Hello everyone! I've been bustling behind the scenes, and wanted to drop an update to keep everyone in the loop regarding What the Hell Has Dave Been Up To Is He In The Neighbor's Garden Again.
Of course, no. I want nothing to do with a garden devoid of cookies. Plus Liz won't let me in there.
Anthrocon was earlier this month- wow! Spectacular weekend, thank you to everyone we got to meet- and condolences to readers who couldn't make it this year, our thoughts were with you. A bit.
Thanks to a quick print run from http://ka-blam.com/main/ and permission from the Kickstarter backers, ( https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2083757038/dreamkeepers-volume-4-descent-to-the-archives/posts/1278987 ) we had a preliminary batch of Volume 4 at Anthrocon!
I was so busy selling books, I didn't have the time to sit down and finish my pencil commissions. It took a few days of nonstop drawing at home to get them done.
With Anthrocon officially completed, I have a pile of e-mails and customer service waiting for attention. I haven't addressed it yet, because the Kickstarter funds cleared- meaning the only thing holding up the offset printing of Kickstarted merchandise was me.
I decided to get everything printing first, and then tackle the inbox.
The past week I've been illustrating the new tidbits for the Volume 1 Backer's Edition- and now it's done! After wrangling files, assigning color profiles, and catching default image compression settings, everything was dolled up in CMYK for a big offset print run.
And now the ball is rolling.
Volume 4, Prelude Collection 1, and the Volume 1 Backer's Edition are with the printer, we're just waiting on proofs. I would guess two weeks for proofing, and perhaps another three or four to have the books manufactured and shipped to us, then our mailing campaign begins.
Between now and then- I have a few weeks of calm.
I have plans for those weeks.
First off, a Prelude update is coming this Friday- which needs to be drawn and colored. Then I want to sit down and restore a buffer, so Prelude can be removed from the 'causes deadlines' shelf.
Then, of course, I'll be getting on customer service e-mails, Kickstarter backer messages, regular e-mails unrelated to purchases, heck probably even trying to get caught up on art account and social media messages.
FYI- If I'm ever unresponsive online, it's not deliberate. There's just a lot to stay on top of, and if I spent all my time staying caught up, drawing would never happen.
After Prelude and customer service, I can finally jump into my longstanding commission que and get caught up to present- I'd like to nail ten or more in the next month. I also need to tackle Vivid accounting for the 2015 second quarter, pay our freelancers for that time period, put together the video update featuring the V4 freelancers and their work, post a new writing tutorial video on youtube, (finally!) get Volumes 1-3 back in stock on Amazon, create an illustration for the upcoming Uberquest book release, do some cover art for a novel featuring medieval vampires for funzies, upgrade the computer hard drive before Volume 4 kills it, write out feedback for some books and comics that were sent to us, update the VividPub.com website, update the Dreamkeepers website and refresh myself on PHP so I can finally fix the Prelude archives, finish the final edits on the QuickXyk novella I've been writing for Xyk to go with his commission series, finalize the next round of tweaks for the overall Dreamkeepers storyline, get rolling on the Volume 5 script, and if time, add to the Mace run cycle- need improved jump animation, I'd like to add a duck /roll / ledge pullup animation- what I really need to do is finish the spreadsheet and prioritize which animation sets are really critical for testing purposes.
So- plenty to play with.
Sorry for the rambling text-only post. Pictures will accompany the next update! We've been working on the resin figurines, casting up a storm, and painting 'em up- that will make for something fun to show, as well as the boxed merchandise coming in.
Thank you to everyone for making Dreamkeepers such a vibrant project!
More color on the way.
