In mid 2020, veteran character and concept artist Allison Theus turned to Cognitive Films to help produce a Kickstarter campaign trailer for her second concept art book, Mostly Monsters.

Although she had already organically grown a healthy fan base through sites like Deviant Art, ArtStation and Facebook, the video for this campaign needed to connect with a brand new audience that may not be very familiar with her work.

Allison’s vast collection of professional and personal work revolves around the creation of fantastic beasts, dragons, aliens, and hybrid animals could be summed up in a simple title: Mostly Monsters.   She had spent over two decades as an artist visualizing and world building for top entertainment companies and video game developers. World building is the process of constructing an imaginary world, sometimes associated with an entire fictional universe.  It seems easy enough to imagine a world, but it is another thing to bring these visuals to life.  Amateur and professional artists who follow Allison’s career were always reaching out to her asking about her process with the hopes of gaining a little insight that will help them take their work to a higher level.

She felt is was finally time to publish another book.

Her new book, Mostly Monsters, would be a collection of Allison’s half finished drawings, process sketches, completed creatures and fully visualized worlds.  Printing and publishing a full-color art book can be very costly.  Cover concepts, layout, and proofing take a lot of time, while printing, packaging and delivery cost a lot of money.  That’s why she turned to Kickstarter.

Every successful Kickstarter campaign starts with a great idea, followed by a video to communicate the idea clearly to the world.

She wanted to create a video that would introduce newcomers to her art, offer a brief background of what she has been working on, and invite viewers to step inside her world. But above all, the video needed to be authentic to her.  She was not interested in performing.

With all of her artistic talent and impressive career, Allison is incredibly humble.  If you were to meet her at the grocery store checkout line, you would never guess that an army of terrifying and beautiful creatures are rapping at the door of her mind, ready to be summoned by a simple yet graceful stroke of a pen.

Elements of the Kickstarter Trailer

We chose to capture Allison in her element: Simply drawing.  By combining a minimalistic studio shoot, candid footage of her in her favorite everyday sketching escapes, and a simple script voiced by Allison herself, we were able to capture the authenticity that would create a real connection.  To bring her artwork to life we utilized light animation with AfterEffects to add subtle motion and depth to a few of her pieces.

The result

Ultimately, the Mostly Monsters Kickstarter campaign was a wild success, bringing in over $57,000 in funding to help design, print and deliver her book as well as a slew of bonus products such as stickers, pins and a calendar.  We were happy to help make this dream a reality