Leading the wave of cyberpunk NFTs, is Andre Vieira, with his awesome illustrations. And we were lucky enough to hear his thoughts on the NFT wave. Read on to find out.
Andre, thank you for taking the time to do this interview with us.
Congratulations on finally completing your Genesis NFT series. How did you first get into creating digital art?
Thank you, I’m so proud of my first NFT collection and happy that it sold out instantly.
Well, the very first crypto artwork I’ve minted was a still illustration, traditional line art and digital colors. That NFT did not sell, so I started looking around and suddenly discovered animated illustrations. I got super inspired by them and realized that I have to add another layer to my art. Not only does it look visually interesting, but it also connects my art closer to the digital world.
A still 3D artwork, photo or 2D illustration can always be printed out. Yes it is not an original piece, but you can easily get the art into the physical world and hang it on a wall. Animated artworks can only exist on a digital surface, they are only visible on screens. Same applies to blockchain technology, it’s a digital miracle. I want my art to be on that same level.
Your work primarily consists of interesting cyberpunk pieces that combine styles used in the traditional art world with the digital future. It’s awesome!!!
What are your inspirations? This could be artists (NFT or non-NFTs), TV shows, music, or any random thing on the internet!
Thank you so much! I believe as an artist you should really have many different sources of inspiration, that way you stay true to yourself and don’t start copying one specific art style. My biggest movie inspirations are probably Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner and Akira. The list of amazing artists who impacted me is so long: Gordon Murphy, Deathburger, Greg Capullo, Alberto Mielgo, Ryan Barry, Chien-An Chou and many more.
I also get inspired by our present time. Topics like climate change, state surveillance or international politics in general are very interesting to me. I like to read into these kinda scary developments that are affecting our lives already and will even more in the future. Based on these events I created my own dystopian Cyberpunk world…
Do NFTs, as a medium, allow you to explore the tech side of your practice further?
It definitely does, especially in terms of generative art and gamification. Artists need to work closely with developers to create something very special, I’m doing that right now. A website with a detailed roadmap will be online in a few weeks!
What is your work process from idea to finish?
I start off every artwork with a so-called thumbnail sketch, it’s a super tiny drawing that I do with pencils in my sketchbook. This is the most important step, because it defines the character design and the overall composition of the piece. Once that is done I scale it up and go over it with a fine mechanical pencil to draw in every single detail, I can’t have enough details.
Now I have my main layer, the next step is to add animation layers. I pick new papers, place them on top of my finished drawing and redraw certain parts to add movement. Then I trace every line with ink, scan the papers in, digitalize my artworks and start coloring in Photoshop. Usually I add even more frames digitally, so with this mixed media art style it can take up to 4 weeks to really make the NFT look perfect.
Cryptocurrencies and NFT have been dominating the world news for the past year thanks to the meteoric rise of Bitcoin, Cryptopunks, and of course, the famous Beeple $69M NFT purchase. What are your honest thoughts on the cryptocurrency and NFT space right now?
There is this one sentence people keep saying “We are early”. It has become kind of a meme now, but it is the truth. Many things are still not working properly: ETH transactions take too long or are sometimes way too expensive. Elon Musk can crash the market alone. Many things are just too fragile, but we are definitely on the right track. Hopefully people realize that this new technology is the future and jump on the crypto train — the more, the better.
Regarding NFTs I think that we really need new collectors to join the space, artists depend too much on just a few people. This imbalance can probably only be changed through a mainstream adoption of crypto in general. I try to explain this technology to as many people as possible and just hope that one day they will join the space. Educating the masses is all we can do right now.
What are your other passions besides creating art?
Currently I really focus on creating NFTs and building my art career, so I don’t have much free time. But usually I love watching movies, gaming with friends and reading comic books. I also like to cook and try out new recipes, especially asian ones.
This is something we ask new starters in CoinBurp as part of their Q&A interviews that we post on our blog, but the answers are always great so we’ll ask you too; What TV show or movie are you ashamed to admit you love?
Well…this is a bit weird, but I probably wouldn’t recommend “Food Wars” to someone who wants to get into Anime. It’s about epic cooking duels, so called “Shokugeki Battles”, that escalate A LOT. Judges are having wild dreams when eating the dishes and it just gets quite intense. But the food looks really amazing, it’s the perfect anime to watch when you are having dinner or the worst anime to watch when you are hungry XD
Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions for us. The CoinBurp team can’t wait to see you grow as an artist!
Post some links to where people can find your artwork and social media accounts. Also, feel free to shout out anything else you wish.
Foundation: https://foundation.app/@andrevieira
Twitter: https://twitter.com/andrevieiraart
Showtime: https://tryshowtime.com/andrevieira
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrevieiraart
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