Why we're doing preorders instead of Kickstarter

“If you see a need, fill a need”
- Sermon notes from Pastor Kenny Thomas

This section is going to be short this month. We have a lot of moving pieces right now, and everything is falling into place for us to launch preorders of Chronicles of the Elohim - Book One: Evangelion!

Preorders will go live on September 1, 2026 and will be open until December 31, 2026. To secure yours, just go to www.kaleolegends.toys.

Before going into why a preorder and not Kickstarter, I want to tell a story…

My wife and I just got back from a mission trip to Antigua and Monte Rico, Guatemala. While we were there, my wife was part of a medical team that provided free medical care for residents, which is an incredible feat in and of itself. The team I was a part of helped build a home for one family and an outdoor kitchen area for another (because cooking inside their house would fill the structure with smoke). I will never forget the people I met in Monte Rico, especially a young local named Elisabeth. Using Google Translate to communicate with her, Elisabeth told me that she loved to draw and dance, but her family couldn’t afford to buy paper let alone get her into a dance class. The more she shared, the more my heart broke. She lived with six other children and her aunt and uncle and all they can do is just survive.

During our return flights home, I found myself thinking about that family and Elisabeth for most of the journey with a nagging question: what can I do? How can I help give Elisabeth (and others like her) an opportunity? Which has led me to rethink our current business model. Making toys is awesome but just making toys for the sake of consumption feels…wrong. And I would say this about any profession honestly. What are we accomplishing by creating and designing these figures? We might be telling stories or sharing narratives, or maybe even sharing beliefs across cultures and communities…and there’s nothing wrong with any of that. But I believe that if we are doing these things simply to grow our own companies and build our names/brands, we’ve missed a greater opportunity. We create toys for consumers, that is true, but what if there was a way to create toys that, when purchased, a percentage of that cost goes to a charity that is specifically designed to help give kids opportunities.

This is a very new idea for me and for Kaleo, but my experience in Monte Rico with Elisabeth has broken my heart. Kaleo will be going down the same road, but the destination has changed…we are still making toys, that’s our passion, but we can’t just make toys and tell stories. I’ve seen the need and I aim to fill it. I am looking at either partnering with or creating my own 501c3 that is linked to Kaleo. Like I said, this is something new and it’s going to take time to figure out. But it’s worth the time it will take to make sure it works.

I will be sharing more on this as we move forward.

With our recent showing at Karvar Kon, along with another podcast interview with JunkionCrafts, we’ve had quite a few questions about our decision to move away from doing a Kickstarter campaign and going straight to preorders. So if that’s you, let me share our reasoning:

Kaleo Legends as a company definitely has a religious bent to it, that’s very clear and if you have met me or members of our team, you will know that this is at the heart of our vision. That's not meant to scare anyone off, but to give reason and context to our decision of staying off of Kickstarter for this project.

First, we would be a niche within a niche. We have been told by multiple reliable sources that this position is a higher risk on the Kickstarter platform than a majority of other toy/collectible campaigns.

We were still ok with launching on Kickstarter, until our second reason came to light. We have been given an opportunity to pay for the steel molds ourselves. We have been blessed with some funding as well as people who are excited to see Kaleo get off the ground. This makes the cost of what we need to go into production significantly less…and very attainable with just running preorders.

The third reason is the length of a Kickstarter campaign versus a campaign with open preorders. We would have complete control over when to open and when to close the preorder window. Which means when we head out on our convention tour this Fall, we will be taking preorders for three months. This feels substantially better than only having one or two shows during a smaller period of time.

Lastly, doing a campaign like this will mean that there are no fees or percentages that will inevitably eat into our margins. The money from the preorders will go directly into production (and potentially to the above-mentioned charity if we can figure that out before September hits).

We hope that this will lead to a cleaner launch for us.

We are starting to brainstorm about accessory packs for the Elohim characters. We are asking questions about weapon types, additional armor pieces (this includes back accessories like halos), belts and bandoliers…and the big one…modes of transportation. This isn’t so much about vehicles, but giving the Elohim a way to travel individually. If you’re picking up what we’re putting down, then you’ll know we’re talking about wings! (And if you know me, you know that I greatly dislike the visual representation of feathered-winged angels.) The cliche visual that angels have these large bird-like wings is not an accurate portrayal of the divine agents. But…for the sake of the stories we are telling, we needed to find a way for them to be mobile. Not just functionally mobile, but they should be able to move quickly between destinations. So the question became, could we make wings that act more like a tool that could be put on or taken off rather than something permanently attached to their bodies - like another accessory…a back accessory of sorts.

We’ve been playing around with different wing designs and have landed on something that feels like a good balance between function and design. We have a clear design pattern that we are using for the Elohim characters and so the wings needed to fit that same aesthetic. So check out the Work-In-Progress designs for the wings, a halo and a sky blade (sneak peak at a Book 2 design)

“The Two Witnesses” Comic

Here is a little teaser for the art style for this short form comic

The Creator allowed me a glimpse of the Triune. I was shown again the one that had approached me before my ascension. In a moment, I understood that in my transformation, I took on an image that reflected the physical nature of the Triune and the One that stood in front of me was a member of the Triune, a second Creator. He is Yeshua, Ben Ha-Elohim. He is the one who holds the stars in his hand and rules the cosmos in union with the Father, the first Creator. There are no gods that stand before him. In his presence I found myself, the Metatron and All-Seer, casting down my gaze and falling to the ground so that my eyes could not perceive him.

In a moment I understood, he was the One who brought low the Tannin - the chaos dragons that raged before the ordering of creation. He was the one who walked with the first Adam before the fall and was with us after.

He is Yeshua, King of kings…by his name will the sons of Adam be saved…

This round of artist callouts, there’s only two this round that I want to bring to your attention:

1. Cameron Suter. Cameron is a concept artist and illustrator with an active patreon. Right now on Instagram, he is creating a bestiary of biblical creatures. His work is incredible and deserves more attention. Go check him out on IG.

2. Matt Rhodes. Matt is an illustrator working on a large scale project called Dead Gods. It’s story that takes place in an Antediluvian time period. Everytime his work pops up on IG I have to stop my doom scrolling and just look through his work. The story is incredible and the art fits the world he’s building perfectly. Go check him out on IG or his personal webpage - www.mattrhodesart.com.

Till next time,

Jeff from Toy Maker’s Forge