Ashcakes Kickstarts

I’m not one for New Year’s Resolutions. I see an absurd amount of posts on Facebook of people dedicating themselves to a new them, losing 10 – 50 pounds, sending letters instead of texts, starting up tap dance classes… only to look again in January and see their failures. “Ohmygosh, skipped the gym for the 4^th time this week, better start up again on Monday! #YOLO #Squats #Applepieforsupper” or “Well, I broke my ankle so I guess no more yoga for me LOL” or better yet “I started my new year’s resolution blog about training my budgie to deliver mail #CanadaPostSucks, but I have to shut down the website due to PETA saying I’m cruel and the fact that he hasn’t delivered a single parcel or returned home…#RIPBeakerton” … Yeah… No.

However, everyone loves a new start. New Year, New Beginnings… all that junk. This year I’ve decided I want to make a difference, in a different way.

Which is why I’m starting up Ashcakes Kickstarts. Every pay day of this year (which is every other Friday for me) I’ll be logging on to Kickstarter and choosing a campaign to put some funds towards.

Be it a struggling musician who’s ready to release their first album, an Aussie Pie Shop in Toronto who wants to open their doors, a little girl who paints portraits from photos but just could never quite scrape together enough cash, I want to help kickstart these people to follow their dream. A dream they can’t afford to pay for out of their own pocket, a dream that they want to share with others and allow others to help build and achieve.

For those of you who haven’t heard of Kickstarter, here’s the deal: Kickstarter is a website (see: www.kickstarter.com) that has a new way to fund creative projects. Each project is independently created, and together, creators and backers make projects happen. It’s rather impressive crowdsourcing, with 44% of projects reaching their funding goals so far!

The cool thing is, you don’t have to pledge a massive chunk of funds to help on a project. Most projects ask for at least $1! And the cool part is, the more you pledge, the better your rewards are.

Take the Ouya for example. One of the most commonly known Kickstarters (and one of the first projects I got behind) reached its completion goal back in Aug 2012. The Ouya is an affordable video game console built on android, so games would be free to play. If you pledged $10, you could reserve your username, $25 got you a username and a founder’s emblem. $95 got you and Ouya Console & Controller. $140 got you a Limited Edition Kickstarter exclusive… and so on and so forth.

So, obviously, the more you pledge, the cooler the stuff gets. The flipside is if the project doesn’t reach it’s funding goal, you don’t get charged, and you don’t get treats (aww). So if you have a project you are backing (and want the cool perks that go along with it…) post it to your facebook, twitters and whatever other social media the cool kids use these days.

So, (now that you know what Kickstarter is and my devious plan) without further ado, I present to you, the First #AshcakesKickstart for 2014:

Legendary Rupees by High-Res Props 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/766761497/legendary-rupees

 “Stunning semi-translucent rupees in a variety of colours”

A Prop shop out of Calgary is utilising Kickstarter in order to create a bulk amount of rupees, as doing them in small amounts wouldn’t exactly be feasible. They are updating their Facebook (facebook.com/HiResProps), Twitter (@HiResProps) and Instagram (@hi_rez_props) with photos through the creating process, so you get to see the product develop almost in real time.

I chose Legendary Rupees because well, if you know me, you know I am a cosplayer and prop maker myself, so supporting a fellow artist is always high on my priority list. It never hurts to have a good prop shop on your contact list too! That and I’m a gamer, who has a boyfriend who loves Zelda. They are also relatively local, being in the same province as us, so I figured why not start with someone close to home.

Now, this project has already reached 100% funding. So no matter what, I will get my rupees (insert maniacal laugh here). The excellent thing about this High-Res Props project is that they have created stretch goals. Once a project hits 100%, they will often add a stretch goal to try and get gather more funds before time is up. Stretch goals mean more options or items added to the perks list, so raising more money is totally a win win. In this case, they have added more colour options (Fluorescent at $1500 and Glow in the Dark at $2500).

 Fluorescent Colours

Glow in the dark under Black light

With the total amount pledged at $2,431, the backers have unlocked the first stretch goal and are pretty damn close to the next.

I’m excited to see the finished product, with a delivery date of approx. March 2014 (That’s listed right under the perk level you select) and will be sure to update on how they turned out!

Hopefully this blog has given you a little context about how kickstarter works and encouraged you to back someone, if not High-Res Props themselves! If you have any questions at all about Kickstarter, feel free to email me ashcake@ymmpodcast.com or head to the Kickstarter FAQs page! What is Kickstarter?

Until next time. . .

All Photos credited to Hi-Res Props from their Kickstarter Page, Kickstarter Logo from Kickstarter.com