Kickstarters from 2025
1/21 '26
So I decided that I would like a reference place for myself of all the kickstarters that I was involved with for 2025. With the idea that it might be of interest to some of you, I thought I would share that info here.
January
In January, and after our successful Kickstarter Gone Fishin', we decided to do monthly thematic one-shots for D&D.
So the first up was January's Gone Snowballin'. In short: a snowball battle for your D&D group.
February
For February, the obvious theme was romance, given Valentine's Day, so we built out a 'speed dating' one shot (Gone Speed Datin'), and I had a bit of fun with one of the NPCs who might wind up across the table from your character (above) while the cover art was a bit more... tame.
March
Gone Pub Crawlin' was inspired by Saint Patty's Day. We used some art I did a while back for the teaser. I really kinda love that little dwarf. Goes way back to an early post in my Patreon.
Here again, the final cover art was pretty solidly different, but I like these characters, and it feels like they're crawlin from pub to pub, so...
April
April was antiquing themed. I've no idea how / why April is associated with antiquing.
Fun Fact: The character in the cover art for this one was originally something I started sketching up as another NPC for Gone Speed Datin'. I thought his open shirt, machismo laden body language, and cock eyed smirk made him perfect for lining up across from in a speed dating scenario. But when the guys saw it, they said we had to keep hold of him for Antiquin'. I still don't fully understand why, but was just happy he would find a home.
May
May was Gone Bee Keepin'. I went... a little different with this one. I really worked hard at using shapes to construct the image rather than lines. That's pretty solidly against my normal process and I found it challenging. While I'm not in love with the resulting image, I did learn a lot, and feel certain I could do something much better next time. I also did a bit of homework to figure out what sort of protective equipment medieval beekeepers wore and that's reflected in the final art.
June
June was the first Wayward Pages bundle. Brad and I have been doing the Location Lexicon for some time now, and we decided to try bundling together some of them and presenting them to the Kickstarter audience. They seemed to like it, though, in hindsight, we didn't do nearly enough promotional work to make it a real success. More learning as we go. Still, it was nice to see characters and art that I'd been working on for so long actually see the light of day.
It also worked out perfectly because the crew I normally work with on Kickstarter projects was taking the month off for personal reasons.
July
July was Gone Surfin'. I went a little nutty with the cover character's pose, but it was fun, and it seemed to play well with folks. As with most of these, I could tweak this endlessly.
September
September was a busy month Gone Foragin', with the regular crew, and then Matt (the writer / designer of these) did his own separate KS for Beyond the Mycelium.
For Gone Foragin', I again stuck to using shapes far more than lines, and I definitely like the results more than I did for Beekeepin'. Rapid artistic growth for the win!
For Mycelium, I did a whole painted cover, and really enjoyed the process - especially creating characters in a scene that are supposed to be mushrooms.
October
Obviously, October was Gone Scarin'.
Another fun one for me to create, and honestly, I was finally starting to feel like I had the process down for this one. It's a little... open? to me now, but it once again felt like a solid step in the right direction for me as an illustrator.
The large, blank banner eventually held the title of the book.
November
November was Gone Huntin' - with characters in competition to bring in the biggest / best game. Of course, there's a bit of a twist...
I had to hurry through the cover art for this one for 'life reasons', but overall I'm pretty happy with it, and once again I learned a bit that I will be able to use going forward.
December
December was Gone Sleighin' - a snowy race in sleighs pulled by various creatures.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this one was both fun and educational. It felt like my composition and layout game was on point, and I like our elf friend in the front. I made the forest of trees a bit 'generic' in order to make sure they didn't detract from the rest, but looking back, I wish I'd made them a little more unique.
...and that wraps up the Kickstarter work that I did in 2025. That wasn't all of the art that I did in 2025, but this seemed like it warranted it's own separate post / archive.
What's your favorite? What would you like me to have done that I didn't?
Love the Gone Antiquin' too! You captured his personality perfectly in his pose, expression, & outfit.
There was a dude that used to come into a nightclub I worked at who he reminds me of a loooot!
He had the same hair & wore a white leisure suit, complete with chest hair peaking out of a butterfly collar.
He discoed up to me one night and in his best eyebrow waggling, cheesey disco guy style machismo flirty voice, told me he needed a drink.
I said, 'What would you like'?
He said, 'Something strong'.
I said, 'Would you like a shot?'
He said, 'Yeah...yeah a peach schnapps baby', winked, and discoed his way back to the dance floor.