Last week, I posted a rather personal blog about our 3rd Spindrift year. I was moved by all the wonderful and compassionate reactions. More than one of them hit me right in the feels (in a good way). Thank you so much, guys! You might think that digital hugs and words of support do little my situation, but together they create a wave of encouragement and appreciation. Reading all of them was incredible motivating and rewarding, and strengthened my resolve to stick with what I'm doing. You guys make up a great readership (Drifters? Can I call you guys Drifters?.. or Spinners? ;) ), and I'm proud to draw and write for you guys!

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In the last bog I promised I'd write a followup. A part two that would focus on the upcoming Spindrift year:

Through August and September I've mostly taken a break from work. I hadn't really planned for it, but our situation kind of made it so that I spend a lot of good time together with the family. In between our trips to the Netherlands, I made sure I could start the upcoming year with a clean slate (as clean as possible). I reinstalled my pc (a task long overdue), cleaned up the administrative mess that was the past half year, and finally, I assessed the progress of the upcoming pages, and of course the kickstarter. I'd like to share that assessment with you guys.

Here's the scoop:

The upcoming 10 or so Spindrift pages are all drafted, proofread, edited and approved- and ready to be inked and coloured. My aim is to stick to a -1 page every 3 weeks- update schedule until all the kickstarter stuff is done. I know that ain't much, but if all goes according to plan it will only be for a short while :D.
I'm excited about the whole thing though, and I can't wait to share the new pages. Here's a sneak peek of the upcoming page :D.

As for the kickstarter, here's a list of things that I still need to tackle:

• Finish rendering two of the prints.
• I'm not 100% happy with the cover of the book, so I'm still tweaking that.
• We're working on the copy and all the mockups for the campaign page. We're about half-way with that.
• The kickstarter video. This one is kind of an issue. I had already recorded all the footage, with my friends from Local Androids. But we did so on the day that I last saw my Sis, and I really find it hard to watch the material (which makes editing kind of tricky).
  Also, some of the information that I talk about in the old footage has changed, because we tweaked the book a little bit (actually it became more awesome). As a result of these two things, I'll have to start over with the video. I'm taking a less professional approach this time (logistic reasons), but it will still cost us some extra time.

Even though the rest of the work is done, I'm still hesitant to commit myself to a date for the campaign. But to make up for that I will tell you a bit about the book and some of the rewards :D. (keep in mind that it's a work in progress so some things might still change).

Updates about Spindrift, book 1:

In an earlier blog I talked about the idea to offer 2 versions of the book, a smaller edition and a more luxurious big edition. Eventually we concluded that a smaller print just didn't feel like a big step up from reading the comic online - not as big as as the luxurious edition did. And having 2 versions made both books more expensive to print, because technically we'd be doing 2 smaller print runs opposed to one big one. We settled on making just one book, a fancy one. It'll be a hardcover book, and it's going to be big!

The book is going to be at least 128 pages, so there will be about 30 pages of extra content in it, possibly more! There'll be sketches and concept art, and some behind the scene info. There will also be a multipage "how it's made" section, explaining my comic making progress in the book. The rest will be a surprise :P.

Updates about (some of the) Kickstarter rewards:

You guys voted on button designs a while ago (we selected the most populair designs to be printed) but for new readers who are curious (or for anyone who forgot) you can find all the designs here.
I've already showed the sketches for the papercrafts, and I posted some early prototypes on facebook, but I haven't showed you guys the finished thing in neat printing. Here they are:

Then, a while ago I've asked you guys if you'd be more interested in stickers or bookmarks. The bookmark was the convincing winner (for those who preferred the stickers: They will probably be a stretch goal). Here's the design I picked for the bookmark.

Then, there will be a number of fine-art prints in various reward tiers, but here's one that you guys haven't seen yet:

Now that we're all up to date again, I would love to hear your thoughts on the rewards, the update schedule and the upcoming book/kickstarter. And I promise to do everything in my power to make the 4th year of Spindrift much more awesome than the last one :D.

-Elsa Kroese