fundraising – Lucy Bellwood

New Recordings: Crowdfunding & All-Ages Comics!

Hey blog friends. Just wanted to check in and let you know I’ve released two new panel recordings on my SoundCloud page!

The Modern Realities of Fundraising for Artists ran at Linework NW here in Portland this month. Tristan J. Tarwater led a great discussion on modern techniques for funding creative projects and careers through the Internet, including Kickstarter, Patreon, taxes, generosity, and many things in-between. The panelists included me (True Believer), Hazel Newlevant (Chainmail Bikini), Taneka Stotts (Beyond), and Kory Bing (Skin Deep, Borogrove).

All-Ages Comics Aren’t Limiting ran at Emerald City Comicon back in March under moderator Rachel Edidin. The panelists—myself, Jen Van Meter, Janelle Asselin, Adam P. Knave, and Sarah Gaydos—discussed the elements of great all-ages comics, where to draw the line with content, and recommendations of favorite titles.

Thanks to my generous supporters on Patreon for covering the hosting fees for these recordings!

News

Patreon is Here!

So some of you may have heard of this fancy new service called…

In a nutshell, Patreon is a platform that allows fans to directly support creators they love on an ongoing basis. As a full-time freelancer, a ton of my time and energy goes into taking client work that will help me pay my bills and keep a roof over my head. Because of this, my passion projects often end up on the back burner — which bothers me because I’m sure those projects are exactly the kind of content that led you to me in the first place, and it’s the kind of content that I would really love to be pumping out for your enjoyment every month. Fortunately, Patreon has an answer to this conundrum. Here’s my project video to tell you a little about how it works:

If you aren’t able to watch the video right now, here’s the gist:

On my page you can pledge to send an amount of money my way every 30 days — it could be fifty cents, it could be forty bucks — and in exchange you get access to sweet behind-the-scenes action, special PDF downloads, or even a handwritten postcard from me every month. This ongoing support allows me to devote more time to creating the comics I want to share with you the most, and hopefully gives you a neat opportunity to see what my process is like from the back end.

Sound interesting? Then…

I am super excited about the possibilities of this platform, and I’m really eager to start sharing parts of my process that I generally don’t talk about online through the Patrons-Only Process Blog. If you enjoy my work and would like to see more of it in the future, check out the page! I would love to hear what you think of it.

Thank you so much, everyone!

Art, Main, News

Portrait Sketches – Spring 2012

The semester is almost over, which means it’s time to throw the fruits of my classtime labor up on the Internet for all to see. I was feeling frustrated with my ability to capture good likenesses of people, so for the last three months I’ve been drawing students from two of my conferences at Reed. Here’s the compiled batch of them.

In other news, for those of you following the progress of the Kickstarter campaign, things have gone through the roof. We hit our fundraising goal in just FIVE HOURS, and then kept on climbing.

2 Hours In

With such extraordinary results, I’ve had to rethink my goals for the campaign. It’s looking like the excess funds will go towards a brand new, long-form project, which is really thrilling. Expect an update on that soon.

For now, to everyone who has spread the word, chipped in, and helped fuel the stratospheric success of this project:

I can’t thank you enough. Let’s make the remaining time even more amazing.

Main, News

Off to the Races!

Ladies and Gents, the True Believer Kickstarter Page is Officially LIVE!

I have been overwhelmed by the support and enthusiasm I’ve received from you all so far, and now it’s time to translate that hype into action. Check out the campaign, make a pledge (even $1 helps, and nets you a shoutout right here on the blog!), or, if you’re down and out, simply share the project with friends. You can talk about it, Tweet it, Tumblr it — whatever floats your boat. The more people we can reach, the less everyone needs to chip in in order for us to make it over the $1,500 mark.

Thank you all so much. I can’t wait to see where this goes.

Main, News

True Believer Kickstarter

Prepare Yourselves

At 8am on Monday, April 23rd, the True Believer Kickstarter Campaign goes live. I know the video says Friday, but we were alerted to the fact that people have these things called “weekends” where they’re generally off enjoying the sunshine rather than trawling the web for worthy new projects to back. This makes sense to me now that I think about it.

So while we wait, a little about the campaign: I’ll be trying to raise $1,500 to print 200 copies of True Believer. The comic will be 36-pages, with full-color covers and interiors. 100 of those copies will feature limited edition two-color screen printed covers with French flaps by Matt Davison of Dueltone Printing. Aside from pre-ordering copies of the comic, I’ve included a number of Kickstarter-exclusive rewards that include handwritten postcards, custom sketches, limited edition prints, and even dinners and studio tours with yours truly.

So what does this mean? We’ve got two days to get the word out as widely as possible. You can share posts about the project with friends on Facebook, point people to the Facebook fan page so they can stay in the loop (facebook.com/Baggywrinkles), plug the project on Twitter as #truebeliever (you can find me under @Lubellwoo), follow me on Tumblr (tumblr.com/lucybellwood), or let me know if you have suggestions for media sources to contact with the press release.

I’m so thankful to all of you who have expressed your enthusiasm and support for this project so far. I can’t tell you how excited I am to get this thing into your hands.

Now let’s DO THIS!

Art, Main, News

Owl Dollars

More arts! A while back I did an illustration for folks over at the Reed College Annual Fund. They’ve just launched a fundraising campaign to get recently-graduated alumni to donate to the college. This is what I came up with for their branding:

If you look closely in there you can spot a number of Reed-related gags (I think 6 in total). See if you can find them all!

Has this image compelled you to fling money at my alma mater? Great! You can check out the campaign here.

Stay tuned for some preview art from True Believer later this week as I wrestle with the second half of the inking process!