I just got home from the Comic-Con and it was a crazy but fun time. I picked up a few new books and meet a lot of the web-comic authors I’ve been following on-line which was a real treat. I’d have to say the highlight for me was meeting Sarah Ellerton of The Phoenix Requiem. She is just so down to earth and nice. Talk about a great convention presence. I’m even a bigger fan now after meeting her.

I’ll make sure and post some convention pictures in a few days as well as continue my color tutorials this Thursday.

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Kickstarter update

Only 5 more names slots are available for a $59 pledge where you get 2 extra books. Ask a few friends to pitch in with you if you want it at a good price! We are just under $7,500 in pledges now! Wow, you guys are crazy! I love it! Thanks again for the help and I promise it will be worth it!

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Just a reminder that I’m on vacation now, so I probably wont be very active online for the next week. I’m going to the San Diego Comic Con to see what I can find out about getting a booth for next year as well as pass out 1000 reMIND fliers while sporting my reMIND T-shirt. Maybe I’ll see you there!

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Just a reminder that we only have 4 more $39 pledge slots available which will get your name printed in the book.

Only 14 open slots left for the $59 pledge for your name in the book plus 2 extra signed copies of reMIND.

I don’t think these will last much more than a week so jump on it if you really want your name in reMIND as a contributor.

This is not only exciting for me, but anyone who has a personal project in the works. I really think the publishing world is changing fast and I feel like this is proof that you don’t have to be signed to a major publisher to get your ideas out there. I can’t wait to get this finished and in your hands.

But… it’s time for a vacation.

Just so you know. I’ll be on vacation starting this weekend so I’ll have limited contact with a computer for the next week and a half. It’s our anniversary next week so me and my wife are off to do some relaxing. Later on we will be visiting the San Diego Comic Convention for a few days with my family. I’ll still have new pages go live on Monday’s so keep checking back but depending on my internet situation I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do much email or posting. We will see.

Now I need to get some duct tape and cardboard so I can build my sweet Victuals costume for the con.

I’m joking.

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Getting my pages finished is the first goal here and I’m happy to say that I spent last night working on the same page I’ve been working on for the last 3 weeks. Yeah, I know. I need to hurry because you want your book.

Let me take a moment to thank you all for your amazing support in all this. I am truly overwhelmed with the amount of money given to this project. At the time of this writing (Wednesday night), we only have $652 left to raise in pledges to hit my ultimate goal of $6000.  At the rate we are going this should happen in a few days. What does this mean? Well, with the grant money of $5000 and the $6000 in pledges, we have reached the $11,000 price tag needed to print reMIND in it’s beautiful cloth binding. I thought this goal was a long way off and I never really thought about what I would do with any money over that amount. At this point I think it will go towards more books. I have a few other ideas that I’m thinking about as a special thank you to all the pledgers.

Anyway, since I don’t have a finely tuned post for this Thursday, I’ll substitute it with a few process pieces. Here are all the steps I took in getting to the finished piece of pages 68 and 69. Notice how the thumbnails didn’t have the first 3 frames of Cyrene at the top. I also had to adjust some of the frames to make room. During the sketch process I usually draw on tracing paper with a pen but this time I used a Prismacolor pencil for some reason. Sometimes I just feel like it I guess. The final lines where with a mechanical pencil as usual but as you can see I couldn’t figure out Sonja’s body very well so I fixed it up in Photoshop before the coloring process.

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I hope you’re not saddened that some of the mystery is gone. In fact, next week a few more secrets are revealed which change the course of Victuals’ future like nothing before.

I might be, ever so slightly, updating the reMIND font/logo after next weeks spread. It occurred to me that I might want to do more than use a common font like Impact for my logo. I did widen it a bit and trace over it so it had a more unique feel but it’s still just the Impact font.

I know there are many of you who just visit on Monday’s when a new spread is up, which is totally fine and I appreciate anyone spending any amount of time here at all, but some things have happened since last Monday that you might want to know about before it’s too late.

On Thursday I announced a Kickstarter.com pledge campaign for reMIND with a goal of $3000 to cover the rest of the printing costs. Less than 48 hours after the pledge drive launched, we exceeded the goal! I was completely blown away with all the support and still can hardly believe so many of you are willing to throw down money so far in advance to help this project out.

Even though we reached the 3k goal, there is still a second goal that I think is obtainable. If we can reach $6000, I can print reMIND with a nice cloth binding hardcover like in the image below. Anything over $6000 will allow me to print more books too. Most of the big rewards are already taken but upon this writing, there is still one $99 pledge that allows you to claim an original Victuals painting. I’m sure it will go fast so jump on it if you really want it.  [EDIT] The last $99 pledge is taken, sorry. You can even get your name printed in the book itself for a pledge of $39 or more, but only a limited number of slots are available. I still need someone to contact Bill Gates to take me up on my $500 pledge incentive.

Anyway, here’s a link to the site that has a video I made explaining everything as well as all the pledge incentives.

Kickstarter has been a real eye opener for me. I plan on writing an article about what I think works best and what I think doesn’t. Although there are lots of pieces to the puzzle, I have a few ideas, many of which I’ve implemented into my own campaign.

One more quick announcement. I’ll be at Comic Con this year walking around aimlessly wearing my reMIND t-shirt. If you see me, please stop me and say hi. I’m just going to be handing out free reMIND fliers and visiting all the friends I’ve made here over the last 8 months. It’s great to see so many webcomic artists attending with booths of their own. Next year, 2011, will be my big booth year. Hopefully if all goes well, I will be able to actually make a convention schedule to peddle reMIND merchandise.

Oh yeah, if anyone is going to the Con and has a reMIND T-shirt, please wear it!!! In fact, if you wear it and snap a picture of yourself wearing it while at the con and email it to me, I’ll send you a free original drawing of Victuals as a big THANK YOU!

That reMINDs me, for those of you on my mailing list, I usually try to give away free stuff every now and then. I promised that I’d randomly pick two names from the list and send them a free drawing of Victuals. So here are the two lucky subscribers:

• Ivan Murillo
• Christopher Wrann

If you two could email me your address, I’ll send off your drawings as soon as I get them finished. Thanks for being apart of reMIND guys!

If anyone wants to join the reMIND monthly mailing list to get your name added to the random drawings, receive email updates, special offers and news, then opt in by clicking below and filling out the form. This is the best way for me to keep in contact with you so please take a moment to join. No spam. I promise! Unsubscribe at any time.

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Do you want to get a discount?

Do you want to get your name printed in the book itself?

Do you want to see some spoilers?

Do you want to be my BFF?

Well, I’ve officially launched a Kickstarter.com campaign to do all the above and then some! If you’ve never heard of Kickstarter, it’s a website for creative people to post their projects to help raise funds. I mentioned a while back that I got some quotes for the printing and it comes out to at least $7500 for 2000 hard bound copies if I print in China. I also mentioned that I won the Xeric Grant last month giving me $5000 towards this cost. This leaves me at $2500 plus whatever setup fees and I think there’s a chance that I could get the rest funded through you and kickstarter.

Here’s the deal. If you pledge at least $20 to reMIND then I’ll send you a copy of the book when it’s printed. So if I end up with a cover price of $25 then you’re already saving $5. Plus I’ll pay for the shipping…unless it’s outside of the US, in which case I’ll just ask you to pledge $5 more to help me with that too.

There are other bells and whistles too. If you pledge more than $39 then you’ll get your name printed in the book. Check out the video at kickstarter.com to get all the juicy details.

Kickstarter.com – reMIND

So there you go. If you watch the video you can see some major spoilers at the end in the form of ANIMATION! Don’t worry if you don’t want to see the spoilers. I give you plenty of notice before I show anything so please watch it even if you don’t want anything given away and just stop it when I say so. The video also has a cool announcement about who will be doing a pin-up in reMIND. I’m not telling here though, so go watch the video to find out. I’m really excited about it even though I sound bored in the video. I was just trying to be quiet because my kid was sleeping in the next room.

This will only be live for 45 days and it ends on August 22nd so, PLEASE! PLEASE!!! Help me out, now, if anytime! I hate begging but I am willing to do it for this.

So, if you really want to support reMIND but you don’t have any money, then all you have to do is tweet this link a million times a day. Talk about it on Facebook. Email your friends and family and tell them to pledge. Post it on your webcomic or blog. Write about it on your Tumblr or link to it on Reddit or something. It’s all up to me and you to get the word out enough to make this thing a success. Thanks for all your support so far!

- Jason

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P.S. I just talked to another printer today who is telling me that my cloth bound cover can be made! Now I just need to raise above and beyond to afford the higher cost.

P.P.S. Sorry I couldn’t get a new tutorial up this week. As you can see, I was busy making this kickstarter video. Hopefully next Thursday it can happen.

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Sorry I waited an extra day to post this week. I finished these pages before I finished the final colors of page 64 and it looked like a completely different scene.  After looking at it again on Sunday night I realized that it needed a little overhaul to match the mood set earlier.

I have a confession to make before someone points it out. I’m sure there are some Flight fans touring my blog and in Flight #2 there is an awesome story called Monster Slayers by Khang Le. I love Khang Le’s comic work and I totally copied a scene from his story in this page. It’s on page 102 of Flight #2 where one of the main characters is about to die and thinking of a girl. You see what’s in his mind but he tells the other character he doesn’t know what he thinking about. It’s so brilliant that I had to add something like that to this page. Originally I never planned on the first three frames but after seeing Khang Le do it so effectively I had to add something like that.

Only 12 pages left of Chapter 2 and several more questions will be answered so keep coming back for more. I also have a big announcement on Thursday if I can get it ready in time. All the hard core fans of reMIND should definitely check back then to lock in your spot in the history books of reMIND!

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Vote now to see one of the frames of next weeks pages.

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