Wow! My Kickstarter Is Off To A Great Start!

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Illustration by Cedric Hohnstadt

I’m truly blown away. My new Kickstarter, the Pose Drawing Sparkbook, has had a tremendous first day.

In the first  24 hours it passed the $2,000 mark (I’m currently at 26% of my goal). All 50 of the early bird specials have been purchased; the project is featured on the “Popular This Week” page under Kickstarter’s “Publishing” category; and it has received over 800 “likes” on Tumblr. Big thanks and high-fives to all of my fans and backers!

This is a fantastic beginning but there’s still a long way to go. I’m told that most of the contributions to a Kickstarter project happen at the very beginning of the campaign and again at the very end. The first 48 hours can be crucial. So I’d like to humbly ask all of my blog readers to please spread the word. Let’s make this thing happen!

In addition to the Kickstarter page, you can also remind your friends that I’m giving away a free download of 100 sketchbook ideas to promote the project, no strings attached. Just point them here: https://cedricstudio.com/sparkbook/

In the mean time, I’ll be working hard to spread the word and keep buzz going as well.

New Kickstarter: “Pose Drawing SparkBook” + Free Download

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Illustration by Cedric Hohnstadt

I’m excited to announce the launch of my first Kickstarter, the Pose Drawing SparkBook! It’s a super-charged sketchbook, custom designed to help artists put more life and personality into their drawings. It will include 100 drawing exercises, 32 pages of instructional content, and hundreds of additional drawing ideas in the back of the book.

I’m really excited about the potential for this book to be a great resource for storytelling artists of all kinds – whether they work in animation, character design, storyboards, cartoons or comics.

To help spread the word I’m giving away a free list of 100 sketchbook ideas taken from the back of the book. Get yours here:

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In order for the SparkBook to become a reality I need to raise enough funds. In exchange for a small contribution to the project you can get several rewards, including the book itself (with free ebook version) or other resources I’ve created. You can read all about it and watch a promo video over on my Kickstarter page.

Would you consider helping spread the word? Just use the share buttons below, or copy and paste the following into your favorite social media:

Free download: 100 Sketchbook Ideas For Posing Your Characters: http://bit.ly/15kOpi2

Thanks a bunch!

Sketchbook Exercise: Posing A Tired Man in a Chair

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Tired Pose Sketches by Cedric Hohnstadt

I’m working on a Kickstarter project that I’m planning to launch soon. I don’t want to say too much about it yet, but it will be a tool designed to help other artists strengthen their poses and put more life into their drawings.

One of the exercises related to the project is to take a mood or an expression and explore as many different poses as you can to communicate the idea. In this case I chose a tired man in a chair. How many different ways could I communicate exhaustion using the same sitting pose? These rough doodles are the result.

If you’d like to be one of the first people to hear about the Kickstarter project when it finally happens (hopefully soon), just shoot me an email with your email address and I’ll be sure you get on the list.

“Storyteller Cards” on Kickstarter

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I’ve decided to dip my toe in the water at Kickstarter and back my first project. A gent named Jason Tagmire has come up with a creative idea called Storyteller Cards, a fun, versatile game designed to encourage creative storytelling. Campbell Whyte is the illustrator and he seems to be doing a pretty great job. They are 90% of the way to their goal with ten days to go. If the goal doesn’t get met the cards may never get made and that would be a shame. Let’s help them get across the finish line.

Saul/Paul Character Design for “What’s In The Bible?”

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For the past couple of years I’ve been doing little bits of animation and/or character design for the DVD series “What’s In The Bible?” from VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer.

Volume 11 has just been released. It covers the book of Acts, explaining what happened after Jesus ascended back into Heaven and how His followers travelled the known world telling others about Him. There are lots of stories including miracles, persecution, imprisonments, and even martyrdom.

Perhaps the most well-known character is Saul, an angry Pharisee who took special delight in chasing down Christians and throwing them in jail. That is, until the day when Jesus appeared to him face-to-face. Saul became a new man, changed his name to Paul, and spent the rest of his life traveling thousands of miles to spread the good news about Jesus. Along the way he also wrote about two-thirds of the New Testament.

My job was to design Paul. Besides looking like he belonged in the same world as the other characters he had to have a face that could look like an intimidating villain at the beginning of the story and a kindly, likable friend by the end of the story. So it was a bit of a challenge. The client also requested that he have a slender build, dark eyebrows, and a goatie.

I started by doing a bunch of thumbnails, searching for the right look:

Paul thumbnailsEventually we settled on the following design:

Paul final design

Here’s the trailer for Episode 11:

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And here’s a clip showing Saul’s conversion:

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You can order “What’s In The Bible?” volume 11 either as a DVD or as a digital download at whatsinthebible.com. I don’t get any royalties or kickback if you buy, I just really believe in the project.

 

 

My Annual Good Friday Post

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Today is Good Friday. As a Christian this is one of the most important days of the year for me, the day we pause to commemorate the torture, crucifixion, and death of Jesus Christ. Some of you my wonder, why on earth would a day like that be called “good?”

Because even though it was a terrible day for Jesus it was a very good day for you and me. Over the course of my career I’ve been able to work on several projects that help explain that message, and every Good Friday I like to take a moment to share them:

Are You A Good Person? Cartoon

Here’s an 8-page cartoon Gospel tract I illustrated several years ago for the ministry of Living Waters. To date over five million copies have been printed in English and it has been translated into over twenty languages. You can download it for free in multiple languages at www.FreeCartoonTract.com, or you can purchase printed copies from the ministry of Living Waters.

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Based on the tract’s success, Living Waters also hired me to produce an animated version, which I supervised with the help of two terrific animators (Michael Foster and Chance Dodd). To date it has received over 450,000 views on YouTube and has been subtitled into 19 other languages. If you like the video you can download a free HD version to use however you’d like.

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Finally, VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer has been releasing a series of videos called “What’s In The Bible?”. I’ve had the privilege of working on a few of them. Here’s the trailer for Volume 10, which covers the life and ministry of Jesus including his death and resurrection. In this episode I designed a few of the characters and did a smidgen of animation.

EDIT: Here’s a full-length clip from the episode explaining the meaning of Easter:

[youtube_sc url=DQ7Dc_w_Tl8 width=430]

You can order DVDs or digital downloads from the series at www.whatsinthebible.com. Also, if you subscribe to JellyTelly.com you can stream all episodes of “What’s In The Bible?” to any computer or mobile device.

I don’t make any money or royalties off of these items, I just believe in them and want to share. Thanks for indulging me. Here’s wishing you a very happy Easter filled with peeps and jelly beans!