Raven Stitch Plush Elements on Kickstarter

Corvink Elements Plush Toys [ First Editions ]

After months and months of planning this project, I'm excited to finally announce what I've been working on. For the most part I've been sort of quiet about it (w/ a teaser here and there on instagram of course) because I wanted to make sure I found the right company who could not only produce the quality of items I want to make but are also able to understand my vision. That being said, that time was time well spent! The prototypes you see in the photo above are the pre-production samples and I've gotta say they exceeded my expectations! I really hope you all get a chance to hold these magical little guys in your hands, because they are pretty fantastic quality. In my upcoming blogs I'll talk about the process of prototyping these and the story behind Them. For now, however, let's talk about getting these little guys made!

YOU'RE DOING A KICKSTARTER?

The Fire Element reborn

That's right, I'm doing my second Kickstarter! It's been a little over 3 years since I launched the L.A.W.L.S. Volume 1 campaign, and I'm still blown away by the support of my readers for helping make that happen! I am forever grateful to all of you and to Kickstarter for making that dream possible. Now, looking towards the future, I plan to put together more books (L.A.W.L.S. Vol 2, ALT., etc), but also I'd like to be able to create these companions along side of them (spoiler alert: there's a bigger picture here I'm working towards in my stories, and magic has a huge part in that). I wish I had all the money in to world to make it all happen at once, but being that I work entirely alone on all this, I had to come to the realization that Kickstarter is how pretty much the only way I can do this. So, as I took time away from comics I came up with a plan, and that plan starts with this little guy! My oldest of fans (in span of time, not age) may recognize this inkling from back in 2009, but the rest of you probably recognize his reincarnation from last year:

WHAT SORT OF REWARDS ARE YOU OFFERING?

In order to keep this project simple, I decided that Fire will be the first goal and the first reward. After Fire is funded, each other element will be "unlocked" and made available (I'll explain more about this below). L.A.W.L.S. Volume 1 will also be paired with the plush in a pack. The first rewards are a single Fire Plush or a Fire Plush + L.A.W.L.S. Volume 1. Also, I added a special tier for those who want commissions that is $50. Hopefully if we unlock more elements, the future rewards will be 2 Plush (Fire + Water, or two of the same) + L.A.W.L.S. Volume 1, and so on. Here's a visual example:

HOW DO I GET ALL 4 ELEMENTS?

If you're wondering why I'm only asking for $2000 to fund only Fire when I have these other 3 other concepts on the line here, the answer is pretty simple. The main reason for this unconventional structuring of a campaign is because I didn't feel completely comfortable asking for $8000 up front. I don't know if it's just fear that I can't reach that goal, or what, but $2000 is a more reasonable and obtainable number. Especially, considering I'm not too sure how interested the public are in these just yet. I figure too, by showing that I have a full vision for this from the get go that people will understand that I have a plan and I'm not just coming up with rewards for the sake of asking for more money (which I've seen on Kickstarter many times). If we're able to fund the first $2000 goal to make Fire, the next goal immediately moving forward is $4000 to make Fire and Water, $6000 to add Air to the mix and $8000 to make all 4 of them! If we get there, I'll be at a loss of words. This is just the beginning of the concepts I have for toy designs, and if people are that into it, this will be a huge way to help me to finacinally get to a place where I can finish writing/creating L.A.W.L.S. and make more ALT Comics!

Thank you in advance to any of you willing to help expand my universe and make these cute little guys real! CLICK HERE TO JUMP TO KICKSTARTER!

EDIT: Changed titled to Raven Stitch Plush Elements, after rebranding them.

Conception and Production of "Death" Hand Fans

While you wait for your little taste of death arrive in your hands here's a little backstory to the development and production of how I got these things hand fans made!

Making a Thing...

My friend Sarah and I were sitting at my booth last year at Anime Expo, one of the more sweaty convention I've exhibited at (due to extremely hot California sun), when we noticed how many people were fanning themselves with AX Program Guide Books. I'm not sure if Sarah was joking when she said it, but when she suggested I make fans for people to cool themselves, I took her absolutely serious. 

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"Death" Hand Fan Design Mock-Up in Adobe Illustrator [ 17.4" x 8.7 ]

It took me months of searching for a company to produce these for me. With the quality that I insist on having to sell anything at my store, this was a little harder than I had ever expected to encounter. With a few minor set backs, botched prototypes and misunderstandings, I did however finally find a great company who was willing to work with my anal retentive artistic eye. 

Since this was all new to me I had to re-explore design concepts. My initial idea was stupid. I was just going to put Death front and center with no consideration of how a fan is held or what it would look like on this medium. I'm glad I came to my senses. After researching what other more artsy fans looked like I came to a conclusion that I should try to make her maximize the space as much as possible, without sacrificing the darkness that having a lot of black ink surrounding her.  Once I was happy with the design, I sent it to my production company and received the most disappointing prototype photo ever.

Learning Experiences

Now here is a great learning experience I really want to share with every one because I could have saved quite a bit of money, time and frustration if I would have understood this better. Never make assumptions that a company you are working with understand your vision. When starting the conversation with this company, I told them I would like to print on Silk and use dyed black bamboo for the base. When I came to them saying exactly what I wanted, they assumed I knew what that entailed as far as printing goes. I did not. Below is a photo of their printing sheet on silk after they ran their printers for production. I was dumbfounded by how off the colors were from what I had sent them above!

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Attempt to print on silk with high color density.

When I saw this I asked if they had played with the colors in photoshop or something and only then told me "When printing on silk, the colors need to be soft because silk does not take ink well." Well thanks! This would have been great information to know ahead of time. To add to the frustrations they also had already printed the entire order and were only checking in with me at this point to see if I was happy with the printing. Really? UGH! After a bit of arguing back and forth (only a few emails, thankfully) we worked out a deal for them to fix the issue and print on sturdy paper. I had to repay for setting the printer and a new sample, but everything else was taken care of, they were actually rather accommodating (after I raised some hell with them of course). I wish I could say that this was a fluke, that companies never do stuff like this, but the unfortunate truth about producing things (especially in mass quantities) is that for a lot of companies its cheaper for them to run their printers once and blame it on you if their are mistakes than for them to start their printers a few times to get it perfect. I had similar issues with my book, and have heard from many other artist friends that encountered the same. Suffice it to say, once all the issues were worked out with this company I was extremely happy with the final production. 

Packaging

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I really wanted this to be something special, so instead of just printing fans and having them only packaged in the standard little polybags they came with, I looked into getting custom red velvet pouches with my logo on them. With that I also wanted to include a certificate card that I have now hand signed and numbered as proof that anyone who bought one received a limited edition from my first run of fans ever. When preparing packaging I learned 2 things really fast. 1) get quotes for everything you need before you start any sort of production and 2) try to use one company for everything; hand assembling and producing from multiple vendors is like having one of those vomit-migraine you get after drinking too much alcohol and dropping dinosaur acid. Because of how small I needed the cards, the company I use to print told me it was a custom shape and would need to charge me nearly 5x what it ended up costing me to just print standard business cards and cut them in half! Which is what I did. The pouches, much like the hand fans, had a similar issue of production where they screen printed everything before I gave approval. They misconstrued a line in one of my emails and assumed what it was I was green lighting was the entire production, not just my size requirements. Fortunately, in this case, there weren't any major issues and and the bags they produced came out wonderful.

[ See more production photos on my Flickr. ]

Anyway, that's what it took to produce these amazing little pretties. Hopefully are enjoying my massively long Development Blogs and at least find the information I ramble about useful in your endeavors!

Q&A: L.A.W.L.S. Vol. 1 Production F.A.Q.

When will I receive my Hardcover copy?

I actually spoke briefly with my printers on this topic today. The books themselves (all 1900 of them, including soft and hardcovers) are approaching the coast as we speak. Unfortunately the guy I spoke to wasn’t able to give me an ETA on exactly when I could expect them, but they should be at the Long Beach port soon. Once they arrive, Jefbot and I will be renting a U-Haul and picking up both his and my books at the same time. One possible complication my arise, depending on if they arrive next week or not, where I may possibly be out of town. If this happens, I will attempt to arrange something with Jeff to pick them up OR we will just get them when I get back, the first week of September. Once they are in my hands, give me about a week to package, finish any last sketches I owe to you guys, and ship them to you. Basically, this whole thing is based on whenever the boat decides to float on over to California!

I upgraded to a Hardcover Edition and received a Softcover, WHAT DO I DO?

I’m aware of this issue and I apologize for this mishap. Fortunately this only happened to a very small handful of you. I checked my records and a majority of the upgrades had not been shipped just yet. If you were one of the few you received a soft cover, please contact me directly. I have come up with a few different ways to resolve this issue with you. Regardless of which choice you choose, I will be offering anyone effected by this a discount coupon for your next Corvink purchase on top of whatever it is that we discuss as a solution.

If other people have received their Softcover Edition of L.A.W.L.S. Vol.1, why haven’t I?

This is completely my fault. In the sea of shit that hit the fan this past few months, I completely miscalculated the amount and sizes of shipping materials I was going to need to get the number of books/prints/sketches all out to you guys. I’m sorry for the delay, but I’m just waiting for new materials to arrive. Once they come in, I will finish the rest of the orders and send them out to you. Remember though that next week I will be on a much needed vacation, and wont be able to fill orders til I return. I appreciate your patience, this whole ordeal has been quite the learning experience for me and I apologize that you’ve all had to deal with my learning curve. Luckily Vol.2 or any other books that I produce in the next years, I will know how to better get them to you in a timely matter!

When will I receive my Canvas Printing of the L.A.W.L.S. Vol.1 Cover?

Due to the fact that these are limited edition, special orders, I’ve had to deal with these separately from the production of the books. Not only do they need their own production times, they have to be shipped as “over-sized” packages. Because of this, they will take a bit of time to arrive to your houses. I will be having them shipped directly from the printers that I’ve found, to you, so I will at no point handle them. I believe for the most part they should be getting to you by the end of September, unless you are International (which I know some of you are). In the case of International shipment, please be patient. Due to customs and other things I’m probably not aware of, they may take some time to get to you.

When will you be resuming your comics? 

This is the question I have been getting the most from you guys. It definitely makes me happy to see that you guys are still enthusiastic about my work and nothing would make me happier to get them back out to you ASAP, but this is the one problem that will have the longest solution, unfortunately. These last few months I’ve been in a rather deep form of self-exploration/understanding, planning, and re-evaluation. As much as it saddens me to say this, I’m coming to realize that the comic (the way that I was going about it anyway) had become a form of poison that was slowly seeping into all parts of life. I had at some point become so focused on making sure that I was able to get a post up 3 times a week (with the ambition to get them to 5 times a week) that I started ignoring my future plans (ie. Grad School), my girlfriend, my friends, my dog, and my health. For some reason, I weighed the importance of the comic itself as #1 and it took up nearly 90% of my time… only leaving me 10% to try to make time for all those other things that in all honestly, I’m finding are far more important to me in the long run. I don’t want to wake up 20 years from now looking back at all the life that I missed out on because I took a foolish risk on something that I may or may not have turned into something successful by that time. Now, don’t miss understand me here. It almost sounds like I’m saying “COMIC DONE, NO MORE WILL EVER BE MADE.” This is not the case. I’ve just had to find and figure out a different approach on how to release them on a regular basis with out sacrificing the rest of my life to do so. My main focus at the moment is myself; namely, I need to focus on my future. How do I not only balance the creations I love to create with my personal life AND make them successful? To answer that question, truly is gonna take some time. I’ve now been accepted to Grad School in Business and plan to use the information to better understand how to make my art an actual working and functioning business WHILE at the same time creating a back up plan for another job if I by chance find that art will not get me the life that I need to live. This is the thing I lost focus on. What is it that I NEED out of my life? I’m not looking for fame and fortune… but I am however looking to better myself as a person, a person who can be a valuable part of society, friendships, family, and most importantly… be able to be emotionally and physically available in a loving relationship. It saddens me deeply that I lost sight of this. That being said, I have been able to figure out quite a number of things in the past 2 months. I’ve started to develop a plan on how to go about the comics, but I really need to start Grad School full time, get into the meat of what it meats to be a Grad Student… and THEN see if the plan I have in mind will be able to balance into that. I feel like it will, but until I’m sure, I don’t want to give you guys a final answer and disappoint you if that particular plan falls through. Anyway, rest assured, I am working on a plan. I’d like to complete L.A.W.L.S. and Anhedonia Blue and continue ALT. and Words of Interest, just please, continue to be patient with me. I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, but to truly understand why all this had to happen, the way that it did, only time will reveal the answers. And if I take my time to resume my work, find myself in a better state of mind and life, I think the quality of work I give out to you guys will show and it will all be worth the wait.