CtvBlq Interviews - Pixelord
No.002
For our second CtvBlq Interviews… we caught up with the incredibly talented Pixelord, for some in-depth banter about his time in the crypto art space, Ordinals and the glorious Spectrum Heroes.
Prior to being a blockchain artist / collector, for those who don't know, who is Pixelord outside of Web3?
PL I've always been an artist, a multimedia artist as some people might say. Maybe it's the best way to describe it. I became a multimedia artist because I used to do music, for more than 10 years and even seriously performed with my music and visuals. I went to different countries, like USA, China, and Europe and mostly focused on my music. Before that even in my young age I was a 3D designer & animator, making video games and computer graphics. So basically, I was always an artist connected with modern technologies, computers, devices, all those things. And now AI and NFTs. I'm just a geek who likes to make art and music, and create some of my personal characters in a pixel art world.
How did you first start your journey in crypto and Web3 and what attracted you to NFTs?
PL I think I started with collaborations. I saw people starting to play with NFTs in 2021, when the whole big hype started on Ethereum. Mostly on Rarible and Foundation, SuperRare, these kind of platforms. I collaborated with some guys who made animations, 3D art, and I provided them with music and sound design. I made lots of collabs with my music, and we sold it together for good prices because there was huge NFT hype at the time. And then, I started making my own because I was like, OK, I see people can sell art even without music or animation. I had 50,000 followers at the time on Twitter, and I thought perhaps collectors would be interested, but I was just starting out, so “let's just experiment”. My first experiment was sold for 0.5 ETH. Right away it was sold completely. I was like, wow, it works. Let's do more! And then I started my 3D series, my PFP collections and so on and so on and so on. And then I switched to my own art with some elements of music, but it's more like art. It's more visual than musical. So yeah, that's how it is.
So the success that you had with the initial collaborations prompted you to go it alone and see how it went, and it clearly went really well!
PL Yeah, like it's because I always did visuals as well, for commercials for my artworks, along with music and video. And then when I saw people selling art, I thought “I know how to do this.” I know Photoshop, I know Cinema 4D. I know a lot of programs and I can do my art and I’ve always liked surreal art. And People seemed to like it. So yeah, those collaborations just introduced me to to the blockchain, basically to Web3, to NFTs.
What was the very first NFT you minted as an artist?
PL I think it's a piece called Tea Trip. I made it from some 3D assets, basically found different assets on the Internet and connected them in an unexpected way. It's like, you know, a huge teapot with the humans sitting around, some tissues, some Internet symbols, cats walking around. So it's a kind of a dreamy surreal piece that came to my mind somehow. It's just an experiment.
What was the very first NFT that you collected and why did you choose that one?
PL It was Master of Music by Ruslan Vyaltsev. I wanted to buy some of my friends artworks from Foundation and support them.
Could you describe your creative process? How do you go from initial idea to realizing it in its final form?
PL So there's different types of process. For example, for my larger scale 1/1 project called Internet of Mushrooms, I focused on making high resolution pieces with lots of detail. I generated some parts in 3D programs, and with AI, then took those parts, removed unnecessary bits and messed with them like a collage. It's like in Photoshop, you get the background and then you move around these objects. It's abstract, there's lots of components, and then at some point I just see these two pieces, these two objects looking good. Then I rearrange, I add some other stuff and the story forms itself basically. There's no story in my head when I start. It's like I experiment and search for it. Maybe it's like, you know, those early surrealists, they painted just after they woke up. Their minds are less focused and they can just, you know, think less and create more from their subconscious.
So would you say for you it's a much more organic process than a structured process?
PL Yes, much more like an exploration process. And it's the most important and fun part. When I start, I kind of know the style I'm doing, because, for example for this series there's a special colour style. And they all kind of look the same because they’re made with the same technique, same time. Then I try to and take elements from previous artworks to the next, but somehow arrange it differently. For me, it's like Lego, you know? Like playing with different parts. It's very cool to me because the piece is kind of making itself somehow through me.
Like a conduit?
PL Yeah, and I know it’s finished when I get the feeling that OK, that's enough. And the next day I review it and maybe it's finished or I just need a couple of tweaks here and there. You have to make it cleaner or maybe bump up resolution, which can be processed on top of the final image. We can upscale resolution with AI and even get additional details which weren't there before.
Congratulations on Spectrum Heroes collection selling out. Can you tell us about this project? It's inception. And more importantly, what ultimately made you choose Bitcoin and Ordinals for the drop?
PL So Spectrum Heroes is my second drop on Ordinals. And this one is a bigger and more thought out project. It's more more finished, less experimental, with the idea to create, you know, something from my childhood. I used to play games on the ZX Spectrum. All these games about knights, mages, all these skeletons. We all played Golden Axe. I guess we all remember those guys with swords and axes, mages and things like that. Recently I was actually playing these games again, like a couple of months ago, and sometimes I just look on YouTube. I look on Instagram. I see the retro screenshots from retro games and that makes me feel good. I don't know. It just makes me feel happy.
So you’d say there's a nostalgia, sort of rekindling of youth to it perhaps?
PL Yes, and it awakens some creative parts of me and also happiness that was there. Because, of course, obviously we all miss those times. We feel different right now. Our bodies are older. It affects our mind, of course. Yeah, as the kids were much more easy, light, creative, not limited, without problems and all this shit. That's why I remember these times.
So what was the creation process?
PL For Spectrum Heroes, I wanted to create something different looking from everyone else. I used pixel art techniques, combined with AI, So it's 50% AI and 50% processing. I generated lots and lots of variations until I got some interesting looking heroes, then I took them and degraded the colours so bad, so much… It's like basically four or six colours in the end, and I also made them very small. Ten kilobytes is the biggest Ordinal from Spectral Heroes. I filter it through pixels, like the retro computer filters. And then in Photoshop, I’ll add things or remove the backgrounds, or maybe tweak the colours. If I don't like this colour, I can change it. It becomes very lo-fi like, you know, like a ZX Spectrum style of pixel-based image. Hence the name of the project. Also, there's interesting compression. Magic Eden helped me to compress the files; they had some scripts, and we made it as small as possible.
Is the permanence of ordinals very important to you?
PL Yes, it makes me happy, also makes me proud of myself because my work is on-chain, because it's on the best blockchain, right? It's on the first blockchain ever created. And it's there forever.
Who inspires you either in or outside of Web3?
PL It's the people from Ordinals, people like Leonidas, who built Runestones. The people who run Ordinals podcasts, these spaces. Then there’s my collectors who’ve supported me so much over the past three years. And artists, of course, someone like Beeple. I think it's it's obvious, but he's the biggest and he's the greatest. He's the God. I mean, in a way, he connects everything, you know? I mean, he can throw a deathmatch. He throws one next month, like in this May. It's like NFT deathmatch when two artworks fight and people decide who wins or something like that. So it's fun. He does cool stuff with the community. He supports people like us, you know, we are not that huge like he is. He throws these galleries, and he took my work on his show where he showed lots of lots of artists. These kind of people are very cool because he still makes art every day. That's why he inspires me because he doesn’t stop, and started long before NFTs. Five thousand days, right? And now, almost three thousand days after NFTs started. He still does that every day.
What's next for Pixelord?
PL The next big thing is an additional collection for my spectrum heroes. It's going to be weapons, like swords and axes. And I'm going to I'm going to drop some of this collection to those who hold two heroes. And if they had two more heroes, they will get a free sword for the hero. And then, of course, it's going to be trading on secondary or something like that. So, yeah, that's like extension for my collection. I’m also making some new 1/1 NFTs on Foundation with Base Chain. I'm interested in Base Chain. I think it's cool. The gas is very low. So besides ordinals, we still have Ethereum base because, if we need to drop a huge file, huge image, 4K or maybe a video, It's almost impossible otherwise. Yeah, that's why we still need them.
Any advice to anyone starting as a crypto artist, who are trying to find their feet in the space?
PL I think my biggest advice would be to not focus on profits. Focus on connecting with people, connecting with your crowd. Find your crowd, find your gang, maybe a group of people, friends, artists. Also be a collector and support those around you.
You can follow Pixelord on X, and check out all his latest work via his Linktree.
Dan | Digitalgyoza is a lighting designer and digital AI artist based in the UK, who writes about Art, Technology, Web3, Culture and Blockchain.
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