I've had my eye on the NFT (non-fungible token) market for a while now... researching a little bit here and there and contemplating how to approach it, experiment, and jump in! If you don't know what NFTs are, jump in the comments and let's discuss... and I'll try to take a deeper look at them in future posts as well.
I finally made my first foray tonight, entirely due to the emergence of https://nftshowroom.com, the very first NFT marketplace built on the Hive blockchain. Hive is my home, and I was so happy that my first experience in this emerging field could happen right here.
After first hearing about the pre-launch/alpha of NFT Showroom, I hopped into their Discord channel briefly and @juliakponsford was so informative and supportive, I knew I just had to give it a try. All I was waiting for was a little free time and liquid Hive. The first came about because I'm off work tomorrow... so I can pull a late night tonight! The second came about because my first powerdown of Blurt! hit a few hours ago and I exchanged it for Hive! So the reasonable fees to create my first NFT's were basically free thanks to Blurt! 😆
So what did I "tokenize?"
Original comic book artwork is actually a rather large market within the industry. Successful comic artists can often make a substantial portion of their income from the sale of their original work. This is a market and source of income that hasn't existed for artists who in recent years have moved to producing their work on digital devices. I'm intrigued by the possibilities for blockchain and NFTs to recreate this traditionally physical market in the digital realm. So that's what I aim to explore.
I have successfully tokenized the original artwork to the cover of "I Thought It Would Be Zombies..." #1!
For this I wanted to replicate as closely as possible the same physical art a collector might purchase. This was pretty easy for me as I tend to work in a very traditional manner, albeit digitally. I actually do utilize a template which replicates a traditional comic art board, do a "pencil" underdrawing and so forth. When creating my NFT I simply made sure to show and dial in some of those underdrawing layers to what I hope is an interesting level which helps show the underlying artistic process. This is what I value most about looking at original artwork by great artists, and I wanted to capture that.
As this token represents the original artwork, it is a unique edition of one only. As such it's a bit pricier, currently set at 350 Hive. You can check it out here!
Wanting to do a bit more and not price everyone out, I also created a run of digital "prints." Limited to an edition of 30, these are priced at a more reasonable 45 Hive, and feature the full color iteration of the cover artwork. In the comics world this is referred to as a "virgin" cover as it lacks the traditional logo and trade dress that would be on the final publication.
You can find that run of tokens here.
There are many great artists already testing out and experimenting with the amazing new platform of NFT Showroom. For more news and information be sure to follow @nftshowroom, and browse and explore https://nftshowroom.com!
I'll do my best to give updates, information, and my first impressions in the days to come as I learn a bit more myself. In the meantime, if you feel generous and intrigued... head on over there and buy some "I Thought It Would Be Zombies..." art! Obviously, every purchase helps support me and the continued development of this comic.
-Bryan "the Imp" Imhoff
