For my Senior Project, I was interested in exploring a hot topic: NFTs, more specifically the space as it is being used to sell digital art. As a digital artist, I'm fascinated by this fast-growing space, however, I’m equally skeptical and hesitant about entering it. Due to its novelty, expanse and constantly shifting nature, there are many controversies surrounding it, which makes it challenging to keep up with. Since I'm not ready to use the platform, I thought it would be great to create a project about NFTs, posing as an NFT collection, to process and reflect on all the opposing reactions or comments I've been collecting as I learn about the space.
You can check out my pretend NFT collection on the website.
https://nonfungiblethoughts.myportfolio.com/collection
https://nonfungiblethoughts.myportfolio.com/collection
I developed five characters that each represent a certain reaction/response to the emergence of NFTs.
STEP ONE... Inspiration & Persona.
STEP ONE... Inspiration & Persona.
(FYI, these are the condensed steps I took to complete this entire project, with many steps and hours in between but, it's a general outline of my process and assembly.)
I started with a breakdown of five personas that I compiled from research and personal observation, both online and through conversations with others.
A big source of inspiration is a children’s book series I remember from when I was little (Mr. Men and Little Miss, consisting of a bunch of characters that represent an entire mood, feeling, and thing (nouns and adjectives) and the Inside Out Pixar film characters. Examples below:
I also began to collect ideas for potential lines/dialogues that each character might have for their individual pieces.
STEP TWO... Character Design.
Started with some very rough sketches which I then transferred on to Adobe Illustrator to create 2D character designs. 
Started out with these...
Finalized with these...
And then created 3D models of each character!
STEP THREE... Creating the pieces.
I decided to create a collection of a total of 15 pieces, with 3 gifs per character.
Since I was creating a combination of 2D and 3D gifs, each piece consisted of a different process but generally, the 2D gifs were mainly assembled on After Effects with some elements (like text or background motion) completed in ProCreate.
The 3D gifs were first developed in Maya by rigging the characters, creating a short keyframe animation, and rendering an image sequence which I then brought into After Effects to assemble and add any 2D elements such as text.
FINAL STEP... Putting it all together on the website.
Once I had all the gifs completed for each character, I put them together on the website I began to develop that would host the 'collection'. Adding a character and about section to give the audience more context of the collection.
Through multiple phases of feedback, editing, and polishing, I was contemplating the layout and organization of the different pieces. Originally I intended to reflect them in conversation with each other by scattering the pieces randomly in a 3x5 grid but I decided to organize each character into their own row for visual and conceptual clarity.
Check out the final site: https://nonfungiblethoughts.myportfolio.com/collection
