work online…
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Instagram
Facebook
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Gumroad

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Well, it’s been a while (again).

Apologies for not updating my blog for such a long time. I think once the Weird Field World book was printed, packaged, and mailed out to all the Kickstart backers I was a bit drained. I’d been so focused on the book for so long it was difficult to give anything else my attention really.

With a bit of distance I can start to give a bit more love to the blog and to my Patreon page that’s also been a bit neglected of late.

I thought I could start by letting you know what I have been filling my time with over the last few months.

It’s mainly been nature photography. I got a new camera back in October, which I blogged a little about here, and in March, I bought myself a new zoom lens for it. I’d grown increasingly frustrated by seeing animals and birds, but not being able to get a half decent photograph of them, so a zoom seemed a necessary addition. I went for the Fuji 70-300mm zoom, rather than the 100-400mm version, mainly because of the difference of almost £1k in price. I’ve been incredibly happy with it so far. What I didn’t really expect was that it would really change how I experienced the outdoors. Previously, if I was out for a walk I wouldn’t give a huge amount of attention to those things I couldn’t photograph – little birds skulking in bushes, or distant buzzards and kites circling. The new lens brought all those things close enough for me to identify and to get some decent photos, which made me massively more interested in them. Since getting the new lens in March, I’ve counted seeing 68 species of bird, and 13 of those were brand new to me. Even though I was walking in the same places mostly, and at the same times of day, I was noticing much, much more.

Some of my favourite photos are below. All taken with the Fuji X-T4 and 70-300mm lens. If you enjoy these, then please consider following my new Instagram photography account.

Besides taking photographs, I have managed to find time to get a few new products up on my online shop. If you enjoyed the Weird Field World book there are some matching stickers and prints available.

In March and April I worked with the UK fragrance company Thomas Clipper, on the packaging for their new men’s scent – Atlantic. This was a really enjoyable project to be part of. Here are a few images from the final packaging.

I’m going to make an effort to blog more regularly for the rest of the year. As always, if there’s something you’d like me to write about – let me know in the comments.

You can also find prints of my work here

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And you can find more of my work online…
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And if you’d like to buy me a (virtual coffee) you can do so here.

Weird Field World book now available.

My first book, Weird Field World, is now available to buy here. If you’re a regular reader of the blog you’ll know that I ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund the book, and now all of the backers’ rewards have been mailed, the book is available to the general public.

The Weird Field World is a project I’ve been working on for around three years. It started off as a couple of little doodles on scrap paper, as I wondered what a spaceship might look like if it had an entirely novel form of propulsion. I figured it might look a little weird, and that name kind of stuck.

I built the project and produced content for it over on Patreon. The income from my supporters there allowing me some time to develop ideas, to write, and to draw lots of spaceships. What I’ve ended up with is a book full of spaceship illustrations, character drawings, written fiction, maps, diagrams, and a lot of world-building. I’m very proud of it, and the feedback so far has been fantastic.

If you’d like a copy, click here to buy one from my shop.

You can also find prints of my work here

Become a Patron!

And you can find more of my work online…
Twitter
Instagram
Facebook
Tumblr
Artstation

And if you’d like to buy me a (virtual coffee) you can do so here.