So here we are: in April 15th, our new Kickstarter campaign shall begin!
I confess that I feared this moment since the beginning of this project, because I learned that generally, all the troubles come out when an official date is announced.
In the previous campaigns, when I scheduled the starting date, suddenly two Dwarf-based campaign appeared like wild Zubat in a cave, for example.
Moreover, it's almost sure that any particular date would disappoint some of the potential backers: too close to another previous/following campaign ("oh no, CMON will start his $100billion campaign in the same date!!"), too close to a holiday, or just "oh no, in those days I planned to visit the Antarctic by snowmobile!".
In short, I don't know what will happen, now that I've announced the official starting date of this new Kickstarter campaign, but for good luck I've already hung all my amulets around the house: I'm ready!
As you may imagine, managing a Kickstarter campaign, especially during the last days before its beginning, it's a whirlwind of mixed feelings.
The things to do, at this point, seem like a stressful hydra: for each quest you painfully carry out, two new ones pop out, laughing at you!
For this reason I decided to document these two weeks on the blog, as a kind of group therapy that will surely help me to stay focused on the bright side of this wasted land called crowdfunding.
So, let's begin with the first question: what does a creator do, during the last days before a Kickstarter campaign (apart from moping around the house?) Well, the answer is quite simple.
THE ANNOYING (BUT IMPORTANT) STUFF
If you think about this work of us, you would probably imagine some kind of fancy penthouse in Shibuya, where an extravagant group of artists, whose character design is made by Oda-sensei, sculpt miniatures in the company of attractive models, while tasting luxury liquors. I don't say this is wrong, but unfortunately this job is not only Dwarf&Roll.
Actually, in this April as hot as the hell itself (global warming is a thing, I fear), the whole "Durgin Paint Forge Operating Department" and the "Graphics, Video and Marketing Department" (that would be me and my girlfriend) are focused on building up all the graphic and technical details of the campaign.
In short: I'm setting up the KS campaign page, while my girlfriend is editing the video of the campaign.
Technically, my duty is almost simple: I have to fill some requests by Kickstarter and set the campaign with their minimalist editor (they earn billions of dollars, and their editor has almost 2 functions...): even a Flonzo could set up a KS campaign.
However, as you may imagine, there are tons of questions that grip my little brain: Is the graphics professional enough? Is the project description too long? Is the cover image cool enough?
I'm not a graphic designer, nor a marketing expert, and a storyteller neither!
So, as you may imagine, literally any little detail can throw me into a spiral of Hamletic doubts!
Moreover, it is precisely at this point that all the important decisions have to be made: the funding goal, the prices, the amount and composition of bundles, the amount of stretch goals and their placement during the campaign, the shipping fees etc.
Again, it's not difficult by itself, but there is always that little voice that buzzes around your head: "Have I made the right decision?".
Well, only time will tell!
On the other side of the desk (literally) my girlfriend is editing the video, that is one of my worst nightmares because I am totally ignorant about video-editing, so my mania of personally managing (or at least trying to...) everything, has to refrain from doing anything.
It's like having a gorilla on a leash.
Luckily, Giorgia (that would be my girlfriend, not the gorilla) knows how to video edit and, despite as usual we have a very little material to use (only the digital renders, damn me!), she's doing a clean but cool video, with a pulp-movie style that I like so much.
THE PANICOMETER
So, here is what we are doing now, to set up this new campaign that, hopefully, would make all of you happy.
As always, my Panicometer has started to run, even if we are still in the green zone, with a Panic level 2 (in a scale from 1 -"I'm so hungry but I don't remember if there is still some pizza left"- to 10 -"I've farted inside the elevator, but suddenly Fumika Baba appears"-).
There are tons of things still to do: to plan a proper social media ad strategy*, to haunt Valerio's nightmares for having the last stretch goals sculpts (so I will be able to complete all the graphic pack), to figure out how to polish the website for the big event, to haunt the 3d printer guy's nightmares for having as soon as possible the first 3d prints and I'm sure I'm missing a lot of other important things!
We are about to start a new journey, and indeed it will be a hard quest, but I'm sure we can make legendary things together: United we'll prevail!!
*Generally, I perform a funny dance under the moonlight, waving a selfie-stick while invoking the protection of the gods of the pesto.