I got a wild hair this afternoon and, upon gazing at my LE prints up on my wall, decided to float this to the community.  Nothing about this is set in stone; this is an exploratory post to gauge interest.

Two years ago the Limited Edition committee reached out to Denis Beauvais to see if we could commission a piece from him.  Beauvais is most well-known as the artist of the "chess piece" series of Dragon magazine covers.  We received an unexpected response -- he was interested, but not in creating one from scratch.  He produced a private, commissioned work some time ago for a customer, but he still retains the publication rights (he possesses a high-quality scan).  Incidentally, the original customer was contacted and was thrilled that it might end up as a published print (and who wouldn't; having the original of this would increase the value tremendously).

The plan never launched past that point, mostly due to concerns among the Committee members on the logistics of creating the print.  Beauvais lives in Vancouver (edit: he did, but now lives in Baja California), and has legal issues that most likely prevent his travel to the U.S.  So the printing / proofing / signature process becomes quite unwieldy and expensive.

However, in revisiting this myself right now, I think it's do-able.  ASSUMING (and these are all big If's):

- Beauvais is still interested in this (again, it's been almost exactly two years since our last communication);
- The digital scan he possesses is indeed high-enough quality to produce the kind of print we want;
- There's enough interest from the Acaeum community in committing to this (in the neighborhood of 75 prints)

To get around the logistics problem, we would source a printer local to Mr. Beauvais in Vancouver.  He could provide them with the scan and the print produced.  I would fly to Vancouver, bring the prints to him to be signed, and return with the prints on the plane.  I would then handle the shipping out to Acaeum members and/or bringing prints to NTRPGCon next June for folks to pickup in-person.

The Committee was able to get a somewhat-recent price quote to give us a ballpark of the costs involved, and it's looking like about $150 per print, plus shipping if you're not picking up in person at the Con (about $15-$20 domestically).  This could fluctuate, of course, depending on what the printer in Vancouver comes back with.  As with previous prints, this is strictly a non-profit operation on our part; I can't remember if we publicly published financials on previous projects before, but I'm happy to do it on this one.  The "shipping" costs here (my travel to/from Vancouver) will be higher than previous, but about the same as trying to get the prints physically mailed to me.  (Incidentally, if any of our fine members happen to live in Vancouver or reasonably close, we could potentially use your assistance with this; please PM me if interested).

Secondly, I've decided to further shake up the loyalty list procedure a bit.  As before, please indicate your interest in this project by replying to this thread (no PMs to me on this, please).  I will keep a list of those interested in a separate post here.  The list, however, will be unnumbered.  I get print #1 because I'm doing all the work.  NTRPGCon will get print #75.  The other prints will be randomly distributed.  I'm going to put them all in mailing tubes, shuffle the pile, and randomly stick mailing labels on them.  For picking prints up at the Con, same deal; if there's 15 prints to be delivered, they'll all be in sealed mailing tubes, and you get a random one.  While some may grumble about not receiving the same print number as they did last time (though you do actually still have a 1-in-73 chance!), I think this is fairer than continuing to award early print numbers to folks who originally participated in our first project almost 15 years ago.

In the event that we have more than 75 interested, we will prioritize frequent Acaeum contributors over one-post wonders, who assumably just registered with the forums in order to score a print.  Anyone may indicate interest in purchasing a second print as well (please post this publicly, below); as before, these second print requests will only be fulfilled if we have open spots.  No more than two prints per person.

The usual disclaimer: do not send any money at this time!  Once we (hopefully) have 75 interested parties, we'll move forward with actually contacting Mr. Beauvais and seeing if he's still in.  Then getting a printer quote.  And THEN posting a "send your money" announcement.

Foul

The Interested List!  (updated Mar 1 2024):

67 of 75 spots registered (though we will launch the project once we reach 65 registrations)

FoulFoot
burntwire brothers
dbartman
Sir Kill Alot
stratochamp
shadeun
Thunderdave
smarmy1
Zenonmarfat
chromaticknight
carrejo
Badmike
gregory
brute
Lordan
wjaehnig
Heresy
Blackmoor
mrmanowar
dosselmeyer
elc52518
Skullhammer
Kobad
Killerladydog
misterspock
b-36
Invincible Overlord
mdr003
HermitFromPluto
red wizard
Seany
cdenham
Grug Greyskin
nevcoup
Thor
Improv
Rabbit_67
Sea-to-sky-games
Tszii
prufrock15
mark1107
rhynne
chrisdeputron
lucyjoyce
llyrbs
Egg of Coot
GamesGuy
Ligmancer
TheVeteranDM
dbartman #2
stratochamp #2
smarmy1 #2
chromaticknight #2
Seany #2
cdenham #2
Thor #2
Improv #2
prufrock15 #2
FoulFoot #2
Thunderdave #2
wjaehnig #2
Seany #2
Heresy #2
llyrbs #2
stratochamp #3
chromaticknight #3
NTRPGCon

I'm in for two.

I'd take two and I love the random number process for #'s 2-74.

Im in Foul

(thanks for this and all you do - as always!)

I would take two as well!

Hi FoulFoot,

I would be very interested in a print as well.

Please add me to the list!

- Richard

I’m in for one print, thank you for taking this on! love all the previous prints

Count me in please