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VAULT3D: Tim Riopelle- Journey Through Art, Discovering a Unique Style, and the Power of Blockchain Technology
Join us, as we chat with guest, Tim Riopelle, As a professor and an artist, Tim has journeyed through the realms of animation, video game design, and visual effects for films, eventually finding his niche within the enchanting landscape of NFTs.
During our conversation, Tim elucidates the intricate dance between his creative process and influences, unearthing how he discovered his distinct style. We delve into his journey from animation to art, punctuated with anecdotes from his work on various projects. Tim's insights into the Ethereum and Tezos ecosystems and the distinctive benefits of using Tezos for NFTs are truly illuminating.
As we dive deeper, we venture into the world of generative NFT projects, discussing how platforms like Async Art can streamline the process of creation. With transparency, Tim shares his struggles of balancing a regular job with the world of Web3 and the realities of managing social media in the NFT space. Yet, through it all, his conviction in the transformative power of blockchain technology and the revolutionary potential of NFTs in the art world remains unflinching. This episode is a journey through the dynamic world of NFTs, teeming with insights and inspiration for every artist navigating this brave new world. Join us as we celebrate the fusion of art and technology, with Tim Riopelle offering us a front-row seat to his creative odyssey.
Tim links:
X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/timriopelle
SuperRare: https://superrare.com/timriopelle
Foundation: https://foundation.app/@timriopelle
SHILLR:
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Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@shillrxyz
GM. This is Boone and you're listening to Vaulted, a Web3 podcast series from the Shuler Archives. This episode was originally recorded on January 21, 2022 and features Tim Riappel. Tim is an art professor and visual artist who blends science fiction with elements of abstraction and surrealism to create otherworldly images. In this episode, we discussed Tim's early journey into animation, comparing the ecosystems of Ethereum and Tezos, the magic of smart contracts and much more. As always, this podcast is for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied upon for financial advice. Boone and guests may own NFTs discussed. Now it's time to grab some coffee and dive into this combo with Tim. Good evening, tim. How are you?
Speaker 2:man. Well, I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too. I'm glad we were able to get this worked out. You're in Pacific West, so it's around 7.30. 7.30. Got you man? Yeah, we're here. It's around 9.30, 10 o'clock here in Austin. It's late.
Speaker 2:It is, but I was a gamer before I got into NFTs, so late nights are my forte, my creative drive kicks in at 9, and my wife's like, oh, come on out, I want to work so bad. But yeah, no, I'm ready to go.
Speaker 1:Awesome man. Yeah, I feel you in that because I work. I'm glad I get to work a regular job where I can kind of make my own schedule. But it is expected that you probably should be available between 9 and 5, but my manager asked me he's like when are you the most effective? I'm like, honestly, man, you probably shouldn't even reach out to me before 10. You know 11 is probably right around when you can start reaching out. But I don't start getting creative to the act of noon Evening. You know that's just yeah, yeah. So it's strange, balancing that in Web 3 because this is so far in Candyland as far as I'm concerned and then having to go toggle between a regular job is challenging.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I work at a university and it's just so. Oh, you're kidding, I'm a lab supervisor at a university called Capoleto. Yeah, it's like going from very Universities are run in a very certain way and then I'll come home and, where I just have, I have full control over this whole thing. I don't really have a structure to what I do, it's just kind of driven by how I'm feeling at that moment. Yeah, to blend the two worlds and stuff like that, it is definitely difficult to spin the challenge, just last year for sure.
Speaker 1:It's challenging. I think, though, once it becomes more established and there's more foundation between both of our fees, I just have this feeling that we're probably going to be rewarded a little bit for having that challenge of dealing with the complexities of both worlds. That's just a first move of challenge. It's the sacrifice that you make when you want to be early on something. Yeah, I'm all in.
Speaker 2:when I got in Earlier this year NFTs were cool. I was like, oh, I'm in the middle of a lot of stuff. I'm like what's going to happen when things slow down? What's going to happen? Then, all of a sudden, earlier last year things slowed down. I was like okay, okay. But it was funny because right around that time Tezos came in. I was just like this whole new world. People were like no, I don't want to go to Tezos, it's just cheaper out, it just benefited Anybody.
Speaker 2:I know that was a more popular artist that went over to Tezos at the time did really well. They got way more followers. They were able to offer like their pieces are, I don't know. The pricing is a bit less Like when they first move over from their East stuff and that's like a big thing people talk about that. The pricing is all different, but it's a completely different market. It's not like the ETH market at all. There's people there. When things cost a bit less, you can afford. You can sell more. You can sell more additions, you can offer more to more people because there's that market there. There's those yeah, the numbers are there to do that sort of stuff. So that's what I think a lot of people don't understand. They're just like oh yeah, but you're offering your work cheaper on there, so why would I buy it on ETH? And then that I'm like, well, yeah, you got to break it up, like you got to have a plan for ETH if you're an artist, and you got to have a plan for Tezos and I've yeah, I basically I did release some ETH pieces, but I kind of transferred over to Tezos for a bit because I kind of see it as ETH 2.0 and what it's going to be like. So, yeah, to try to train myself up on like you can afford to do all these drop mechanics and and mess around with like collector rewards and do all this stuff right now on the cheap and not have to pay like 150 US every time you want to try something or like mint additions or do like air drops, for that, like air drops could cost you like 20 grand to send out to like, yeah, I don't know, like 50 people or something like that. I don't even know. Sometimes it's just it's crazy.
Speaker 2:And I found kind of with like Tezos it. Yeah, I opened up this like when things were slow. I was like huh, I'm like like I've heard Tezos is cool and I released my first piece and it like sold out and like I can't. It was like 10 minutes. And then my next piece was like, yeah, wow, and then I had my pieces go like less than a minute after that. They were just like I had.
Speaker 2:I was like, for some reason, um, yeah, my work really resonated with people and like, but there's a lot of bots too, right, and people trying to flip, yeah, but yeah, for the most part, like now, it's like the people who collect my work just like kind of really like it, secondary sales slowed down and that's kind of. I think that's overall, though, for everyone, but yeah, yeah, but yeah, no, it's, it's kind of it was interesting Now, the people that collect my work. There's like no bots overrunning anything and it's like I'm still kind of selling out, but it takes longer. It takes like days as opposed to like minutes to hours sort of thing.
Speaker 2:But but yeah, it was crazy when that was happening, cause, like it was like me. It was me like Nate Hill, um, and then there was all the other people that had kind of started out on Tesos and really made a name for themselves. But I remember coming over with Nate, uh, and we were kind of we're doing stuff at the same time and we were always chatting back and forth. We're like, oh, is this too pricey? Like are we listing ourselves? Or like, yeah, nate's been my buddy for a lot of this time.
Speaker 2:Um, like, yeah, it's so awesome, like it just happened randomly, Like we just liked each other's work and then we were like, hey, do you want to do a collab? And we did a superic lap. Um yeah, and all this.
Speaker 1:I feel like that's how I think that's like 90% of every like people, like every person that's become friends in the space. That that's how it happens, like it's just there, there's there's an energy, there's a, there's just a common bond and there's just a feeling that you get, you know, um, that it's just like you know. You just you can't explain that and then, unless you've done it, you can't really tell that to people. I mean, I got you.
Speaker 2:It's just the thing too bad and like we're all like I haven't like talked to Nate, like physically, like I haven't even voiced, like I've only chatted with him.
Speaker 2:We have like I really resonate with his work and when, like he sends an idea and stuff like that, I just I have all these ideas on how to, because it's just the style of it, right, it's just this black and white and it's a lot of like texture and it's a lot of depth, and it's like knowing, like, yeah, I've composited for like ever, like I've been I was in the industry for like 10 years doing compositing and you've taught you, learn about depth and compositing an image and like giving giving images scale, and like what Nate does, he does it very, he does it like with his lines and his just patterns and and just like he has a sense of scale there and like he manages to hit on all these things that you can like a 2D way.
Speaker 2:And then, yeah, like when I see that I'm like wow, like I could just use my 3D knowledge to take kind of his ideas and transform them into like a 3D space or give them just kind of, yeah, attach my style to it. And because it's like it's insane, because it's like a more I don't know how to say it because, yeah, it's just like these black and whites. But you can see, yeah, you can see one of those pieces up on the homepage, that that's the the name.
Speaker 1:But, and while we're, while we're like sitting here being mesmerized by your art, like give it, let's, let's, let's give a quick. Let me have you introduce yourself, like so you know who are you, what do you do? You know a little bit of like, kind of like, what got you here, man? So my name is Tim Riappel.
Speaker 2:I am a surreal abstract I don't know how to say this the sci-fi. I'm a sci-fi artist that like kind of focuses on more abstract, like geometric and surreal pieces. Yeah, I, funny enough, I just started getting into creating my own art about four, just over four, years ago. I've worked, I've been in the industry like I work in the animation industry as a lighting and rendering artist, so it's all very much tied to what I do already. So I've been. I've been here in Vancouver since 2005. I came out here to get into video game design. I went to the wrong school. It wasn't really the greatest school.
Speaker 2:So, but it was okay, like it got me. They got me my first gig. I worked at this wrestling game called pro wrestling X and I was a, I was an animator and I was a modeler. I kind of did it all and it was great. I learned a lot to that experience. And then, yeah, just I started to work all these small gigs. I worked for some like small startup game engines and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:But this was like right around the time when unity and unreal came out. So it's just like they just got it, yep, yep, demolished everything in their path. So what's that happen? I moved into, like I was like a hard surface modeling and texture artist. So I was doing, I was working on gigs and doing stuff for like, like visuals and like. For instance, there was like a carpentry video they're making and they had to have the 3d model show how to like put together like I don't know, like a well or building, like a bird house or stuff like that. So they're like these, like visuals that we had to create. And there's like there's like other stuff. There was like military contracts for just like doing assets and breakdowns of different different things that I guess soldiers could look at and like break apart the stuff like visually and software. So I was like doing stuff like that. And then I had some freelance projects where I just kind of did, yeah, like motion graphics and other stuff. So I was kind of all over the map. I was doing kind of a little bit of everything for probably from like 2006 till around 2012. And then, yeah, and then I wanted to get into visual effects.
Speaker 2:My brother is a visual effects artist, my brother Scott. So I come from a family of five total, so like I have four other siblings, so it's a big family. So so yeah, he's, he's a VFX supervisor in Toronto. I think he's working on an Apple project, apple TV project right now, but he's, yeah, he's super successful and he's like, yeah, really, really good at what he does, but he's sick, but yeah, so he, I really liked what he was doing and compared to video games at the time, you could do so much more stuff with, with movies and with like, because with rendering for games you're limited to like poly counts and like file sizes and all the stuff. It really limits how much you can do with it, but in film you're just throwing everything at it, you're throwing like a K text.
Speaker 2:You're throwing all this stuff into it to make it good.
Speaker 2:So I wanted to get into that and learn about it. But so, yeah, when I went to actually went to the University I work at now in North Vancouver, I did a year of a two year program and I dropped it after the first year because I had gotten a job as a green screen removal artist at a company called Bardell. And so I that contract is, funny enough, it started right after I was done school, but it went till like three weeks after I was supposed to start school that next semester. So I was like I don't know what to do, like can I come back? They're like no, you got to like postpone the semester or you got to come back before and not take the job. And I was like, oh, I'm like I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1:So I ended up.
Speaker 2:I ended up taking the job and I postponed that semester or postponed that year of school. But, yeah, I ended up like my first contract ended, I got an extension and then after that, yeah, I got put onto a feature film. That was, I was a green screen removal artist. And they're like, hey, do you know how to light? And I said, yes, but I had no idea what lighting was. I didn't, I didn't know anything about it. But I didn't know how to green screen remove either. When I, when I got the job at Bardell, so that's right, so I just I just said I could, and that's pretty much what I've done my whole career is to say yes and figure out, figure it out afterwards. But yeah, so yeah, I got. I got that gig after.
Speaker 2:It was just like a how long was it? It was like just a month and a bit, but it was cool. It was like this project with the director. It was it wasn't a Disney project but it had all these ex Disney people that were on it, like the had the director from a while. Sorry, what was it? It was called the Prophet, so Khalil to bronze the Prophet, and it was animated version. It's kind of like Fantasia in a sense, where they have like this overarching story. But then they had all these individual pieces that other artists around the world did like little animated pieces.
Speaker 2:They all kind of tie into the story of the art Very cool, yeah, so we were responsible for like the main over arc, which was, yeah, it was good, but yeah, it was like it was the director from Lion King, it was the Roger Ollers, it's his name. It was the like they had the 2D artist who drew like Lumiere and he did all these other characters and all the old Disney films we had, like the producer from Monsters Incorporated and like Pocahontas.
Speaker 2:Wow, we're in a small studio, like it was the small room, and you're like going in and just like sitting with these people or like reviewing your work, and you're just like this is so surreal Because I didn't know anything about the project. Like I got upstairs, I started working and then all of a sudden, like I was like in, like the stuff is in the office with like just Roger Ollers, and he's like, okay, let's look at your work. He's like, oh, this is great. And I'm like this is this is crazy. I'm like this is absolutely wild.
Speaker 2:So but yeah, it was my first gig and I just like I worked so hard. I was there like over time, seven days a week, just like killing myself to get it done. But I wasn't stressed, I loved it. I just it was such a passion project and I was like everybody was really into it and like everyone loved it. Nobody was worried about like work times. It's because there was no egos, there was no anything there. It was just all like. It was all right. That's a project which was sweet.
Speaker 1:I think I think that's like the one of the beautiful things and like I know we're we're probably shifting as far as like the Web three space goes, but like that's, that's part of like. The same energy and the same beauty that I felt when I stumbled into NFTs is that there was every. There was no, there's no ego involved. There was no like. Everyone was just, they were trying to make their mark like. They were trying to like to what was what's the word of like? It was actually a brilliant phrase. It wasn't original, so I guess I'm not going to say it, but make their mark like, like, like, donate, like their contribution to the culture. You know what I mean, and that's not an original quote. I can't remember where I heard that from, but it's. It's.
Speaker 1:It was everyone genuinely just trying to like, do their piece. You know, and that's what inspired me to start doing this is like. You know this right now. You know, like I'm not the huge, I'm not a huge collector. I don't have the money to collect everything I want. I have a very big appetite, and so you know I'm like OK, well, since you know I can't just poof this eith into my wallet, you know what is my mark. Well, cool, let's bring people on and like let's give people a platform to tell their story and like that's going to be my, that's going to be my contribution.
Speaker 2:You know, and there's this yeah, yeah, and I get that. Yeah, I completely agree. I think a lot of these people came into the space and realized like that's the one thing, like we got, we all got into the space. Yeah, I guess I could segue before, so I stopped talking about that project. Yeah, so, yeah. So I went, I worked in the industry. I was at Bar and Al. After that they got a lot of shows, so they went from like a 100 person to a 700 person company in six months. So I was there early. It was kind of like I shot up. So then as you get more invested in like the animation industry, your job starts to become less artistic and it becomes more project management. And wait, yeah, it's less creative.
Speaker 1:Got it.
Speaker 2:I started doing that and then around 2017. I was like I don't feel creative. I just feel like a cog in a machine sort of thing. I'm like I like I like I music. Like I play music my whole life. I know I'm a creative person. Like I'm an okay acoustic guitar for like, since I was like grade five, I think. So I love it. Guitarist, like, I love it, and I played drums and bass as well. But, like, I just love getting into all the different aspects of, yeah, like creating and in that. But yeah, it's like I was. I was not creatively fulfilled in 2017. And I'm like I'm going to just start up. I just want to start something.
Speaker 2:I saw people, people was like I saw his stuff and I was like, wow, I'm like this guy's really really got like his. Yeah, he's really got something going here. I think he's like really, he really created this whole, a lot of what we're seeing now. Like I don't know if anything would have been like this without him. I don't think like the because, yeah, I think it would be like this at all.
Speaker 1:And same thing with, like you know, plays like X copy as well. Like you know, like that, that very, very culturally relevant to what we're experiencing today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, exactly Just his like him, like doing the same thing for so long, like 15 years, okay.
Speaker 1:I think it is or something like that. But since he inspired. Yeah, that one a cool story. He inspired a lot of and I don't.
Speaker 2:I don't agree with every day's, I don't. I don't think I kid, I don't think it's the best practice. It's good to do it, but, yeah, you got to be at a certain caliber to do it like successfully or not. Take so much to heart when you don't finish stuff and when you don't do that.
Speaker 1:But other than that, I think what he did was super admirable and he like inspired so many people to just do it and a lot of people like, yeah, but I also sorry, go ahead, but I also think, but I also think that like that that's like what worked for him and I think that that was like what his style was like.
Speaker 1:I'm a, you know, I'm a huge tool fan. You know, like that's like one of my favorite bands in the entire. It is my favorite band in the entire world and you know, reading all their interviews and everything that they did in their upon their recent album, like you know, danny Carey, one of the drummers, was like, you know, our process is not for the faint of heart, like it is one of the most rigorous, brutal, like, mind-numbing, like processes, but it works for us, you know, and it's like, and I think that's really the highlight, you know, because because to me, you know, I actually got inspired from people myself, you know, to do it like that was, ironically enough, I didn't find him till 20, you know, till earlier this year when he had that explosive skill but you know, but when, when I, when I read those interviews that actually tried to inspire me to like write every day for a week, and it's you know what, it burnt me out so bad, you know, and I just wasn't writing anything quality.
Speaker 1:So I, I agree, but also like want to paint the picture of like you know, like if that, if that's your style, like if you're one of those few people that can do that, I can rock on man, but that was not for me. Look at like like Jay.
Speaker 2:Jay Pierce is the perfect example. Like he. He just like just getting like a style and finding it and just having success and constantly just creating. Yeah, yeah, creating that sort of stuff is it's wild, but yeah, they're like that's the same. Like what happened with me.
Speaker 2:So I saw people stuff and then everyone's trying to emulate it, right? So there's all this emulation going on, but then there's all this like people doing their own thing and that's what I kind of got into Instagram and I'm like, okay, I'm going to start doing renders and just posting just like something to like stoke myself creatively. And I started off with just like simple spheres, really really simple spheres on my Instagram and I post like one a day or something like that. I make cool little shaders or try to like. It was all from trying to like break Maya and then see how it it renders, like fracturing stuff and then adding like weird stuff into different maps that weren't supposed to be there and just like messing around with how I can just like create something. That's really not like people are going to ever like copy or they're not going in and doing this sort of stuff. I'm going to show I was like I was going to do my stuff. So weird that people are just not going to.
Speaker 1:Dude, you're just incredibly unique, Like, by the way, that's like what, that's what I don't know who retweeted one of your, one of your pieces but like that's like what got me sent down your rabbit hole and you know so, like that. You have an incredibly unique style where it's just like that and there's, there's, there's a couple of my want to talk about, but I want to let you finish there, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:But it's just like it's. Yeah, I just all that stuff is weird because I had this crazy knowledge of this stuff for so long Like.
Speaker 1:I've been using my since I was like 18 or 19.
Speaker 2:So I've been using it and I have all the stuff, but my idea just was like to be very simple. I wanted to see how simple I could keep things but keep them vivid and make them like super yeah, so none of my work. If you look at it, there's some stuff. There's like a teddy bear piece and stuff like that. I don't have it up. It's not an NFT yet.
Speaker 2:But it's like I did one of a teddy bear and it was like it was like I don't know, like learning hair grooming and you have to like I did a lot of work and it was.
Speaker 2:I had to learn a lot for that one.
Speaker 2:But generally when you look at my work, like none of this stuff is super difficult but I put a lot of time into like like placement and like making sure like all my time goes into the composition a lot of the time and making sure that like things are kind of framed, everything's kind of sitting within the grid, like everything like has balance and like it takes up a lot of my time, like I can get like my idea out there and like a really quick amount of time because I did that every day stuff, like I was doing it every day and I was trying to do stuff as fast as possible.
Speaker 2:And you get into a habit of being able to create successful compositions like really fast, like when you sit down and do that but like you can get stuff 90% of the way and then that next 10% it could take like a day, it could take like two days and you're just you're just tweaking things around until it just clicks and like. So yeah, it's crazy to say it was a really cool process. Like to like doing every day and then stop it, but then having that like instant ability to like just throw down a composition or throw something down, because I had developed a style, because a lot of my stuff is very centric, like with a central focus, like my whole concept is like wanting to create a portal right, like I want to suck you right into that center of that screen.
Speaker 1:I want you to be like focused in there and yeah, that's how I did it, like that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:That's how you did it with like simple geometry. Like a lot of my stuff is just like circles, triangles, like it's just like just simple stuff that people can relate to, and just those shapes and angles and stuff like that, just to draw you in and like kind of having symmetry, but not perfect.
Speaker 2:It's just like, yeah, it's playing with the senses that things are like, yeah, they are kind of symmetric, but then when you look closer they're not. It's like they're kind of a little bit off, yeah, so it's like asymmetry within, like a very symmetrical sort of vibe. That's awesome. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that's like, yeah, I was super inspired by like I wanted to get my art on beer labels and I wanted to do album covers and I was super inspired by like 70s art, like 70s sci-fi art, like book covers and all that stuff. So I really wanted to like those were my inspirations going in. Like I wanted to do an album cover, I wanted to do a beer label and I had this art style that I had in mind that I thought would do it, and then that's what everything was based off of. So that's where kind of it all comes from.
Speaker 1:Do you still think? Do you still like have some of those aspirations of like wanting to do like an album cover, like wanting to like do a beer label? Do you still like actually yeah, oh got you.
Speaker 2:So I have. This is a beer that was produced in Toronto so it was called. It was from collective arts, so it's reversed there. It's called Lucid Dreams. So it's funny I wasn't going to show this but I have the empty bottle here because I was going to. I was going to try to frame it and like cut the label off and do stuff with it, but because, yeah, it was my first beer label, like I got it on and they like collective arts is like a brewery up here but they ship all over the world so they basically they take a ton of artists and they put their art on the can. So yeah, that was, that was my first beer label. So I did that. I've done album cover for my wife's band. She's in a Stoner Rock band, it's her and her two friends.
Speaker 2:They're super, super cool. They're called Space Queen, but yeah, I did, I did their album cover, so like it's obviously like a massive major band or anything like that, but it's like my wife's band and like I love them. I love I love the three of those guys that are in the band so much and it's like to be a part of that and help them out. It's cool. So, like doing this stuff and I think my stuff really does cater to cater to that. But yeah, I've never really got people reaching out to ask me Like I never really had that client base with my personal work. I was pretty unrecognized on like. Like I would get motion designer features on Instagram, which was pretty big, it was like the biggest thing and they would feature my work. But other than that on Instagram, like I was like I got stuff like yeah, I think my biggest piece was my teddy bear and got like it was like 1600 likes, which was pretty good, but my stuff was like constantly like 200 to 300 likes, which it's yeah, but my I only had like 1800 followers or something. There are 2000 followers until like this last year and there's still not even that much more. But my Twitter following has been pretty massive. But, yeah, it's like I can't. I can't pretty much, I just been doing this. I didn't really promote myself or do anything crazy. I've always had a job to fall back on.
Speaker 2:I'm not like doing, relying on this stuff to do it. I just do it because I love it. I love, I love the images I make. Like I I get drawn into my own images. So now that that sounds like cocky or something like that, but it's like I make art for myself because I want to.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to convey some, some idea in my head and if I can't trigger that sensation or that mood, then that's the part right. Like sometimes it doesn't even come across until like, okay, I'm happy with the cop, but something with the color. And then I take it into like After Effects and I just start to tweak all the color values and all that stuff and all of a sudden it just kicks in and I'm just like wow, like okay, like I've got something there, I've got something that. But it's just like it's a lot of my process is playing with that, hitting that threshold, when I'm like, oh, okay, I've got that, I've hit that move and I've done something I'm really proud of and I felt like I felt since I got into the NFT space I've had a couple I think mostly everything I've released I've been super happy with.
Speaker 2:I think I've done some of my best work since I've gotten here. It's funny, like some of my biggest pieces that people know for me I did like four hours I just sat down and was like doodoo, doodoo and I've been doing it for hours and then all the stuff here I put so much time into and like I'm just like so focused on doing it and like creating new pieces.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking so much about it. It's kind of good and bad. It's kind of made me think a lot more about how I compose my work. But I'm not making it for like collectors or anything. I don't really make people. I'm not going to make like board ape, like derivatives and stuff like that, but like I've seen people do that on their wick I think Brian Morris is his name. He's does wicked, wicked derivative art. He's just a wicked artist in general. He's got a really cool style.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's cool, like seeing that stuff and it's what works for them. I'm not going to yeah, I'm not shitting on anyone doing this stuff. It's just not my style, right, I don't, I don't want to, but, yeah, I just don't want to do that. I want to focus on my own art and making my style my thing and working like. My whole plan is like I'm hoping this year is just focusing on bigger projects and working. I want to do collabs with. There's a few people I've I've had on my radar for I want to do. I want to like work with, like Brian Brinkman. I want to work with, like like eclectic method. I want to work with there. There's, there's, yeah, there's all these people I kind of have on a list that I want to reach out to, but I know all of them are so busy. Um, everyone's, everyone's.
Speaker 1:So take, take, take it from someone who reaches out to people for their podcasts as their complete side hustle, Just there's, there's no better time, Like they're always going to be busy. You're probably always busy, you know, but you probably you've responded to me Like, so just, and the worst, the worst thing that can happen is that they don't want to be able to say yes, or they they take a week to get back to you.
Speaker 2:I just that's just yeah, I know I. It's funny, like I do know that Brian, brian Brinkman, was like one of the first people to reach out to me in the space. Like I did a couple of sales and like he messaged me like DM, mean, he's like hey man, he's like congratulations on your sales and he just like he, he, he basically like kind of re on, he onboarded me onto the space after I had already like got into it, got it. A friend showed me super rare in in 2020 and I didn't apply right away or it was earlier in the year. Then I applied. I'm like, okay, I'm going to apply, I'm just going to do it. And then they accepted me and I had sold a couple of pieces and then the next thing, you know, it's just like Brian Brinkman Brinkman's messaging me like glass crane is like retweeting my work, and then, like all these artists that I'm just like what's going on?
Speaker 2:Like now I'm on like this, I'm on like everybody came in on like this, even level, and it was just like as soon as I got here, because I was on super rare and I guess I was like making sales and stuff, like all the all the OG artists that people say, but all the people that had been around, like I, just started following me and kind of it was really cool. So I I started to get, yeah, just more. I realized how crazy the space was, like the just artists that were there and trying, wanting to try something new. But it was a much different time back then, like especially with costs to do things with, like gas fees and stuff like that. So it was like it was completely different. It was like everybody was so genuine and super helpful and trying to help out others and share. And it's still happening. I think it's just like there's so much noise now.
Speaker 1:There is Yep we chatted about it earlier Like like, yeah, but yeah, it's insane. You know, one of the things that, like you, that stuck out to me and it was in the very beginning when we were chatting was that you know, like you're moved to Tesla and I find that a very fascinating move because I'll just tell you, like I've gotten to collect a lot more because of Tesla's and because of the ethos and some of the culture in the community that's already on, like the hen. Yeah, I've gotten to collect some really cool work. You know, one of my favorites, like she's a female artist from South Africa, like Mariska Beckner or Baker. Like, that was like one of the first like pieces that I like I collect like two or three of her pieces because it's it's something that I can afford right now, you know. And so one thing that you that's not the whole reason I brought that up, it's not about me, but the one thing I one thing that you mentioned that was very fascinating was that you know this is going to be in prep for E2. Yeah, you know, like this is it's going to start building some skills, so to get you prepped for Ethereum too.
Speaker 1:So, when it comes to like as an artist, like, because I've interviewed a few different people and this one of the things that I have noticed that like there's a you. Of course it's like find your own brand and like find your own rhythm and find your own groove. But when it comes to like changes, like, is there any like? When things change in the space, like whether there's more people or different platforms, is there anything that you like look for? As far as like looking ahead to like, I guess, just like be a little bit ahead of the curve, you know, is there, is there certain things that you do or change your style?
Speaker 2:Well, it's risky right Like at that time too like there's, there's all these other chains, though, like wax, there's soul, there's all these other things now, but back then they're. The only real thing that was going on was Tezos, and there was like it was all over my feet. It was just like or sorry, hem, it was really just like all these artists that were frustrated with like gas fees and stuff like that, and just like there's there's a green factor as well, it's an energy efficient chain, right, but it was, I don't know what it was. It was just like I, I, I saw it. I saw a lot of like.
Speaker 2:People are just like go, I'm not going to, I'm not going to Tezos, it's like, it's just like. It's just like. It's just like it's just like. It's just like that's uneathed, but right, there's a lot of people that held out there, I don't know. Like there there's a lot of stipulation or there's a lot of like I don't know collectors saying go, you're going to go there and you're going to make yourself less scarce, you're going to be like there's all this dictation about. And there's like NFT insluencers who are like oh, I'm not going to Tezos and stuff like that and I'm not dealing this. And there was like this whole mentality of which, which I didn't understand, which I'm like.
Speaker 2:So it's cheaper to mint, it's a great price to get into I think it was like $2 or something at the time and gas fees are like sites and you can mint anything. You can mint 3D objects, you can mint music, you can mint PDFs, you can mint like images, movies. You can do whatever you want. I'm like this is exactly what I need to do, because I need to. I need to have a way where I can try things out and not blow a ton of money trying these out. And it offers me. It is a bigger. I didn't know it right when I joined, but the collector base there's just Everyone there was, just everyone was there. There was like this hidden community that was underground and I think I just I think I just got in at the right time and that was like it was risky. I like I took a risk in doing that because there was a lot of shit dog, like it could have went to nothing and right, I might have. Yeah, I'm not really sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the same time, go ahead at the same time though, man, like you know, like what I, what I hear you saying and this is interesting here get from your perspective, because obviously I don't hear this as someone in my position, but you know, it's a lot of like dick, like like collectors are dictating what chain is gonna be the only chain that you can create on it. It's like that's to me. What I've like been observing is like the cut, the classic, like just like the, the necessary, like the necessity of both, both the artists and the collector, but how different of a mindset each of them have, you know, and, and you like in the collector start like, it's like you know which one really gets to dictate where things go and like how it happens. And it's like the artist gets where they are by creating things because they're doing their own thing. But then the collector also has this, like you know, some people are in it just for the art, some people like looking for a financial opportunity, some people, you know it's a, it's a very fascinating like there's such different mindsets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what I guess the long and short of what I'm saying here, and so it's really interesting when you say, like you know they. They're like well, you're gonna be less valuable, You're gonna be less scarce if you go into Tezos, but, like, in reality, what I hear is it like that's just, that goes against the entire ethos of crypto. Like that goes against the entire ethos of crypto. Like, if we want this thing to succeed as a whole, then you kind of have to be a maxi on on all chains, given like, yeah, it's like because I'll tell you, man, like Solana, I like I like Solana, but for the most part and I think it's changing I don't dig the art on Solana, like I don't. It's it. To me, it's a bunch of Ethereum ripoffs without giving it credit. Like it's just, it's. It feels so disinfinious, you know, and now. But I have a feeling that is changing. You know, like I see a little bit more on there, but Tezos is different.
Speaker 2:Tezos is Tezos is crazy. Tezos is like the artist's currency. I find. I think it is Interesting. It's just it feels like more sorry artists and community. I feel it's it's yeah, yeah, like not everyone can afford it, like even like point zero five or point zero six ETH with another hundred dollar charge on top of that for they just gas. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah, it's just, that's the one thing I noticed. Like my very first piece I think I put out there, I like was I put for one tense just because I wanted to do that, and like it's resold like a great for like almost 210s or something like that.
Speaker 1:Like it's wild like that like that blows my mind.
Speaker 2:But, like I, just the very first piece I put on Tezos, I just wanted to like release it and just be like, hey, check me out. Like this is what it is. I'm here, I want to, I want to be a part of the space. And then, yeah, I did another release and I started like finding my, my, my value, my price market in there and, yeah, it was just like I was able to. I never really went much above, like 12. I don't think Tezos, like for any of my pieces we did with with Nate Hill when we did the collab I think we did 25, but sure that that project was. I was, I was super happy with that project. I think it was worth all the money that we've that we had asked. It was just, yeah, I'm really happy with how those look, that like when I see it on my. I have, I have a couple of. I have two of the pieces From that collab and I just love, like I'm so happy with how it turned out.
Speaker 1:That's awesome and you, you can like. I love the genuineness because, like you can see it, like you, literally your entire body language changes when you talk about that. I love it. He's man, I just love.
Speaker 2:I find that awesome. Yeah, if Nate ever watches this, yeah, I love the dude man, he's just so, he's such a great, he's everything you like kind of need in the space is like where we help each other out, we share each other's work. We're like, hey, I've got this piece, like definitely, let's like the divine sharing it, like we're just in it together to like try to to make sure. Like they just had a big Drop on him and Tim Maxwell had a drop on nifty Gateway yesterday and it was super successful. It was like it was like the best drop I've seen in a while On nifty gateway. That's awesome, like back in the old days, one of those drops.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's been cool like I like I know I've been in, I've been in touch with like Jay Pierce, like Brian Brickman, like I just chat them up a lot of the time, like yeah, and there says I remember talked into like Jay Pierce after he's like first big sale on nifty Gateway and I was just like, hey, dude, like congratulate, cuz it was like massive, I'm like congratulations, dude, and it's like you're just interacting with these people like right at life changing moments and it's just like to get to be a pride of that and like others, like yeah, don't mind me, I'm just writing you this message to congratulate you. And like they're legitimate, they're just like right and you, I am people. Just, you realize a lot of people are just people and like they, yeah it's, it's a thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was the same thing. I interviewed Cassa Mard right after she did. She did that hundred a theory. I'm a Hawaii photo piece, you know me. I'm not sure if you saw that, but like that was like where the first photo where it included creative comments, there was this whole story and it blew it. Twitter punk, six, five, two it was. It was such a cool thing.
Speaker 1:I had the pleasure of interviewing her, like right after the high of that.
Speaker 1:You know where it's like this is a life-changing event because you know with her, just to you know with her, it was like this was a piece that was arguably the most stolen piece Of her career and she never got any money for it.
Speaker 1:But, and so the reason why she prices at a hundred a theorem was because this was, that was what she genuinely valued All of the takedown notices and all of the fees. If she would have been that's what she would have gotten was around 350k, you know and so. But what was cool is the story behind that was that, like you know, that was that was Her reclaimed. Like she was reclaiming the rights, that and she was reclaiming her own personal like work and ownership of that by Including a creative commons license with that original piece. So it was. It was actually G money who bought that and G money, you know, g money bought the piece, but now everyone has the creative commons license to use that and monetize it in any way, shape or form. Now that she's satisfied that she's gotten everything she wanted out of that photo that she took, it's crazy it's like, but yeah so wild.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, man. So you that that story just came up off like the life-changing, you know events and and that's something that couldn't have happened before this, I know yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 2:Like a cat cat is amazing. It was. I was actually part of One of the first kid we, we had it. There was an all-canadian NFT gallery in Montreal. Yeah, matt, the, the OX society and yeah, it was like I had a. I had a piece up there in a physical gallery. It was through Super Rare and OX society. So we all the artists there, there's like a for a Malvita cast the Marge. There's just, there's so many like Nico. Yeah, there was just I was just like holy moly man and then I never got to get to Montreal. It was in Ottawa but I never got to Montreal. But there was my. My work was up on a physical like. I had a physical screen there beside like Vinny Nass, between Vinny Nassau and A4, and I was just like what is this stomach? This is wild. I'm like this is so crazy. Yeah, these are people that I followed on yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm for like forever and like I had always been like whoa, these guys work is like amazing and stuff that like people I had Interacted with and just kind of like saw in the space and knew they were big, and now we all this Transition over into the this is whole space and now we're all like Now, yeah, we're all doing stuff together and like everyone's. Yeah, I got their own values of stuff, but it doesn't matter like if, like, if you're here and you're like in the community, you're still here a year later and you're still just like pushing forward and still make it work. And right, yeah, it's like it's crazy. Yeah, a lot of people are just they're still going and it's great to see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know like those people who get fed up with it. There's people who come in and then just leave after they get their money Right, lots of scams, lots of whatever like that. And like I've seen people that work Like we're on the break of giving up, like right after things started, and now they're like having their artwork like in Galleries all over the United States and stuff like that, and it was just like, yeah, to stick with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the thing like and that's the thing like, even with like just participating in the space, right now You're getting rewarded. Like just I got on the super rare and I minted some stuff and I sold and then I got like I got the rare token and at a point in time it was crazy like I got like something like 48,000 tokens and it went up to like four dollars. Like that I was just gifted. I was gifted that and it's just like it just by being here early. And the same thing with like E&S, like just registering in the dress. I just did that because I was like yeah, I like this. This seems like it might be an important thing. I should have done way more right done not one yet. Yeah, there's smart people who did a bunch and probably made Spades so much money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, you know, like my, my, my story. Like I, I'm Aggressively positive about the space, but I think it's also fair to like show, like to show the other side of it. With the E&S in it. This is my. Oh, there's been many times where I've cut my teeth In this in the scene, and mine was recently. So there was my very first wallet, actually my very first NFT. I think I ever minted was on a coinbase wallet.
Speaker 1:Like I didn't know what I was doing. I had no, like I no clue. I didn't like write down my safe phrase. I did, you know, it was just like a. And then because then I figured metamask and I'm like, okay, cool, I'll just like kind of forget about this, you know, but that was where my E&S domain, you know that was. And then I switched phones and I didn't back up my C phrase and now I didn't get to claim my E&S tokens. Now, granted, it was in July, so probably wouldn't have been an insane amount of money, but it was literally free money that I, yeah, you know. So it's just to give some context of people like we, there's amazing opportunity, but there's also this is also a completely different mindset here Like we're doing new things. It's new behaviors. We're coming off of a very mature like web 2 where everything is slick and polished, meat and like you know and trustworthy you know. But now you get to play in this space where you're the custody of your own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know like everything and you're learning it all as you go. Like you don't really have people, there's no one you can really tell. Like I had to learn everything myself.
Speaker 2:this year I had some people reach out and just I gotta be like well, I kind of like do things like this and like, yeah, but you have like this following, you have like a big like Instagram stuff. Like I had some of the bigger artists like from Instagram that came into the space and like I kind of made my name for myself because I'm very invested in the community, like I try to help it, like I want to help others out, like I'm trying to post, like I've been slowing down recently Just because it's the holidays and like I've been super busy, but yeah, I I truly believe in the space and I want to like push it. I don't want to be like an influencer, I'd rather just like just try to be as real as I can and share what I'm doing. Uh yeah, oh, it's. It's funny.
Speaker 2:Like I'll have times where I like I'll say something super influencer-ish and then some will call me I'm like okay, okay, I'm like that's, that's, that's a good thing. I don't want to become that person, sort of things like you're gonna make that sale, it's gonna come. It's like they might not come actually, like it's not like a lot of the people in the space like they Struggle to sell. It's not like nobody nobody's had sort of this experience that I've had Um, I've been, I'm very grateful.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think everyone can say that, I think everyone, like Everyone, has had their own unique experience and like how they like came because they made it happen in the space.
Speaker 2:They didn't have anyone else, because they all learned it and right themselves and they've all like, yeah, it's wild.
Speaker 1:Right, you know something that, like I want to you would, you would uh, mention this, but we didn't. We didn't go into it, man, but, like when you you'd mentioned that you would really ramped up on tesos and like that's like where you had found a home and you had like you would learn to your value and you learn how to like price yourself. You know, that was a very big, that was a very big topic. Um, that it was a lot of the photographers were talking about in twitter spaces was how do you price your art? You know, and like just, and everyone has a different answer, you know. So, like that, I wanted to like dive into a little bit of your ethos on like you know, when it comes to you pricing your work, you know and I'd like to do it on like both tesos and ethereum and how you like differentiate that.
Speaker 2:So the big thing they kind of take from my experience is that I was doing stuff on eat, like it was like really the only thing to do when I started.
Speaker 2:So I, when, when I came in and things kind of slowed down, uh, and tesos kind of showed up and and um, it had already been happening like uh, before tesos was like this underground thing, that kind of like blew up and I was just like it had already been going for a while and I kind of just picked up on it. I don't know who, who, who notified me of it or whatever. But at that time it's just like I I didn't know, but like I was worried about scarcity and stuff like that. I was like, no, this is a different chain, this is different, this is not, this is not in theory. I don't think so. My, what I did is I had pieces for sale or up for sale and I Delisted them or I burned them because I didn't want to kind of cross while I was doing the Tezos thing, I didn't want to also be doing the e-thing.
Speaker 2:I felt that that was fair to do, but like I felt like going, yeah, yeah yeah was fine as long as I was kind of respecting that other end of stuff and not trying to mint, because I did release work on like no an origin before I knew about Tezos, like, but it was kind of similar to my stuff that's on Tezos now, but at the time it was didn't exist, like it wasn't, it wasn't there. And then after that I never minted any work like that on known origin again, like it's kind of like Things, kind of build up, things build up in this way and again, yeah, you, just you. Yeah, that's what happened. I went over to Tezos. I'm like, okay, like this is perfect for the type of work that, like I do on my Instagram pages. I mean, oh, thank you, that I do on my Instagram pages and like these, these other pieces that I can, I like, I know how to do, like it's ingrained in Me to do and I can, I can do them.
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna say quickly because I put way more time in now, but I can do work more efficiently when I when I focus in on the Kind of the style I was doing on Instagram, where the stuff I'm doing now on like Super Rare, when I release it is very Explorative and it's more like push myself in different ways and stuff I feel more kind of attached to. I put I think I've done projects, like I explained that I was a musician to you earlier, so a lot of those works when I do animations I'm making music for to.
Speaker 2:I did that with with some of my pieces on Tezos, but it was part of a bigger project. So, yeah, yeah, I did a thing called it was called the burner core project. So it was Three pieces here. If you collect all three, then every those people who own all three pieces get an extra fourth piece. So nine people, nine people collected all three. So I gave them that piece and that final piece was called burner core. And then what I did was say you can burn burner core and you have a 5050 chance of getting a custom one, one one to one. So there is nine people that had it and six people decided that they were gonna burn. So I made this like little little coding thing. That was a zero or one, you want her lost, sort of thing, and I ran.
Speaker 2:I ran a game through the system and then I made like a little visual, like it's like a computer like glitching out and stuff like that, and then it shows the results of if they passed or. And only there was six people that believe there is, yeah, what was it? Six, I think, six people or five people that went into it and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna burn this piece. And yeah, only one of the out of out of the out of the five ended up winning. So I had to make a one-to-one for that guy. But the rest of them like now that burner core piece is in addition of four as opposed to. So now I've, yeah, increase the value of that art for the people that still hold it.
Speaker 2:I gave a good experience for people who, like, collected it because it wasn't my decision, I didn't, I didn't tell them they had to burn it. I said, yeah, yeah, you can burn it if you want, but just know that if you lose it, it's gone. You don't have a chance to do it. And yeah, there's still right, there still four people out there. You have the chance to do it.
Speaker 2:But now, now it's one of my smallest additions, other than one, to ones that I have on Tezos and it's like I it was like super complicated what I thought about it. I'm like, oh, I'm like yeah, yeah, I could do this. I'm like, oh, and then when that happens, it would make like this collection smaller, so people might hold it more and might. So it's like this really cool, right Psychological thing that you could play with Collectors but also with your value and kind of with your other stuff. And I mean on Tezos that that's like, that's great, because people don't have to spend like 120 bucks to burn a piece Right, they're spending right to do it. So that's what I'm trying to bear like stuff, like the whole Tunis of what I, what I think like Tezos is like right now. Like there's mechanics there you can play with with things. With things are a lot cheaper.
Speaker 1:I Love that man and so I I'm gonna, I'm gonna dive in until you from a, from a collector standpoint, not so. I Unfortunately haven't gotten like all of my like one-of-one artists or like the like the individual artists or non-pf. Yeah, you know, collections that I have are, I think, 90. I think they're all in Tezos. To be honest, I have like one Ben Strauss editions on my on my open sea or on Ethereum, but the, the fascinating part, is cut like. So, but the reason I want to touch on this is the.
Speaker 1:Is the burn is, is the, I guess, the experience of burning work, and so that that is something that like within the traditional art world, just to give it some context for people who are listening, or it May not be as deep in it as me and is as Tim and I are, that that, what that does, that allows you to collect an addition and it Allows you to send this to a burn address, meaning you don't actually own the piece anymore.
Speaker 1:And I'll tell you, as a collector, that is one of the most like, that is one of the strangest experiences to do. It's fun, you know, because you're doing it with pieces like if this is all experimental, this is all like, this is all a test and this is all like, but I'll tell you, like, when you send those things to the burn address, like my stomach like turns inside out. You know what I? When I do that because it's and it's weird to experience that kind it's kind of like you don't know what digital ownership means until you, to you, like, just get your feet wet, like burning something is not like an easy experience to do Because there's so many decisions like do I keep this really cool piece of work that's special to me, or do I roll the dice, you know, and Potentially burn this to get a one-of-one piece that only one or two people are gonna get From the collector side? It's, it's really fun, it allows you like, yeah, school it's, it's, it is.
Speaker 2:It is very cool, like to play with that mechanic and and like, yeah, I hit with that whole burn a core thing it was. It was hilarious because I had these collectors. I had a couple of them. I think fluff head chaser was one of them. He was messaging me all the time. I think, dude, I don't know what to do. He's like I think.
Speaker 1:I want to burn it.
Speaker 2:He's like oh I don't know. And then someone else piped in one I think it was Chan to be and he's like I'm doing it. He's like I'm gonna burn it and like like all these guys are just ready to burn it. And then he's like, okay, I'm in, I'm gonna do it. And then so I had them all. I I made sure they were all kind of online that night. I think there was one person that yeah, but.
Speaker 2:I had a chat going with them and I was sharing on Twitter like that little visual I told you about where shows are, as all and posting it in that chat, and it was just like seeing all the people's reactions.
Speaker 2:Like Like cuz, that fluff head chaser was the worst, though, because he, he fought so hard with wanting to burn it and then like not, he's like I don't want to burn it, and that's the thing that I put a lot of time into that piece.
Speaker 2:Like I did all the music, I did all the guy, I worked really hard as one of my most unique pieces, and I wanted to do that like I wasn't making any money off of it, but I felt those guys deserve, like the people who put all that money and Tezos into collecting those three pieces some of them bought them on secondary, but yeah, like I wanted to reward them and give them a piece and then make it hard as hell for them to want to burn it. And like I think it was one of my best pieces on. Yeah, I think it was one of my best pieces and I've always funny that that people burnt them and like a lot of people had a hard time with it. There's two people that had a really hard time with wanting to do it, and there was no there's no hard.
Speaker 2:There's no hard remorse is after. People are like, oh, like I made that choice and it's like all on me and I'm like right, and I was like, yeah, but they, they also said that the experience was really fun and that yeah, like yeah, it's gonna be executed better.
Speaker 2:Like I had to prolong it because it's a personal, sure, but I got it done and eventually it's your first time doing it and that's the thing. Yeah, like it, that's. That's the other thing too. Like you can afford to kind of do that stuff in the space and and kind of learn about it and like, but I've learned a lot, like I've talked to collectors too and I've talked to people like to try to give me advice, and a lot of the time it's just like listening to yourself because they tell you stuff that's you're not gonna do anyways, or they share really insightful stuff with you, but it just kind of doesn't work with with with how you're doing stuff. But yeah, it's like, yeah, at least they're there trying to help you out and giving you their input, because there is there's two sides to this thing. There's probably way more than two sides, but there's there's. There's like, yeah, but that's the thing, man, like that's the like.
Speaker 2:If, if, even if, artists are getting invested in, regardless of the Reason why, hopefully that money is going to the artists who are also collectors and who are re redistributing it in, and it's getting kind of, yeah, the artists now become the people that support the community with like the money they're getting in the yeah cuz and you're selling like JPEGs a lot of the time and and like, just Like I can't even. It blows my mind. It blows my mind to like see like I yeah, I made like movies, compressed movies that are like 50 megabytes and JPEGs that are like 2048 by 2048, and it's just like, what is this like, what is this whole thing like? And then once you learn, like once you understand like NFTs are and like the certificate of authenticity and just how it actually works, you're like okay, like I get, I get this and just like I can't I. It's awesome that art is the vessel for this at the moment. Yeah, I don't it. It makes sure it makes complete, it's gonna be it's cool that art will be that always.
Speaker 2:It will be what brought this whole technology into the limelight cuz I think it's gonna be like for everything. It's like it just makes the most sense to be the reason things are stored. Like even like your Marriage licenses, like drivers licenses all that information is stored just on databases. For it to just be on the blockchain makes way more sense because it's just way more secure on there. It's may work way more open. Yeah, it's just a immutable like all of that stuff. It's just it just makes more sense to do it that way, rather than how things are done now, where, like even if everything was like eliminated on databases and stuff like that blockchain came like rebuild itself because there's still some Um nodes there that have that information to be able to pass it back and it's just like. It's crazy. It's like that is Exactly what is needed and people just did. They have a hard time kind of understanding that whole tech. Well, it's.
Speaker 1:It's a complete different shift, though, in mindset, you know, like, because with me, I'll tell you, like just my experience and I haven't, I haven't even been here a full year, you know, and but I researched, probably four to five months before I even made my first purchase, like before I even bought Ethereum, because, like I was, I was so nervous, you know, because, like that first time where you convert USD to Ethereum, or like you as like it, that is a very painful experience. It's, it's very I don't know why it's painful for me, but it was a very painful experience. And you know, like I've tried so hard to not deposit the Ethereum. I just try to like make my, I try to get more Ethereum by flipping more projects to get more Ethereum, because I don't like that conversion, you know.
Speaker 1:But but to go through that, though, and you know what's interesting right now, and you're not, one thing that I've learned I'm not sure if you had this experience, but when you get a, when you're a first mover, there's gonna be things that are really clunky, really janky, like really, you know, you're gonna learn things the hard way, and it's like I'm I'm so deeply passionate about this, but to like convince people that, like they're probably gonna fuck up and they're probably gonna lose some money and they're probably gonna, like, get Scammed or they're probably gonna get something's gonna happen to them. That's hard to really say like yeah.
Speaker 2:Come on, we're having a great time with three, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:Um, so, but so I think this is just what I'm learning. I'm just like literally figuring this out as I'm going along like everybody else, but you know, a lot of people that are first movers have a different mentality than people that wait for mass adoption. Yeah, I think there's different stages to it, you know, and there's gonna be levels of comfort. When we start maturing the scene a little bit more, it's gonna. There's gonna be a baseline where another set or another wave of people are more comfortable to enter in because of X is. It's all for now. Now they're a little. Their risk tolerance is a little bit less than ours, but they're still a little bit more than people who are gonna wait for mass adoption and that you know that's the thing too.
Speaker 2:Like, like you mentioned, like throwing money and stuff into this is like so I always because I talked to I at the university, so I run labs and I try to teach students about this stuff. So my all my thing is always, never invest money in that you can't afford to lose. And also don't listen to me, because I, what I did initially is in 2017 I put 350 bucks into litecoin and tank and and it tanked to like 60 bucks, I think, in 2020 it was like 60 bucks.
Speaker 2:I got onto super rare. I converted what I had there into the money to mint my first piece and I haven't invested any Money since. It's all been gained through art. So, like I say, don't listen to me, because I haven't like I could lose everything and I've lost nothing, right, so it's like yeah, so it's lost 350 bucks, I guess, or whatever, whatever it was yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's what I always try to tell them like it's a crazy industry, like don't base, like I'm gonna tell you this stuff, I'm gonna teach you about it and try to like make it not so scary and not so, it is super risky. It is super risky, it's super volatile, like you never know what's gonna happen. Yeah, but right, it's hand down the craziest experience I've ever had in my life. And then on top of that there's this whole artistic community and I mean, they don't see that. Right, they, a lot of them see NFTs as collectible projects or apes, monkeys, whatever. Right, they don't that's the big.
Speaker 1:Thing.
Speaker 2:NFTs are. They don't see NFTs as not. They don't see it as the technology. They see it as what they get broadcasted to them by mainstream media.
Speaker 1:It's either the big sales or the big anti-sentiments that that everyone shares Um so it's just I was gonna ask, when it comes to your students, like, what's the biggest like? So, first of all is like, what do you? What do you? It's like I know you said you do labs on this. Like what are you tip? Like what's what do you teach? Like, what is it that you overall, like, what do you teach?
Speaker 2:So initially, so, like I obviously like cryptos are very like, it's all just education, it's not like oh yeah, I'm trying to convert you into like doing this sort of thing.
Speaker 1:I'm like, I'm like I'm sure, yeah, here's this thing.
Speaker 2:Here's what it is so like say, like, my first lap was about Um more so, what's a wallet, what's an NFT, what are the main cryptocurrencies you're gonna deal with? Like, what's blockchain, all of that stuff? Like just giving like general Some nuptialism of of all that stuff, so they kind of get it, and that demystifies that whole thing. And then I talk about my experience, because I didn't know anything really about it. Um, what when?
Speaker 1:I so is this, but is this like Is this like the only thing that you, that you do discuss? Or is it like is there like a, do you teach like you know technology or do you teach like computer?
Speaker 2:So, I'm a I'm a lab supervisor, so basically I cover 3d, 2d animation and then visual effects.
Speaker 2:So I'm in there, like I have students who are exactly right in the demographic of people who should be doing this stuff, right, so got it. Okay, that makes complete sense. I, and it's funny because, like it, yeah, I have a ton of people who are interested. I have, yeah, there's people that do not like it, there's people that are so against it. Um, but like I'm not. Yeah, again, I'm not trying to convert anyone. Um, I've had, yeah, I've had people, yeah, like, just, they don't like it and they're not happy. They're not. They're not happy with me teaching it, they're not happy with me doing that. Uh, but I mean, it's all part of the thing, like, I'm not gonna let it stop me doing this stuff. It's just I'm not trying to convert anyone because everyone thinks it's a scam, right, or like a pyramid scheme or something like that. They always think there's ill, ill intent behind Someone trying to like talk about this stuff.
Speaker 2:But the thing is is that there's not a lot of information out there and it's hard. It's hard, like, because it is it's investment, it's investments, it's a large part of it. Like, as an artist, you have to understand that you become an investment. Like, if you want to sell like, that doesn't mean you have to change your style. That doesn't mean you have to do anything to sell. It means that you have to understand that you are more of a brand when you come into this place. Um, regardless if you want to call yourself that or not, but you become more of a and you can have people that like love your brand and think your brand's beautiful and do that stuff I buy. There's other people that are just there to make money off of you and I think that's a big thing. Like that's the big thing I noticed with the. So the nifty gateway community. I find they're they're, they're awesome, but they're. They're much more in it for the investment purposes and trying to like. They're not in it for interesting.
Speaker 2:So much the art, but some people are some people like are still holding stuff I've on there and they're super, super attached to it and they think it's awesome. Um, but yeah, at the same time, when I was, when I was there doing stuff like just reading pages, like oh, who is tim reapell? Like who is this guy? Like, oh, I'm like it, like they don't know who they are, who I am, so it's not worth the investment. It's not about the art, it's about whether they're gonna make sort of money off of it where, yeah, right, right, I didn't get that, like none of the people who invested in me on super rare. There's no way they can know my value, like I've been in the space. I had been in the space for like a few, like a month or two at that point, so they're they're exactly.
Speaker 1:They're putting an investment out there.
Speaker 2:It's a long-term investment. All those people that we're collecting back then, like akira Goltra, they're long term, they are long term and that's all. People now are like, like, not all the people, but a lot of people are Short-term gain and if you're not making short-term gains, they're not interested. Um, and that's cool, it's gonna flow. Um, it's gonna flow like that, like I, I'm just happy to.
Speaker 2:I always kind of when, when I'm not selling, I try to invest more time in like the community and try to build up my, my name, I share my art, I share other people's art and then I try to focus on work and selling. Like there's all these waves of stuff that you kind of you just you got to feel it out because right now it's slow, things are like, uh, there's not really anything, but Um, I'm kind of waiting to see what happens with crypto on the new year. Like I have, I have projects time. I'm on Um, but yeah, I have like this idea. I don't want to book myself up too much because I don't know what's ahead and I want to be prepared to have the time to quickly transition into it.
Speaker 1:So I like and I I like that because there's one of my questions was gonna be like how do you, you know, like when it comes to Navigating change, because it's, it's funny, nfts are brand new, you know, but crypto as a whole, you know, it's been around for Uh, 10 years. You know, maybe at this point in time, like a financial system, it's been around for 10 years, or currencies been around for 10 years. It's still incredibly new, you know, and and and there's only two currencies that are kind of like sort of stable, you know, or not stable, but you know they're. They're like you know you got bitcoin and ethereum right. It's. It's kind of like you can trust that they're not going to be incredibly volatile. They're still gonna be volatile, but not like yeah, but not as bad as like some some change in points.
Speaker 2:You're just starting, let's just come in.
Speaker 1:Right, absolutely, man. So I think it's really cool. The thing you mentioned, like you're like, look like, right now there's a lot of this game is self-awareness and and even coming from a podcaster I'm not like a graphic artist it's the same thing. This, this industry, is like Like, if you don't come in with some sort of like self-awareness or some sort of intuition, like this is going to be incredibly hard if you're just trying to copy trade people's, not only just copy trade people's trades or investments, but copy trade their actions and behaviors, because it's likely that the actions and behaviors that you're seeing are are from their own thoughts, their own intuition, their own experiences and their own thesis of how this is going to work out and their own motives, you know, and so you know that's.
Speaker 1:I really wanted to highlight that because I think that's. I think from the art, like I see it from a more of a collector's perspective, just from some of the people I chat chat too, but it's interesting hearing it from the artist's Uh perspective as well. Like you know, like you're like, look, I'm not gonna book, you know, book up too much. Like just because Nothing more than a feeling, you know, like it's it, then that's really it, and you just got to kind of trust that that's a scary thing for people to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is man and this is the whole thing. Like I've beat myself up because, like I Always think, like oh, maybe I screwed myself over moving over to tennis and doing that, but I mean I had a lot of success on Tess. Like I, yeah, I did really well, so like and and I did my collectives really well. Like there's a lot of people that resold my work, like there's, I have a bigger fan base, I think, a huge growth for my community and following the people who who are my work happened once I went on to Tess.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, I try to reach out and talk to a lot of people. I don't have DMs on for anybody who I don't follow or who follows me right.
Speaker 2:I just yeah, I assume a scams. I saw scams. I'm like, no, no, no, no, I don't want to, I don't want to talk to anyone, I don't really care. So but yeah, it's like I, yeah, once I got that Tezos community and I saw what was there, I just I have a feeling, man, I just I have this feeling that each two, once it kicks in, it's like that whole community is gonna now just be like okay, cool, like we can, like they're gonna be, they're gonna be still into Tezos and stuff like that. But I mean, right, yeah, it's like it, they're gonna. There's gonna be more of an onboarding once things get, yeah, like you were saying earlier, once it's like that time to kind of get into it again. They're like with their lower risks or stuff like that and right.
Speaker 2:And I think, having been in test, like I know exactly, like I've learned how to like set up these projects and and the thing too, like I had ideas to generate a var and I was like, okay, how am I gonna do a generative, our project on Kezos? And then, yeah, I saw these, like Mike Shinona did one and Like who else? John did one, and like all these artists, they, they all did one down. There's various ways to do it. But then I'm like, right, right, as I'm like, okay, I'm gonna look into this, a sync art comes out with an Ethereum friggin blueprint for how to build generative our projects for Artists, and it's not for like making 10k stupid projects. It's like Super simplified and it's just like I'm like wow, I'm like and I, yeah, that's all I did today.
Speaker 2:I looked into it and like, okay, I'm gonna do a project. I'm like, how does this work? I went in, I rendered like stupid simple PNGs of like circles and stuff and just mixed a mess around with how, how it generates on the page, and like I learned exactly how to set up the project and it's awesome. Like it's all there. They take a 20% cut, but I mean, you're gonna be hiring developers to do this stuff for you regardless, and I'm sure it's probably gonna be, if not the same, more than a 20% cut, and I mean like X, copy just didn't release money, a lot of didn't release cold.
Speaker 2:He just didn't release on anything and those projects look very slick. Like it's very slick because it's so simple. Like I was on it today. I'm like I could just do my arc here, because you have all the layers there already that I need to Work with. Like I know exactly what layers I need to create. Like I've done this. I've been doing this for so long. That's just like all I have to do is plan out what I need to make. I just need to go make it. I have to create like different. Yeah, so I don't know if you know much about it, but it's. It's broken up into like traits.
Speaker 2:So traits are like he, I, right this this thing is in space, this thing is in nature, this thing is in whatever, in a drugged out world sort of thing. But within these traits you could add all the layers you need and you can set the probability of those being created and then you can set the probability of that trait showing up in the overall drop. So they have all this stuff here. You're just like whoa, like it's all done for you. Wow.
Speaker 2:So it's like and once you learn how to build the layers with so layers come with states, so a layer, so I could have a state which would be like this sphere, this sphere, this sphere, like different designs, so that's all the different states of that layer. And you, once you learn how that works and all the stuff you can do, it's like kind of like Photoshop in a sense, but like web three, ready for Minting right out of the box. Like as soon as you set up the template, it's ready to go and you just have to send it in for approval, like it's. I was blown away today. I'm like I figured out my whole project. I figured out all the, the types I needed. I figured it all my like layers and what?
Speaker 2:now that it's all like yes so all I did is I've rebuilt a Photoshop file in the same sort of way that the it's broken up in async, and now I just have to render and throw it all that stuff in there into the default template in my Photoshop and then just right of those out, put those images in async and then there's my generative project is nuts, it's so crazy.
Speaker 1:That's, that's not dude.
Speaker 1:You know and like like part bits of that understood but, I get the general concept like what's what I, what I gathered from that it just, you know, for the people who are like me, is that, like you know, like his generative projects are All like, the one of the beauties of NFTs is the ability to have smart contracts, like in your work or on these tokens, and that's what that's where a lot of the magic lies.
Speaker 1:And like that's really what you know. It's not about the scams, like we're really interested technology here, but that's been very that's all been like that's all had to be been done manually. You know, into where you need to know a solidity, solidity developer, you know, or like you need to know someone who actually understands what they're doing to program these traits and do all Of this. But now it sounds more like cool, like so, even someone who may not fully understand how to do it, they at least have a template to go off of and like someone else does it for them. You know, that's kind of man that's. That's actually really cool.
Speaker 2:I couldn't believe it. Like you can't, you can't publish anything yet, but you will be able to in in January, right? But man, I was just. I was on it today and they've made it so simple. It's just so simple.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I looked at it, I'm like it's got to be tougher than this and it's this like you run in, you run into roadblocks but you're like, oh I, I can't do it like this because of this like, but what if I did this? Like what if I like broke up, broke up this big idea I have it to smaller types, that they're the same thing, but like, yeah, it's just like it, you're just modifying rarity, chances, probability of getting a chances, and just like adding in layers and like you can Set how common that thing will be and it's just, it's exactly. That's incredible coding in to this stuff. But yeah, because I'm a very visual learner and I know scripting and stuff like that, but I don't know like scripting. I learned from like seeing other people do stuff and then taking their ideas and like growing on them. So, like seeing how this works, I now understand from like a coding base what they would be looking for if you wanted to kind of do your own custom contract and not rely on sit sort of basic like. You see how it's done right there, like the things that you need to know as an artist, and that's always, that's always the best thing when you can. You could see like it removes, demystifies that whole process of like right you need to do, and it becomes more like Organizational, like.
Speaker 2:This is what I've done for my entire Creole's make sure, make sure that Everything's super organized, because I'm making tools for a team. There's a team of people and they need to understand things very literally and it's gonna be laid out there very simply and that's what I'm all about. And when I saw the async stuff about like man, I'm like this is, this is a, what I'm all about, this is just like helps me so much, like I don't mind the 20%, but like even if I would want to do something like this in the future, I would I understand like what I would need to communicate to the coder doing this and like right when I need to worry about, rather than like with them, like either being able to like scam me, be like oh yeah, you need to do this, or do this, or right, you just know right right you can just be like no, like this, this is how it worked here, this is how it was done, but yeah, it's crazy at the end of the day, you know where it's headed, like.
Speaker 1:You know, like right now it's very new, so that's a that's probably a generous take rate, you know. But for considering everything in crypto and, I guess, in without crypto, that's actually probably a really good take rate. You know before this space, because this is it, but you know where it's gonna be headed, because that's gonna take off. Oh, I mean, there's no doubt, so that no doubt the percentage is gonna change every once both sides start ramping. That's the thing.
Speaker 2:Like I someone's message you today, like I Posted some stuff on Twitter about working with async today and he's like hey, man, he's like I'm just curious, like I was looking into it as well. He's like what are your thoughts on it all this? And I was like talking to me. He's like he's like yeah, I just really feel that people are just gonna start abusing it and there's gonna be all these shitty like Generative projects that come in from a make. You know what man, that's probably like, that's probably right. I'm like you're probably doing this right now. It's because I want to get him, because they did that you can't even publish anything until the new year. So, like, even if you're like publishing stuff early next year, you're gonna be yeah, it's, it's really gonna change like and that's the thing, because it gives artists like me, I can create a generative project of like 250 pieces or something like that and like, right, even the return on something like that just 250 pieces even at like point zero, five ETH it gives. If gas isn't stupid, gas will be stupid, though it's always gonna be stupid like. It's always Like it gives you so much more stuff so I can meet that generative project.
Speaker 2:All those pieces are one to one, unique, with all the different layers I create. But then they allow, also, allow you. After you're done all that, you go to the next page and it's like, okay, add Legendary pieces. So these are like I could make one-to-ones myself or videos. They're just extra pieces that become part of the drop. So there's, they're gonna be distributed, but they're gonna be like 1% of the drop, sort of thing. Right? So if I'm doing 300 pieces, there would be three, three Generative or three legendary pieces that would go in, but it's all programmed in there. It's so amazing like you can do that you can just your whole idea, like you can build your stories for your projects into that sort of thing. You can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that opens the door, because that's like, it's like opens the door wide open like great Cuz, you could get into the mechanic right, and with that comes other stuff. Like you can build Ideas off of that. Like, okay, we could airdrop for everyone who has like a humid in their piece and not like a spaceship or something like that.
Speaker 2:And you have all the stuff that you can start to build off of. That has nothing to do with async anymore. You can build, like your world off of those async pieces and in the holders of those pieces and it's yeah, it's just incredible to me that, like All these shades, you can like be a part of it, like super rare async, like I. The biggest thing for me is that I went hard, so hard when I got into it. Like I regret a lot of the time I don't regret, but I spent way too much time like getting into this stuff and like a lot of other areas of my life were impacted, like definitely, but I don't regret it, but it's, it's just like I got in.
Speaker 2:I got into no, in origin. I got into super rare. I got into async I would. I got on the FND like I'm yeah, I got. I got into the Tezos stuff, like I. I got into all these places and I never used my async. And now I'm just like I'm in, like I can use this stuff though I, because I did that. I got in last February or something like that and I hadn't used it and I was worried they were gonna like revoke my.
Speaker 1:I Work, I'm like oh, I'm gonna, I want to see if I could work on this blueprint.
Speaker 2:I go to do it. It's like you're not white listed. I was like, oh no, they revoked my stuff. And then I basically all I did is I said I sent an email and I wrote a message on Twitter Just saying, hey, async, like I think I got my way listed, stuff revoked, and like, literally, 10 minutes later, it's just like I went back and it was all there and I'm like that's, that's some music, yeah, that's like man, it's like I just didn't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't see it at that time for a sec. I didn't see a project that I love the concept of async, especially async music, it's really cool. But I I didn't see it at that time like saw a project that I really wanted to get into. But then, yeah, this generative I've been wanting to do generative. I just knew the work that was up there and, yeah, it was just like wow, like this is exactly what, what I need.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, man. What I want? To start like wrapping things up and put this all like in a bow and package things up for people. Man, like, so you know, you'd mention like, and I think you just dropped like a lot of information about like what you're doing, which is what you're, what you're planning on in the future, which is gonna be one of my questions.
Speaker 1:So you know, it sounds like you know Tim's gonna be doing a generative project. Um, any like any collabs that you're gonna be doing that you can mention? Um, this is good, yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 2:I, so one I won't say who it is, but it's with someone that, yeah, definitely they're there. Another super rare artist and they're yeah, we've been. We're gonna be writing music. Then we've been talking about this concept for like months. We're just going at it as a slow-going project and just doing it when we get both super busy and we both like, yeah, I've had a lot been going on this year and it's just like I I need to slow down and I need I need that time to kind of Do, to do that, but I'm still working like it's gonna be one of the most invested projects. Like I'm rigging up characters, I'm doing fur, I'm doing all this stuff like animation and, yeah, doing rendering and stuff like that. It's gonna be my most involved project. But just going at it from this, this point of view, and like knowing what we're doing, as opposed to like throwing these ideas. We already have the idea, I know what I have to do and it's just like mainly asset building at this point, because we know, like what the camera Animation is gonna be like, we know what this person is gonna be doing, we know what this thing is gonna be doing with like what, like all that stuff, so that that'll be fun. That'll be fun project.
Speaker 2:I'm also part of another project with. It's called dream. So basically there's these. The website Ask people to submit what they kind of see their dream as being at by 2030, and then basically they take all these responses. So we have a big spreadsheet. That's all of these people's responses from all over the world about these dreams. And then the artist there's. There's 50 artists who have to do 10 images. So we are going through that list of dreams and we're kind of like where we're color coding everything that we want. So, yeah, we have to. So I basically have to have five pieces done by January 1st and then I have to have another five pieces done by the 14th of January. So that's gonna be.
Speaker 2:So for the most part is not even an NFT project right now. It's more so. The thing with it is they started as a really small project and now, like there's so much involved with this so it was in Times Square, they had a gallery, oscar as well it's gonna be put direct projected all over the world, like Tel Aviv, in China, and like it's just like all this art is being rejected and the biggest thing is it's gonna be made into a hologram and sent on the International Space Station. So once everything. Yeah, that's crazy, right? So it's so fucking cool. And the craziest thing about all of this is the artists that this Jane is his name, j A E N, which is funny because he I learned about him doing beer label stuff. He was on a collective arts can and I had followed him before one.
Speaker 2:I even knew about this whole space or anything like that. And now he's, and he's the one who is running this project and he brought me in. And it's like so many artists I've worked with already, like this year, like Sally Shelley Sange, and just like we'd like glow a wax bones, like there's just so many of these artists, like Sammy rain gold is another one.
Speaker 2:Oh, she's amazing, that's awesome it's like you're in this chat now with everyone and everyone's, just like it's the most positive and Influencing chat I have cuz. Just like it's a lot of 2d artists which I love. I love 2d art. 2d art is speaks to me the most like I do. I can't draw, I can't do that, so I try to emulate like illustration through my work as well.
Speaker 1:Like I got it yeah.
Speaker 2:I try to get that vibe Like it almost looks hand-drawn as opposed to not yeah, but yeah, it's like I'm now like with all these like 2d artists and like all these other artists that I've like been here with the last year, and like we all know each other and it's just like holy shit. That's like everyone's posting their whips and sharing all the work and everyone's loving each other work and it's like it's not toxic positivity, it's just like pure love from genuine, genuine, genuine from everybody. And it's just like it's so amazing to be a part, like I'm so excited for this project. I think so it's supposed to be. I believe it's called the Raika project, so I believe it's in an Israeli astra the second Israeli astronaut to go to space. It's going up with that shit and it's gonna be on the friggin international space station.
Speaker 1:That's sick dude and Raika. How do you like is it our?
Speaker 2:I can't let me see here. Let me see if I can find Jane's gonna hate me. I gotta verify on this out. I want to make sure. Yes, too many kids search Twitter chat, say. I wish that there was like a search functionality.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, kind of like this course, yeah, yep.
Speaker 2:Let's go to this, I Will.
Speaker 1:If not, we can send it in the show notes and we yeah, let's put it in the show, I'll get it for you.
Speaker 2:There's a bunch of information here that daddy has, but yeah, I don't, I don't have it. Yeah, yeah, it's RAK I a mission Ra.
Speaker 1:Ra.
Speaker 2:But apparently like, yeah, it says here like that yeah, they're putting a bunch of like because they always send like scientific experiments up right, so they send like modules and stuff like up to the Space station. There it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and then okay so it's.
Speaker 2:It's crazy man. It's like when he messaged me this, he's like oh, do you want to do? Want to send me your work, get a piece done in like the next Three days and I will be in time square. I'm like all right, let's go. There's no guarantee of income with this project. I was just like, purely like art, it's just purely this is just exposure.
Speaker 2:This is just a great exposure and it's just like it's. I basically, like, two months ago I set a goal. I'm like, okay, 2020, 20, sorry, 2022. I want to have my work in time square. I want to have like, I want to do this, I want to do this and like time square was one of my things and then, like, when he said that I might yeah, okay, goal already done he just manifested. That's what that's been my full, that's been my full thing of.
Speaker 2:The space man is manifestation like I just I try to like push stuff out there, like I want to do a collab with like parallel and I keep on like tagging them and writing them and they follow me and stuff because of it. Like nifty gateway, I'm like, yeah, I wrote a message like nifty gateway, let's do a project and stuff like that. And I I heard from someone there that I got in front of them because I just Tweeted and like 300 and something people liked it. But I like, yeah, I'm just like doing this stuff, but I don't like I don't like constantly do it and stuff like that. I just like I have this feeling that like right now, it's the time to manifest this or do this and then I'll do it and like with no an origin. I was just like, hey, no an origin, like I applied, but like I think I'd be a great addition to your platform. And then, the next thing, you know, I was whitelisted within like two days. I was like holy shit and yeah, and like that's how it works. But like the same thing too, with like like asic. I just applied but I kept on like saying a sick, I applied and then, yeah, I Got in there but yeah, manifestation man, like it.
Speaker 2:Just it's so crazy. It's not just you can't just sit around and think of something that is gonna happen. It's like hard work, like I've grinded my ass off this entire year and it's just like it's luck. It's, it's working hard and it's keeping in the mindset to just keep doing what you're doing. It like even in like the worst of times, and it's hard, like it's. And taking breaks Like you got to feel you just got to go with yourself and the worst thing I've been at is take breaks like cuz what I'm like.
Speaker 1:Why I'm not creative.
Speaker 2:I'm like, oh, I should be on Twitter, I should be like engaging. I want to like right, want to do something, to like to like engage and do. I feel like I haven't done this, so I just feel it, this face, the sorry. The space feels all encompassing and like it's happening at like 9,000 miles per hour at all times and like the biggest thing is just like, yeah, I've slowed down a lot, I stopped worrying about it and I'm just not. It's like I I feel, yeah, generally okay, like I've had a really good year.
Speaker 2:I Care, yeah, I could. I couldn't imagine anymore for myself. I'd be like, oh, I should have valued myself and made myself less scarce. It only stuck to Ethan, whatever. But yeah, I just like some of the responses I get to people and just like, just like the whole biggest thing for me is interacting with, with the artist, and like some of the people I've met who are in the space, who are just like they're here and they're risking, they're doing a lot, like they're doing something really new and scary and they're trying to like they've become not only if they're like, oh, yeah, I like making art before, stuff like this. Now, they're like their own management, they're their own friggin right. Social media manager, they're their own and they've had you. There's no one you can't, yeah, like.
Speaker 2:And you don't want to pay someone because Genuine, you're gonna know either right you and stuff like that and like right it's not something. Yeah, yeah, like at the same time like I could quit my job and go and do this full-time, but I, just I, I worked too hard to get where I'm at in my career, to, yeah, to kind of abandon it. But the funny thing is, is that, as a lapsu or wiser, I have my summers off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I have the summer, but a lot of that time is what I'm kind of like traveling and doing other stuff, but it's yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a it's a really good point because, you know, I I don't want to discourage, like I see a lot of people go in full-time and I think it's awesome and yeah. But but like, if you, if you still want to do, if there's a day job that you really enjoy, or if there's something you really like, if you have other career aspirations besides this and this is something that you just want to do as well, like, like that's completely okay, like that I think there's a lot of pressure in this face to like go all in and full-time.
Speaker 1:And you know what, given the right opportunity, I would you know like, but but the right opportunity hasn't really presented itself, so I'm not gonna like force it or will it into existence when it's not the time for it to have. Sure, you know so it's. You know, like, you just got to be okay with that and I just really wanted to like emphasize that because I think it's really cool what you're doing, like you're you. You've proven that you can like, you enjoy what you do. You teach students. You get to make incredible artwork, do all of this crazy stuff, and you know selfishly for the day job, you get to weave in what you do on the side, right into which, like this is it all connects.
Speaker 2:So, if you can, find something like, yeah, imagine, like we're so early that there could potentially be a career for me in this space, like in no time. Like I just continue doing what I'm doing and learn, learn how to educate people about this, because my one thing is Is getting rid of bias. Like I have to understand that like there is other angles to the stuff that isn't good there is. There's a lot of stuff going on to what is happening right now that is is negative and not not good. And learning like I've I've just I'm purely I've realized I've been very biased and and this is like through interactions with students too, like people who are against it, I was like, yeah, it's yeah, like what, I'm just like what just goes to show wise.
Speaker 1:It's goes to show why skepticism and Doubt is a part of the equation, of anything you know, like it's this, this doesn't evolve without that. You know, we, we genuinely see there's something here but, like even myself, have gotten caught with putting rose color glasses on where it's like. You know, I'm only seeing the benefit because it's like it, but there there is. There are two sides there, for sure, and that's the thing that you gotta like you gotta get that across.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna say something that like I'm actually like I had this interaction with the student and like I got defensive because I thought they were coming at, like coming at me from this angle, but they weren't. And then it was just like I talked to them a month later and I'm just like, hey, I'm like let's talk semi-year, your stuff that you have. Like I want to do a legitimate Lab on what you're talking about because I feel it's very important and I don't want it. I want to be completely. Yeah, I'm biased about it. Um, because that's all. I'm here, like I'm. I'm at a university, I'm instructing at a university.
Speaker 1:I have to be Bias but I have to, yeah, I'm sorry, but I have to.
Speaker 2:I have to be. I also am in the space and I am interacting with it and I can't like talk about All the negative stuff with it, like just like taking on that. Yeah, I right, I have been a part of this, I've done this, but I mean, like a lot of the stuff, yeah, it's just, it's gonna, it's growth, it's learning. Yeah, um, learning what you did wrong, kind of that stuff. And that's what I'd learn every day, like Twitter, like, so it's like managing your own social media and doing that stuff and kind of, um, yeah, that's been the big grind. Well, because I was a super introverted person, um, I, yeah, I, I think once I remember when I met my wife, uh, I, she, she played in a band at that time. She's, yeah, she's a super talented musician and she got me out to play. Like I played guitar in her band and she got me a playing, because I always just I'd always just like playing my room Like I would never, like I played forever but I had never.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I got into her band and we started doing stuff and like Going and playing music on a stage and putting yourself out there for like people who don't give a shit, it's just like the best way to build up your confidence because you're like, wow, oh yeah, do it. You're just like, wow, that was such a shitty experience like I never want to do that again. But then you go up and you do it again and you just keep on doing it again and doing it again. And then, yeah, once I got like that was like right around when I was getting into switching over to bfx and getting into the industry. And yeah, right around that time, like what would like, I was playing shows with with the, the other girls, to became space queen. We're all a band and big man, we were touring. We played like a big jazz festival in interior mbc, like we were legitimately like having some like success and like doing it. And I was like working in the industry like full time and then going and like playing music until like 12 or recording to like four in the morning and then going and doing this and doing this, and it was just like, yeah, but like, but yeah, playing and doing that and putting that, it gave me this confidence that I just I stopped giving a Shit about what people thought about what I did and I just kind of took that into this whole thing.
Speaker 2:Like I, I I can only do what makes myself happy and what engages me. Yeah, it's the same for music. I'll write music for myself. I'll write music and if you're into it, that's cool too. But it's like it's what a couple right, I make art for myself to kind of, um, appease this side of me who for so long was so negative towards, like, my creative side. I thought everything I did was, hey, well, artistically, sorry, visually, like musically, I was like I loved everything, like I was able to create, and I wanted to have that same feeling for the stuff I did visually and artistically. Um, and yet, and like that's basically what happened like I got especially getting into this space and just being seeing, like, yeah, how people value work and all other people do you just, at the end of the day, you just can't care, you can't just like do it, do it for what, what you always used to do it for and not for anything else.
Speaker 1:I think you like wrap it up really nicely and put a bow on it Like I typically ask like well, one thing, yeah, I mean I think that's awesome, man, you know. Uh, so, man, tim, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on Uh if you, if people, if people want to find your work, where do you, where do you want to med for? So hit in my twitter, uh, I have a good Yep Yep.
Speaker 2:So I have all my links there basically to hen, to super rare and to known origin. I have stuff on foundation but I stopped using foundational on come ago. But yeah that you can find my stuff there. I'm on instagram as well. Tim reapel is my my name. So at tim realpel, yeah, you can. You'll see the name, you'll know what it is. Um, yeah, yeah, but yeah, that's, it's the same across all everything.
Speaker 1:So twitter um Is you're one of the lucky ones. Yeah, I know I even got these, these address.
Speaker 2:Yeah, on the tes address, which is which is sweet, but someone, someone stole my bit cloud account and was acting as me and they're like posting my twitter man twitter tweets and it was like up people like just internet and stuff. I haven't even looked back at it, but it was like it was like up, Pretty good compared to people. I was like this is yeah, like how do I get it rid of it? And it's just like so you can't. There's another version of me who's worse bit clout right now.
Speaker 1:So that's awesome, man. Well, Tim, again it's been an absolute treat. Uh, let's definitely stay connected. I look forward to seeing a lot of what you do.
Speaker 2:Oh man, thank you so much. I appreciate your reaching out and having you on. It was a great talk, it was awesome. It's been like two out almost two hours now, so this is amazing.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the shiller vaulted podcast. We hope you enjoyed the conversation. As we close out today's episode, don't forget to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite audio platform and leave a five star review to ensure you never miss an episode and to help others discover the vaulted podcast as well. To stay updated on upcoming episodes, as well as our weekly twitter space schedule, be sure to follow us on x, formerly known as twitter, at shiller xyz. Once again, thank you for tuning in and remember if you're looking for it Art is everywhere and it's up to us to appreciate and explore the emotions it brings to our lives. Until next time, this is Boona signing off.