Charms!

Lots to cover in this post, so please read it all!

Look! The charms for the book 2 artist editions are here! That means sketching begins this week, and those books begin shipping next week! I remind you again that the books go out an armful at a time, so it still might take a few weeks to get to shipping your book. Still, things are moving at a good pace! All non-sketched books have been packed. The US books are in the mail, and international books shall go out this week! Reward season is here!

There are a few folks who haven't sent back their surveys yet. Even if you've bought from me before, I need you to fill out your survey so I know the address I have on file is current. If you send your Kickstarter messages to a secondary email, I suggest you go check it!

Continuing charm/button work

No new finals to show off, but here's a new wave of sketches for the book two preorder Kickstarter rewards! Enjoy the sketches, and my musing on said sketches.

Above are some button designs for the kids who haven't been buttoned yet. Kaitlyn and Max are hard, because their personalities are hard to distill into a single button-sized quip.  The sweet "Friend?" for Max is the best bet for him. It's cute and useful even to non-readers. Kaitlyn's both require Precocious knowledge, but they're interesting designs.

Yvette, being silent, is hard to tackle, so I tried a sketch where she's be peeking into the button frame. Not sure I can pull it off, as the space needed to show all important Yvette features might be too much for the peeking idea. It would work better if her hands were up, holding onto the border - but that is not how button-making works.

I have said I'm only including three buttons with each Cupcake of Bliss (plus a special one), but I guess I could make a pile of buttons and just give a random three in each gift box. No, I cannot simply give people more buttons this time around. The same total amount of buttons would be produced, regardless of the number of designs used, as I'm hiring someone to make these and I have to stay within budget.

Here are some charm ideas. Instead of putting in the labels, as with the first designs (see below), I'm going to simplify things. Charms are only 1.5" in size, after all.

For the finals, I will draw full figures, then crop them to a circle.  Only Vincent is poofy enough to possibly fit his whole body into a circle - but I played with poses that would cut his legs off too. SOLIDARITY! The premise for the most-sketched pose was that Vincent was facing the wrong way and just noticed - possibly paired with Tiffany being upside down on the opposite side? Not sure it'll work, but worth a shot.

Since I rejected the design of Kaitlyn showing off a sketch, I went back to the On-Cue Ball pose again. What can I say? It's a good one.  Yvette's charm sketch was also simplified. A bunch of small dolls would be too tiny on the charm, so again I went back to an old standard of her and doll-Kaitlyn.

And here I drew Autumn holding something with text, knowing that wouldn't work. I wanted to keep the theme of having everyone with an accessory. The book may stay, but text will be gone or very simple. (Like changing "BLACKMAIL" to "INFO" on the first Autumn charm.)

Tiffany and Quincy both got alternate designs here. Wizard Quincy will probably still win out, but shovel Tiffany could supplant artist Tiffany in the end.

Might as well include the first sketches here too, making this a master post. Here are the original designs. Some will win (ice cream Jacob is definitely in, and both Quincy and Autumn's first designs are solid) and some will be replaced or redrawn.  (Roddy and Dionne won't get a double-sided charm, by the way. I drew them for fun.)

For the sake of completion, here's some inks I recently posted:

Continuing charm designs

I'll do an official Kickstarter update when I have more ready, but here's some work on the charms offered in the artist editions for the Precocious book two preorder campaign.

These will end up in a circular template, so parts of the bodies will be cropped. I'll likely redo the Kaitlyn one to simplify it. Charms are small, so I must be careful with details. But that's why we do these intermediate stages. Learning! Also, I'm having fun with poofing tails. I recently drew a comic panel with Bud's tail swishing up into frame and I thought it was adorable, so let's do it more! (You'll see that comic in a few weeks.)

Two sides of the same coin

Here are early sketches for the special double-sided charms that will be part of the artist editions. I'll try alternate poses and see what happens, but you can see the theme here.

Charm offensive! (Sold out!)

If you've been properly stalking me around the internet, you already know the charms are in! And you should also know the book two preorder will be happening soonish!  (I haven't decided the exact date, just because I want to keep fiddling with the tiers and timing and stuff. It's in the process, though)

Well, I can't sell charms AND books at the same time! That's a conflict of interest! The books take priority, as it's a Kickstarter and it'll only happen if I can meet my goal.  Once the goal is met... FULL CHARM OFFENSIVE BEGINS!

But there's one more mitigating factor... I AM OUT OF MONEY. Well, my business account is empty!  I need it for business things! So let's do a thing!  There are only 25 sets of charms, so you might have to fight to the death over some of them.  That'll be fun, but that's not for now.  I only have a handful of envelopes left, and I don't want to spoil much for the Kickstarter... so ALL PRE-SALE CHARM SETS ARE SOLD OUT!

Charm change?

(Since there's been a flurry of news posts, I'm obligated to remind you to read down the page and see them.)

Working on final charm designs today, and I decided to see what I had to make an alternate to the Bake Sale one, since it seemed to lag behind in support. Going through the art done for the book, I found Dionne pulling a Nixon and decided to try that.  My guess is it would get more love, so I'm likely to keep it. Oh, and those little dots are where the holes are going to be punched in the charm, of course. I'll surely make some tweaks here or there before I'm done, but please enjoy this preview.

Charmed, I'm sure.

This is what I do on my "day off." Using the feedback I got, I went ahead and drew up two demo charm sets. Set A features the kids being cute.  Set B features beloved Precocious in-jokes. Look, you goof off your way. I'll goof off mine.

Not in color, and I haven't cleaned up the line work, but you get it. The tilting is so I can maximize the charm size in the template. Bonus: If your monitor is the same size as mine, and set at the same resolution, the sketches appear near the exact sizes of proposed charms! (I'm not telling you my specs. You guys have to guess.)

This will all remain a dream unless I can get around 15 folks willing to offer up $15 $20 for each/either set of 4.  (Updated cost estimate, because these are 1.5" charms, not 1" charms.) I'm just testing market interest now. (If you only have money for one Precocious goody this year, save it for the book. Also, increase your Precocious budget, tightwad.) Throwing money at me will not get you any charms, unless you are throwing enough money to get 15 of each charm.  (And if that was the case, I'd be kinda creeped out. Why do you need so many?!)

If you're wondering about me printing these things on my own and selling them as a bundle with the new book, other cool stuff is planned for that - and managing multiple artist bundles at once is a great way to end up paying for a lot of unsold merchandise.  (It doesn't move *that* well at cons.) If I don't think it's financially viable right now, I'll sit on this idea and pounce when the next custom charm printing site appears.

In the end, it was fun to sketch fancy things on the day between finishing the comics for the Fall Festival arc (I have a comic buffer! Woohoo!) and doing the glorious grind of business junk this upcoming week. So there!

Do you find me charming?

I've considered the idea of Precocious charms as luxury merchandise. I have no idea how my readership overlaps with those who charm it up, so I have no clue if I could earn back the expense it would take to create them. Still, if I want to make charms, I have to decide soon, as the window closes at the end of the month. Thing is, I am *awful* at coming up with proper merchandise ideas.

My vanity says people should desire to show off my cute characters alone, as that is enough. My brain says, haha, no. I'm so very far away from that kind of popularity.  I'd do better with something clever and fun - that serve as conversation pieces and be likable to those who don't know Precocious.  More logic says such a marriage of ideas is impossible in tiny charm form, but whatever. We're speculating now. Besides, I prefer a dreamy optimistic post to be atop the news section.

So what do we have?  Well, these would be a set of four.  Doll versions of the main four would be easy as a set, but purely for Precocious readers.  To go even deeper into my vanity, I'd love people to desire comic in-jokes such as the Muffin of Doom, Pingoball and Chrisp-Cola can.

It depends on you guys to tell me if I want to keep sketching ideas, refine ideas or let the luxury item go. I can play with this project, or go back to random sketches when I have the time and energy. I don't consider this a likely success, but what the heck? I felt like sketching tonight, so I did! (There are more merch ideas that will come later in the year, so no one has to hitch themselves to this particular fancy.)

Charm ideas.

After hearing Printcess is shutting down at the end of the month, my Precocious charms goals have to be fast-forwarded.  (There are surely other charm-making sites, but Printsess has a great reputation.)

The goal for Precocious charms is not just to make them desirable to Precocious readers, but have extra appeal for those who don't know a thing about the comic. That's where I'm having issues. What you see here is a first attempt, with me turning the kids into the suits from a deck of cards.  (Current setup: Autumn=diamonds, Bud=spades, Tiffany=clubs, Jacob=hearts.) I need something that people might want, that also comes in a set of four - and doesn't require a label to identify, as these are charms.  These things can't be too complex in design. (I could, in theory, also design them as jack, queen, king and ace cards.)

If I was less egotistical, I would design cute charms for the conventions I attend, but I know so many others who could do a better job.  (I'm hoping to set up a deal, where I can have the adorable charms from Becca and/or Heidi with me at Anthrocon this year.)

These charms are my first idea for little table trinkets people can grab at my convention tables. I have other plans that I'd like to pursue, but with my health issues I have to tackle these things when I can.  If I'm on the ball, maybe I'll create a reader survey for Precocious readers and test the market a bit. Every promo I do costs a hefty chunk of change and LOTS of development and drawing time, so I need to pick my projects wisely.