The Project:

Welcome to our first Indiegogo campaign!

We're launching this campaign to help create the world’s biggest online learning resource, with live workshops, a library, features and all specifically dedicated to the world of COSPLAY, LARP, costuming, and props.

This site and resource will be for the world community of Cosplayer’s, Costumiers, Larpers, Crafters, and collectors

What if, you could not only have easy access to all the information currently lost out there?, but to also gain access to a ton more new guides?

We will connect the players with the Game Designers, but get first hand input into future title designs.

We will bring together all the information currently out there, and also create a more guides.

What you could connect with the Game Designers, getting first hand input into future title designs?

We have worked for years with the film, game and the television industries, who better to connect the Cosplayers and fans with the creators, more to the point, who better to write some of these guides.

We work with many others in the industry who created some of those pieces you all dream of making.

You name it, we want you to have it.

Be it patterns, galleries, walk throughs, teaching videos, photographic step by step guides and best of all ahuge channel list of  live classrooms and demos, where the players and the experts can congregate to get the kind of support you’ve never seen, and better still, all under one roof.

The Aim of the Portal:

• Save you the hours of searching for help, trawling YouTube and the sifting of lost replies on Facebook, by bringing all the answers to a single well organized portal.
• Support and help promote Cosplayers, Larper, and Costumier who wants or needs a platform for them to show off their hard work. We want to help grow the players following and support the next generation of Cosplay stars.
• Showcase all your photos and art in a gallery that won’t get forgotten
• Represent your favourite game, well we are already working with a long list of game dev’s who are crying out to have the “real” fans of their titles strut their stuff at events, so we have already created a gallery of players interested in getting some of these exclusive opportunities
• Create clear teaching guides for you to follow and we’ve already started making contact with a large number of players and creators out there who share our dream of making things, not only much easier to find, but easier to understand, whatever level of crafter you are, or budget you have to spend.

Content on the Portal:

• 10 New Pattern’s per day : Costumes, Armours & Props
• Concept Art: supplied by some of the industry’s leading indie artists
• Daily Featured Cosplayers
• Featured Cosplayers wall of Fame
• Weekly Live Streaming-  Classrooms & Demos
• Daily Wall of Fame – Cosplayers, Larpers and Costumiers  photo submissions
• Weekly Competitions and prize giveaways (hardware, software, beta keys from our Game Dev Partners)
• Library of How-To’s ,
• Library of Photo walk throughs & Videos
• Articles featured Cosplayers, Larpers, Indie Games, press releases and tutorials
  
  

• Weekly Top 10 Votes on topics such as Cosplay outfits from conventions, Characters, Larp events, Manufacturers etc.
• Latest / Top 20 New Product Features, this is to include patterns, concept art, video walk –throughs, Books, and purchasable trader products
• Kickstarter highlights
• News Other posts –  Movies, Comics, Games, LRP, CCG and anything else that is geeky
• The Depot: Through bulk community buying, we aim to be able negotiate the supply of materials such as silicones and other expensive costume & prop making at almost cost
•  Marketplace – Multi Trader Market place – like Etsy but specialised for Geeks so a one stop market for Cosplay, Larp, Steam etc and all those cool geeky things (all indie traders welcome)

Ultimately “The Crystal Anvil” is all about building a learning, teaching community around a colossal great library of resource of all things related to Cosplay, Larp, Leather Crafting, Costumes and Props, gaming, guides, tutorials AND at the same time, we want the project to be a place where any player or indie crafter can get their chance to reach an audience of followers.

What We Need

We need £35,000 pounds funding which will enable us to create the complete framework for the features listed above and to be able to begin gathering the content, be it sourcing existing material or creation of new content.  It’s not going to get you everything right now, however it will enable us to get all the features working to a level you can use them and help us further develop the site. We will keep you informed via email and personal updates twice weekly.

How will the £35,000 get spent

“Thanks to Laura Jessica Cranston suggesting we show you how the money will be spent” So a rough breakdown of estimated costs and spend will be:

The purpose of this fundraising is to create a site that will reach a self-funding level within 3 months, as while we would love to rely on free everything as many other sites do, we are all very aware of how those sites, simply lose their following or die a slow death through lack of realistic support.

Website development & Server/Hosting etc. – Est £6,000 (one off cost)
New site framework & platform robust enough to handle all the features and user interfaces, including graphic design, Majority in house development, with key specialist area widgets to be outsourced.

Product Development - £4000 One off to develop a collection of the top ten as voted by the members props, costumes and armours. Ongoing cost once the membership levels can justify this.The in house development of complete “Deluxe” Cosplay & Larp costumes. This will include in depth videos, written instructions, photographic walk through, covering various levels of expertise.

Marketing & PR – £5000 Per month recurring (3 month cost £15,000, Self-sustaining target, 3 Months)
Sponsored Partnerships, Staff Writers, Guest Writers. Implementation of a marketing strategy that broadens the reach of the project, by the recruitment of a small team of staff writers, able to delivery daily regular quality, relevant content.  The self-sustaining target is to achieve 1000 paid subscribers to the site, monthly membership will be $5 and will include all the site features, patterns and content for FREE. As the subscriber base grows, so the founder members and pledgers will be worked with to decide by majority decision as to future site developments.

Content Creation - £10,000
Brand new How-To guides written, photographed and filmed. 200 funded brand new guides
Sourcing & Re- Writing of old, but useful guides, with permission, the re-creation of approx. 250 guides, to kick off. In addition, we will develop a content guide and self-submission feature.

What Happens If We Don’t Reach Our Goal

We believe with your help, “The Crystal Anvil” campaign will be a success and reach the goal of £35,000 Pounds. In the unlikely event we do not reach our goal, Alex, Sam & David at The Crystal Anvil will evaluate what can still be produced with the money contributed, supplemented by sponsor participation. If development continues to moves forward, your contributions will be used to create the best resource possible. If the funds raised are insufficient to produce even the basic framework needed, your money will be refunded minus the Indiegogo and Paypal fees.

The Team

A bit of an old timer, I first got involved with costumes, Cosplay and Larp around 20 years ago, but from my first event looking around, I can still remember how blown away I was by all the players and costumes and decided even then to dedicate my life to the hobby and industry. Like everyone else, I started out making my own costumes, armour and props from scraps of this and that partly because of budget, but then I also got/get a real kick out of looking bak when the costume was done, this grew, and grew. To cut a long story short 15 years later I’m now very lucky to have worked on many of the leading Movies, Computer Titles & TV productions creating thousands of costumes, armours and props. Now all these years on, I simply want to share all the knowledge and is one reason I released the book “The Crystal Anvil” A complete guide to costuming, armour creation, props and tools. I wanted to share everything, the teaching, the techniques, the thinking behind the designs, and then finally, the designs and patterns themselves.

This sparked an idea and the team grew;

Costume, Armour & Prop DesignAlex Agricola

Conceptual Design Art

Ralph Horsley & Alex Agricola

Layout

Daniel Riley & Tom Dowler

Graphic Design

Ginny Salmon & Aislinn Toye

Creative Content Co-ordination

Sam Mottram

Web Development

Sam Mottram – Andy Coley

Translation

Laurent Surville - Sebastian Meusel - Therese Tess Strom

Community Supporters

Kelly Jane Poole & Ragemore Roberts - Nick “Birds of truth” & countless others

Which would take up a huge list here !!!