Milivoj Ćeran managed to raise 295,000 kuna for his book.
After three weeks, Milivoj Ćeran, a fantasy illustrator from Zagreb, has reach the halfway point in his Kickstarter campaign for publishing an art book of illustrations on the topic of Norse mythology. He has already broken the record for the most successful art crowdfunding campaign in Croatia, reports Poslovni.hr on February 23, 2017.
Ćeran has so far collected 295,000 kuna or 42,200 dollars from 459 supporters. This professor at the Zagreb School of Applied Arts and Design says that at first he did not believe that he could achieve his goal and reach this figure. But, now he aims to double the amount and at the end have a thousand supporters.
“I found a better way of distributing the book, and that is the reason why I will return part of the funds I have already collected. Given that my entire offer on Kickstarter will become cheaper, I expect that this will be an additional motive to increase the number of supporters”, says Ćeran.
He bases his optimism on the fact that he initially wanted to raise just 63,000 kuna, or 9,000 dollars, which he managed to do in just three hours from starting the campaign. After that, in the first 24 hours he raised 161,000 kuna, or 23,000 dollars.
Ćeran says that there are about a hundred illustrators like him in Croatia. All of them mostly start by working on illustrations for picture books and textbooks for local publishers, and then they continue to export their creativity and skills around the world, from the United States to Japan.
The initiator of the most successful Croatian art crowdfunding campaign so far has worked for a number of major studios for development of computer games, such as Blizzard and Sony Online Entertainment. His list of clients also includes Wizards of the Coast, Pathfinder, and the Croatian card game Uskoci.
“I have been working on this project for nine years, but not full time. When I decided to finish it last year, I had the support from a friend, Canadian illustrator John Howe, who became famous for his illustrations of Tolkien, and he helped me organize the crowdfunding campaign”, says Ćeran.
He adds that it is impossible to organize such a Kickstarter campaign from Croatia, and therefore he found a company from the United States which provided him this service. “While there are illustrators who start their own businesses after a success such as this, I will take it easy. First, I will think about launching more similar campaigns in the future”, concludes Ćeran.
More of his artwork can be found here.
