Update #2: Meet the Artist: Barry McWilliams, Designer Diary: Make Believe

Note: This is a copy of Update #2 from my Kickstarter campaign.
 

Meet the Artist: Barry McWilliams

Today I'm happy to announce another of our artists on the project, Barry McWilliams! Barry ran a Kickstarter campaign last fall for The Wrylon Robotical Illustrated Catalog of Botanical 'Bots, which was the last catalog (1912) from the world's first and only robotic flower delivery company. I backed the project and was delighted when I received the catalog, which had lovely whimsical illustrations of these flower-delivering robots and lots of ephemera tucked into the pages.

And then he discovered some field guides and engineer's handbook for Wrylon, so he's currently running another campaign for the Wrylon Robotical Field Guides, which has just under a week to go. Now, although Emperor's New Clothes doesn't have flower-delivering robots in it, I think you'll agree that Barry's illustration style and ability to unearth curious nuggets of information will be a perfect fit for my own project.

Designer Diary: Make Believe

I've followed enough projects and talked to enough project creators to have heard all the stories: running a Kickstarter campaign is like a marathon, an emotional roller-coaster. It puts you through the wringer, succeed or fail. Yet despite that, many of them come back for more. And they all look like they're having a great time doing it!

Well, I'll tell you that it definitely looks different from the other side. Although my project is meant to be both fun and funny, there was a lot of serious thought that went into it, and I can guarantee you that the Game Salute staff handling my Kickstarter page were having anything but fun last week with all of the back-and-forth about edits and changes and tweaks and requests. To tell the truth, I was pretty nervous and spent a lot of time writing up the script for the pitch video and then trying to actually recite it all into the camera without stumbling over lines.

And then we launched, and I thought, Oh, I'm not going to be one of those people who sits there and obsessively hits "Refresh" on the Kickstarter page, but I'll admit that I've had it pulled up most of the time since it launched. I suppose I should take it as a consolation that since the project is run under Game Salute's account, I don't get a ping every time there's activity on the page—new backers or comments or questions.

Am I having fun? Oh, certainly, but I'm also exhausted from thinking about it and it's only Day Two. I couldn't sleep last night, thinking about things I need to post and how to reveal stretch goals and what order to tell you about new artists and so on. I've settled down a little today, but it's easy to forget all the other responsibilities I have, like editing GeekDad posts or, oh, doing the laundry.

Seeing things from this perspective gives me even greater appreciation for some of the great Kickstarter campaigns I've seen, the ones in which the creators are able to maintain their enthusiasm (or at least an appearance of it) throughout the campaign. So I'll show you a bag of Fun Fusion beads and smile, and not the  anger and frustration I felt at cleaning them up. And I'll be cheerful and peppy (at least as much as that applies to me) in my Kickstarter videos, because this is fun!

But, seriously, don't start a Kickstarter campaign unless you're prepared to spend a lot of time staring at two numbers on a screen.

--Jonathan