Creating NFT Art [How to become an NFT creator]

It doesn’t happen often that an entire industry gets turned upside down. 

Yet that is exactly what is happening within the creative industry right now. Digital ownership is changing the game forever. 

Within a couple of years, most artists will be monetizing their art through NFTs. 

But before that happens, there’s an incredible opportunity to be an early adopter.

At the time of writing, this opportunity is still massive. But that window will be closing within the next two to three years. 

If you’re ready to take the leap and beat the crowd, this article is for you. 

It will help you better understand the world of NFTs, after which you’ll be ready to take the next step in your NFT Journey!

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Any image can be made into an NFT. But making NFTs, and creating NFT Art are two very different topics. 

Because NFTs aren’t just a technology. The NFT scene developed its own culture with its own paradigms. It’s important to understand this and have a feeling for it before you start creating. 

To get there we will go through:

The potential for NFT Artists

Before Web3, Artists were often struggling to make it to the end of the month. There simply wasn’t a lot of money on the table for the creatives amongst us. 

But since the introduction of NFTs, more and more artists are finally making a living out of their passion and creativity. 

Apart from straight-up NFT sales, project founders are paying artists good amounts for quality NFT collections. And oftentimes, the artist is part-owner of the project. This way, there’s a continuous inflow of funds through royalties (transaction fees). 

In Web2, the artist and the community stood outside of the brand's day to day. In Web3, both the artist and the community find themselves being a crucial part of the brand.

But monetization is not the only thing that’s changing. An equally important part is the relationship between the artist and the collector. 

NFTs are shaking this dynamic up. If you’re an artist and you’re entering Web3 for the first time, a whole new world is about to open up for you.

From my experience in working with Web3 creators, it’s a wonderful development. The relationship between the artist and the community is blown to life for the first time in history. 

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I’m not an artist myself, though. So, to bring you the perspective of someone with personal experience, I asked Mark Rise what Web3 has brought him.

Mark is an NFT creator who launched his latest collection on our platform. He was already working in the creative field before he found out about NFTs. And now, he has successfully launched collections on multiple chains.

Here is Mark’s response to the question “What has Web3 brought you?”

“Before Web3 came along, artists were like mysterious figures working behind the scenes. 

But Web3 changed the game, bringing us into the spotlight and connecting us with a vibrant community. 

Suddenly, our ties with people from all walks of life grew stronger and more dynamic. It’s like we’ve unlocked a new dimension of expression, not just through our art, but through conversations with amazing individuals. 

Web3 has opened up a whole new world of opportunities for artists to connect and thrive.”

Hoping that this article will find its way to many aspiring artists, I asked Mark to share a piece of advice too. 

Here’s what he has to say to you:

“Artists, it’s time to listen to your heart and your inner wisdom, and discover your place in the Web3 universe. Art is our calling, and sharing it is our purpose. 

There’s no better stage for that than Web3. Step into the spotlight and be part of the crypto revolution.

 Art has never soared higher, and artists have never been more valued. 

If you’re creating but not diving into Web3, you’re missing out on the chance to ride the biggest wave of your career.”

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Where it all started - The first NFT

Despite what many people tend to believe, NFT Art didn’t start with CryptoPunks or Bored Ape Yacht Club. 

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Rather, the first NFT was named Quantum. A digital art piece created by Jennifer and Kevin McCoy. 

The couple wanted a way to sell digital art with verifiable history, but that didn’t exist at the time. 

So, they decided to team up with tech entrepreneur Anil Dash to explore the possibilities that came with blockchain technology.

In 2014, they minted Quantum on Namecoin. Thereby creating the world’s first-ever NFT.

But Quantum was quickly forgotten after its mint, and it took another couple of years before the general idea of NFTs would resurface. 

Fast forward to 2017, when Matt Hall and John Watkinson created thousands of pixelated humanoid characters, known as CryptoPunks. 

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Initially, they thought they had developed a new smartphone app or game, but their work went on to revolutionize digital art and ownership…

To represent ownership of their Cryptopunks, they started modifying tokens on Ethereum (whether Matt and John were aware of Kevin McCoy’s work with Quantum is unknown). 

The work of the duo inspired others to create the first token standard designed specifically for NFTs: the ERC-721 token standard (feel free to forget that instantly). What’s important, is that this standard made it possible for NFTs to spread like wildfire!  

Here’s what the NFT adoption looked like in September ‘22, shortly after NFTs experienced their first major run.

So, in short, that’s how NFTs were born. And the rest is history. 

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Or… isn’t it? 👀

I’d say it isn’t. In my opinion, an exciting part of NFTs is that their history is still being written today! They haven’t gone mainstream yet, and you are still very early. 

We have seen lots of progress and new use cases, but we’re still figuring out to what extent this technology can be stretched. We simply still don’t know how big its impact is going to be. 

That being said, it’s not 2017 anymore. Where the Crypto Punks were made up of 24 x 24 pixels, we now have full-blown paintings as NFTs. 

Yet, the sophistication of the NFT has little to do with its price or popularity. Instead, the NFT scene has developed its own culture where the most important aspect by far, is community. 

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The NFT PFP (the most popular NFT Art)

If we’re talking about successful NFT Art, we must start with PFPs. 

If your goal is to create a big community and have lots of volume on marketplaces, you probably want to go with a PFP collection. The NFT PFP movement started with the Crypto Punks and has only grown stronger since. We can confidently say it is NFTs’ most powerful paradigm.

Below you can see the amount of ETH that has been transacted in NFT sales. The PFP category is outperforming the other categories by miles!

PFP stands for profile picture and almost all the successful NFT projects are PFP collections. 

The top 10 NFT collections in terms of Market cap currently looks like this: 

Market cap means the number of NFTs in the collection times the price of the cheapest NFT listed on a marketplace.

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The collections in bold are PFP collections. That makes 8 out of 10. The other two, are so popular due to their historic value.

But why is PFP Art is so successful? 

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I believe that a big part is played by Digital Social Status. For the first time, we can actually own digital items. For the first time, we can show off with what we’ve got in the online world.

Wearing an exclusive and expensive PFP on your X account lets people know two things:

1. You are part of that particular community.  
2. You had the money to pay for it. 

A big reason for people to use an NFT for their PFP is to show their support for a project. They’re letting the world know that they like the collection and that they’re comfortable with publicly showing support. 

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If you’re thinking about making PFP art, you have a lot of freedom to let your creativity on the go. But, there is one golden rule.

A PFP NFT must have a personality. So whether you're creating humanoids, monkeys, aliens, or made-up characters, there has to be a face with an expression. A basic PFP is made from the shoulders up or even from the neck up. This gives it the perfect dimensions to be used as a standard social media PFP.

An interesting art form that you will often find in the world of NFT PFPs is “Pixel Art.” 

We earlier saw that the PFP movement started with the Crypto Punks, which are one example of this art style. 

The Pixel Art movement probably started because of its low file size and efficiency. Their file sizes are a lot smaller compared to more detailed, high-resolution art.

And even though it is technically no longer necessary to hold back in the complexity, Pixel Art is still wildly popular. 

This is mostly due to:

1. Nostalgia and Retro Appeal - Pixel Art reminds people of classic video games from the 80s and 90s. 

2. Its Cultural Significance - Pixel Art strongly ties into the early internet and crypto communities. 

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NFT art examples that might surprise you

Even though PFP Art is the most popular form of NFT Art, there are plenty of other options out there: 

1. Photography 
2. Paintings
3. Generative Art
4. 3D art 
5. Animation/video
6. Audio

Here are some examples of NFTs that might surprise you:

SadCats by Loralaidraws - A collection created by Loralai, who is only 10 years old! She teamed up with her dad: she created the art, and her father manages the social media. 

Loralai minted out two collections already! 

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Cask Capital - The first tokenized marketplace for Scotch whisky casks.

Cask Capital created a marketplace where whiskey distilleries sell their casks. They offer fractionalized ownership of these casks, which will mature for a number of years and are then sold. The owners of the NFTs of that cask, then get paid their share. 

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“Candified Postmaster” by Jack Timothy and Mark Rise - This NFT is a crowdfunding NFT. 

It was used to sponsor an amateur martial artist called Kyle to fight in a big event. Kyle’s X name is “Postmaster”. The event was the 50th event from Karate Combat. 

These NFTs were bought by the community of a meme coin called $CANDY. This way the community sponsored Kyle, and he advertised their token at the event in return.

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Fun fact: all of these collections were launched on the Kabila platform. 😉

You might have noticed that some of these NFTs have a function within their ecosystem. This function is called “utility” in the Web3 World. 

NFT Utility has been a widely discussed topic over the past years. I have talked about this extensively with my colleagues as well. 

And while it is tempting to dive into it straight away, it’s a topic that deserves its own article. So, for now, I’ll stay with the art side of things. 🙂

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What makes an NFT valuable?

Ok, so you know what your options are. And maybe you’re starting to form an idea of what you want to make. 

But now the question arises: “How do I get people to buy my NFTs?” 

Or in other words: what gives NFTs their value?

To create and maintain value, you’ve got to get the following five aspects right:

1. Branding / Storytelling
2. Community
3. Strategy
4. Utility 
5. Art 

Creating any of these successfully is not simple at all though. That’s why 90-95 percent of all NFT collections are worthless after their first year. 

(dAppGambl, a cryptocurrency analyst firm, has published a research that found that 69,975 of the 73,257 NFT collections it examined, have a market cap of 0.)

Out of the five, Branding and Community seem to be the most important ones to get right. 

There’s very little utility involved in the top 10 NFT collections that I showed earlier. But what they do have in common is that they all have amazing branding and a very strong community.

The value of these collections is tied to the brand’s perceived value. This means that the value comes down to the price that the public is willing to pay for an NFT, rather than a set value like a loaf of bread, which is worth $2.50.

Keep in mind that when you start adding utility, you start to move from perceived value, to set value. 

People will start doing the math. They’ll try to determine whether your utility is worth more than the price of the NFT or not. If not, they won’t buy. 

Community, on the other hand, is not a set value. You can’t put a price on being part of a community. Everyone has to decide for themselves what they think it’s worth to be included.

To give yourself the greatest chance of succeeding in this, you have to get your strategy right. 

In our years of experience working with NFTs, we’ve seen many different strategies. We’ve seen what works, and what doesn’t. 

And recently, we distilled all this experience into the ultimate 5-step strategy for successfully launching an NFT collection. 

If you’re ready to start learning more about NFT strategy, give this article a read:

‍https://www.kabila.app/post/how-to-launch-a-successful-nft-collection-a-5-step-guide

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Conclusion

Now that you’ve read this article, you’ve got a solid foundation to take the next step in creating your very own NFT art. 

If you're ready to take the next step, make sure to read the 5-step NFT strategy. Your strategy will be at least as important as your art, when you're launching your NFTs! 

A 5-step strategy to successfully launch NFTs

https://www.kabila.app/post/how-to-launch-a-successful-nft-collection-a-5-step-guide

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Thanks for reading, and enjoy your Web3 journey! 

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