The Art of Avastars
Creating generative digital art stored as tokens on the Ethereum blockchain.
First and foremost, welcome! We have been quietly building Avastars for the last six months. We are finally ready to share our project with a broader audience. Our Genesis and Founder Sale will begin on February 7th via OpenSea.
Who are we? We are nft42 - a self-funded venture into the world of non-fungible tokens. Currently, nft42 is me, Jim McNelis, previously the founder of an IT consulting firm called Dito. We have a fantastic developer as well, Cliff Hall. We want to grow a bit this year if Avastars does well, so if you are passionate about NFTs in an almost unhealthy way, hit me up.
The Artists behind Avastars
Marmota x Milky is the fantastic artist team that created the art for Gen1 Avastars. They reside in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and have worked with brands such as Adidas, Burger King, and Hyundai. I was initially attracted to their character designs and only learned of them working with these major brands after they started designing Avastars. It has indeed been an honor and pleasure working on this project with Carlos and Fabi. <3
The Art of Avastars
Avastars is generative vector art where the 12 genes that make up an Avastar (Hair Type, Mouth, Skin Tone etc.) have traits (Top Hat, Vampire, Zombie, etc.) randomly assigned to them via browser-based RNG. There are around 450 physical traits and 158 color palette traits that make up the genetic pool of Gen1. As users scroll, Avastars, which are made of these traits show up on their screen. If they find a trait combination they like, they can buy it, which will make it into an NFT.
Storing Avastars Art On-Chain
Each Avastar has its art stored on the Ethereum blockchain. We upload 1 base image of each trait to one of our smart contracts and then use that copy for every Avastar that has that genetic trait. Our smart contracts can then render the portrait by referencing metadata and assembling the art.
We do not store the completed art for an individual Avastar. Instead, our contract can render the art on-demand using our stored base images.
The total storage space used on Ethereum blockchain for Gen1 Avastars art is 2.5 megabytes.
This is an efficient solution that ensures Avastars digital art is preserved on the blockchain rather than just relying on an externally hosted database.
True Ownership of an Avastar
We consider Avastars to be unique digital art that is owned by the holder of the non-fungible token. Each one is unique, and no two Avastars can be precisely the same. The owners can use Avastars for whatever purpose they wish, as long as it does not express or contribute to hate or violence. If they want to make an Avastar the logo for their brand or include it in a piece of their own digital art, they have that ownership right.
What they don’t own are the individual base layers that make up an Avastar. So we will not allow owners to use singular trait art or color palettes for the same commercial purposes. This is to protect other owners who share that same trait or color palette in their Avastars.
In Closing
Well, that’s most of what I wanted to share today about the art of Avastars. Sorry for writing the word Avastars so many times in the article. I couldn’t think of a good substitute. I am going to write it 3 more times, just for good measure. Avastars Avastars Avastars.
Next up - The Metadata of Avastars. Subscribe, share, tweet, etc. Be the first to know. Thanks!!
-Jim