Today, I want to show a piece of art from a sketch to the finished piece. This time, it’s the cover art for The Legend of Jamie Roberts, volume 2. (It’s still on Crowdfundr, by the way! Get a pre-order of the book while you can.)
Here’s the initial sketch that I drew in 2015…
Here’s a redraw of the same sketch, drawn in 2020…
Here is final art I made for the cover art of Volume 2…
I can’t help it, I love this art.
In fact, I love it so much that I want to see how you color this. Here is a link to download the line art. If you color this, tag me on Instagram @kelcidcomics or Ko-fi @kelcidcrawford.
Jamie is not a boy or a girl – they’re a pirate! And they found this unfinished map with their friends, so they’re going treasure-hunting in an unexplored land. But along the way, Jamie and friends find magic, restless spirits, dragons, and a tyrant locked away for centuries, coming back to haunt the people across the land…
Volume 1 (which will be available as an add-on) collected Chapters 1 through 4 of The Legend of Jamie Roberts. What we’re asking for is funding for Volume 2, to get Chapters 5 through 8 in one shiny book – with bonus content!
WHY?
The Legend is the story I wish I had as a genderqueer teenager, trying to figure out my gender identity and my place in the world. Jamie is the protagonist my teenage self WISHES they had.
At first, I made The Legend of Jamie Roberts to fulfill my teenage wishes. Wishes for validation, magic, dragons, and adventure. And along the way, readers found The Legend – and REALLY resonated with the story. Which is how we’ve made it to 8 chapters long! And there are plans for more. But first…
If you don’t have Volume 1 yet, that’s ok – Volume 1 is available as an add-on reward for this campaign! (You can also read the webcomic version for free, but the print edition has remastered art and bonus content not available on the website).
For Volume 2, we’re also working with a different printer – Comix Well Spring! They’re giving a partner’s discount for running this campaign on Crowdfundr, which means less printing cost, and a more affordable price for you, the backer!
So if you love pirates and dragons and magic and mayhem, what are you waiting for?!
For July, I have been making new art for DILFs, or Demons I’d Love to F***.
Why? It was kind of a dare from Junior Vigorito, aka vigoburrito on Instagram. We were tabling at GalaxyCon and we were talking about zines we could make. One of those zine ideas was “DILFs and Demons.” And I went, “Why Not Both?”
So I started drawing DILFs, but instead of Dads, it’s Demons.
The full zine will be available for my Fan Club members. But I can give you some teasers! Here are a few DILFs from the upcoming zine…
As mentioned before, all the DILFs I draw this month will be gathered into one zine, which will be available for Fan Club members to download. You can join on Ko-Fi or on the official Fan Clubs page.
I’m in the midst of shaking up my methods of sharing art on the regular with folks, so bear with me – feel free to share this post, too!
Let’s jump right into it – we have 24 hours left before Be Not Apurred on KickStarter ends! This is your last chance to back it, and be the first to get these celestial key chains.
We have hit our base goal, but we haven’t hit our stretch goals yet. If we get even 4 more backers, we can make these Biblically accurate cat angel key chains ~HOLOGRAPHIC~ yo!
The more support this campaign gets, the more key chains we can rain on the world – which means more cat angels.
SO…if you have the means to back the campaign, be sure to…
Broke? Feel free to share the link to the cat lovers in your life. Sharing is caring and it helps more than you know. If it makes it easier, just copy/paste tinyurl.com/bnakeychain to make it happen.
Funny story: I turned in my notice at my office job. To get ready for returning to full-time art-making, I took a hard look at a bunch of numbers. For this story, just know that I was looking at the tally of sales I made online.
(I have a separate spreadsheet for convention sales, but I’ll get to that).
After looking at the data, I realized a surprising fact…
Prints made up 47% of all online sales. That’s close to half of everything!
This blew my mind. When I looked at the spreadsheet for convention sales, prints didn’t even make it to the top 3 categories. But prints DID make it in the top 3 sales categories on Ko-Fi, right up there with original art and PDFs.
So people are buying prints. Which goes against what I initially thought in the original announcement.
WHY IS THERE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CONVENTIONS AND KO-FI?
What makes prints sell better on Ko-Fi than at conventions?
I think it’s two things: prints don’t usually appear on my convention table due to space restrictions. And the best-selling prints on Ko-fi were limited edition AND framed.
Keep in mind that shoppers are, above all, lazy. If you can offer a framed piece of art (original or print), that saves the shopper the time and effort of finding a frame to fit it. Shoppers are willing to pay for the convenience if it means less work for them.
SO MOVING FORWARD…
Prints are coming back – and staying exclusive to online. That means Ko-Fi, crowdfunding campaigns like KickStarter and Crowdfundr, and possibly even Faire.com. (I’m not on Faire yet, but I’m looking to join.)
That said – prints and original art will be collected into art books. So if you have the means to get upcoming prints, great! If you miss your chance, watch for future art book announcements.
The best way to know when new prints and original art is coming out is to be on my email newsletter (shameless plug). So be sure to sign up to get the first sweet, sweet notice when new stuff comes out.
