FurStarter
Kaze: Return of the Tiger
Kaze comes to Screen, Window, Kickstarter
PITTSBURG, July 4 – Ten years after Ghost Warrior, award-winning animator Emily Amadhia Albee celebrated Kaze’s anniversary with two big announcements: plans for an animated action/drama Kaze television series scheduled for 2015 release, and an illustrated radio drama prequel series, “Winds of Change,” debuting in the fall of 2014.
The original film Kaze: Ghost Warrior was an experimental animated short feature released in 2004. The film, a fantasy/action story set a land inspired by feudal Japan, introduced Kaze, a noble tiger warrior looking for a foe from his past. Amadhia Albee created the film to show what a single, dedicated artist could create on a tight timeline and budget: the Ghost Warrior 22-minute animated short was created in six months with only $5,000, with Albee filling all roles, including writer, director, animator, voices, and sound effects and musical score. Albee recently released the Kaze animated film on Youtube to recognize the film’s 10th anniversary.
Albee revealed the two new Kaze projects at her “Kaze: A Retrospective” panel at Anthrocon 2014, launching the kickstarter for her upcoming prequel project, “Winds of Change.” The “Winds of Change” radio drama is a collaborative project with co-writer D.C. King, composer/pianist/keyboardist Fox Amoore, and a troupe of voice actors. “Winds of Change” will be produced by Albee’s new company, KGW Entertainment.
The full “Winds of Change” series is expected to be a 12-16 episode, illustrated audio drama exploring Kaze’s world, his history, and the romance and betrayal leading up to the Ghost Warrior film. Early episodes will feature illustrations by Alector Fencer, Balaa, Bloodhound Omega, and Thornwolf, depending on backer response.
Albee’s other big announcement was a return to animation, requested by fans since the original film’s launch. The Kaze animated series, to be produced by Declaration Pictures Inc., is scheduled for preproduction in Fall, 2014, with episodes in full production in early 2015. Kelly Lee Myers, Declaration Pictures president, said of the Kaze project, “The series will be cutting edge in terms of the technology use to bring Kaze to life, and so will the story-lines and characters. This is not going to be a kids’ show by any means. Our intention is to make it as hard-hitting and gritty as any live-action action/drama on TV today…”
Myers will be heading up development of the Kaze series, with Amadhia Albee as Creative Consultant.
Funding for the “Winds of Change” audio drama series on Kickstarter continues through August 4.
For further information, please visit:
Declaration Pictures: www.declarationpictures.com
Kaze: Ghost Warrior: www.kazeghostwarrior.com or @kaze_gw on twitter
Get the latest information on Winds of Change at the Kaze Kickstarter campaign!
Furfunding Week in Review 6-29-14
Today’s illustration is from the Indiegogo campaign “Doberfrau” by Claudia Bacco
I had a friendly email from Claudia Bacco, one of the photographers of the “Doberfrau” photography campaign, asking for a little callout. Happy to oblige, I really like her retro-pop aesthetic, the colors of the 80s and the dobermans of today. Thanks for sharing these images, Claudia!
Anthrocon this week, looking forward to that brand of chaos, my first megaconvention. Keep an eye out for me, I’ll be at the Kaze retrospective event on Friday and generally milling around the rest of the time, look for a green shirt and tie and black jacket. Say hi if you have a second!
Friday the 4th–the Kaze Retrospective panel–is the launch of Kaze: Ghost Warrior’s next chapter, the new incarnation of the 2004 animated “Kaze” film by Amadhia Albee. I’m working with her on her Kickstarter launch, dealing for the first time with the issues in an actual Kickstarter campaign (and working with another artist…) More about this project on Friday, and I’ll be sure to post a “project in review” in the Resources section. Come if you can, Amadhia’s an amazingly talented person in a wide number of fields.
Just two mini-reviews this week, I’m going to return to my goal of two or three blog posts a week after August when the campaign is over. So until AC, here’s a quick look at a few video games–not vouching for both of them, one’s a bit weak, but the concept art is good for a look.
See you in Pittsburgh! -Corbeau
Reviews
New Projects
For a “complete” list of furry/fur-friendly crowdfunding projects, check out the Project Page and Patreon Page!
Art/PhotographyLupyroo’s Startup (Ends: 6/16/2014)
Lupeyroo‘s badge commission startup
I’m really not a fan of this project. If you can’t get commissions on FA, you’re NOT going to do any better on Kickstarter. Crowdfunding is for projects, not commissions. Okay, I’ve said it.
How to Become Horsefamous (Ends: 7/11/2014)
Horse-famous, if you don’t know, is the tongue-in-cheek Brony version of “popufur.” This is kind of the pony version of bad-furry.
Cute, but the project is a little unclear and weak on professionalism–not surprising, given the subject matter, but not a confidence builder either.
The Future Is Cute (Ends: 7/25/2014)
Kawaii little critters explain science, economics, and the world in general. And they’re cute while doing it.
The typography of this project doesn’t match the project or its tone well, it’s cute but doesn’t seem to be making progress in funding.
Hokey Bear Storytelling Project (Ends: 7/27/2014)
Surreal bear-human multimedia strangeness and experimental storytelling from deep in the woods and the subconscious.
Strange stuff. Arguably spawned in the same section of the brain as furry, but expressed in a deeply right-brain way…
The Moribund Mouse (Ends: 7/21/2014)
Second of a “children’s books for adults” series, after “The Existential Giraffe,” about a mouse who goes YOLO after receiving unexpected bad news…
Without My Coffee (Ends: 7/23/2014)
Parents are MONSTERS without their coffee, as this book illustrates.
The Bristowl (Ends: 7/25/2014)
Por quois stories told in rhymes and beautiful illustrations, preview the book and pictures here
Misri Bunch (Ends: 7/29/2014)
Puppets, books, and animations with completely adorable animals, Koran/Islamic education for children.
I always get nervous talking about religious stuff because furries are as a category anti-religious, most geeks are. But this really is adorable.
Sunny Creations Tee (Ends: 7/23/2014)
Mini-campaign, cute tee by Sunny Creations, fursuit maker and artist. Sort of a “my other shirt is a husky” sort of idea
Pokemon Gum Badges (Ends: 8/11/2014)
Cloisonne/enamel pins representing the Kanto, Johto, and Battle Frontier pokemon gyms…and soon, Hoenn.
Sympathy for the Devil (Ends: 7/22/2014)
A documentary about the endangered Tasmanian Devil, currently threatened by transmissable cancer (yes, that is a thing)
The goal on this one is probably unreasonably high for a first-time crowdfunder.
Tiny mouse Friend Doll (Ends: 8/1/2014)
Delicate, porcelain-like resin ball-joint mouse from Summerdream Dolls
Catlateral Damage (Ends: 7/11/2014)
BE THE CAT. Knock things off the shelf and onto the floor. Repeat. Repeat. Sort of a feline goat simulator.
Already $4K past its $40K goal!
Wild Warfare (Ends: 7/24/2014)
Vehicle and energy blaster FPS with raccoons, bears, and bunnies, armed to the buck teeth.
Their alpha is already available online
Redneck Assassin (Ends: 7/28/2014)
Third-person stealth shooter game for mobile devices, Bambie mixed with Kill Bill.
Second time around for this project with a strange funding goal (a goal of $5 is more a joke than a goal…)
Teddy Love (Ends: 8/15/2014)
It’s a teddy bear. It’s a vibrating toy you can take with you on the airplane without explaining.
I think I’m going to pull this one down soon, it’s too silly not to post but not really on topic…oh, how we make justifications.
Hardblush’s Technophilia minizine (Offbeater pre-launch)
Cute and twinky anthro boys from hardblush.com, with a technology/scifi theme
The project itself is only a bit NSFW, the hardblush website, very NSFW
Save Africa’s Wild Dogs (Ends: 8/25/2014): A project to tag and track endangered AWDs in Kruger National Park, Africa. Campaign’s very short on backer rewards, but AWDs are an amazing species…
…Just for funYomi fighting game (Ends: 7/17/2014): A melee/strategy fighting game with 20 decks, covering a range of supers, supernaturals, and a few anthro characters. Nice illustrations and WAY past goal. I just want the dragon, thanks.
Putting the “fur” in First Person Shooter
[Note: Funding for Wild Warfare is cancelled, and "Redneck Assassin" probably isn't worth funding anyway...]
A couple of fun FPS style video games came up on Kickstarter this last two weeks, worth a look for art if nothing else. Of the three, “Wild Warfare” seems like the one with the strongest business–they’re working from a strong starting position, with an alpha already in place, a good team, and enough games under their belt that they probably know how to use the money. The second, “Redneck Assassin,” I’m not quite so confident in, they’ve got that “I’ll start the goal at $5 and not edit my post” thing happening, and it’s showing in pledges. But it’s a fun story, Kill Bill meets Bambi.
I had a third…the kitten slaughterfest Whiskers of Death–but the project seemed, pick one: A) Doomed, B) Gratuitous, C) Silly. So you’ll have to go to their page for a wholesale orgy of ill-thought-out kitten destruction.
Anyway…
Kickstarter crowdfunding cancelled.
Maybe you’ve played “Wild Warfare” already? It’s been available as a free Alpha for a while now. It’s a Team Fortress sort of game, but with raccoons, bears, and bunnies running around generally wasting each other. According to the kickstarter vid, Wild Warfare started as an internal pet project, a mod to turn one of Hyper Hippo‘s existing games into an FPS (I’m thinking “Mech Mice Tactics,” the look and feel’s similar. And, mice.) What started as office fun ended up as an online alpha with a few thousand players, but not quite enough for a full game release–and so Hyper Hippo turned to Kickstarter.
Wild Warfare is a multi-player, multi-class, vehicle-based first person shooter for web play, with a few different play modes–free-for-all skirmish, a team-play death match, and a “capture the flag” mode. The concept is simple and pure: animals run around blasting the hell out of each other with energy weapons, and sometimes there are mecha, trucks, and mechatrucks. Right now the world of Wild Warfare is on the spare side–two worlds, and three race/classes that fill many of the standard FPS tropes (the raccoon striker/commander, rabbit engineer, and the bear, the big dumb bruiser. The Kickstarter promises more worlds, more races (they show concept art of a hillbilly ‘gator, bomb-happy armadilo, and a very slinky weasel sniper). We see the big stompy mecha vehicle in their kickstarter video, but there are tanks and off-road trucks sprinkled around the kickstarter page, presumably stretch goals.
There are also many hats. It’s kind of a running joke. I’m torn between the bowler cap–always a sound decision–and the road cone.
The pitch video’s images of game play are murky and indistinct, it’s a teaser more than proof of concept. Reviewer “Badass Games” has a good 10-minute play video on YouTube that gives a sense of the skirmish mode, and the pacing and general insanity level of the game.
Thoughts on the Kickstarter itself–they seem to be having a hard time gaining traction. Not being really with-it on video games, this looks like a function of market saturation–with every established and indie game developer putting their wares out for crowdfunding, and the surge of indie games in general, there’s just too much competition for the gamer dollar and attention span. They were picked by Steam Greenlight, but they’re sharing that honor with like 30 titles a week. The game looks like a lot of fun, and the Kickstarter seems well-constructed, but the response hasn’t been great so far.
Redneck Assassin
Kickstarter ending 7/28/14
Fursuit shot from pitch vid
Oh, the dialogue. Did you know what rhymes with “buck?” Lots of things rhyme with buck. I’m not sure that joke sustains a script. Oh deer.
Ahem.
Redneck Assassin is a bloody, stealth FPS for your mobile device. In fact, “mobile” is an important part of the game’ls story–the developer, Clay Hayes, created Redneck Assassin in part as a response to the lack of a good stealth game for mobiles. The controls were a big problem for him: keeping the standard stealth game controls on the screen in the tight confines of a mobile was clunky, so Hayes set out to make a game with controls that would be where you needed them when you needed them.
The pitch video does a better job of capturing the game than still images do; the camera work is a bit too muddy for good detail shots. Also, the player’s thumbs look like giant alien monsters watching the action on their viewscreen, safely orbitting Golgathon IV.
The plot is simple and classic, largely a pastiche of Shakespeare’s later romances: You are a humanoid deer, left for dead by hunters and trained in the arts of ninja-type murderation by your sensei, Bigfoot. It’s nice how those ancient stories come back in so many forms.
Redneck Assassin’s play is heavily influenced by Metal Gear Solid, and just perhaps by Redneck Rampage. The feel of the game–particularly the cut scenes–is meant to invoke an over-the-top grindhouse revenge flick–would this be “bucksploitation”? Certainly the cinematography does a good job of that, but the dialog…I’d say it leaves me cold, but it actually makes me reach for a bottle of Pepto Bismol. So many bad deer jokes. so many.
It looks like this is the second round of crowdfunding for Redneck Assassin, the first came and went with a few thousand dollars toward a 5-digit goal, which isn’t a terrible response. This time around response has been much weaker, as the poster has tried to do something like Indiegogo’s flexible funding by starting with a $5 goal. A lot of potential backers might be thrown by this–what are you going to possibly be able to deliver with $5? I know the poster’s already spent the money and developed the title, this is for expansion, polish, and back-debt, but the combination of the weak financial story and sloppy editing work on the body copy just doesn’t make what I see as a backable project.
Images above are used to promote/review the artist’s projects, and are owned by their original creator.
Furfunding Week in Review 6-16-14
This week’s illustration is from the Kickstarter for the tabletop role-playing game, Ponyfinder: Griffins of Everglow
Oh boy, I skipped a week and the skies opened up and projects just spilled out. Lots of good stuff this week–I particularly liked the 30s-retro version of Rocket Racoon from “Guardians of the Galaxy,” check him here–but my enigmatic fascination for the week is going to have to be “Genlab Alfa.” Partially for the badgers, because the badgers are really cute. Partly because it looks like a well-developed anthro post-apocalypse, which are two of my favorite things in a setting.
Mostly because it’s in Swedish.
I don’t really have the energy or perversity to write out a review of a google-translated game. On the one paw, it’s, well, Swedish. On the other paw, I’m not really sharp enough on video games to be coherent on the subject. But if you have a moment, visit the web page, love the badgers with me.
A tiny apology, I’ve been sluggish on new entries, particularly for Patreon pages, and this will probably continue through July. Work is progressing at a pace on my first Kickstarter, a new series set in the world of the 2004 “Kaze: Ghost Warrior” film. More information over on FA, we’ll be launching July 4 at AnthroCon. Come and find me somewhere in the Art Track at 3:00! But the project’s eating into my free time like nothing, so it’s been hard to stay caught up and keep a good variety of content, certainly my goal of two reviews a week has been suffering. Mea culpa.
And now, a bunch of new stuff.
Reviews over the last two weeks: BadFurry’s Guide to the Fandom, which is snarky as heck but I think it’s loving snark. and on the TOTAL OTHER END of the spectrum, the lovingly, gently, achingly hipsterish Horace and Agnes: A Love Story.
Reviews
New Projects
For a “complete” list of furry/fur-friendly crowdfunding projects, check out the Project Page and Patreon Page!
Art/Photography
Going Stag (Ends: 6/27/2014)
Elegant and surreal prints of genuinely strange art-deer
Old timey “Rocket” (Ends: 7/27/2014)
Rocket Raccoon from the “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise, but done in a snappy 20s-vintage style. Stickers, tees, posters.
Radio Unifurse (Ends: 8/11/2014)
Funding for Radio Unifurse, a furry radio podcast airing after the Funday Pawpet show sundays!
Oof, slow start. Also, guys, don’t set your funding date for 60+ days out. You’ll only prolong your suffering :(
Bad Furry’s Guide to the Furry Fandom (Ends: 7/9/2014)
Tweets, observations, and TERRIBLE ADVICE from the minds of The Bad Furry and Likeshine.
Four Arms (Ends: 7/10/2014)
A story of a beautiful young girl (with four arms) and her huge guardian wolf. A kind of a dark fable.
Somehow, this feels very Russian to me, but I can’t say why exactly.
Spider & Fly, Lion & Lamb (Ends: 7/9/2014)
Okay, it’s a Christian children’s product, but the lion and spider are both well-drawn and appealing.
Malden: Burrito Deathmarch (Ends: 7/2/2014)
Angry, trippy comics about, possibly, a dog and his evil duck. There may be aliens, and tacos.
Doggerland (Ends: 7/9/2014)
A strange surreal fantasy graphic novel, very detailed illustrations. The talking fox and wolf dude are how I’m justifying this one for inclusion, I just like it.
Ooh, $0 of $29000, and flexible funding. Not a very good investment :(
Reynard City: Triple Threat (Ends: 7/11/2014)
I know there are superhero foxes in this graphic novel, I know it. I just can’t figure out how.
More images and info at “Reynard City“, a Saturday morning cartoon in webcomic form. Not in love with this guy’s art, but he’s successfully funded before.
Retrograde (Ends: 8/4/2014)
A sci-fi tale about humans and uplifted dogs, trapped in space at the mercy of aliens.
I do like some of the art and images in this one (or maybe I just like dogs in tight pants). This project’s worth looking at, but I do challenge you to try to get through the end of the video without laughing!
Metal recycled dragon sculpture (Ends: 6/26/2014)
A strange dragon-like monster glowing with internal light, made of a constellation of recycled materials.
M.O.O.Ping (Ends: 7/16/2014)
A rampaging herd of cow-costumers are going to stampede across Burning Man this year! Ingredients, 20 cow suits, five boxes of pink latex gloves, and your money.
Burning Man: Endless source of enthusiastic but bent ideas.
Bunnies vs. Zombies (Ends: 7/2/2014)
Super-cute bunnies vs. not-so-cute zombies and slime monsters. What do you do when bunnies interrupt the carrot harvest? Fight back!!
Great artwork, classic post-Tiny Toons rabbits, I swear I’ve seen that artist before. Lots and LOTS of parts in this board game, maybe too many. Got to say, I’m tired of the zombie meme, but I’ll never be tired of bunny warriors.
Tooth and Sword (Ends: 7/2/2014)
Disgustingly cute chibi warriors and wizards for your tabletop RPG. Cute minis, huge eyes.
Ponyfinder: Griffins of Everglow (Ends: 7/11/2014)
A griffin-themed expansion for the Pathfinder world, “Ponyfinder.” Griffins for your ponies for your dungeon crawl, or dungeon soar!
Almost double goal with 20+ days left on the clock!
MonsterSpot Battles (Ends: 7/1/2014)
A big WTF? Something between Pinterest and Pokemon, find monsters anywhere on the internets and battle them in an arena. Strange stuff from monsterspot.com.
I’m still trying to process the weird here.
Mutant: Genlab Alfa (Ends: 7/6/2014)
Tons of anthro characters in this grim post-apocalyptic world, a sequel to Mutant: Year Zero. At least I think. It’s all Swedish. But it made goal, so that’s good!
Five Nights at Freddy’s (Ends: 7/14/2014)
Dark horror/humor first-person explorer–you’re the night guard at a kiddy’s pizza restaurant. You know, with the scary animated mascots? That’s the one.
This campaign’s not going anywhere, but the video’s kind of fun
Cheetah expedition with drones (Ends: 7/10/2014): A journey to Namibia to track and study cheetahs with aerial, unmanned cameras. Hope they move fast…
…MehThis is War (Ends: 7/2/2014): I really can’t recommend this one, it’s struggling, and looks a bit raw. But the enthusiasm (and blatant hyperbole) of the fundraiser is amusing. Something something animated music video about griffins.
…Just for funTo be colored… (Ends: 6/28/2014): Fantasy-themed coloring book by The Bros. Uber, they did a fairy-tale postcards project that I was cheering for.
K9 Mark IV BM (Ends: 7/1/2014): An art car version of Dr Who’s “K9″ robot, seating 4.
HomeMake (Ends: 7/9/2014): Video game: Exploring an endless, colorful flexible cityscaped planet with your robot dog. Kind of hypnotic.
A horse, a squirrel, true love.
A photographic romp in robber masks and vintage sets…
Kickstarter ending 7/13/14
This is a gentle sort of project.
You’ll recognize at least one of the characters from “Horace and Agnes: A Love Story” from the Internets. Horace’s rubber horse head is practically a meme on its own, and I honestly almost clicked past this one when I saw his screaming, whinnying face. I’m glad I didn’t.
Imagine if th
e cast of “Hipster Animals” went crazy with the rummage bin at the Salvation Army and a lomo camera. That’s the feel of H&A: a world of animal people in quirky vintage. Here’s a shot of two high society hippos dancing in the new year in 1968. There’s your Uncle Walt, but with a goat’s head.
I don’t actually know your Uncle Walt, maybe he has a goat’s head. I can’t make assumptions with furries.
Horace and Agnes, AKA Asia Kepka and Lynn Dowling, are jointly raising money for a photo exhibit at the Griffin Photography Museum, opening up the world of Horace and Agnes to the greater Winchester, Massachusetts museum-going community; the Kickstarter is intended to provide funding for their gallery launch-frames, transportation, etc etc…probably more rubber masks are involved at some point.
I like this photography collection. It’s quirky, the vintage clothes and props are just dead on, archetypally 1950s, and the sense for real characters have real lives and real friendships is so strong. Sure, it’s all soaked in a Wes Anderson-based marinade, but try to look at “Home Movies” and not want to put on a rubber dog face and tipple back a sloe gin fizz. Somehow, the artificial rubber masks lend everything huge amounts of life.
The Kickstarter itself has one of those typical “art over product” problems, if it’s a problem–there really isn’t a magic pledge point where one can get the thing, whatever the thing is. The books are very expensive (even if you like the joke a lot, $100 is a bit much to pledge for a joke), the calendar’ looks like it’s just a single image. There’s no place that really feels like the right pledge point for someone who doesn’t know the photographers personally and isn’t likely to make it up to Massachusetts.
You can see more of the “Herbert And Agnes” story on Asia Kepka’s portfolio, or of course at the Kickstarter page. The “making of” video at the end is worth a view, if you’re amused by the rest of this silly stuff.
Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.
Bad Furry: The Art of Not Doing That
Bad advice, cheerfully dispensed, to your twitter and now to your bookshelf…
Kickstarter ending 7/9/14
I’m sure there’s a line between humor and snark. But it’s a shifty line, kind of like when you create a gradient fill of 25% to 75% gray over Difference Clouds based on a foreground color of 50% gray and Adjust Curves so that you get a neat zig-zag pattern, and everybody has curves set to their own preferences.
This is turning out to be a bad day for analogies.
Anyway, “Bad Furry’s Guide to the Furry Fandom.”
@Badfurry on twitter is kind of a guilty pleasure of mine. Along with @TypicalFurry they’re my cathartic twitter-stream dose of “yeah, but at least I’m not…” that makes being a 40-year-old guy pretending to be a dog in a world of silly people pretending to be silly things a little more tolerable.
I think it’s a healthy vice, 90% of the fandom is fun people making fun art, which includes a fun community. The hard part is those days when the 10% starts to look like 90%, and that’s when it’s time to reach for the bottle of 160 proof snark. Unlike beer goggles, snark goggles do NOT make anyone look more attractive…but they’re really cheap.
If you haven’t seen it, Bad Furry (thebadfurry on FA) is a twitter stream, and occasionally a webcomic drawn by Likeshine, that is a (mis)guided tour of the mind of a Llion (a hybrid lion/other lion, let him tell you about his backstory.) Judging by the great response on the Kickstarter–$3,000 on day 2, well over goal, kind of like a miniature “Reading Rainbow” with more personal hygiene jokes–the world is ready for…um…a bound collection of tweets.
Okay, it’s probably more than that, both artist and author have a good sense of humor and I have faith that they can express themselves in bursts of more than 140 characters.
So check ‘em out. The project’s over goal, so hopefully it’ll be ready for Christmas. I’m giving a copy to my mom. To help explain. Explain…everything. Reserve your copy, and remember, it’s funny, because you’re not one of them.
I know I’m not, because there’s nothing creepy about a 40-year-old gay guy at a furry con.
(So, I do try and make a few comments about the kickstarter itself, because it’s the point of the blog, and I don’t have a lot to say about this. It’s an entirely straightforward furry-artist-driven project, with a good range of gimmes–I DO like the $1000 pledge point with “your character appearing multiple times in the book,” it’s pricey but a fun concept. But I’m going to call out the business plan on one point: “Artist fees” and “Author fees”? It’s okay, we do understand that you’d like to make money off of your own project, justification is for extramarital affairs :)
Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.
Furfunding Week in Review 6-1-14
This week’s illustration is from the Kickstarter for the surreal photo project, “Horace and Agnes: A Love Story“
Ahem. I think that just perhaps my coffee was a little too strong this week, or maybe all the twerps finally discovered Kickstarter, this week’s blog is rich with irritation and put-upon sighs. My apologies. There are some real gems, too, I’m in love with the weird, mass-produced charm of “Horace and Agnes,” and “Snorffles n’ Meeps” is amazingly cute.
But apparently June is cynicism week.
I’m worried about the effect of LeVar Burton’s amazing campaign for Reading Rainbow 2.0 on the greater crowdfunding landscape. That, and Veronica Mars conclusively prove that crowdfunding can work for the Big Guys, too. Thank the gods that large, commercial projects can use Kickstarter, I was starting to think the playground would stay this horrible wasteland, devoid of creativity.
It’s the coffee again. Y’all should keep me away from it.
I grew up with Reading Rainbow, and do like it a lot, it’s exciting to see it evolve into a new form. But it’s hard not to imagine the success of this project–$3 million and climbing, and it’s possible–looking at Kicktraq’s metrics–for RR to break the Kickstarter record, a $10 million wristwatch project. Will big names crowd out smaller funders? It seems to be happening with video game and tabletop RPG funding. We’ll see.
Reviews this week: Alien invasion with “Beast Mode” and a few projects I have nothing nice to say about.
Reviews
New Projects
For a “complete” list of furry/fur-friendly crowdfunding projects, check out the Project Page and Patreon Page!
Art/Photography
Snorffles n’ Meeps! V3 (Ends: 6/13/2014)
A collection of colorful and whimsical animal illustration.
Just…just go look at the ferrets.
Horace and Agnes: A Love Story (Ends: 7/13/2014)
You know that rubber horse head? It’s practically a meme? Immerse yourself in its world. Meet its loves, its life, its travels, its family.
This is…magnificent and strange. I want to do a full write-up of it. I hope there’s time this week.
Doberfrau (Ends: 7/15/2014)
The dobermans of Munich, a photography project celebrating the Doberman breed and Munich.
Creature Discomforts (Ends: 6/30/2014)
Weird and creepy little monsters and poetry about same.
“Precocious” Book 3 (Ends: 6/25/2014)
Web-to-print from the super-cute furry kids daily (!) webcomic, Precocious
Beast Mode (Ends: 7/20/2014)
Graphic Novel: When a green ray from space starts transforming New York’s animals into kill-crazed monsters…I’m having a hard time finishing this sentence. Oooh, werewolves.
Rated “M” for gore, possible sexual content, anthro chihuahuas.
Furries: Life But With Fur (Ends: 6/15/2014)
TV pilot WIP for Fox: A furry “mockumentary.”
This is so obviously on-topic for Furstarter that I have to post it, but the project feels pretty malicious in nature, more sensational coverage that the fandom doesn’t need.
Royal Dinosaur Playing Cards (Ends: 6/26/2014)
Something for the Saurian in your life, dinosaur-themed cards with dinos in courtly regalia
Past goal!
Cowards and Carrots (Ends: 6/27/2014): A medieval resource management/training game where idiots and cowards are trained to fight the terrible Dragon-Bunny, who is exactly as cute as a dragon-bunny should be.
TimeWalk: VR Playground (Ends: 7/28/2014): A virtual world as complex as the real world. The graphics and video are terribly “Uncanny Valley” and I don’t think anyone here wants an *exact* copy of themselves, but it’s an exciting idea.
The Shadow Appear’s: The Righteous League’s First Comic! (Ends: 7/26/2014): This has been a bad week in the category of ‘things Corbeau wants to make fun of.’ The art in this one is perfectly dreadful. The anthro…dog…thing…is going to give me nightmares. I don’t want to even talk about the punctuation, I had to have a lie-down.
Animal Shelter Project (Ends: 7/29/2014): A “buy me a fursuit” beg not-so-cleverly disguised as a charity. Please, don’t be this person.
Alien Anthro Chihuahua Destroys New York
Green space rays morph animals into anthro killing machines in the alien invasion furries have been waiting for…
Kickstarter ending 6/20/14
Somewhere in New York, there is a rampaging chihuahua man-beast on the loose. Go and destroy, my shivering, pop-eyed Mexican cousin. Send me a postcard.
“Beast Mode” is a comic in the “alien invasion disaster” mode. This time, instead of reanimating the dead, the plan is, thusly: green space rays turn animals into half-human killing machines. I haven’t worked out the fine details yet, but the ray also seems to give them massive spiked shoulder pads. Lieutenant! Fire the Warhammer 40K beam! New York needs padding!
Anyway, Beast Mode is the first of a six-issue series focusing on this alien invasion. Art is by Alfred Carrillo, AKA “TwistedxSkillz,” and amazingly this seems to be his first time out in comic format–I’d love to be able to find out more about him, but his DeviantArt page is kind of spare. Pity! The artwork in “Beast Wars” is really something, and the Kickstarter has several preview pages from the first issue. This is actually the second tilt at the windmill for Beast Mode, so you can get even more gore-splattered anthro badness on the previous “Beast Mode” crowd fund effort.
From a strictly crowdfunding angle, this is interesting. I’ve never seen the second stab at a crowdfunding campaign succeed before. The original “Beast Mode” was an ambitious affair, with a range of pledge points–including a “your pet in BEAST MODE” sketch or walk-on role. And they did pretty well! Conservatively, $4000 was pledged (I’d question that pledge at the $1000 level because of the “Enick Farhan” scams that were running at the time). Anyway, for a first time effort, that’s a really good result, even if it didn’t meet goals!
This time on the merry-go-round, Carrillo is asking for a MUCH more modest $500, purely for print costs on the comic itself. I’m honestly a little surprised that the pledge points weren’t more ambitious, sketch commissions seem like a legit way of increasing pledge income.
[ed. note: you know, I could be wrong. The original pledger dollars on the first kickstarter effort map out really strangely, the numbers don't add up well. After the first go-around, Carrillo may have decided that "short, sweet and simple" is the way to go.]
Anyway! Gore-splattered action fests may not be everybody’s cuppa, but if you’re okay with a certain level of horror and grotesque in your anthro–not uncommon in werewolf art, and werewolves get a lot of fan service here–this looks like a pretty good romp. It also plays into the Kickstarter vision of “new artist seeking funds” that’s really at the heart of crowdfunding for me. If you like it and want to chip in, give a few extra dollars, because the $500 goal probably doesn’t scratch the surface of what’s going into, and already gone into, the project.
Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.
What Not to Do
How not to win valuable foxdollars.
Pretty regularly I see projects that…just don’t work for me. My general guidelines for Furstarter posts and listings are, “is it interesting and/or furry?” and “does it have a chance of making goal?”
These, well, they’re furry. Interesting? I don’t know, I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader. Do they have a chance of making goal?
Probably not.
I’m just ranting here.
Anyway…First the semi-titled “Animal Shelter Project”
Animal Shelter ProjectIndiegogo ending 7/29/14
From cons, twitter, and people making fun of crowdfunding without really having a grasp on what it actually is, the most common misconception is that it’s all “fund-my-life” type projects–help me get a game system, help me pay my rent, or help me buy a fursuit. Please, guys, don’t prove them right.
There’s a lot that’s wrong with this page. A stretched-out two month campaign time that suggests someone relying on Indiegogo to spread the word for them, “Flexible Funding” turned on (rarely if ever a good idea), no business plan, and a photo that looks a little bit ganked from the internets, without telling any of the story the poster wants to share. You could at least show something from the artist you want to commission!
At heart, this is a “buy me an x-box” campaign. Wrap good intentions around it if you like, but charity dollars shouldn’t go toward buying you a fursuit. Even if you do intend to use it at charitable events, there’s no shortage of fursuiters in Montreal. Heck, it’s got its own convention. With a really cute logo. It seems pretty transparent that generosity-dollars should flow toward actual service work if the capital material’s already out there.
*sigh* Now instead of saying “no, it’s not about ‘buy me a fursuit!’” I’m going to have to say “Yeah, well, there was that one…”
Anyway.
Furries: Life But with FurIndiegogo ending 6/15/14
If I didn’t have some familiarity with the group fronting this, I’d assume it was a “Something Awful” put-on. But I’ve seen the “Griz Coat” team before, they’ve done some bear coats which were quite successful over on Kickstarter, I think I gave them a reluctant call-out before, I’m not a fan of their “lulz” tone and the coats kind of creep me out. Still, their campaigns are often called out as success stories.
Anyway. The “Furries” IGG is a mockumentary about, well, furries. I know a lot of furries, on the whole they’re a bunch of amiable dorks that enjoy video games, each other, and fuzzy animal personas. But if you take an exploitative approach (Say, MTV’s “Sex2K” or two-thirds of the media coverage targeting furs), you can of course pull out enough steamy and surreal material to fill an hour-long documentary–or in this case, a TV pilot.
I like media coverage. I do. It’s helping mainstream the community, and every year it seems trending to portray us as the oddball subculture that we are, not the sex-crazed loonies that–well, frankly, most of humanity is. “Monkeys are superior to men in this: When a monkey looks in a mirror, he sees a monkey.”
I do not like media coverage that opens with the promise of a fox humping a chicken, then cuts into a frightening guy wearing tiger pants and chains, and is loaded with effing awful puns. The entire thing is theoretically going to be launched to the Fox Network, so it just gets better.
There’s some cute fursuit images a the bottom of the page, but the overall tone is snark and exploitation. I really hoped we were over this. Judging by the underwhelming response, maybe we are.
Guys, please, don’t mock your target audience.
Furfunding Week in Review 5-26-14
This week’s illustration is from the Kickstarter campaign for the Sherlock-inspired anthro card deck, The Game Is On.
I have a theory that any project coming back for a second round of crowdfunding is just doomed to failure. In the year that I’ve been looking at kickstarters, all the “try-agains!” seem to tank. Even if the wallets of the crowd pledged $15K before, they’re not necessarily going to give you the $15K again, the energy isn’t necessarily there, and the sell isn’t as compelling.
That being said, there’s the smallest chance that Beast’s Fury will prove me wrong…kind of. Their funding campaign was a success in the “let’s bring in some money” sense of the word success, but it landed a far cry from what was necessary to release the game itself. Now they’re pitching a second wave of funding, and have a good start with about 25% of their goal met in the first two days. Curious to see how they trend.
Reviews this weekcycle: The whimsical “Matlock the Hare,” a little wizard in green robes. I like it when I don’t have to tweak the balance and hue of a character to get him to fit my color palate.
Reviews
New Projects
For a “complete” list of furry/fur-friendly crowdfunding projects, check out the Project Page and Patreon Page!
Books/Print
Bi-Curious George (Ends: 6/18/2014)
“One day George saw a man. He had on a sassy purple beret. And George got very excited, despite himself.”
Hmm…the video hypes the success of the book in its previous press run, but only two funders right this second :(
Matlock the Hare and the Tillian Wand (Ends: 6/24/2014)
Whimsical wizard rabbit–ah, hare–and his 500 (!) page YA illustrated adventure!
Wacky, wacky vocabulary throughout. I think making up ludicrous words is a British thing.
Guy Fox’s Paris Children’s Map (Ends: 6/20/2014)
Guy Fox, the travelling vulpine, wanders the world–this time Paris–looking for fun landmarks and locations for kids.
TMNT Banished (Ends: 7/4/2014)
A darker version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with themes of violence and betrayal.
It doesn’t look like this one is going anywhere.
The Game is On! (Ends: 6/19/2014)
Anthro Sherlock Holmes inspired characters in a new art-card deck!
Otter Sherlock and Fox Mycroft for the win!
Keep Beast’s Fury Going! (Ends: 6/19/2014)
A return to crowdfunding for the Beast’s Fury anthro fighting game.
I’m amazed that it’s doing so well for round two! But Beast’s Fury has a good fan base for a game that hasn’t hit the shelves yet. Do games even hit shelves anymore?
Puppy Pride tails (Ends: 7/7/2014)
PuppyPride comes back with a range of somewhat suggestive tees, dogtags, and tails. A hint about the tails: they don’t attach to your belt. Just saying.
Irongut’s Patches of Gray (Patreon open-ended funding)
Irongut‘s illustrated erotica novels, very orca-intensive stuff!
Monster Anthology V. II Demon Edition (Ends: 6/24/2014): An illustrated, NSFW OR SFW anthology–take your pick–about love and relationships and demons. By Darkchibishadow.
…CausesGlobal White Lion Protection Trust (Ends: 7/2/2014): Get involved with an effort to protect white lions. All lions, really, but focusing on the white lion.
…Just for funAlive Animals (Ends: 6/19/2014): Absurd Chinese Zodiac “augmented reality phone app. The tee shirts are actually more interesting than the AR horse’s head…
Whammet-dudging with Matlock
A young wizard’s quest for an ancient and elusive magical artifact takes him on a deadly adventure, full of strange creatures and stranger vocabulary…
Kickstarter ending 6/24/14
I’m going to start by saying that I really like this project. It’s got great artwork, that hare’s got charisma, and there’s some good worldbuilding.
So I’m going to besecond myself–oh god, they’ve got me doing it now–by adding Dorothy Parker’s immortal lines from her review of the classic children’s book, “House at Pooh Corner”:
“And it is that word ‘hummy,’ my darlings, that marks the first place in The House at Pooh Corner at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up.”
There. It’s been said, and it’s been said about a classic. Now I can let it go and embrace the hare.
Matlock, should you choose to meet him, is the magical hero of Phil and Jacqui Lovesey’s “Matlock the Hare” book series. He’s an up-and-coming wizardly fellow in green robes, in a world chock full of quirky critters, strange locales, and singing ambulatory mushrooms. In his first full-length book, Riddle of the Trefflepugga Path, his quest takes him along a winding, self-aware road to save the little world of Winchett Dale. It’s a weighty 400 pages of fun, with whimsical illustrations…and a glossary.
Um, about that glossary.
There is a proud tradition among YA authors of hand-crafting words. Mr. Carroll added “chortle” and “vorpal” to our lexicon, and had dozens of others that didn’t make the cut. And Mme. Rowling was no slouch for peppering her world with choice little syllable strings. Dr. Seuss gave us the word “nerd.” So, let the authors flood the land with neologisms…just…keep it legible, okay?
“Guzzword - n. The saztaculous and peffacrumlush nectar of the dale. Much imbibed by us all, especially when feasting. A home supply is essential during peffa-long winter months…” –The glossary of “Dalespeak”
This may be particular whipping horse of mine, I have a weak stomach for cute. And for kids’ literature, a playful approach to language really is great for not only sparking interest, but interest in the language itself. Digging into those colorful, silly words is like eating a mouth full of “Pop Rocks.” Maybe it’s a British thing in particular. Hey, English was their idea in the first place, they can dicker with it if they like.
What really drew me in, though, was the artwork, with its graceful curves, bright eyes, and amazingly baroque smiles. I’m reminded of Toni Diterlizzi’s old twisty-curly style, maybe a little more cartoony, but no complaints. The characters are perfect, glowing and strange. Their occasional appearances in stop-motion are just as pretty.
As for the kickstarter, it’s only day two and they’re about halfway to goal, which is great–this is Matlock’s second full-length book, but he’s a character with a fanbase and history, established through little readers and art projects. I expect the Loveseys will be gallaphumping their way to a third book in the future, but 500 (!) pages of Matlock will have to keep their fans peffa-content for another year or two.
Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.
Furfunding Week in Review 5/18/14
This week’s illustration is from the Kickstarter project, “Poochinality/Purrsonality” by LeahTribal.
Little milestone this week for Furstarter, according to Twitter, Tumblr, and a few other ‘rs, it’s been a year since our first post. So a belated happy birthday to this silly project.
Things I’ve learned over the year:
- Werewolf projects are a dime a dozen and not actually that interesting as a category. I blame Twilight. The same thing with anime cat girls. I do not blame Twilight.
- Kickstarter is not an advertising medium, and artists are not generally great at self-promotion. The skills involved in creating something beautiful or amazing are rarely the skills involved in the somewhat whorish world of crowdfunding. Get a team.
- Graphics are important. Blog became much more workable when I went to a graphical format, and personally I ignore anything on Kickstarter without one or two decent images or at least header text. I don’t regret this because I do want to concentrate on projects that either have a chance of success or are interesting. The latter should be a pretty low bar.
- The truly awful projects that on their face would never succeed are fronted by people who can’t see that themselves. And they’ll repost them because they can’t see the flaws in their own baby.
- If a project fails, it won’t succeed unless there’s a major rebuild. Just setting the dollar level at what you got the time before won’t work. Because you’ll only reach that number the first time unless you do something completely new.
- I am not really equipped to judge what is “cool” when it comes to video games.
- Patreon is a terrible fire hose to sip from.
Anyway, thank you all for the last year :) Onward to a big start for the next year!
New ProjectsFor a “complete” list of furry/fur-friendly crowdfunding projects, check out the Project Page and Patreon Page!
Children’s Products
Pablo Bear Goes to Asia (Ends: 7/1/2014)
A cute little children’s comic about a world-traveling bear, a backpack, and almost 200 pages of art!
Cloudsdale Thunder Tees (Ends: 6/10/2014)
A few fun tee designs based on MPL-inspired sports teams
The Majicraft Shop has cutie mark-inspired glass tumblrs, among other things. Your cutiemark on a glass!
Poochinality & Purrsonality (Ends: 6/12/2014)
Pup and kitten charms by LeahTribal
12 Realms Ancestor’s Legacy (Ends: 6/13/2014)
A fairy-tale focused expansion for the 12 Realms board game, with a generous helping of anthro and anthropathic characters and art.
DigitalSoaps Geeky Soaps (Ends: 6/13/2014)
Cute geeky little hand soaps–pokeballs, companion cubes, Dragonballs, tardis, etc etc. Fun stuff!
Placebo FX Spider Queen (Ends: 6/20/2014): Impressive! An ambitious “Spider Queen” concept by Placebo FX, with eight eyes, legs, and all the latex you can imagine.
The Adventures of Aero-Girl (Ends: 6/18/2014): “A Girl and Her Gorilla…” Action-packed and cartoony comics about a superhero’s daughter and her high-powered pet gorilla.
Furfunding Week in Review 5-11-14
This week’s illustration is from the indiegogo campaign for Goldenwolf’s new sketch book!
I wish I could talk more about this, as I get more pieces together I’ll have an official announcement probably a week or two from now, but I’m working with a few artists on a new Kickstarter launching in July. More as I can say more :) In the meantime, here’s your regularly-scheduled messages from furrycrowdfundingland…
Reviews this weekcycle: A not-terribly-impressed review of noir/supers graphic novel, “Lars, Lunchbox, and The Quasmo D.” It’s good to accompany your “what not to do” lesson with good pictures.
Reviews
New Projects
For a “complete” list of furry/fur-friendly crowdfunding projects, check out the Project Page and Patreon Page!
Art
Goldenwolf’s Sketchbook V1 (Ends: 6/4/2014)
60 pages of illustrations by the amazing Were artist, Goldenwolf
Pop Middle Ages (Ends: 6/13/2014)
Middle Ages style woodcuts from pop culture cartoons and video games.
Ressurecting River Wolfe (Ends: 6/13/2014)
After being bitten by…uh…unsure…a wolf finds herrself turned into a teenage girl.
Interesting take on the standard werewolf story…
Lars, Lunchbox and the Quasmo D (Ends: 6/6/2014)
Graphic Novel: a Cold War story set in Washington DC in a story of intrigue, commies, caped villains, bubblegum pop, and humanoid dogs.
My only reservation here is that the writer doesn’t really know when to shush. Exposition, anyone? Hope the GN isn’t this texty…
Butter Comics (Ends: 6/8/2014)
Brightly colored–almost trippy–comics about bird people and dog people by MegMcIntire
Why does Portland have so many good comic artists?
Tentatrio Plus Pals (Ends: 6/5/2014)
Cuddly, colorful stuffed octopus.
You know you want to.
Oh My Adventure (Ends: 5/29/2014)
Anthro lion exploration game based on the “Oh My” series. Kind of a non-starter, but cute in a “lego” sort of way.
…does anybody know what the “Oh My” series is?
Furball Ramage (Ends: 6/22/2014)
Side-scrolling, and occasionally kaiju-stomping, hamster action. Cute and cartoony!
With a little inspiration from “Katamari Damacy“
The Hollywood Sci Fi Museum (Ends: 6/16/2014): An exciting nonprofit project with props, sets, costumes, ships, and a whole lot of et cetera from the world of film scifi!
Red Dog Rising: Lars & Quasmo D
Kickstarter ending 7/6/14
I’m not going to lie, this kickstarter is going to crash like the stock market in 2008. James Fusco “Boris Beldarian”‘s other project (a mobile basketball training device) ended with an amazing $0.00 pledged. So, what I’m saying is….go look over his page, because you’re not going to find “Lars, Lunchbox, and The Quasmo D” in stores, and it is worth a look.
Just don’t watch the video.
LL&QD is a graphic novel set in Washington, DC, in 1964. Now, that was an exciting year, which has lots of parallels here–The Beatles broke out in the United States, which we get a little taste of in the LL&QD universe with all-canine girl group, “The Whirligigs.” Boxer Muhammad Ali makes his name, the Viet Nam war is in full swing, and the space race with Russia and the threat of nuclear war is in full gear, ratcheting up the tensions that would linger through the Cold War.
There were also dog-headed people EVERYWHERE. This is documented in the textbooks, go back and take US history again if you don’t remember it. Somewhere in this graphic novel the word “super-borzoi” crops up, making it that much more amazing.
The art–and there’s a lot of it here–is a riot of color, fight scenes, dog-people, Marvel Comics-esque Red Scare, super-borzoi in skin-tight suits (I would totally buy that poster), clean-cut guys in suits and fedoras.
Fusco revels in comic tropes, iconic action film images, and pulp-noir. All good stuff. Maybe furries won’t like the 98% human bodies and 100% canis lupus familiaris heads, but it’s a fun stylistic choice and conjures up some great images.
Where the whole thing breaks down is in the presentation. When you launch your kickstarter, here are some things you should not do:
Creep out your audience by wearing a samurai mask.
No, I mean that. If you’re a hideous mutant, get someone to draw a cute cartoon of you. Don’t appear exclusively–in every site you’re on, including your business pitch for a $750,000 piece of sports equipment–dressed in the Japanese equivalent of a luchador costume. There is no reason to do this. Srsly. Kickstarter is about building trust, not showing off your so-big sword. Just saying.
- Don’t make your exciting pitch video a 4-minute list of features in a dull monotone.
My time is valuable. Right this second I could be playing Binding of Isaac. Why are you listing every single character in your graphic novel to me? Particularly when I can scroll down and see them at my own pace? Isaac’s Mom isn’t just going to kill herself, you know.
- Don’t EVER assert that you’re “the ultimate ‘Bad Boy’ and ‘Lex Luthor’ of the literary world.” Even if you have a sword.
At least until you master the art of exposition and the subtle grace of the shift key. And have a published book. And nobody’s the “ultimate” without a page on Wikipedia. Granted, that quote was on his home page, but…it was on his home page.
I really have enjoyed the artwork on this project–retro action/cold war/noire/Beatles riffing is all good stuff. Two thumbs up. But the overall presentation dips into the absurdist. It seems like every character, including the fundraiser, has a super-awesome pseudonym. Most of the people I know are content with just one name–
Oh crap. Never mind. Strike that, reverse it.
Anyway, take a look at this one. There’s too much wrong with the delivery–God only knows what the text is like–to really be a safe investment, which is kind of a pity. It’s a neat vision, and might make a better concept art book than graphic novel.
Normally we are not this snarky…
Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.
Furfunding Week in Review 5-4-14
This week’s illustration is from the kickstarter for Bosco and Fleet: Detectives of the Occult Sciences by Jeff Pina.
So the BIG news from furry crowdfundingspace has to be that Armello, one of the higher-profile fur-centric projects for the last few months, met its $200,000 goal, and is starting to unlock stretch goals! With an entire new theme to unlock at $225K, it’ll be a narrow stretch. Hopefully we’ll see a fresh wave of love for the project now that it’s viable!
New ProjectsFor a “complete” list of furry/fur-friendly crowdfunding projects, check out the Project Page and Patreon Page!
Books/PrintLuna, The Lone Wolf (Ends: 6/2/2014)
Action-packed talking wolf novel
This has a bit of the feeling of genre fiction..
Codemancer (Ends: 5/27/2014)
A pretty little pet-riding, exploration/RPG video game, where magic is modelled on computer coding.
Marti: Superhero Meerkat (Ends: 5/31/2014)
This blue-furred refugee from Meerkat Manor presumably fights crime and the dark influence of Big Budgie.
I feel contractually obligated as a self-appointed journalist to mention this project, for the meerkat fans. But I don’t have to enjoy it.
Wild Adventures of Bebop Fuzz (Ends: 6/1/2014)
Animated kid’s short film featuring an adventerous little cat, hybrid claymation/CGI.
Pann (Ends: 5/29/2014)
A surreal rhythm game with alien musical instruments, bizaare monsters, musical combat, and a gently zoomorphic protagonist…
More “interesting” than “furry,” but there’s a bit of anthro there.
Chrono Rider (Ends: 6/3/2014)
16-bit classic style VG sidescrolling featuring time travel, journies through space, and a corgi
PetPlayPalace (Ends: 6/7/2014)
Pet-play videos and photo gallery. Mostly girls in cat ears, but they promise some variety.
NSFW teasers at petplaypalace.com. Pink, fluffy, and unsubtle as heck.
Monster Buddies (Ends: 5/31/2014): Fuzzy sesame street-esque backpacks. Cute, but expensive pledge points and poor response.
…Just for funLIX: 3D printing pen (Ends: 5/29/2014): A slick pencil-size, hand-held 3D printing pen. Watch the video, be amazed at the air-doodling, watch the pretty people talk to cue cards :) Over x10 goal!
Furfunding Week in Review 4-27-14
This week’s illustration is from the kickstarter for Claiming 2014 by Cassandra Rounds.
Hard at work–well, allegedly at work–on the Patreon webpages, and finally cleaned those up and started adding new content! It’s all a bit “write up five, find 10 more.” Pushing a boulder uphill, if that boulder was filled with foxes. A lot of the other weird little errors fixed as well, I’m overall pleased with the new WordPress theme and the new site. 50 shades of green!
Reviews this weekcycle: Illustrated novel “Caelum Sky” and “Dog with a Mission” platformer/explorer, “Buck.”
Reviews
New Projects
For a “complete” list of furry/fur-friendly crowdfunding projects, check out the Project Page and Patreon Page!
ArtClaiming 2014 (Ends: 5/19/2014)
Strangely liquid animal imagery and dripping spectra in this print/tee series
Willo Resin Sculpture (Ends: 5/22/2014)
I am not, exactly, sure what a Willo is, but they’re cute and kind of lumpy and have antlers, so maybe they need to exist.
Met goal!
Ponyville Wub House (Ends: 6/22/2014)
Bronie dubstep radio show to be hosted by Fillydelphia
The Magician’s Cat (Ends: 5/7/2014)
Delicate water color and children’s storybook line art in this take of goblins, griffins, and a magical cat…
Caelum Sky Illustrated (Ends: 5/19/2014)
A story of a spirit who finds herself in the body of a demon (well, a dinosaur-dragon thing, supercute)
Artwork by Firefeathers
Bosco & Fleet: Detectives of the Occult Sciences (Ends: 5/11/2014)
A sentient octopus and a thuggish ape fight Occult crime in Victorian England. Huh.
Tales of the Wolfman (Ends: 5/16/2014)
A lanky, lanky werewolf and his romance with Red. Art and comics.
More information on Instant Press Comics
MIRRORS.EXE (Ends: 5/25/2014)
A post-apocalypse, Supers story of quests and mystery
Slow start, super-low (possibly dangerously low) goal. Not sure what to make of this one.
The Adventures of Ribbit and Snibbbet (Ends: 6/9/2014)
“Think LOST meets Winnie the Pooh…” Post-apoc, steampunk village populated by swamp and pond animals, with a few rabid weasels for good measure.
Graphic novel proposal, with a side of animated series and charitable organization? Yay Indiegogo…
BioHazardous Creations (Ends: 5/14/2014)
This IS the first fursuit project I’ve seen on Kickstarter, so Biohazardus deserves a look for that, but…slow start…
Kickstarter’s for project launches and entrepreneurship, not for a pure commission project, and I think it’s hitting Bio’s support base. That, and no internet presence.
Chasing Stars (Ends: 5/18/2014)
A stop-motion short about Laika, the first animal to explore (?) space.
Remember: Laika is a subject matter that practically guarantees an unhappy ending…
Luigi’s Ladies (Ends: 5/19/2014)
A one-woman musical launching in Chicago featuring the life and conquests of Luigi the Leopard, cereal mascot and serial lover
Slow beginning, probably a non-starter, but an amusing concept.
We Are Monsters (Ends: 5/25/2014)
Indie horror film featuring three young boys and their transformations into strange animal creatures.
By Olivia Vaughn, maker of the documentary “Fursonas“
Tiger Creek (Ends: 5/27/2014)
Documentary about exotic pet ownership from the eyes of wildlife refuges and breeders
The Runners (Ends: 5/24/2014)
A parkour/survival stealth-platform game. Is it furry? I’m not sure, but the main character hides his secrets behind a fox mask, so…maybe.
Buck: A Game About a Real Dog (Ends: 5/28/2014)
Metroidvania type game: a dog with a gun, looking for his lost love in a surreal desert town…
The Epic Loads Bestiary (Ends: 6/15/2014)
A strange journey through a land of very, very male monsters. And an otter or two. Seriously NSFW.
Artwork by Pedrono. Already past its very modest $350 goal.
Sanctum Polis (Coming Soon): A 32-bit game of investigation, fantasy, and dreamquests (also on FurAffinity. Check out their trailer!)
A Girl, a Gun, and a Dog: Buck
One dog’s well-armed quest to find his love…
Kickstarter ending 5/28/14
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say there’s not a lot that’s ground-breaking in this game, there are ancient cuneiform tablets describing the first side-scrolling explorers. Heck, Pitfall II had quite a map, and that was on the Atari. So a lot of what Buck describes as features seem to be more the core elements of a Metroidvania game – “Choose your own adventure” style branching dialog, a rich map with a non-linear, “take it as you find it” plot, and customizable weapons (well, that’s a bit unusual, but not in itself worth tweeting about.) That, and a “find your lost SO” plotline, spells a certain level of “we’ve played this before…” so let’s move on.
I promise, I’m not being cynical–well, maybe a bit, but this game is really pretty, with brooding and impressionistic backgrounds, a great-looking main character with a mean wrench, and a supporting cast with a poundful of NPCs pulled out of the “Buck” community, a bit of fan collaboration that extends into the Kickstarter’s stretch goal. For character art and background alone, the game’s worth a look (and a playthrough, but that’s down the road a bit.)
So, protagonists. Buck’s got 
a lot going for him in life. He’s damned handy, a tinker and mechanic able to build or repair pretty much anything he finds in the blighted Cordova desert. And he’s got a beautiful girl, but alas, you should never date a plot device. Finding out what happened to her is a big chunk of the game’s plot. He’s also pretty good with a gun–one he’s trained with his entire life.
You have to wonder if some people ever wake up knowing they’re in a video game. Anyway.
Buck’s based on t
he designer’s first dog. I’ve never been to Australia, but I know in Texas we arm our dogs, so it’s all good. A lot of the background characters are also collaborations with the fan base–the cat NPC with a mission is one person’s tabby, and so on. The hyenas? No, they’re probably just hyenas.
What’s really caught me about this game is the backgrounds, which are just weird. Buck’s cool in that “Vin Diesel in Shades” sort of way, but the backgrounds have a dark, gritty, and a bit surreal look, fitting the wasteland the game’s set in–kind of like the gloomy claustrophobia of The Maxx.
Anyway…I’m feeling I’m not really selling this one so well! It’s a genuinely neat-looking product, and solid anthropomorphic games seem like a once-a-year sort of thing, and a compelling setting and story can outweigh innovation for innovation’s sake. Watch the video, the visuals are well worth it.
Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.
Of Demons, Dragons, and Souls: Caelum Sky
An illustrated story of a spirit’s journey from hell to humanity, full of dragons…
Kickstarter ending 5/19/14
The author/artist Andrea “Firefeathers” Radeck throws out this glib description of her epic, 150,000-word series: “[It's] about a spirit trapped in the body of a demon-monster, harased by other demons for not being evil enough, and a commercial exorcist who’s just trying to do his job .” Which seems like a fine place to begin talking about this story of dino-demons, heaven and hell, and ultimately, humanity.
Clearly starting her career as a possible allegory early, the protagonist, Neri, begins her existence–life?–as a tabula rasa, a blank slate, somehow manifesting in a wasteland inhabited by skeletal monstrosities and angry–and hungry–demons, a darkly surreal beginning straight out of Hieronymus Bosch’s hell. After that, it gets weirder, Neri merging with the beast that devoured her, a powerful (and possibly fire-breathing) carapace around a developing soul–in a very hostile world.
From there–though I haven’t had a chance to read the dragon-sized corpus of Radeck’s book (although you can! Check her Tumblr and preview to your heart’s content!) and I’m guessing here–Neri’s journey carries her out of hell, through several dimension of the afterlife, and into an antagonistic demi-romance with a professional exorcist. You know, I’m probably wildly off-base here, so maybe you should just go look at the pictures.
I love the pictures.
The smouldering dino-dragon that is the main character is really beautiful in a blocky, “gnaw your head off” sort of way, appealingly stumpy and massive, not quite a European dragon unless one had an illicit relationship with a pit bull. And yet, the combination of monstrosity and simplicity melts into some perfect images–like the picture of Neri seeing the stars for what must be the first time.
As for the writing, well, it’s pretty strong. It’s first-person, not everybody’s cup of tea, and that narration-intensive mode of writing can turn to serious, indeed memoiresome, self-reflection. For that, the writing’s engaging and pretty sharp, not overly first-novel scented or cumbersome. If it’s a little dense, the heavily-illustrated version, coming soon if Radeck makes goal, should be a strong 80-pager, pictures lightening and informing the text. Looking forward to it!
I don’t have a lot to say about the Kickstarter itself, which is pretty textbook–ebook, hardcover book, prints and bookmarks and commissions and damn cute buttons, the kind of thing you’d hope for in a kickstarter by a furry maker type. Between Radeck’s tumblr and FA gallery, there’s a world of things to explore and way to interact with and get a sense for the artist, so look, get informed, and give some thought to that “hardcover” pledge point.
Note: Images used above are included to promote the work of crowdfunding artists, and are owned by the original creator.
Furfunding Week in Review 4-14-14
This week’s illustration is from the Kickstarter for the video game, RATS: Running out of Time!
A modest collection of new projects, though from what I’ve seen on Twitter, discussion is dominated by Armello, which is halfway to goal–can they make it, or is this the next high-profile furry crowdfunding fumble? Time will tell, but they’re off to an amazing start, with good marketing within and outside the fandom.
In my experience, I have absolutely no ability to “pick ‘em.” But it really does look like a nice product…
Reviews
New Projects
For a “complete” list of furry/fur-friendly crowdfunding projects, check out the Project Page and Patreon Page!
ArtRukis on Patreon (Patreon Ongoing Funding)
Artist and graphic novel storyteller Rukis crowdfunds an upcoming adult project (and her ongoing artwork)
Pandamonium: Steampunk Panda Adventure (Ends: 6/10/2014)
An illustrated 100-page novel; in a world where grizzlies and polar bears fight endless war, where does a polar bear airship pirate captain stand? Where indeed…
Art by Patrick Scullin, check Kickstarter for preview copy of the book!
The Roars (Ends: 5/28/2014)
Stylized cat-ear headphones for bluetooth devices
Virtually no traffic here. I’m actually surprised they don’t have more funders, cost per unit a little high maybe?
The FoulPlay Fantastic Fox Hunt (Ends: 5/7/2014)
Part flash mob, part fox hunt, live action human foxes bursting through the hedges pursued by riders and horses with coconut shells.
More than once this week, I’ve wished that I was British.
Armello (Ends: 5/8/2014)
A traditional Danish/German style board game, a Magic: The Gathering influenced card game, uplifted into a multiplayer tablet/PC game
After week one, halfway to goal. This looks like an exciting project if they maintain their momentum! Review on Furstarter.
Rats: Time is Running Out! (Ends: 5/18/2014)
Fast-paced clasic Gauntlet/PacMan style cats-and-mouse, cops-and-robbers game
PetPlayPalace (Offbeatr Pre-Vote Period)
Pet-play videos and photo gallery. Mostly girls in cat ears, but they promise some variety.
NSFW teasers at petplaypalace.com. Pink, fluffy, and unsubtle as heck.
Soft Serve Swirl (Offbeatr Pre-Vote Period)
chubby muscley bears by White Wolfster meet at CHUBBS (A gym? Creamery? Bar? Exotic dance spot with well-fortified catwalk?) in this 3-issue comic series.
Sanctum Polis (Coming Soon): A 32-bit game of investigation, fantasy, and dreamquests (also on FurAffinity)
Pandas! To the Air!
Pandamonium: A Steampunk Panda Adventure
Kickstarter ending 6/10/14
I’ll admit: I’m torn here. The book cover promises that rarest of things, a rock’em-sock’em swashbuckling panda adventure. And you know what? I want to believe. because that’s a pretty awesome panda pirate captain.
Artist/author Patrick Scullin is no slouch on the illustration front. He’s got a nice portfolio of illustrations, with lots of solid “supers” imagery, a few Doctors thrown in there for the Whovians. There’s even a set of ninja turtles–and they’re good! Scullin has a few publishing credits under his belt as well, bound volumes of his nerd-friendly “Super Siblings” webcomic–running almost exactly six years now, pretty strong stuff!
And I want to believe because I love steampunk, and bears are pretty cool, too. An epic battle of Grizzlies vs. Polar Bears, with one lone panda airship captain (all authentic steampunk captains have airships. I hope it’s a Zeppelin.) sounds like a pretty solid story, even if it draws a little heavily on tropes we have seen before (last scion of her race is a touch overplayed in fantasy).
But…but I don’t believe, and I’m sorry. I love the artwork, at least what I’ve seen, and I think the artwork might be enough to carry the project. But the writing’s kind of leaden, exposition-heavy and weirdly lacking in punctuation marks. There’s a PDF preview of the body copy on the Kickstarter page. Judge for yourself.
On the other hand, if bears are your big interest, this might be a rare opportunity–there’s not a lot of bear love in the anthro/talking animal novel sphere, particularly for something outside the Fandom. Check out the preview (I’ve ganked all the art from the Kickstarter site here, there’s not a lot of it…) see if the text and story grab you, and support a solid artist.