We Hit Our (First) Goal on KickStarter!

seeing him webcomic kate yay
(click to enlarge)

Thank you all SO MUCH for making Seeing Him, the Webcomic possible via KickStarter! We (Kia and I) are now fully funded! You are the best. <3

It really means a lot to me that you believe in this little love story of a trans man and a nerd girl. We needed more comics for and about trans men, and thanks to you, a new one is coming soon.

But it’s not quite over yet!

There are TWO stretch goals Kia and I want to unlock.

If we can get to $650, that means Kia can get a $100 stipend for all her work writing this comic. She was a little hesitant but I insisted on this one. She co-created this comic! She deserves a reward, too.

If we can get to $750, that means we can make 20 pages of comics!

We have other stretch goals in mind, but these two are ones we want to accomplish first.

Thank you for pledging to Seeing Him, the Webcomic! If you haven’t yet, please do so and help us reach our next goals. And please, help us spread the word!

You. Are. Awesome. <3

A New Commission, Finished

art commission by Kelci D Crawford
(Click to enlarge).

You should click that image up there and get a better look.

No, really.

I’m so proud of this new commission I finished for a friend of mine. The client is an old high school friend of mine and the commission was to draw her family.

From left to right, they are: Delias, Kendall, Andris, Jake, Zo, Leon, Margie, and Itzal.

At the moment, I’m not available for commissions. There’s a few things I need to sort out with my day job first.

Once I’m available, though, I’ll announce it here on the blog and on my Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.

Thanks for checking out the new work! There will be more of it soon.

I’ll see you tomorrow with a new blog post. :D

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.

Step-by-Step Roxie Portrait

This post is the first in a week-long blog post update extravaganza! (It’s when I update my blog everyday, Monday through Friday, just for this week).

I just finished a new illustration in colored pencil! So to celebrate, I wanted to show the progression of how I made it and the tools I used. And at the end of the blog post, you can see the finished piece.

To start, I grabbed my Prismacolor 72 piece colored pencil set (which I had left over from my first ever art class in college. Hold on to your supplies, students!) and an 9 wide inch by 12 inch pad of Strathmore Toned Tan paper.

strathmore toned tan paper and prismacolor 72 piece set colored pencils

 

Once I got those, I drew the black and white version of what I wanted to color. I sketched in (lightly) where the shadows would lie with my trusty F hardness sketch pencil. I use that pencil for all of my drawing and sketching.

Then I go over those lines with my mechanical pencil, which I believe is a B hardness in lead, so it’s darker than the F.

Next, I color over the whole sketch with a white colored pencil. I do this so that…

  • I don’t lose my shadows
  • I have a layer of colored pencil between my pencil lines and my actual colors, thus
  • making my art much cleaner and less muddy.

Once the white is laid down, I lay down the brightest colors I’m going to use, and color from light to dark.

The first layer of colors end up looking a little like this:

colored pencil portrait of validation roxie in progress
Click to enlarge.

It’s not the prettiest…yet.

Also, I did not use light peach straightaway for the skin tone. I laid down the highlight color, which is a mix of Cream and Beige.

Alright, so I drew the light colors first. What next?

The shadows!

colored pencil portrait of validation roxie in progress 2
Click to enlarge.

I really wanted to try and find colors that would compliment Roxie’s hair, which is why I went with fuchsia industrial piercings, dark blue gauges, a purple camisole, and an orange-yellow tank top.

Also, use the color wheel. It is your friend.

color wheel tool
I got this sucker for around 6 or 7 US Dollars at a craft store in college. (Click to enlarge). One side is tints and the other is shades.

I used this to help me find the complimentary colors mentioned above, and it also helped me find what colors to use for shading.

So at this point, I have colored the highlights and the shades. There’s just one layer missing…

Oh I know! The mid tones!

I took the colors I wanted for the mid tones in each area, which went a little like this:

  • Mohawk: Spring Green
  • Shirt: Canary Yellow
  • Gauges: Cloud Blue
  • Camisole: Violet
  • Piercings: Magenta
  • Skin: Light Peach
  • Teeth: Cool Grey 20%

But after I colored the mid tones and finished out a few minor details (like the teeth), I noticed that the shade tones got lifted up a little.

So I went back over the mid tone layer with the shades again. Which went like this:

  • Mohawk: Dark Green
  • Shirt: Dark Brown
  • Gauges: Ultramarine
  • Camisole: layers of Violet Blue, Ultramarine, and Indigo Blue
  • Piercings: Mulberry
  • Skin: Sienna Brown
  • Teeth: French Grey 60%

Then I added some neutral tones like brown in the linings of the mouth.

The last step was VERY LIGHTLY adding Black on the edges to help delineate shadow.

Finally, at long last…

colored pencil portrait of validation roxie finished
FINISHED! Click to enlarge.

This portrait is finished!

Looking at it, there are still some errors that I notice (like her nose), but I have to say…

This is the first colored pencil piece of art I have made in a little over five years. I think I did alright. It’s not the best, but it’s not the worst. With practice, I’ll get better.

So what do you think? Should I do more portraits in colored pencil? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

In other news, the KickStarter for Seeing Him is wrapping up, and, to be honest, I don’t think we’ll make the goal.

But that’s ok! Kia and I have been talking behind-the-scenes and we have a few ideas for what to do next. I’ll be able to share them with you soon.

Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you back here on the blog tomorrow. Or in comments at Validation. Or Johnson & Sir. Or Charlie & Clow. Or Tumblr… I’M EVERYWHERE.