An Update on Site Progess
Hey all! Long time no blog haha— I bet you’re wondering what’s been happening while waiting for the next part of the Classics update. This gets long and wordy— we are trying to figure out some important steps to keep the site sustainable in the long term.
EDIT: 11:45pm May 15 2021
We found a bunch of old stickers! Get yourself some neat, high quality stickers for cheap while they’re on clearance!
TL:DR
It’s mostly been a battle for time between school, health, and our various projects on both my and Matt’s ends. Scathe’s canon story is in progress, but it is in the very early stages of development. The Darke Tomes also have a second chapter in development.
I have been working on more art prints and designs to add to the Armory later down the line, and researching how to fund them. The current options are to crowdfund, either directly or indirectly, or to try and maximize the profitability of the Armory.
Prices in the Armory have dropped for the majority of stickers and prints, and the home Armory page has been redesigned for easier navigation. We hope this makes the Armory more accessible.
We are making a lot of progress behind the scenes in terms of writing and planning, but it’s slow going so far, especially in terms of what you’ll be seeing publicly. The biggest concern right now is site sustainability, so please check out the Support Us! page for ways to help us out! <3
Story Stuff
Good news— we have both been writing where we can! I have even started working on plot notes for the actual, canon Scathe Academy series, which feels like a big step in the right direction. I need to get things at least to a first draft of the first few chapters before I can start illustrating anything, but I may also use bits and pieces of the comic that did get finished or are close to being finished to speed things up while working on writing. I’m still trying to balance the overall story I have in mind to make sure each character who is mentioned gets some development and “screen” time.
As for the Darke Tomes and Nightport, I know Matt has been working on the next chapter— though I do not know when it’ll be finished. We have both been busy with multiple outside obligations including school and health— I personally have been judging an art competition— but I am hopeful we can make some meaningful progress soon.
The actual upcoming site pages each have small amounts of progress made on them already, if they’re not already finished. We’re hoping to at least have the Elves and some of the Human pages completely finished within the coming months, though this depends heavily on outside factors impacting our time.
Armory Updates
Now for the Armory— I mentioned that I’ve been working on some prints and designs for the next release. These will be released after the aforementioned contest’s final round is over, since I will have prints of a few pieces I did for the competition as a judge. The beginnings of our Roll With Pride collection will also be released then, and I am currently researching way to fund the rest of the collection.
I recognize that this next bit may sound detached because it is largely a business mindset, but I feel like it’s good for you to understand where my head is at.
Part of me is leaning towards crowdfunding, such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo, but I would only be able to afford part of the collection as a whole to showcase. I worry that I would be unable to fund the collection directly through a campaign like that because I wouldn’t have all the products to show, making things seem disingenuous. Print-on-demand products like hoodies and shirts are easy to make and afford, since I don’t stock them, and therefore don’t have to have them manufactured in advance.
The difficult items are what I will be stocking, namely sticker sheets, keychains, and pins. Those I have to buy prior to any orders coming in, thus investing money into those items, and the minimum number of items per design per product I can actually buy from the company I use means that buying products to showcase will get very expensive, very fast, unless I can design items in a way that reduces the number of orders I need to make.
Another option is to crowdfund indirectly— via profits from a campaign for a Zine, print set, or a small art book featuring character art I have done. I’d have to gauge interest for that though. One other option is simply working to make the Armory as profitable as I can, but there’s very little product on the Armory that is (in my mind) appealing to a broader audience which is not familiar with Mundus Mutans. That is part of why I am developing the Pride collection as well as a more general TTRPG/DnD themed collection. It’s a bit of a catch-22, which leads me to what I’ve already done.
You may have noticed some general redesigns about the Armory page(s), which I implemented to hopefully make things easier to navigate and to enable us to showcase personal favorites as well as new releases! I also have dropped the prices of a bunch of the prints and stickers, which hopefully makes things more accessible for folks given how expensive shipping is at the moment.
If you’d like to help support the website, and our projects here, head over the the Support Us! page. The most helpful things you can do are sharing what we’re doing here— which should take about thirty seconds and a button press— and checking out the Armory for anything you may want to nab.
Thank you all for sticking around! I appreciate your time! <3
