Kickstarter

60+ ARTISTS -- ONE VISION -- ANIME ANGELS!

Anime Angels is a 100-page original-character artbook featuring the work of 66 anime artists from 22 countries.  All of the artworks are based around the book's title, "anime angels", with each contributing artist bringing her or his own interpretation to this overall theme.  Both of the videos here show some of the art selected for the book.

You can watch the bonus video, "The Editor's Story" here:

The Anime Angels project has been underway since early 2011, with many of the participating artists originally introduced to the project at Fanimecon 2011 in California, however it rapidly took on a life of its own, gathering anime artist signups from around the world as more people heard about the opportunity.  Anime Angels includes artworks by both professional and emerging amateur artists from the U.S., Canada, Venezuela, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Malaysia, Indonesia, France, Pakistan, Poland, Japan, and more.  All of the contributing artists maintain art portfolios on DeviantArt - see below for links to their sites.

The standard Anime Angels book is an 8.5x11 inch softcover, but for the Kickstarter preorders we're also printing a limited number of hardcover editions, a few of them signed by the editor/publisher.  We're unlikely to print very many extra hardcovers, so if you want Anime Angels in its glossy hardcover version, you should get your copy here with at least a "Cherubim"-level pledge.

For these Kickstarter preorders, we're printing a variety of bonus items, including a set of 6 oversized angel art postcards (5x7 inches) for "Angel First Class" contributors, several larger 8x10 art prints available to "Seraphim" contributors and above, and 11x17 posters of the full cover art image available at several contribution levels.  For fans in the San Francisco Bay Area, or if you just like to travel to conventions, we're also offering 10 invitations to our private book launch party at Fanimecon San Jose in May, 2012.

Update, March 10: We've now chosen the artworks that we'll use for the bonus postcards and art prints available at the higher levels such as Angel First Class, Seraphim, and Archangel. Please see the updates section, update #2, for a montage of the interior art that will be turned into bonus postcards and 8x10 prints.

Yes!  Artists get paid!  This project is trying something that as far as we know, has never been tried before with a small-scale anime artbook: all artists get paid, both up front (in advance of publication) for their art contributions, and also for every book preorder made here on Kickstarter.  So a portion of every Kickstarter pledge to this project gets sent directly to the artists, if your pledge is at least at the "Angel" ($35) level.

Project status: The artworks and artists have been selected, the cover art is ready to go, and the contributed art will soon go to our graphic designer for the book layout and design process.  We expect the books to go to the printer in early April, with shipping of the softcover books in May 2012.  Hardcovers will take somewhat longer due to a longer printing/assembly process.  We'll make every effort to have the 10 Senior Archangel books available by Fanimecon 2012.

Use of your pledges: The Kickstarter funds raised here are to cover both past and future expenses, including the payments that all artists receive for their art contributions, graphic design costs, printing costs, packaging / shipping / mailing costs, and so on.

The artists:  Here are the DeviantArt IDs and portfolio links of the contributing artists:

red-priest-usada    goldprincess    chasikrat    cos22    lin-k0    aaorin

hitsukuya    demonchild0    zzzeus    demonicangel-bayou    kukico

setsuna22    korilin    chocobikies    chinchikurin    jake-a-lina    nobu-hazel

eternal-s    jokerkilljoy    deathofrats    kumikoalastar    nick-ian    viceversa

homeworld4    nikoobu    aiki-ame    chinky-chan    eorii    zearyu

finni    mothmos    fictograph    celsa    wireko    renevatia    qrullgx13

natsuki-suzuhara    starlightdevil    f-lyts    ladre    serain    pyromaniac03

horror-child    itachoko    kidoairaku    ameigaart    reirei18    arashi-yukawa

tamasaburo89    katachan    alkemanubis    gasara    lo-wah    laffairz

lilbang    derlaine8    yukitsune    rekslare    zimmay    smallsushi

oniko-chan    blackcenturies    rush--it    ernn    kompeiito    nekozumi 

Payment methods update (Feb. 15): For people without a credit card or who don't want to create an Amazon account to preorder using Kickstarter, we now have a separate Paypal preorder page set up at www.animeangelsbook.com/preorder.html  However, please only use this if you can't back the project using this Kickstarter page.

ABOUT SHIPPING: We've put some thought into the most effective way to ship the books and bonus items to everybody in a way that protects the books and everything else.  Here's the plan:

- All books will ship via U.S. Postal Service Priority Mail, either domestic or international depending on where you are.  This service is fast, it's usually trackable, and it keeps the shipping costs fairly low.  We do need to charge $7 extra for most international (non-US) shipments, to defray the higher postage costs.

- Book protection: softcover books are first put into a clear sealed protective bag, then into a cardboard book mailer, and the mailer is then shipped inside a padded USPS flat-rate envelope.  This provides triple protection for the softcover book.  Hardcover books are put into a clear sealed bag, then sent inside a padded USPS envelope (they don't need the extra cardboard mailer).

- Other items: Any postcards, prints, and folded posters will ship in the same package along with your book, unless you're an Archangel, in which case you're special.

- Archangel posters: At the Archangel ($100) and Senior Archangel ($200) levels of support, posters will ship separately, flat and UNFOLDED, in a large hard-sided poster mailing envelope.  This is somewhat more expensive, but at these higher levels of support we can afford to ship the posters in the special envelopes and not fold them in half.

PICTURE: Anime Angels softcover book with its mailing kit: a hardsided cardboard book protector, and USPS padded envelope.  The book is also bagged in a clear poly bag.