Pop Middle Ages is a print-series based on the coolest referents of popular culture. They are basically 8.3x11.7 prints (f**kin’ A4 prints) available both B&W and color which represent characters from popular culture in an edgy medieval style. They are a fine blend of the style’s elegance with the freak and awesome of the action cartoons from the 90’s and indie video games.
You can purchase prints, choose if you want them in B&W or color, ask for a doodle (as an add-on) or even make it bigger (A3 size as an add-on).
We have a series of 6 prints based on action cartoons from the 90’s: nostalgia in its purest form.
And also 3 prints based on indie games we love <3 Shovel Knight, Awesomenauts and Delver’s Drop.
So... 9 prints.
We’d love to go well beyond our initial goal of £3000 and include more prints from other artists.
Wait, are you an artist and are interested in the project? Or maybe you are in touch with an incredible artist who may fit just fine? If that’s so, feel free to give us a call! Send us a message!
Here you have an awesome display of the different reward tiers:
To avoid filling the KS campaign of a lot of reward tiers, we give the option of add-ons. If you want an add-on, you just need to add up the sum of money to the reward you want. For instance, if you want a signed print you’d have to pay £12 (of the print) plus £3 for the signature. So it will be a pledge of £15,
The add-ons are:
Victory is just the beginning! The sky is our true limit, so we include a list of stretch goals we dream to achieve. Help us make Pop Middle Ages something even bigger!
Now the stretch goals are secret, but we will reveal them soon!
The project is born out of my deep infatuation for these cartoons. Cartoons we all remember with nostalgia and joy when someone brings up the subject. I knew Aitor’s particular style and I got the brutal idea of making a personal version of the coolest cartoons that came to our minds.
The video games came later. One day I found out an exposition where 151 illustrators gave their own version of different PKMN via prints. I was fascinated and bought 6. Soon after that I began investigating more prints of top notch illustrators based on video games. I was astonished by what I saw. Sometime later, playing Awesomenauts, I wondered if there was cool non-official artwork from the game. I discovered that there wasn’t any and got pissed. I realized that most of indie games don’t enjoy the same level of non-canon art. Just a few ones are blessed with cool non-canon art, such as Portal or Minecraft. That’s when I decided we will expand the project, because every indie game should have a lot of cool non-official art behind.
Here’s where Pop Middle Ages is born; a homage to cartoons and indie video games straight from the heart.
We envision Pop Middle Ages as a crusade.
If one goes to fandom products’ websites, you’d find only the usual games: Zelda, Portal, Pokémon, Minecraft… we have nothing against these games, in fact we’re big fans! But Pop Middle Ages fights to show that there’s a niche for fandom products based on smaller games. If after the campaign is over we begin to see more projects based on smaller indie games, it’d be a victory for us. Let’s flood the Internet of fanart of games like Awesomenauts, Shovel Knight, Delver’s Drop and many others that we couldn’t include: Hyper Light Drifter, The Binding of Isaac, They Bleed Pixels, Nuclear Throne and many other splendid games that display a beautiful art direction.
This is also a crusade to demonstrate that an illustrator might find his/her path. We know many illustrators that are underpaid and forced to work in horrible projects. Pop Middle Ages is a living example that these circumstances should be challenged, that an illustrator, with enough training, may prove its worth through a cool project.
Pop Middle Ages has been possible thanks to a great, multidisciplinary group that has pampered every detail of the project. Let’s meet them, shall we?
We include links to the team members' sites.
Aitor: Behance
Julián: Linkedin
Marc: Web
Toni: Linkedin + Soundcloud
We share with you a list of impressive artists we’d love to have in the team. Do you know any of them? Could you convince to give us a call and join our crusade? Help us in our adventure!
And how could we forget the tremendous help we’ve received from people who had no reason to do so? When we decided to include indie games prints into the mix, we didn’t want to bother anybody, so we began writing to videogame studios asking for permission to draw about their games. Some of them never answered, others gently declined the offer, but 3 awesome studios got all excited about the project and became our strongest allies. We limited ourselves to ask them for permission to draw their characters for commercial purposes, but they did so much more! They have supported us; given us their opinion and other useful advice, and followed us in this bold new adventure.
We’ve discovered that they aren’t just video game studios, but teams of wonderful people who fight not just for their own projects, but for creativity and imagination. They are the real heroes of the indie scene. Our respect for them has grown… into admiration.
They are Pixelscopic, Ronimo and Yacht Club Games!
Risks and challenges
The risks on this project increase as long as we dare to make it bigger. Doin' Aitor prints is something we can do for sure, but the challenge is to go beyond and convince new illustrators to join us. By doing this we can spread our message better and improve the final product. It would be impossible for us to grow without the KS. The KS will let us (well, we hope so!) to show to the world that doin' prints of small indie games is possible and clever.
Next time a gamer looks for cool prints of Awesomenauts or other game, he will find awesome things.
Our biggest obstacle is the skepticism of potential collaborators (illustrators and game studios). This isn't a problem for the project achievement, but it can stop us to grow even bigger. We hope that -if the KS works well- the KS project will be an awesome way of saying out loud "yes, let's do awesome stuff for all the small awesome indie games!"
We have worked a lot to anticipate possible setbacks and we prepared backup plans. I have backed more than 30 KS projects, so satisfying the backers is one of my main goals (:
And, since this project comes from the heart + I'm a professional and responsible guy, I can assure that if a SUPER UNEXPECTED SETBACK APPEARS (http://www.youtube.com/watch…), we will face it and overcome it (with my personal savings if necessary).
Reputation and honor have higher value than money to me, people.
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Funding period
- (39 days)