The Calm Before...
almost 5 years ago – Thu, Jul 18, 2019 at 04:59:52 PM

Hey Everyone!

Under 48 hours to go in this campaign now. We're picking up steam these last few days and we are so incredibly grateful for that. My office is a mess right now as I'm doing about ten different things in the buildup to San Diego Comic-Con. I'm excited to get back there, excited to finish strong in this campaign, and in general feeling reflective and appreciative of everything that we've managed to build and what's to come in the future.

Future Concepts: Red Star Raptors!

Giulia's made some progress on the raptors we mentioned / previewed in the previous post. Here's what the latest concepts look like:

From here, we think maybe a dash of color outside of the red / white is needed. Perhaps a tuft of blue hair just to make things pop a little bit more. Popping colors is something we find ourselves often saying... so I guess it's our aesthetic brah! 

Artist Spotlight: Vincenzo Ferriero

Before the close of the campaign, I'd like to to the opportunity to talk a little bit about my friend, partner, and fellow Glow creator, Vince! 

Vince and I first met at NYU in the summer of 2008. We both were transfers into the film program, bright-eyed and optimistic about our futures. I think we met through mutual friends, though it's hard to say for certain these days.

In any case, we immediately started crewing on the same projects, being part of the same extended "film school fam" that pops up with a group of collaborative creatives. We very famously almost died on Vince's thesis film Sword and the Shadow, a samurai epic shot in the woods of upstate New York none of us were ready for! 

After we graduated, Vince left for London and I returned home to Los Angeles. We were both young hungry artists who didn't quite know what to make of ourselves. Nonetheless, we remained in contact and exchanged various works, eventually deciding to collaborate on Skies of Fire ... and, well, the rest is still being written! 

I'm very fortunate to have met Vince 11 or so years ago. He's always been absolutely fearless when it comes to creativity, dreaming big because that's the only way he knows how. He's never let the size of a task daunt him, and he comes at his work with absolute fearlessness knowing that his work ethic will carry him through at the end of the day. 

It's been an unbelievable journey, filled with highs and the occasional bumpy road. Sometimes we argue like an old married couple, but to be honest I can't think of anyone else I rather be on this creative journey with. 

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Alright, nostalgia time over! Back to CON PREP for me! Another post when the campaign closes in >48 hours. 

Till then folks!

 - Ray (and Vince by Proxy) 

BBQ., Spotlights, & More!
almost 5 years ago – Mon, Jul 15, 2019 at 08:05:57 AM

Hey Everyone! 

Welcome back to another edition of Glow updates! This one happens to land right before the 4th of July. So to all of my fellow Americans - I hope you have a happy and safe holiday! 

Artist Spotlight: Anny Maulina

Today we want to lead off with another spotlight of one of our wonderful artists, Anny Maulina! 

Anny was introduced to us by Bryan shortly after we began conceptualizing Glow. There's something in the water in Indonesia... the artists coming out of that scene are all immensely talented and bursting with creativity. Frankly, we were blown away when we saw Anny's portfolio and immediately tried to get her onto the project.

In addition to sequentials, Anny has also been our go-to artist for a ton of misc. art needs around the project. For instance, she's the one that designed our logo! 

As well as much of the runic calligraphy we've used throughout the project.

It's been wonderful watching Anny grow over the years. She now commands a sizeable and emerging social media following, fueled largely by her own work on her webcomic Raaruienas well as amazing pinups like this:

We're blessed to be able to work with Anny. Give her a follow if you haven't already! 

Variant Cover

Hamm has made significant progress on the Variant Cover! Here's a look at what it currently looks like:

We're still messing around with some of the typography, but things will probably only change slightly from here! 

The Stall

Those of you who will be BBQing over the holiday might be familiar with the concept of the Stall. In BBQ parlance, the stall is the period of time where you're waiting for a large piece of meat to come up to temperature, but instead of going steadily upwards, it seems to stall at 155F-160F range and may even drop a couple of degrees before climbing back up. It's the scariest thing in BBQ and takes some experience to not panic from it. 

A similar concept exists in Kickstarters! Typically campaigns tend to have very fast starts and finishes, while the middle is thought of as a slower period. This is our 9th campaign so we're very familiar with the concept and know not to panic. 

This campaign, though, seems to have seen our stall come early. We're not quite tracking where we thought we would be at this time, and we think we know why...

Thumbnails

Thumbnails. It comes down to thumbnails. The two we've been using thus far don't seem to have the same "ooo shiny" effect as our previous ones. 

This was especially true with our first thumbnail. Something felt off on our second day. We were going hours without a new backer, which is very unusual in the first 72 hours. After reviewing the campaign, I realized that perhaps it was the icon we were using! 

Sure enough, after switching to our second thumbnail things began to pick up again. But still, I had a lingering feeling that maybe things weren't still fully optimized to their fullest...

Those with astute eyes may have noticed that we recently changed our campaign back to the thumbnail we used for Glow #1 and Glow #2. That's because this one seems to be our top performing one, drawing in random people browsing KS at an effective rate. We're kicking ourselves that we didn't think about this before the campaign started, but c'est la vie...

Spreading the Word

All of that is to say we could use a little help in spreading the word! Though we're ecstatic about reaching our goal and the progress this campaign has had, we're hoping to pick up the pace a little bit as we head into the final two weeks and SDCC 2019. 

Please folks, it would really mean a lot...  We're definitely not the biggest wizards when it comes to social media, but those of you who have messaged us know that we're fairly quick to respond to any queries! That being said, we can be found @glowcomic and on this Kickstarter! 

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Thanks everyone! Much love!

- Ray and Vince

Workflow & Workloads!
almost 5 years ago – Mon, Jul 15, 2019 at 08:04:14 AM

Hey all! 

About one week left in the campaign, which means it's time for another weekly update! 

Workflow

Today happens to be the day of the week Vince and I managed to find time to work together, so I thought it would be interesting to take you through our day.

We started off the day with some visual development stuff. As we're entering the second arc of Glow we've been working on a couple of concepts for a new faction. Both Anny and Giulia have been on it designing the people and their mounts, respectively. 

These were the thumbnails we went over today:

Our artists always make it fun by giving us a variety of choices to go with based off of our initial idea and design documents. In this particular case, because we were designing both a creature mount and a faction, we felt it was important to take a close look at both of them together before committing to any major decisions.

The result so far is a pivot away from the headscarves as we felt that wasn't a direction we ultimately wanted to pursue with these guys and gals. We spent a good part of the morning putting together a new design document for the RED STARS (this faction) making some hard choices along the way.  We'll see as we get new concepts if we're on the right track! 

Artist Spotlight: Giulia Frontoni 

Giulia is our awesome creature designer for Glow! She was previously responsible for the Tanvir, Wilderat, and Golem! 

She's an amazing, EU based Italian artist currently working in the UK. Funny enough, we were introduced to her by Dia back in the day. She had seen Giulia's work through various Pokemon fan groups on deviantart. Kind of makes sense when you think about it, no?

Giulia's a blast to work with. She always gives us so many choices and they're almost always excellent. Please check her out if you get the chance! 

Workloads

After we finished putting together the design document, Vince and I spent the next few hours writing and revising Skies of Fire #7.  Pablo is exactly 15 pages in, working on the next five this month. We had a couple of niggling plot points we needed to resolve so we worked on another pass of the script! 

In between, we also answered emails and sent out a few more querying some new artists about their availability.

All's in a day so far for the crew at Mythopoeia - including writing this update! 

Book Status

We also got word from our printer today that they've put Glow #3 into production! Huzzah! That means we're on track to fulfill when this campaign ends! Fingers crossed. 

San Diego Comic-Con

San Diego Comic-Con is next week! Come visit me at Q-3 and feast your eyes as you witness my extraordinary cooler full of delicious snacks! Oh, also, I might have some comics and stuff that you can check out :P. 

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Alrighty folks. That's the way the cookie crumbles for today! We now return you to your regular scheduled something.

Till next time! 

- Ray and Vince

Issue #3 - Codexes / Variant Cover
almost 5 years ago – Mon, Jul 01, 2019 at 05:39:05 PM

Hey Everyone! 

I want to talk about our codexes for this issue and how they came about.

Artist Spotlight: Hamm Ling 

I met Hamm at NYCC 2018, where he graciously volunteered to help at my booth. This was my first year doing NYCC solo, and honestly it's pretty tough if you're riding alone. Every time you want to use the bathroom it means someone isn't manning the booth. My good friend Jerry Ma put in some calls and introduced me to Hamm and I was so grateful. I would have had a much more stressful show without him, that's for sure.

Hamm is a beast of an artist. So when we thought to create the codexes for this issue our minds naturally turned to him. He was able to take our existing material and transform it into his own with just a very minimal amount of direction.

That especially comes through in the Scroll of Ogma, in which Vince and I basically wrote down some philosophical mumbo jumbo as the design document and told him to just really dig in. 

We loved his work on the codexes so much we asked him to work to do the variant cover for the issue! Our working motto for Glow variants is to bring in inspiration from our world - specifically music albums - to let our artists have a little fun with things.

This time around, we decided to go for something groovy, inspired by classic psychedelic rock like The Grateful Dead, Cream, Hendrix, and especially Pink Floyd. Here's what we have so far:

We 're really excited about how this is turning out. Stay tuned when we reveal the full completed cover later this month! 

IMPOSSIBLE JONES

To close out today, we'd like to give a shout out to our friend Karl's and his project, IMPOSSIBLE JONES! Fast paced, fun, and frenetic, Impossible Jones evokes Karl's run on Harley Quinn! It's about a thief who gains superpowers and decides to run with it... for better or worse! The campaign needs some love to get over the finish line. Please, if it sounds like your cup of tea, give it a go! 

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Alright folks! Back to work for me! We're gearing up for San Diego next month! If you're in the area, please stop by! We'll be at Small Press Q-3! 

And please help spread the word! Still got 20 some odd days to go for this campaign. Gotta keep the train chugging along!

Much love,

Ray and Vince 

Day 1 - Behind the Scenes!
almost 5 years ago – Sat, Jun 22, 2019 at 11:53:17 AM

Hey Everyone!

Thank you all for coming out huge on day one! We're almost at our goal which is incredible! We're so excited to be continue the story of Glow and to share more of the world with you. It's been quite a whirlwind journey getting all of the pieces in line for this Kickstarter. 

Behind the Scenes - Morik & The Stonehands

For this update, we want to share with you a little bit of our behind the scenes concepts for Morik Stonehand, one of the new characters we're introducing in the issue.

 Morik is leader of the Stonehand Tribe. A former lieutenant of the last wielder of the Stonehand, Morik murdered his former warlord and donned the Stonehand for himself. 

 
  The Stonehand controls a massive golem, an ancient Nymeran war machine. Once they had thousands of these terrifying devices, but now only Morik's stands as a symbol of his might. 

 
 The Stonehands are one of the seven nomadic tribes known to the Wastes. Members of the Stonehand Tribe fashion their armor after the style of their leader using the smoothstone crafted from the broken Towers of Nymera. 

  Despite their fearsome reputation, the Stonehands are surprisingly egalitarian. Theirs is a meritocratic society where the strong rise to the top and anyone's authority can be challenged. When the Stonehands conquer a new territory, their prisoners are given a choice: join or die. Most choose to join, bolstering the ranks of their horde as they look for new people and places to ravage in the Wastes.

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  Around Crowdfunded Comics!

 
 Every time we launch a new campaign we find ourselves alongside familiar faces from the comic community! This time around is no different. Here are some great projects from our friends and colleagues in the indie comic world:
 

 Sithrah

Over at IndieGoGo, Jason Brubaker is running his last print campaign for Sithrah, which you can read for free over at Line Webtoons! Jason is someone we look up to immensely. He's a pioneer in the indie self-publishing world who blazed the trail for us about a half decade before we launched Skies of Fire. What's more, he's always been incredibly open about his process, giving advice freely and readily to aspiring creators. He's an all around great guy and his comics are INCREDIBLE. I mean, simply stunning and full of uplifting themes. The model for what we do was based in large part on Jason's career. We owe so much to him. Please check out his last campaign for Sithrah when you have the chance!  
 

 The Few and the Cursed
 

It seems like every time we turn around, prolific creator Felipe Cagno is running another Few and the Cursed Campaign. Well, this time he's running not one but TWO! In addition to completing his first season, Felipe has partnered with Rock Manor games to create a board game to his incredible post-apocalyptic western world. That's... pretty incredible. Felipe is a longtime supporter of our work. Please check him out if you have the chance! 

Ron Randall's Trekker: Battlefields

This is the first time I've seen Ron's Mercy St. Clair series but it looks awesome! Intergalactic bountyhunting sounds like a lot of fun. Ron's drawn everything from the Predator to Supergirl, but this project happens to be the one he's most passionate about.  It's also really inspiring to see old hats like Ron turn to Kickstarter to bring their dream projects to life. That's what Glow is for us, but we were dumb enough to go for it right off the bat :P. In any case, please check it out if you get the chance!

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Thanks so much again folks! We'll update in a couple of days going more into codexes featured in this issue!

- Ray and Vince

@glowcomic