James Shields creates stock art for the roleplaying games industry. His first Kickstarter offers up a minimum of 50 fantasy characters and one of them might be yours. You can follow his progress on the official campaign page.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jeshields/fantasy-stock-art-and-rpg-minis
[Back this Campaign]
Let’s look at the pledge levels. $10 gets you 50+ characters and creatures ready to print and you get to pitch an idea. The combination of a good idea and luck will result in your idea being added to the project. Step up to $25 and you get commercial license to use several packs of artwork from the project. My understanding is that’s a pretty good idea as most stock art either comes with fairly limiting conditions or simply costs a lot more.
Absolutely must have Shields draw your character or creature? You need to pledge $75.
There’s a nice clause in the license terms for the pictures. They may not be used in works deemed to be racist, sexually explicit or sexist. I don’t know who the judge of that will be – Shields, I assume – and sometimes this industry gets into headed debates. Are chainmail bikinis sexist? However, James clearly has the right to protect his own brand and license his work as he sees fit. He doesn’t want to be involved in anything unduly offensive.
The campaign is asking for $3,300. At the time of writing there’s 13 days to go, just about two weeks, over 40 backers and more than $1,800 raised. That’s the halfway mark.
