Hey y'all,

We're only two weeks away from the launch of this project and Pintopia 2026! I've been working on my campaign page and am excited to give everyone a preview of the freebies and collaborations with other artists that will be a part of this campaign. Backers for this project will be eligible for up to $70+ of freebies including enamel pins, stickers, and more.

1. I'm partnering with my friends at Arledge Comics to offer a set of mythology and storytelling themed cross-collaboration pins. Their project, Spirits in the Waves, is a continuation of the Spirits in the Woods collection they made during last Pintopia. Make sure to follow along and back their project early to maximize your rewards!

2. I am also running another campaign called Pride in the Pages on Kickstarter this month. Backers who support with projects will receive a free mini pin AND have the option to save money by combining shipping for their rewards. If you're new here, backing Pride in the Pages will also qualify you for the Returning Backer sticker.

3. Backerkit is introducing "Banners" to this Pintopia that allow creators to join thematic sub-groups. I'm one of 17 creators with literary themed projects participating in the Bookworm Banner, which will offer additional freebies for backers who support 3+ participating campaigns. There are 15 themed banners total and you can check them out here!

I hope y'all are getting as excited for Pintopia as I am!

With love and creativity,
Max

I'm happy to announce that all the new genres (not counting collaborations) are finished! Now that I have all the main artwork for this campaign, I've also finished a teaser video with all the new designs. Watch it here!

The Comic Books bookcase is a mixture of superheroes, series, and comic collections. Including a fat orange cat was inspired by Garfield, felt like a must for this design!

The Gothic bookcase is castle, but it's very different from the Fantasy castle design! The colors for this design are dark and moody with lots of atmospheric trinkets. I'm particularly fond of the little bat in the attic.

I'm also a part of Backerkit's Holiday Market that's live until December 1st! All of the items in this sale are ready-to-ship and will be sent out quickly after surveys are completed. I'm offering a variety of pin bundles, grab bags, handmade stained glass pieces, and some other stuff. Check it out here.

Hey y'all,

I have two more genres to share with you and only a couple more to go! I'll also be participating in Backerkit's Holiday Market next week with bin bundles, blind bags, and unique handmade stained glass pieces! Check it out here.

This week I'm including the highly requested fanficiton genre, which is one of my favorite designs from this batch. The bookcase is inspired by Howls Moving Castle - a chaotic, mechanical hodgepodge of works. The buttons and  switches at the bottom are a reimagining of the AO3 search bar and a dutiful little hamster keeps the whole thing running.



I'm also sharing the Cinema genre this week, which includes the first big cat of this series! My favorite detail from this design is that one of the shelves is entirely black and white. The only color on that shelf is the yellow brick road in the Wizard of Oz, which is well known for its innovative use of technicolor film.


With love and creativity,
Max

Hey y'all,

I have two more genres to share and want to give some backstory to the designs!

People were excited about the video game shelf I shared a couple weeks ago, so I'm happy to announce that I'm making something for the tabletop gamers too! I went through an intense board gaming phase several years ago and still have a large collection, so this was a fun design to work on for me. I tried to include references to popular modern games in addition to classic games that have brought people together for decades.

There were a lot of requests during the last campaign for a Young Adult (YA) shelf. I love YA books and still read a good a bit of it as an adult, but I struggled to get started on the design for this genre. The target age range for YA is usually considered teenagers and sometimes includes readers in their early twenties. The subject matter for YA books is also incredibly broad - fiction, nonfiction, and practically every other genre. For those reasons, I decided this bookcase would be less focused on the books and more focused on their reader. I made a nostalgic bookcase that looks like it belongs to a teenager and included references to some of the series that were popular when I was coming of age.

I'm getting really excited for this project to launch!
Max

Hey y'all,

I've been drawing a lot this week and I have two more genres ready to share with you. A few of you noted last week that I sometimes use the term "bookshelves" loosely - you're right about that so I wanted to talk about it!

There's a LOT of variety and overlap in the literary world and this series could probably go on forever if I let it. I've been intentional about choosing a wide variety of topics for the bookshelves so that everyone can find something of interest. When I'm choosing what content to include in the campaign I sort my ideas into three categories:
 

The major genres (specifically fantasy and science fiction) were my starting point for Bookshelves for Bibliophiles. During that campaign I asked backers for ideas and got a lot of ideas to continue the project. Since this is a sequel campaign, you'll be seeing a lot more subgenres and tangentially related topics. 😄

With love and creativity,
Max