Announcing/Previewing my Next Artbook

Several years ago now I launched, between 2017 and 2019, two separate artbook Kickstarter campaigns - first "The Occult Supergiant Primer" and then "Ars Goetia". They respectively marked the beginning of two new eras for me - one, my first foray into longform work and publication, and two, the end of my illustration degree. While it's not been my intent to bookmark every major milestone with an artbook, with the completion of my work on Slave Zero X earlier this year I began thinking about future projects, and my first impulse was: I want to do another artbook.

Work like this, purely personal, with total creative control and with no frame of reference to any existing material or over-arching brief, has been vanishingly rare for me these last 3 years or so, between game development and the pressures of freelance. I knew that the premise of my new book had to be as open as possible for me to bring in both an infinite canvas for all-new material and also provide me a place to develop and elaborate on pieces done during the last few years that I want to celebrate, work that came between game milestones and client briefs.

"ONE THOUSAND HEAVENS"

The result is "One Thousand Heavens", which carries the subtitle "A Cyberspace Bestiary". I don't want to discuss the exact specifics before the campaign launches, but you won't have to wait long - I plan on launching within the next week or so, and certainly before the end of November.

It's planned to again be a 30-day campaign with an aim to securing the funds both to allow me space to work on the book without having to take too much client work in the intervening period, and also to print and ship the finished run when the time comes. The KS will serve, as the previous two did, as a pre-order drive, allowing everyone who wants one to get a copy reserved, with an aim to delivery in June/July next year. This might sound like a long time, but it will potentially come sooner the better the campaign does, and I don't want to underestimate the amount of time involved here to do the concept justice.

It's been incredibly exciting getting the material for the launch together, having total freedom and the chance to fully indulge the passions that drove me to become an artist to begin with. The above is only a preview, and even that is only a small portion of what I want to eventually have between the pages of the finished product. I'm also excited to say i'll be working with the same printers again, and being an old hand at this kind of campaign by now i'm looking to try and expand the limits of what was done previously a little.

My Thanks

I've been very grateful to everyone on the Patreon for their patience while I was trying to keep a lot of this under wraps - once the campaign launches i'll be mirroring the posts about the design philosophy behind some of the pieces and the narrative (Because there is a WORLD here I want to tell a story about!) they represent between here and the backer feed, even for those who don't reserve a copy.

Your support has been invaluable in allowing me to get even this far. I hope I can deliver on your expectations! If any of you choose to take that support even further and reserve a copy when the campaign is up, I would be, once again, deeply grateful for your trust.

Francine