Hello Everyone! 👋🏻
Welcome any new subscribers and welcome back returning readers. The theme of this particular post is directed more so to fellow comic book creators who crowdfund. But, I feel that anyone might benefit from some of the information I share so please enjoy.
Back in March, I posted a newsletter (Hedrick Newsletter #29) with some of my own personal Kickstarter tips. Paid subscribers (only $5 a month and cancel anytime) can still access it here. ⤵️
That newsletter is my second highest viewed post, only falling behind the lead by 4 views. So, I thought it was about time I made another one! But what would I discuss? I racked my brain for awhile and eventually thought about what I struggled with the most when I first started in the crowdfunding arena which was…
And then my butthole clenched as I imagined all of the armchair warriors dogpiling on me for giving advice about graphics with me not being a graphic designer by trade. But I also thought that maybe if I share a few pointers, it could prevent someone from using generative AI in their projects. So, here are my disclaimers before diving into the tips:
I am not a graphic designer. Take all of these tips with a grain of salt.
None of these tips are intended to replace a graphic designer. They are merely intended to help you with the smaller, more trivial graphics to use when promoting your project or building a Kickstarter campaign page; not for print use. If you have the means to pay a graphic designer for all of those needs, please do. I recommend Joey Galvez’s
services.I feel like I’ve done my due diligence in not encouraging the use of generative AI in these tips. But please take the reasonable steps yourself. I do not support generative AI.
Just because one of these resources I mention have AI features doesn’t mean I’m using those features or encourage them to be used. AI is baked into so many things in our lives nowadays to the point that it’s hard to avoid boycotting everything (i.e. Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.).
Digital 3D Mockups 📱🤳🏻
In this post, I’m going to reference an article from Kickstarter called “How to Get Featured on Kickstarter in 2025.” By no means do I guarantee using these tips I’m providing will guarantee that you will be featured by Kickstarter. I haven’t received a “Project Me Love” over the past 3 campaigns I’ve run. However, following the advice they give couldn’t hurt, right?
They mention highlighting “rewards with visuals.” Potential backers want to see what the final product they are pledging for will look like. That can be hard when you’re trying to raise funds to make that final product to begin with. That’s where 3D mockups can assist.
One free resource I’ve used for several years now is DIY Book Design.
This is a fairly simple and easy to use website to help you make a 3D mockup of your book. I primarily use it to make graphics for my digital rewards with the tablet design at the bottom of the second column to the left as my go-to. If you have a cover (which you should before launching a project on Kickstarter) then you can use this tool. Here’s an example with my latest project launching soon.
You can get the image in a JPG or a transparent PNG. Super easy. No sign up. Totally free. They also have some good mockups for trade paperbacks but nothing that I feel works well for floppies. For that I use Mediamodifier.
Now this one is not free and requires a subscription to use. I typically pay for one month and cancel. It runs me 25 euros (approx. $30) but I believe the price varies from country to country. So, I make sure I get my money’s worth each time I pay for it by making as many mockups as I feel like I might need. Also, it’s cheaper if you pay for a year at a time which I probably should have done on more than one occasion. 🤔
AI warning: stay clear of the “Designs” section as that is where I believe gen-AI is used. I stay in the “Mockups” section which are just 3D templates that plug in the image you upload to be superimposed on.
You can also find more options for digital 3D mockups on Mediamodifier instead of using the DIY Book Design website I previously mentioned.
Here is an example of how the comic book mockup looks using a cover from Footpath: Dangerous Nights.
Less Text, More Images 🔠<🖼️
There’s a fine balance between too much text and not enough. It’s also the same with images. I’ve seen a lot of heavy text-based campaign pages that show little to no artwork while trying to raise funds for a project in a visual medium like comic books.
The aforementioned Kickstarter article suggests including high-quality photos, videos, and GIFs. But not everything can be explained by a single picture. So here’s a few ways I’ve found to level out the text-to-image ratio.
Make a graphic of your text:
For the Spillblood campaign, I made virtually the entire page out of images. If it was something I needed typed out, I made it in Microsoft Word. I adjusted the fonts, colors, and background. Then used the Snipping Tool to crop it into a smaller framed image. I picked a red color with a “grotesque” font to fit the theme of the story. Here’s an example with my bio I used for that project:
By the way, this was my highest funded campaign and it did earn the “Project We Love” tag. So maybe loading it with graphics did help. 🤷🏻♂️
Make the text move:
I’m always trying out new things and when I was building the project page for Footpath: Dangerous Nights, I wanted to do something different than just the stagnant text graphics. Since that project has a secret operative style story, I thought it would be cool if I could make the text actually type out kind of like on a database. I did some digging online and eventually stumbled on the Typewriter Text Animation Generator on Text Studio’s website.
This is another pretty simple and free tool to use without a subscription or sign up. There’s a ton of fonts you can choose from to fit the theme of your project. Unfortunately, the colors are limited, but I made them work. Here’s one of the animations I made to describe the story of Footpath: Dangerous Nights.
You can also adjust the speed of the animation and the text size. But heads up; these will be large GIF files and I had to use a free “GIF reducer” website in order for them to be small enough to upload into the Kickstarter page.
Make Your Own GIFs
To quote that same Kickstarter article as before, “Let your page feel like a vibrant window into your world — not just a wall of text.” In other words, anything that can make your campaign page stand out, the better. And I’ve used GIFs to help me out with that part, specifically the Photo Mosh tool.
This is another easy to use web-based tool that doesn’t require a sign up. However, I went ahead and paid for “Mosh Pro” which allows me to access more features and removes their watermark from the images. If I’m not mistaken, it was about $15 to download the program onto my laptop. No subscription.
And I’m sure I’m not using it to it’s full potential, but the more I play around with it, the more cool things I learn how to do! For example:
I wanted to give Spillblood that grindhouse vibe so I used the “bad TV” setting when making a GIF of the logo.
Also, I used Mosh Pro to jazz up the header graphics. Here’s some examples of the headers I “moshed.”
I think it’s the little extra touches like this that can make a campaign page stand out from the rest.
Well, I think that’s about all of the two cents I have on graphics. I hope you got something out of this that can make your project look more “vibrant.”
What tips do you have? Please share them in the comments below.
And if you have any questions about what I’ve shared, please feel free to drop me a line here or in private. I’m always happy to help!
Until next time,
PS - Sign up now on the Footpath: Dangerous Nights prelaunch page to be updated when the project goes live on Kickstarter! Link to page here.
Thanks for putting this together. I also use keynote for making my own gifs, but that would only be helpful for those with MacBooks.