Lessons Learned from a KickStarter Project

seeing him webcomic logo work in progress
Click to enlarge.

My sister Kia and I were running a KickStarter to help fund the beginning of our new webcomic, Seeing Him.

AND…

It did not meet the goal.

To be honest, Kia and I weren’t really sure whether this project would get funded or not. We were hoping for the best, whatever the best may be.

Now that the KickStarter is over, I think, for now, it DID turned out for the best.

I am sad our comic cannot be made right away.

However, we did learn the following things from this KickStarter:

  • People WANT to support indie comic creators (we did, after all, raise a little over $500. We didn’t get any of that money because KickStarter is an all-or-nothing fundraising system, but people were still willing to contribute money towards our project!)
  • People WANT to see more positive trans representation, especially for trans men.
  • People are more altruistic than we are lead to believe.
  • And digital rewards are way more popular than I thought they would be.

Kia and I are going to take these lessons in and plan our next move.

We are hoping to fund raise for the project again sometime after New Years, and perhaps…

  • Lower the asking goal.
  • Offer more/only digital rewards (so we don’t spend our funds on making rewards for the backers, therefore justifying our lower goal amount and getting the comic made faster and sooner)
  • Offer more ways backers can be included into the comic, because MY GOODNESS during the campaign the $100 reward to be drawn as a recurring character got sold out FAST.

As soon as Kia and I have a plan, I will let you fabulous readers know so we can try again and, hopefully, succeed.

Thank you to everyone who shared Seeing Him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and elsewhere on the internet.

Thank you to Pink Dollar Comics and Women Write About Comics who wrote about the KickStarter project as it was going.

Thank you to all of the backers who contributed (sorry we didn’t make the goal).

And a very special thank you to my friends and family who were eager and supportive for our project. You know who you are.

Again, stay tuned for further developments for Seeing Him!

Thank you for reading (and for all of your support), and I will see you tomorrow.

New Rewards, New Sketches: A KickStarter Update

seeing him webcomic logo work in progress
Click to enlarge.

The Seeing Him KickStarter is still going, and so far we’ve raised $102. We still have a long way to go until December 15th. (I know I’ve been saying the 14th in previous posts. My bad.)

To that end, Kia (the writer on the project) and I added a new reward option: if you contribute $10 to the campaign, you can get an ebook of behind-the-scenes sketches, including…

  • character designs
  • sketches of Nyan Noodles Restaurant (where Kate and Adam meet)
  • behind-the-scenes development of comic pages
  • and more!

We also lowered the prices of some of the higher-priced rewards. To contribute, check it out. And help spread the word!

Here’s one of the sketches that will appear in the eBook sketchbook reward:

julianne character sketch for seeing him trans webcomic kickstarter
It’s a development sketch of Julianne, Kate’s best friend! Click to enlarge.

P.S. Thank you for putting up with all my blog posts about the KickStarter. Kia and I are just really hoping we can get this webcomic out into the world, because that would mean more positive trans representation – trans men need more comics for and about them.

Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you on Tuesday.

Breaking Artsy Comfort Zones, Plus Trans Remembrance

This has been an odd, odd week.

I took some steps out of my comfort zone again, by drawing this gentleman with long hair and sideburns, as requested by my friend Sean.

warm up sketch sean's character
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I’ve drawn guys with long hair before, but never shoulder-length hair.

An even larger step out of my comfort zone was with animals.

warm up sketch black swan and tiger cub
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I drew these two because they are characters in my genderbent Swan Lake story (I talk more about it here). The swan is what the prince becomes cursed to turn into, and the tiger cub is allied with the Princess, who can talk to animals.

The third thing I drew out of my comfort zone was not a subject matter, but an emotion. It’s one I don’t tackle very often.

Grief.

validation transgender day of remembrance
Click to enlarge

I drew this in honor of Transgender Day of Remembrance yesterday.

Sharing this image online helped guide me towards some helpful resources for trans folks, like hotlines and this master post of charities and fundraisers, which includes a fundraiser by my old college classmate Cherno Biko.

Speaking of trans awareness, though, I’m still running the KickStarter with my little sister to get our new webcomic (co starring a trans man as romantic lead Adam) off the ground. Info is here and here.

Trans people deserve positive visibility. Trans folks deserve to be heroes while they are alive, not when they are dead.

…Sorry for the morbid end line there.

On a more positive note, I’m here for you if you need me. My contact information is under the Contact tab above, if you ever need to reach out to somebody. I’m not a health care provider, but I’m willing to listen.

Thank you for reading! I’ll see you on Tuesday.

warm up sketch jessie tattoos
I almost forgot to add this sketch I also did this week. Click to enlarge.