These things I make, I give to you :)

Just one year ago, I launched the Kickstarter for Quiet: Level One. A great many of you blessed me with the two things every creator craves: the financial/temporal runway to work on this book, and an engaged, supportive audience waiting to receive it.

Dear readers of the The Tree of Worlds Substack, I’d like to offer you a gift of a 5% discount, usable for any one of you who secured (or who would still like to secure) a hardcover - and above - copy of Q:L1. Simply fill out this 30-second Google doc, and my project managers and I will ensure that you see this discount subtracted from your final order, once the Pledge Manager is launched in just a few days!

Yes, the “Quiet: Level One” Pledge Manager will launch mere days.

For anyone confused as to what a Pledge Manager is, it’s basically the system that allows us to send the book directly to your home, calculates sales and shipping costs, and give you one last chance to grab any of the delicious merch I’ve made. I’ll cover this more in the Kickstarter update :)

Okay, let’s talk about what I’ve made, that I’m giving to you…

First and foremost, I’ve completed the written script for Q:L1 and illustrated over half the book. I am enjoying this process more than I can say; this is the meat-and-potatoes of storytelling, and I’m in love with this story. Behold, a tiny preview:

There are many more pages to complete before the book is finished, of course, but I’m honestly thrilled with how it’s turning out so far, and I’m more energized than ever.

In the last couple months, I’ve worked on two paintings which will appear in the book, on the inside covers, and I’ve also made significant progress on the World Map. Here are some snippets of those pieces:

The World Map was especially difficult to tackle, for reasons that I covered in Map of Your Life, but I’m finally happy with the composition, and the creation of this image has helped me make significant progress in planning the series. The final result will honestly be one of my most complex paintings ever.

The brass figurines, by the way, are complete. In the end, we cast over 300 of them! I can’t wait to show you more about the process of creation for these guys. They look beautiful, and I know you’re going to love them.

The sticker pack we offered ended up being pretty popular, so I’ve designed three more large-scale (6” inch) stickers:

The one in the middle isn’t quite done, but you get the idea :)

Everyone loves enamel pins, so I’ve revised my original Quiet-and-Narrator-Worm pin, added a new Narrator Worm pin, and fine-tuned the Threadcutter pin that was unlocked as a Stretch Goal during the campaign:

Bonus story: In the last few months, I’ve been in touch with a great prop maker named Joshua, aka Beardlessprops about a potential Threadcutter prop. When we met at Emerald City Comic Con, Josh had been following the project for some time, and found himself consistently tickled by Threadcutter’s whole, you know, vibe. He wanted to get involved, and we’ve planned out a life-size Threadcutter for me, which will hang in the background of all my future YouTube videos.

And then we started discussing the potential of a very limited run of 7” Threadcutter prop collaboration. These would be sculpted by me, cast, painted, treated and assembled by Beardlessprops, and be made available in the Pledge Manager:

(The above Threadcutters are 3D-print prototypes only, but the two sides will have different expressions)

While it’s fun designing high-level merch, the fact is that sometimes the free merch is even more important, since that’s what the majority of your audience will be getting. To that end, I designed a warm and cuddly Narrator Worm bookmark, one that will cheer you on and read along with you in silence every night!

After all, there’s nothing the Narrator Worm loves more than a good book.

Before I sign off, I’d like to remind you once more to claim your 5% discount here! We’re so glad to be launching the Pledge Manager, and I’m personally very excited to show you all this stuff.

Thank you, again, for all your support.

Jonah

(PS: I recently released another Marvel Anatomy video, about The Thing. Maybe you’d enjoy it: What is The Thing Made of?)

(PPS: I just found out that I’ll be in the Artist’s Alley at San Diego Comic Con! I very much hope to see some of you there!)