3D Art with David Ariew and Ness Graphics

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https://twitter.com/GuyNorcal
https://twitter.com/Klutch_NFT

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Music Credits:
https://twitter.com/RoomInEight

Transcript

3D Art with David and Ness

[00:00:00] Klutch: Welcome to show everyone. Happy Friday. Are y'all doing? 

[00:00:04] David: Doing great. So good. 

[00:00:09] Klutch: Thank you guys for participating. Uh, I don't know if you called, I don't know if you called last week, but we did nude art and uh, this week we wanted to do 3D art. Um, and then as we were doing. Obviously we wanted to get, uh, the best guess we could.

[00:00:24] Klutch: Fine. And you guys were the top of our list, so thank you both 

[00:00:27] David: for accepting. And, and we, the 

[00:00:31] Klutch: more we dug into it, we just thought like, man, you guys are like very well established. And there's probably gonna be a lot of artists listening who aren't as established. So we thought maybe use it as an educational odd for them.

[00:00:45] Klutch: Uh, and it's also, I think for a lot of collectors, they don't understand exactly what goes into making some pieces. So we wanted to touch on some of that and maybe touch a couple spicy topics, um, like the, the dangue situation later. So we'll, we'll touch that one later. 

[00:01:04] David: Mm. Spicy . 

[00:01:08] Klutch: Uh, How you doing Noelle?

[00:01:09] Klutch: You? 

[00:01:09] Ness: Yeah. You good? 

[00:01:11] NorCal: Good. Things are, good Things are ready to go. I think so, yeah. I'm ready. Go. I think everyone knows us. We'd like to hear a little more about each of you. Uh, nest. Let's hear a little bit about you and, uh, if anything you'd like to share with the audience before we get 

[00:01:28] Ness: started. Yeah, sure. I can give kind of the, the whole rundown of, of me in the last like five, six years or so.

[00:01:37] Ness: Um, and kind of what I've done and what got me into NFTs. Um, so basically back in, I don't remember exactly the year, but I was doing, um, concert visuals for shows for the most part. So I do, um, like Travis Scotch Astro Tour, I did all the animations for that. Um, Diplo, Coachella, et cetera. So David was also doing similar things as well.

[00:01:59] Ness: So that's kind of how we've known each other for 

[00:02:01] David: years. 

[00:02:02] Ness: Yeah. Um, so that's kind of what I was doing and it was going great and all, and then Covid happened, which just destroyed it, right? Uh, kind of everything came to a halt I was doing. Like just a little Uzi and um, Megan Na stallion stuff, uh, for a couple of their streaming performances and TV and, and so on.

[00:02:22] Ness: Um, but for the most part it was me just kind of doing nothing, just being like, Okay, what am I gonna do? And then I kind of found NFTs in August, 2020. I started kind of just seeing what, what it was, trying to figure it out. And then I applied to super rare and then got accepted after a couple weeks and hosted my first one in November of 2020, I believe.

[00:02:46] Ness: Um, and kind of from there just was a, a very rocky start, right? It was kind of me coming in thinking like, Oh, I'll do it just fine. I, I've already had like a following and been a, a 3D artist for like 12 years at the time and so on, and I kind of just immediately flopped. And from there it kind of made me realize, okay, this is a whole different place.

[00:03:07] Ness: I need to get into it. I need to make connections. I need to talk with collectors. And not just treat them as like bags of money walking around. Right. Like they're more than that. I, a lot of my connections I made with collectors are just, cuz they were really interesting, interesting people. Like one of my first big collectors illustrator was because he was, his bio was like, uh, changing the music industry and I was just genuinely intrigued what he was gonna be doing and so on.

[00:03:36] Ness: And, and making these just connections from there is kinda how I did well and here we are today. So that's kind of my, my jumble of what I've been doing the last couple 

[00:03:46] David: years. Yeah. Yeah. Similar story for me. I got my start in the industry making concert visuals for, for Dave Matthews Band all the way back in 2010.

[00:03:57] David: And like at first I just soaked up everything like a sponge. I taught myself editing color grading, d i t, which stands for digital imaging technician, uh, camera operating VFX 2D motion design, and finally, 3D motion design. Yeah, I was like, I was obsessed with tutorials by, you know, Nick Campbell and Andrew Kramer and, uh, I had so much fun just doing any and all work in post production.

[00:04:21] David: So you could say I was, I started as a generalist and over the years I gradually honed in on three work as my passion. But, you know, I don't regret taking on any of those jobs at all because they trained my eye and taste and all of those skills are still like, so extremely useful in 3d in my 3D work. Um, around 2014, I took the dive into freelance work, uh, you know, which was a huge jump, you know, and very scary at the time, but nothing like NFTs.

[00:04:45] David: Um, And then, you know, and I never looked back like, like freelance was just so much better, so much more free. Like, Huh, Freelance. Uh, but you know, it, it was more liberating and like you, you know, I immediately doubled my income when I went to freelance. And then around 2017, my buddy EJ has, and Pratts, who's a big educator in the, in the 3D community, asked me to create some octane tutorials for his channel.

[00:05:09] David: Uh, and I jumped at the opportunity, especially since I learned so much from the generosity of other educators, like. And it was like extremely gratifying to see the reactions of students and how much they got outta the content. Uh, and at one point someone actually dropped a comment on one of my videos calling me Octane Jesus because of my Jesusy look.

[00:05:27] David: And that caught on fire. Uh, and from then on I was octane Jesus to the community and the joke just took on new forms with, you know, friends and students of mine photoshopping my face onto Jesus' body . So, uh, the lesson here was basically that if the internet brands you, you just gotta roll with it. Um, and yeah, my education journey, like, or my journey as an educator really peaked in 2020 when I released my class lights, camera render with School of Motion.

[00:05:53] David: And that was definitely like my magnum opus at the time because I worked on that course for a year straight. I basically downloaded the entire contents of my brain into it. Um, but yeah, along the way I got to work for artists like Bele, uh, Deb Mouse, Ed Katie Perry, Keith Urban Excision, um, Mike Diva and Corridor Digital.

[00:06:11] David: And brands like Intel, KFC, and Magic Leap. Uh, and I got into the habit of taking on very ambitious projects like full CG music videos and crafting my own style of tightly synced, you know, concert visuals. Uh, then yeah, in late 2020, NFTs exploded and I jumped in and I bought a bele, cuz that was, you know, my friends and I were like chatting back and forth, like, people's doing this thing.

[00:06:32] David: It's really fucking weird. Like, we're, we're buying JPEGs, like people are buying jpeg, this is so stupid. But , we, uh, you know, we, we jumped in and bought it anyway to like quote unquote support him at the time. And little did we know that shit was gonna blow up like crazy. Um, and we got like just addicted immediately after that and, you know, realize that there was way more going on in the space, way more to the technology.

[00:06:56] David: Um, so yeah, I've been full-time in the space since then and I've had the pleasure of, you know, creating NFTs with people in Madonna as well as for Pac, uh, you know, in the Ash two drop. And I did a drop with Sotheby's and collab with, uh, the famous Chinese artist gii. But yeah, it's been a wild ride and I have no clue where I'm going next, but to me that's like very exciting and energizing.

[00:07:18] David: Um, yeah, so that's, that's pretty much it. 

[00:07:22] Klutch: Thank you guys. Uh, so you guys were both pretty early then, and I'm, I'm wondering how, how did you guys like educate yourself on these tool sets? Were you still using YouTube like way back in the day? I know that's what a lot of people do nowadays. Um, is that, is that how you guys taught yourself these?

[00:07:41] David: Yes and no. These kids, a lot of it was like word of mouth, just like, you know, connecting with other artists. Like, what the fuck is this? What's going on? Um, you know, Nest actually helped, like, onboard me to a large degree and like helped with so, you know, so many other artists. Um, but yeah, YouTube was extremely helpful for learning about the market.

[00:08:01] David: Like, there were, you know, I scour, I always do this with everything, any new career and like new career who diss, you know, with like color grading when I had to be a d I T like. Technician on set, you know, and like learn how to do that job. It's like just YouTube, it, that's like kind of, you know, my generation, our generation is just like all about the online learning.

[00:08:20] David: So yeah, with, with the market I scoured for like different content creators that were really, um, intelligent and very easy, you know, just communicated very well about crypto and the market in general to understand like what the fuck e is gonna do so I don't screw myself over. Like we're, we're, you know, releasing work, um, you know, selling it in a, in a cryptocurrency.

[00:08:43] David: So like, it's really important to understand cryptocurrency and then also all the mechanics like burning and smart contracts and all these things. Like the more you know about this stuff, the more you know crypto native you are, it seemed the be the better you would do in this space. Like PAC was the obvious exam who was in Bitcoin since 2010 and who just combined all of these skills together in this insane multi multiple whatever, multidisciplinary.

[00:09:09] David: Art , you know? Um, so yeah, I would say it was a combination of YouTube and just like asking around, learning from my collectors, learning from other fellow artists and that kind of thing. And just being constantly immersed in the space. Like immersion is always, has always been key for me in anything I'm doing in my career.

[00:09:27] David: Like, um, just the more you can get nerdy about it and the more you connect with other people in that field, um, you know, as well as iro like in events, you know, that's just kind of my process and it, it's, it really helps get you up to speed quickly. 

[00:09:49] Klutch: How about Youness? Are you like pretty similar? Like what do you do to keep educating yourself?

[00:09:53] Klutch: Or are you guys all like DM each other like, Hey, I'm trying to do this. You got any ideas? Or how does that work? 

[00:09:59] Ness: So, I mean, getting into NFTs it wasn't that hard for me cause um, I've been in crypto really long. I got into crypto or Bitcoin in 2009. I didn't hold any of it. Um, I, I lost a thousand bitcoin actually in 2011 

[00:10:13] David: or so.

[00:10:14] David: Um, what, 

[00:10:15] Klutch: what, Wait, a thousand, 1000 Bitcoin. 

[00:10:18] David: You guys dunno this story? Yeah. So basically, yeah. I 

[00:10:20] Ness: used, I used to mine it, um, on and hold, uh, I don't remember what computer I was. I think it was like an old pc. But then I moved my wallet onto, like, I bought, I had like a hand me down, like iMac. It was like a 2007 iMac.

[00:10:36] Ness: I want to say that I was running like VMware Fusion to have my Bitcoin, like qt, you know, like the original wallet and so on. And it just, I lost it and I sold that iMac on eBay for like $235 I believe, which had roughly a thousand Bitcoin on it, give or take. Um, Yeah. 

[00:10:57] Klutch: How would he, how many times have he cried over this

[00:11:00] Ness: Geez, none. . Oh my God. It happens. You know, it's like it's, there's nothing I could do about it and it would probably hurt way more if I had sold it at like $2 a coin 

[00:11:12] David: or something like that. Yeah. Unless, let's be real, You would've cause like something pumps like 10 x, you're like, holy fuck, I'm rich in the ucla.

[00:11:20] David: Yeah. Yeah. I mean I've had 

[00:11:21] Ness: this story like over and over and then I like got back into, I, I was kind of out of crypto for a couple years and then I got back in and I think 2013 give or take with like do coin and all those other kind of shit coins, you know? Um, and I had like 7 million do I think, and I have like an funny enough, I have an email to my mom like four days after do coin release and I'm like, go look at Coin Market Cap and Search Do Coin.

[00:11:48] Ness: I don't know why I was sending it to her 

[00:11:49] David: just to show her. 

[00:11:51] Ness: But I have that like email, which is funny. Um, and then I sold that in high school for like seven grand total, which again, would've been a hell of a lot more at its height when like Elon was tweeting about it. But it just happens, it's crypto. But that being said, getting into NFTs, it didn't feel that crazy to me cuz I was already very, um, crypto native or however you want to call it, where it, it all made sense to me.

[00:12:17] Ness: Um, and then also getting into the art world wasn't foreign to me either cuz my sister is a fine artist, um, named Rebecca Nes, um, who's in the fine art world. She sells in all the, the big, uh, galleries and she has art shows and so on. And I, I kinda had a little bit to cheat codes, if you will, from her, you know, understanding the traditional art world and how you can't just walk into a gallery with a ton of money and be like, I wanna buy that.

[00:12:45] Ness: They'll just turn you away if they don't know who you are and, and so on. So I've kind of. Just brought a little bit of that ethos into NFT is kind of with how I purposely restrict who can buy my art sometimes. You know, I don't let just everyone buy it. Um, I wanna know who you are and so on. Which I guess is a little counterintuitive to the NFT culture or crypto culture.

[00:13:07] Ness: But, um, it's just what I think is kind of right. And, and yeah, so that's kind of what I do. And then of course, staying up with things is just Discord talking to, to, uh, different other artists and seeing what's going on. Lately I've been kind of out of the loop cause I just have a lot of life stuff going on.

[00:13:26] Ness: But, um, it, it's basically impossible to keep up with it as best you can. It's just, I come on Twitter and there's some new random shit that I missed like five minutes ago. I'm doing my best. . 

[00:13:40] NorCal: Nice, Nice. Now, uh, just jumping into it, can either of you explain, cuz I mean I, I'm out of the loop on this. The difference between like these different tools, um, like Cinema, four D Blender, Photoshop After Effects.

[00:13:57] NorCal: Do you guys use all of them? Some of them. 

[00:14:00] David: One of them, Yeah. 

[00:14:01] Ness: So I can kind of give my workflow and then David should do his workflow. I think we're pretty similar though. Dang. Yeah. . So, um, I use Cinema 4D for kinda all the 3D stuff. So I mean, think of that as like drawing a picture with a pencil or whatever, you know, no matter how you get to it, what you like kind of pen you or pencil you use, you're still getting a 3D object, whether you're doing a 4D 3D max, it's all the same shit, you know, you're just making 3D objects and then it gets into the rendering.

[00:14:33] Ness: That's where both of us use Octane Render. Which I've been using since 2011, 

[00:14:40] David: I 

[00:14:40] Ness: believe. So it's been over 10 years now. Um, which is kind of crazy to think of. Um, so, and that's when you kind of take everything from just being that like line drawing on a piece of paper and you're turning it into actually having color and, and depth reflection and all that kind of stuff.

[00:15:01] Ness: Right. Um, and then you'll bring it into, I usually do after effects for all my post editing. A lot of other artists will just bring it into Photoshop to do their stuff if they're doing stills. Um, that's where I do my post effects, where I add color correction, um, hazes particles, um, you name it. That's kind of all the post work.

[00:15:24] Ness: Um, and then you finish it up and, and post it. Um, David, is that pretty much 

[00:15:29] David: exactly how you go to Yeah, that's pretty much exactly it. I mean, like, yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's obviously like a host of other little apps that we'll use in a digital, like Cinema 4D is the hub, right? And it's like you want to kind of like choose one 3D package that you get as a 3D artist.

[00:15:44] David: You wanna choose one 3D package that you get very comfortable with. Uh, for me, that Cinema 40, because it's so user friendly, that Blender is also great. Um, you know, there's also Maya Max Houdini, there's, there's a million of 'em out there. They all do somewhat similar things. Uh, it's almost like speaking a different language, but it's, it's not bad to learn more and more apps, but it can become a distraction.

[00:16:06] David: I know certain people that are kind of tinkerers that just love to learn apps constantly, uh, but that doesn't allow you to create better art necessarily. Um, but yeah, there's a ton of like different programs out there for, you know, like there's world creator for creating environments. Marvelous, marvelous designer for Cloth Sims, Houdini does all of the, you know, kind of intense simulation work out there.

[00:16:27] David: And it's like you have to have such a technical brain to get into that. Um, you know, and then there's, yeah, so like that smoke, fire, water, you know, um, all sorts of crazy motion design weirdness. That's hard to even explain. Um, and then, yeah, I mean, for, for post. Like Alex said, you know, After effects is pretty much the go-to everybody like that.

[00:16:52] David: I know for the most part, most part, that was starting around 2010, 2011 began with After Effects. That's the composing software where you can add in stock footage and different effects. On top, though, the further and further into my career I get, the less I use any kind of compositing software. I tend to do everything all within, um, Cinema 40 and Octane.

[00:17:11] David: So Octane is the render engine. That's a, it's a third party GPU render engine. You do all the lighting, texturing, uh, like depth of field and camera effects there. It's basically the make it pretty thing that lives inside of cinema 40 or whatever 3D app you're using. Um, and the GPU aspect means that it's like an order of magnitude faster than CPU render engines.

[00:17:34] David: Back in the day when I started out, it was all CPU based, uh, which meant that it was very difficult to do things like lighting or texturing because you would hit render and then you'd wait for literally like 30 minutes for your image to resolve and you'd see one little square ak a bucket at its time.

[00:17:49] David: So it was like looking through a little peephole at whatever the fuck you're doing. And at some point you would just give up. You would be like, Okay, this is close enough. Like the lighting's good enough. You know, you, you're, it was just such a frustrating process. So the GPU aspect, just because it's like it's sim more similar to a game engine, you're seeing things much more close to real time.

[00:18:07] David: It's not quite as real time as something like Unreal engine. Um, But at the same time, it is higher quality than Unreal. So it's kind of like a balance, a trade off there. Um, but I think, you know, a as we move towards the future, it'll just become more and more like a game engine. Like, excuse me, Octane Otoy, the company that that owns Octane, um, they're coming out with an engine called Brigade, which is real time.

[00:18:34] David: And then you'll be able to just really quickly switch between the real time render engine and, and the true version of Octane, which is again, slightly higher quality, better reflections, better shadows, you know, more like more that it can do. But, but the idea is that you'll be able to work really, really quickly and instantly in the real time render and then switch to the offline render for the final render.

[00:18:57] David: I dunno if that's too much information, but Yeah. There you go. . 

[00:19:01] Klutch: Thank you. Hey, I, the next question I have is just cuz it's, I think it's good for collectors to understand this, like, so when I look at this 3D work, Like, I don't really, you know, I have zero experience creating it. Right. So I don't know what it takes to create it, but I, I look at, it seems like you guys cross over with the animators quite a bit.

[00:19:21] Klutch: Um, alright. Can you explain the tech, cuz like I look at like, say Nest, you're, you're kind of like, do these scenes and then there's a lot of people who do the big scenes like, uh, Jarvin art or, uh, or Dangue or, or people like that. But then there's also people who do like, highly animated things like Ryan Tbo, CLE more.

[00:19:43] Klutch: Um, I feel like you, you venture into that more. David. Yeah. Can you guys explain the 

[00:19:48] David: difference? Yeah. This, this process or, Sorry, this question was really funny to me because, You wrote about Ryan Talbut, and Ryan is actually one of my best friends for, for years and years. I mean, you could actually say that I was a big mentor of his, and I took him under my wing around 2017 and kicked him a bunch of freelance work.

[00:20:06] David: I helped him like raise his rates because he was fucking talented at shit. And, um, I introduced him to like the 3D community in general. Uh, but yeah, he's taken off like massively and for good reason. I'm a huge fan of his work. Um, and yeah, he, he actually just came over like a month ago to hang out and we went to AED show, uh, because he did a bunch of, you know, or like, he did a song for Zed, uh, you know, and, and so it was really fun to go to the concert with him.

[00:20:31] David: And both of us were just like, you know, so hyped on, on watching people, you know, jam out to, or rock out to our visuals. Um, but yeah, so I, I all that's to say that my process is fairly identical to Ryan's, um, for that kind of high end 3D work, obviously less so for the psychedelic abstract work that I do.

[00:20:50] David: Um, but you know, Like, I would say that since the start of NFTs, he's, he's focused in on character animation and he's getting insanely good at building, uh, Lilly's universe. That's his, you know, robot character. Um, and yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I think it's more like, there's so many different fields in 3d, so many different disciplines that you can hone in on anything you want to do and make that your specialty.

[00:21:18] David: So in, in Ryan's case, it's creating those intimate worlds with characters, with beautiful character animation, you know, that. And I think those characters really allow people to connect with that work. For people doing the large cityscapes and, and Blade Runners cyberpunk stuff, like, it's a slightly different process.

[00:21:35] David: Like, you know, you maybe you're focusing a little bit more on composing a single, single still, um, But it's like, it's just another workflow. It's like you're scattering buildings, you're, you know, it like we all a, a lot of us as 3D artists, we've done so much client work over the years that we're pretty versatile and we know the process of getting to any of these looks.

[00:21:57] David: It's more just about what are you attracted to? Like, what do you enjoy doing? You know, for me that's camera movement and lighting, um, to a large degree and creating, like all of my pieces are animated, you know, they all have, uh, sound design and music. Um, and I like kinda more cinematic, epic stuff. But I also love the psychedelic abstract work.

[00:22:17] David: So those, it's just personal taste and personal choice and what you wanna move towards, if that makes sense.

[00:22:27] NorCal: Now, speaking about the audio tracks, um, I know it seems like each of you usually have an audio track on your work. How much value do you think that adds to. What you do and should artists consider that more often or is it just a personal preference or how do you guys decide on that? Yeah, 

[00:22:45] David: with 

[00:22:45] Ness: me, 

[00:22:46] David: um, 

[00:22:47] Ness: I mean, I think personally it like, brings to it, but it's definitely not the highlight of it.

[00:22:52] Ness: That's why I usually just, um, purchase some stock music to, to play along with it. Um, or at times I've worked with kind of musicians or, or producers or however they'd like to be called, um, to make something. But I just found finding really nice stock with good commercial rights work the best for me, um, to pick kind of the vibe I wanted.

[00:23:16] Ness: But again, I like making our artwork that you don't need to have the music on to kinda make it feel complete. Um, there's other artists where that's a huge part of 'em and it's super important, but for myself it's kind of just, um, A back thought, if you 

[00:23:31] David: will. Yeah, for me, I just, I mean, for me that's like, uh, it's different.

[00:23:36] David: I would say, like what you said ne um, that it's like a bigger part of my work, especially with, with like more narrative work. I want the sound design and or even the psychedelic stuff I do. I want everything to match up like very closely. I care so much about the sync to the music. If I'm doing concert visuals, obviously, like, uh, for Zed stuff, like Silly Gabe here, he, he knows that vibe.

[00:23:58] David: He , he's the VJ for Zed and a really good friend of mine. Um, but even, but for like the narrative work too, I want the to track to really closely like match the visuals and create that kind of like epic score that you would feel when you go to the, the, the movies. Like it's, um, To me, it's like literally audio is literally half the experience.

[00:24:21] David: Um, so I've never released an NFT without sound and my composer and sound designer, Abel Ogawa is incredible. Um, you know, when I first got into NFTs, he was the first person I called because I've been good friends with him since 2011 when we worked on the Dave Matthews Band stuff together and my first fulltime job, and he extremely talented them.

[00:24:40] David: He's only gotten better since. So like that friendship, we've, we've just strengthened our friendships through NFTs and it's so fun working with him on every piece because he just elevates the piece. Like recently I did, um, a piece for the F Collective drop, which is, you know, a community drop for the holders of PAC's uh, FOMO versus token and, and others as well.

[00:24:59] David: Um, and I liked my art okay, before the, the audio, but when he put his creative spin on it, What the piece should sound like. It just took the artwork to a com to a level of like, completeness and like just beauty, like it comp, it just blew my mind what he did. Um, so yeah, I think it's incredibly important to include audio for pretty much any artist that's doing animation.

[00:25:21] David: You know, it's, doesn't make as much sense for stills obviously, but um, because the technology's there to leverage and, you know, sound can really transform and add so much to the experience. Like, you know, back in the Instagram days, for me, I would rarely have done sound, I rarely had sound design for my personal work done, but that's because they were just mostly experiments and I wasn't taking things too seriously and I didn't have like, extra cash to throw to sound designer.

[00:25:46] David: But with NFTs, that's like allowed me to hire like really high quality sound designers, like a, and we're making money here, so we should treat our collectors properly and give them the full experience of what an NFT could be. You know? Um, the only exception in my mind is like Pac, who. He does totally silent NFTs, but in his case it makes sense because that's like, that's an intentional decision.

[00:26:09] David: Uh, you know, he's such a minimalist artist and he also frequently like strips out the color from his work too, so it makes sense that he doesn't need audio. But I think for the vast majority of like animators out there, they should take audio more seriously and they should create, they should hire sound designers to create custom music for their pieces rather than just stock.

[00:26:27] David: It does actually make a huge difference. Thank you. I gotta 

[00:26:31] Ness: to find a person. I, I wanna 

[00:26:34] David: work with. I'll pass you able . Yeah, I was gonna say, 

[00:26:38] Ness: or if anyone else in here. Uh, yeah, still looking. I'm always looking. I haven't found like that 

[00:26:42] David: one person yet where it's like, I mean, for your stuff though, it does make sense that you're, you're using stock more because like, you don't have like moving cameras quite as often.

[00:26:50] David: It's more like ambient, you know, it's like you want the right ambience for your work. So it's just, I guess it matters more for certain styles, you know? Definitely. 

[00:27:00] Klutch: Yeah, we used a guy, uh, called Ruminate. He makes a lot of, uh, sound or he does a lot of, uh, puts a lot of audio tracks together for, uh, Papes and that's who did our North Clutch audio tracks.

[00:27:14] Klutch: And that's my first experience hiring anybody to make any audio tracks too. So, but it was fun. I'll say that. It was a lot of fun. Uh, speaking of um, audio, both of you guys have a unique style to your audio, I feel like, but you also have very unique style to your artwork. Like it stands out, like you almost look at it and you instantly know.

[00:27:35] Klutch: Right. And lately I've been trying to learn a little procreate cuz I have this dream that I'm gonna make my own Pepe one day and . So I'm trying to get the skills, but where I'm having my biggest problem is finding my. How did you guys come across your style? Like was it just trial and error over a lot of period of time or, or how did your journey take you to where you are 

[00:28:00] David: today?

[00:28:03] David: It's,

[00:28:09] David: Can you, What's, what's, Sorry. Sorry. 

[00:28:10] Ness: I was getting a, I was getting a call. Um, it's kind of tough to, to figure out your exact style. Right. Um, it, it just kinda comes out. I, I'd say, um, and it's also perfectly okay to have many different styles 

[00:28:26] David: and different 

[00:28:28] Ness: ones and kind work them together and so on. Um, I've had tons of styles throughout the years.

[00:28:34] Ness: For me, it's kind of just, I try to base it off kind of those, um, my memories are like, like my favorite movies and my favorite artwork that I've seen and, and so on, and kinda just jumble it together in my head. Like, I just absolutely loved sci-fi movies and, and, and like the, in the Matrix, you know, that like, it was fucked up.

[00:28:56] Ness: Um, uh, what do you call it? In, in like the, the, uh, the spaceship, all their screens that they had and how it's all very gross and so on. All of that kind of inspired me, 

[00:29:09] David: you know? Um, and I, I think you just take in a 

[00:29:13] Ness: lot from your surroundings that you see and so on, and you just build this style. Again, it's, it's super complicated or almost impossible to explain, like how you actually build your style.

[00:29:26] Ness: It kind of just happens. Um, so it's more of a thing of just go along with kind of your courses that you're following, or if you're following tutorials, One of the biggest parts of tutorials where you actually make something yourself is take the, the things you're learning and just go start making shit.

[00:29:44] Ness: Right? Don't just make what you're making in a class. Um, that's specifically what I did junior year in college. I stopped just strictly doing what I was doing in classes cuz I realized I would just get spit outta college and be another portfolio that looks the same as everyone else, right? And, and you just start to maybe be like, Oh, I saw a cool movie yesterday, kind of gave me a cool idea.

[00:30:09] Ness: Let me try making that right. And then it just starts spiraling outta control. So it can be something super small that defines your entire style just from the fact that you went and saw a movie last night, you know? So it's kind of weird. . 

[00:30:29] David: Yeah, it's very, it's very hard to quantify exactly how to develop a style, because everything from your experience pipes into your style.

[00:30:38] David: It's also, it's your personal taste. It's, it's what you love, it's what you're drawn to. Um, yeah, I mean, so I've been, you know, I've been working for 12 years as a 3D artist, and like, it's just something that takes a long ass time to develop. Um, and there's so many things that can go into an artist style, whether it's a specific type of animation or movement that you're drawn to, uh, a certain color palette, uh, compositional choices, choice of camera movement or lighting.

[00:31:04] David: Uh, maybe your modeling style. Like one of my, what comes to mind is Paul McMahon's, uh, style, uh, the Rusted Pixel. He's got like this very quirky, um, you know, non photorealistic, you know, style of modeling that. Fell into and that he loves. So it could be anything. Uh, for me, I've always loved 3D for the ability to be a digital cinematographer, and I love crafting my own dynamic shots and lighting, and that's much, much harder to do on set and 3D gives me the ability to have full creative control and do it all within the computer much more easily than you would on a film set with, you know, just so.

[00:31:40] David: Um, so style is often just what you're drawn to as an artist, what kind of workflows and processes you like. Um, but you know, for me, since the start of NFTs, I also went way down the rabbit hole with my abstract psychedelic style using infinite mirror rooms. You know, it started as an experiment that took on a life of its own, and I kept coming back to it with different projects again and again, and discovering new techniques every time.

[00:32:03] David: And because of that, the process and workflow got faster and easier. And I just kept adding more and more tools to the belt. Like every time I thought, Oh, it's impossible, I've like tapped this out. Like, there's no, no other place I could take this. But that's never the case. I can keep designing in that style and keep deepening it further and further, uh, for the rest of my life if I want to.

[00:32:21] David: Um, and yeah, those, you know, these visuals also draw on my years of editing experience and syncing animation to the music for concert visuals work, you know? Um, and so, like I said, it's also your background. Um, so all those other skills I honed over the years seriously contributed to that look. Um, And yeah, I think that, um, you know, and it's, yeah, I think that, I don't know.

[00:32:44] David: That's about all I had to say about that.

[00:32:49] David: Now I'm curious, uh, what are some of the 

[00:32:52] NorCal: biggest, or what is a big mistake that you've made in this ar nft space, your artistic journey, um, that you wish you had done differently? And what are some of your biggest successes? David, 

[00:33:05] David: Uh, This question's like pretty hard to an, to answer because on the one hand I have no regrets.

[00:33:11] David: Like every project I agreed to that flopped was a lesson. And so much in this space is completely unpredictable. Like whether something you buy is gonna go up or go down, nobody fucking knows. Like in hindsight, it's easy to see all the plays that would've made us multimillionaires. Um, but that's, you know, that's a pathway towards bad mental health.

[00:33:31] David: So it's much better to just step back and be grateful for the success. You know, we do have, you know, I'm not saying, I've never compared myself to nest here and wished I'd gone as hard as, as he did, uh, because, you know, the results are extremely obvious. And, and that's where I think, you know, Alex Shines, is not only in brilliantly detailed art and recognizable aesthetic that connects with the crypto community, but insanely well thought out market.

[00:33:56] David: And for me, marketing is the hardest part. And, you know, while I'm well known in, in, in the artist community, in the 3D artist community, and that helped kickstart my NFT career, I don't love shilling and I'm not, and I'm kind of awkward at it, you know, I mean, I'm good when I like, have a one-on-one connection with a collector, and we just have this like organic natural friendship.

[00:34:14] David: But a lot of the time it's hard for me to reach out and it takes a lot of effort and time that I don't always have, you know, I'd rather be making art. Um, so yeah, I'm just not necessarily the best at marketing. Um, I like, I, you know, I wish that I could just focus on the art and have it magically sell, like in the good old days.

[00:34:32] David: You know, like a year ago. Um, but that's becoming less of a possibility. So I think, you know, the PR and the marketing really has to be on point too in order to continue to make it in this space, especially in the bear market that we're in. Um, but yeah, as for the biggest wins that I've had, I'd say the 8 88 trailer was a huge win for my NFT career and brought a ton of attention to my work.

[00:34:53] David: Even though the project obviously never came to fruition, or at least not yet, like theoretically there are plans still for that to be in the works. Who the fuck knows? Um, and yeah, the ash to drop with PAC was a big one for me, even though that also marked a turning point in Ash and PAC's ecosystem way to the downside.

[00:35:12] David: Um, but I still love working on that project with all the other artists. Um, Alex was involved in that. And then, um, the people in Madonna NFTs that I created, I created two of those, um, from scratch, like people directed, but that was the most fucking ridiculous thing I've ever done in my career. Um, and it was a slog and it took like nearly a year to get done because people in Madonna kept dropping out.

[00:35:36] David: And then just coming back into my life randomly out of nowhere and being like, Hey, make this thing. I'm like, ah, I'm in the middle of like five other projects. Um, but you know, I'm always stoked to work with Mike. And that was, that was awesome and so fun to, to see the reaction of the community and all that insanity.

[00:35:53] David: Um, and you know, I've had some high, pretty high sales for my personal art on Maker's place like that, kind of, for instance, eight to eight kickstarted my career by buy. Like four of my pieces, um, for about a total of like 140, 150 grand. One of them was like, uh, a short film that he bought for 65,000. And then my super genesis, uh, called Immorals with the Space Whale sold out for about 150 grand.

[00:36:18] David: And yeah, last but not least, um, the collab with the famous Chinese artist GI Lee and my top collector Triple X was such a blast and the most well thought, outro I've ever been part of. Um, and it was alongside my motion design hero, Raul Marx, who I introduced to Triple X and brought onto the project. And yeah, my piece sold for 224,000 in that one and was part of the Sotheby's Contemporary evening auction, which even people and Ppac haven't ever gotten into.

[00:36:47] David: So that was pretty fucking dope. Uh, and they had like the old school gavels and everything. This was like a, literally like a televised auction. And my art was alongside the likes of Banksy Basquiat, Jeff Koons and Damien Hurst, which was completely fucking mind blowing. Um, so yeah, those are, I'd say those are the, you know, obviously I've had a lot of like, you know, fails too.

[00:37:09] David: Like there was one where I did an, I did a drop on crypto.com and that platform wasn't, was fucking terrible and was not set up for one of one art. And we decided to release a one of one there without knowing that they didn't even have a system to extend the auction. So eight, eight bid on that at the time, and someone bid sniped him at the last second for like a hundred bucks more and won the piece out of nowhere because they had no auction extension system.

[00:37:33] David: So, you know, there's been some like, massive like fuck ups, but, you know, nobody really noticed and it didn't like, you know, hurt my career or anything like, you know, and I, I got hacked one time, like, but not my wallet, but my Instagram and, and Twitter. And then a bunch of my friends lost, you know, like, I think they lost like $50,000 total.

[00:37:52] David: Between all my friends that fell for this fucking hacker. So yeah, there's been, it's been a rollercoaster, basically . 

[00:38:01] Klutch: Thanks. How about you Nes? What are your, what are your biggest mistakes and biggest 

[00:38:06] David: wins? Yeah, I, let's see, 

[00:38:09] Ness: I say for mistakes is the beginning, which kind of, um, taught me everything to get the wins, if this makes sense.

[00:38:17] Ness: So basically just coming into it and thinking, Hey, I've already done all this stuff. And kind of seeing the current artwork that was selling really well at the time, right? I came into it thinking like, Wow, that's shit. No offense to 'em. But as David, you probably thought that too with some things that are like selling for thousands of dollars and you're like, What the hell is this?

[00:38:40] Ness: You're like, Oh, I'm a great artist. I'll do great. And that mindset is like completely wrong, right? Cause there's so much more to it. Um, so kind of learning that, having a couple interactions with some collectors, Um, and I'm telling me, like asking me what I want for a piece. And I would tell them a piece which wasn't crazy at the time and they would like freak out at me saying, You can't ask for that yet, blah, blah, blah.

[00:39:02] Ness: And I was just like, Right. Fuck you. I'm no longer gonna just try to get the most amount. I'm just gonna get it into the hands of the right people. And that's kind of where everything changed. So at, at the time, uh, back in late, late 2020, uh, early 21, that felt like failures cuz it was like, Oh, I'm not selling, My shit won't sell.

[00:39:24] Ness: Everyone else is selling so on. Um, but a reality was kind of the, the forming of what was gonna do really well for me later on. Um, as for my biggest wins, I would say probably being in Sotheby's with that Steve Aki, um, drop was one of the, the. Biggest wins. Um, I think I was the highest selling from the whole NFT drop out of everyone, which was kind of funny cuz I thought surely that Steve would beat me out, but I beat him.

[00:40:02] Ness: Um, and then kind of two weeks after that, uh, one of, one of the things also with Sotheby's, right, a lot of these big collectors don't wanna do the KYC or, or whatever with Sotheby's. And I had a couple also collectors who literally couldn't bid because they're in, um, Asia and I guess with this Sotheby's drop, they didn't have any ba basically with Sotheby's, I guess you have to pay from like an actual, um, exchange, right?

[00:40:35] Ness: You have to send it from your coin base or, or something. You can't just send it from a unknown wallet. And I guess they didn't connect with any Asian exchanges, so I had like two collectors who couldn't even bid, but they wanted it. Um, and then I had these other anonymous bidders who wanted it, but they didn't wanna do it.

[00:40:52] Ness: So I knew it was kind of a, a good time to release a second piece. And that's when I did the N GMI piece, um, about two weeks after, which sold for a hundred e to Keyboard Monkey. Um, I think it was like a hundred 0.69 or something like that. Um, which went really well. And then I did like an addition GMG n um, like a month after that, which also did well.

[00:41:17] Ness: Um, so there's certainly been a good, a lot, um, of, of wins I'd say. Uh, I mean obviously markets are really bad right now, um, but they're still going okay, so I'm rather happy, I guess, knock on. 

[00:41:33] David: Um, yeah, dude, you're still winning all the time. . 

[00:41:36] Ness: Yeah, like, like it's, it is, it's hard. like, like, it, it's very stressful.

[00:41:40] Ness: And I kind of, what I've also specifically done now lately with kind of the whole bear market type stuff is I've kind of moved backwards a little bit, you know, and I'm not releasing as much. I'm being, I guess a little more elusive, but I'm not gone, you know? Um, it's not like I'm like just packing my bags and leaving.

[00:42:00] Ness: Um, but it's almost a, it's kind of like more of a game, if you will, kind of how I'm doing it right now, um, where it's kind of all thought out and, and so on. Um, but yeah, I gu I guess that, that would be my wins and losses. . 

[00:42:16] David: Thank 

[00:42:16] Ness: you. 

[00:42:17] Klutch: Hey, so we are, uh, getting to where we gotta hit, uh, get to hot takes soon.

[00:42:24] Klutch: Uh, so before we get, we get to that, I would like to ask you guys both. About third party assets. So this is, uh, definitely a hot topic. A lot of people have gotten really, really worked up about it on Twitter and we all know over what situation, uh, you guys are both 3D artists. How prevalent is it that people use third party assets?

[00:42:51] Klutch: Um, because I know, like I've collected quite a few things. Like, uh, I collected, uh, some 3D stuff from this guy Victor, and he makes almost all of his own stuff. Like he could tell that, but there's a lot of people, uh, who are using these assets. Um, so how prevalent, prevalent is it that these assets are used and what are your thoughts on that situation?

[00:43:12] Ness: I can talk on this first. Um, myself, I'm kind of in the bow where I've been a 3D artist for, what is it like 14, 15 years now? I did like seven years of 3D modeling. I can pretty much 3D model anything I need. Um, but it got to the point where, for myself, I don't need to, it, it really isn't changing what I'm trying to tell my story, right?

[00:43:37] Ness: I'm, I'm more creating these environments, telling you a story. And in reality, if I 3D modeled that computer that you're looking at, or I bought that 3D model, or if I have anything right, it, it's not changing my story, right? Um, it's the same thing with with, I mean like a movie set, right? Someone isn't, isn't like when they're doing the set dressing, that's kind of what I think of myself doing dressing.

[00:44:09] Ness: Um, they're not creating the coke cams, they're not creating the laptops. They're just going and buying a fucked up laptop, putting it in, right? So that's kinda how I think of it. Um, literally the entire, um, 3D community uses assets. Like something really funny that I've been seeing a lot is the new Call of Duty just released and I, I saw a, well, the new, I guess, single player of the, I saw a video of it really quick and I noticed a bunch of the 3D assets of like, rocks are the same ones that I use for mine.

[00:44:48] Ness: And it just kinda made me laugh. So showing like, yeah, literally everyone uses 3D assets. You can see movies and sometimes you'll see a movie and you're like, Oh shit, I have that 3D model that they're using. Right? So everyone does it. It it's ultimately, if you're buying an nft, what is the purpose of that?

[00:45:08] Ness: NFT is is kinda where it comes down to. Is it OK that you're using that asset? Right. If, if my scenes are full of assets, like absolutely full of assets and that's perfectly fine. Cause it's the whole story of what it is, right? If you're buying a single piece that is a single asset, that is completely pointless cuz you're not buying like my version of art with all these things that I put together to tell a story.

[00:45:38] Ness: You're just buying an asset that makes no sense, you know? So, It's all about context. Is is kinda how it 

[00:45:47] David: works. Works, yeah. Yeah. And I, I mean, there are certain artists like Somax, Corn, Cornelius do Oh yeah. I was gonna, I was gonna say Somax. Yeah. Like he's, he's doing a really smart thing right now by showing his process step by step every single day, you know, And he's been going for, I think, more than a month already on his current still.

[00:46:06] David: He'll work for months on a single scene, a single still hand model, everything. And that does. A much more custom look. Like if you want something extremely specific, you know, that's in your, in your brain and you want it to be just like the most unique custom thing, then, then you do have to learn modeling.

[00:46:23] David: You do have to, you know, the more, and like same thing goes with like drawing. Like if you're able to sketch out something extremely like beautiful from your own brain first, rather than like relying on AI or something, the more you could do from scratch. I think ultimately it could be the, the best result, but the question is like, is it a difference of like 95% to a hundred percent?

[00:46:44] David: You know, like how much do you care about that margin? You know, and how fast do you wanna work? Like modeling takes a long ass fucking time. Um, so yeah, I mean, I'm not a modeler. I never have been. You know, I, I started to learn a few times because like I said, it's a super power that you can unlock to create fully custom designs.

[00:47:03] David: Um, but yeah, the fact is that 3D is such a vast field and there are so many skills to acquire that it becomes impossible to do everything completely from scratch most of the time. Uh, you know, kit bashing itself is an art form and, you know, and, um, meaning like choosing assets that work well together and then combining them well together, uh, into a complete, you know, cohesive aesthetic.

[00:47:25] David: Um, you know, creating something that's better than the sum of some of the parts really. Um, you know, and. Like for me, my personal strengths are editing camera, movement, lighting, texturing, color, environment builds, animation, like all those things. And I'm pretty good at simulations too. Like all of those things are legitimate skills in and of themselves that we as 3D artists are piping into the work.

[00:47:47] David: So modeling, it's just one component that's possible. You know, other disciplines include rigging, scanning, UV, unwrapping. There's just a million things you could do and it's impossible to be incredibly good at everything. I mean, there are a few people that get close, but like on the whole, it's fairly impossible.

[00:48:03] David: You know, there's a reason why Marvel films have literally thousands of artists working, and those artists specialize to an insane degree. Um, but solo artists like us, on the other hand, have to be more generalist. Um, you know, But that can, that can also create a much more unique look and vision. And there's so much more creative control and expression that comes with that territory, really.

[00:48:23] David: Like being an Uber generalist is a form of specialization in a, in and of itself. That's every bit of as difficult, if not more so because you're telling your own stories, you're trying to connect with an audience, you're doing your own marketing, and in general, just acting more as a one man band. And as for, you know, other as for thoughts about, um, you know, the, the chair, the whatever that controversy like Yeah.

[00:48:44] David: What Nest said, it's, you know, that was wrong and everyone knew it was because everyone would, could tell how low effort that NFT was compared with his other work. Uh, it's just never okay to take a stock asset and then light it slightly differently and sell it as an nft. Like everyone knows that 99% of the work in that NFT went into the model itself, into the asset itself.

[00:49:05] David: Um, you know, if it, it would be a totally different story if that model were just an element in a much larger scene, like in one of NE's scenes.

[00:49:15] Klutch: Thank you. Yeah. To be, uh, to be open, uh, Nest, NoCal and I are all in ts and Dow with, with that artist, and we did have inside info that he did have health problems prior. So I, I do think it was a problem where it wasn't communicated effectively, um, that what his intentions were. Uh, he probably should have done that beforehand.

[00:49:39] Klutch: Um, but it didn't happen unfortunately. And he said, uh, you know, take some, take his, take some losses for it. And, but, but he's still a great artist who's plugging away in the space and building. And, you know, I feel like that other artist, that other artist hated NFTs before all this, like, they literally hated them.

[00:50:00] Klutch: So the fact that they were like, quickly made this hero or something, I was like, eh, I'm not too keen on that myself. , I'd rather reward the people who are trying to help build this space. Uh, We are in the final minutes. So we'd like to get in hot takes right now. Hot 

[00:50:18] David: takes it's cha for hot.

[00:50:27] Klutch: So in the final 10 minutes guys, what we like to do is we like to come up with any hot takes we have for the week. If you have anything that's been on your brain recently, uh, that's spicy that you wanna share, and we can quickly debate very quickly, uh, that's what this time is for. Uh, NorCal, do you have any this week?

[00:50:47] Klutch: Uh, I mean, I 

[00:50:48] NorCal: guess I could kind of throw one out, uh, related to the topic. It'd be more like, I guess if you're selling commercial rights as something, why do you care how someone used it? You sold it for a price that you were happy with. 

[00:51:03] Ness: That's interesting. I am very big on this.

[00:51:09] Klutch: You know, what do you think about that? You agree 

[00:51:10] Ness: with that? Well, yeah, a hundred percent. Like I've had issues in the past where basically I bought someone's 3D model used it, and then they like complain that I'm using it and I'm like, I bought it with commercial rights, I now can use it. And they're like, No, you can't.

[00:51:25] Ness: I'm like, I can, I have legal rights to use it, . You know? Um, so yeah, I mean, if you're selling an asset, you're, you're literally waiting essentially to have it be used, you know? I mean, if you're doing it for free, that's one thing, like ATT or whatever. Yes. But if you are selling it and you're putting it on a platform that has a history of being like you are selling your model for, right?

[00:51:56] Ness: Like for commercial rights, meaning they can do whatever the fuck they want with it. Now, the standard license where it's like you can have like up to 20,000 views or like $2,000. From it, whatever, Like an unlimited license. Yeah. Nothing to say. Um, so that's kind of my thought. Um, which I thought most people understood that, but I guess not.

[00:52:22] Ness: Have you had 

[00:52:23] Klutch: that experience at all, David? 

[00:52:26] David: Uh, no. I mean, I don't know. Nobody's like gotten mad at me for using a 3D asset. No, I don't think people, I don't think my artwork is quite as under as much scrutiny as Nest, so I don't know. I don't really have any opinions about this one so much . Okay. 

[00:52:42] Klutch: Either you guys have a hot take or would you like me to go next?

[00:52:46] Ness: I could just say my whole thought that is always funny is I think like this rise of people posting their like mid journey and all these other ai, I mean, I'm sure you guys have talked about this already, but um, I think it's just really funny person. Um, because it's, We've had an AI episode for sure. Yeah, I'm sure.

[00:53:07] Ness: Cuz I just think it's funny. It's like, Oh, you can write a sentence. Good for you, . You know, um, like I've, I've created some like really fucking sick stuff with Mid Journey and my input was the word cyberpunk and that's it. Nothing else. It was like, fucking gorgeous. Like, I'll, I'll show you. I could probably add it if I find it.

[00:53:31] Ness: And it was like, this is really fucking cool. This is awesome. But again, my input was just cyber punk. 

[00:53:36] David: Yeah, I think the, the skills will start to come in more as, yeah, people begin to combine multiple AI tools together that's already like possible with, uh, stable diffusion and then ways to fix the faces.

[00:53:47] David: Like when, you know, the artistry comes in through when as this technology like improves, like right now it's so democratized that anyone can do it, make it look sick. But I think ultimately, you know, as the technology improves and it gets, there's more input to it and more direction that we can give, we as artists will be able to design, uh, experiences, you know, or, or short films, whatever the fuck it is, you know, whatever the future holds.

[00:54:13] David: Uh, and in theory, like artists who have like that taste that I will, will be, will rise to the top. I mean, that's the hope, you know? Yeah. That 

[00:54:22] Ness: being said about ai, I, I do use it for stuff like I've used Mid Journey and, and so on. Like, uh, what I found, what it works really well at is just like filler, like typing in like.

[00:54:35] Ness: Cyber punk poster with this and then making like 50 revisions. Like I've used that cuz it's a really cool for like asset building. Like, like using it. There's this other guy who I don't remember, but he creates these like cool 3D sculptures by like telling it like moth wing and it gives him like these super abstract things.

[00:54:57] Ness: That's really cool. Like using it as a tool. Cause it's just like any other tool that we're using as a plugin, right? It's just cool. Um, and brings something. But again, people where it's like, I'm gonna write the word cyberpunk and it'd be like, this is my art . That, that's just hilarious. 

[00:55:16] David: Totally. I've gotta, I don't know if this is a hot take.

[00:55:20] David: It's kind of like a, a question you guys were asking already, but, um, the bear market has been amazing for my mental health, and obviously I'm terrible for my bank account. . 

[00:55:32] Klutch: Okay. I gotta hear about how has it helped your mental health, because I feel like that is the exact opposite of the, 

[00:55:37] Ness: I've said this too.

[00:55:38] Ness: I feel the same way, David, what? 

[00:55:40] David: Um, so the bear market like, seems so bad at first, but it actually like, just came as such a massive relief. Um, you know, I've been grinding for 12 years and just prior to NFTs I, you know, I'd created that course I told you guys about earlier, lights, camera, render that I worked on for a whole year.

[00:55:56] David: Uh, and I li I literally worked on it harder than anything I've ever done in my life. Then immediately after I was done with that, I jumped right into nf. For a year and a half and continue the grind. So yeah, the bear market has really allowed me to step back and figure out what my true priorities are in my life.

[00:56:12] David: And the answer coming up for me was not work. It's, it was first and foremost, my marriage, my family, uh, and beyond that, things like physical health, spirituality, um, take, just taking hikes, meditating like rock climb. I've been doing rock climbing like four times a week. Um, you know, uh, I've been doing horseback riding with my wife twice a week, and we just bought a horse, which is fucking awesome.

[00:56:36] David: Uh, you know, swing dancing, like home improvement. We've been building our basement for a year into a full on studio. Um, and yeah, all of these, like extremely important aspects of my life had taken such a backseat, um, for, you know, the drive to get to the top and continuously improve my art skills and career.

[00:56:54] David: Um, but you know what, I'm, I'm good enough at the art stuff. Like right now, , like I can keep going in this space and keep going in my career without like, Constantly pouring all of the effort into that. So, you know, I just wasn't a very well rounded person and I wasn't very happy. So over the past nine months, um, you know, we've been intentionally designing our lives and I'm so much happier than I've ever been.

[00:57:17] David: Um, you know, and I'm finally coming back to work with a healthier outlook, and I'm spending like less time on social media, which can be just a massive drain. I've pretty much stopped watching TV shows and I'm finding myself just so tired of all this digital bullshit. Uh, I mean, I still love technology, but I've found that just staring at the stars every night with my wife, you know, and smoking a joint is like way better than any technology thing can offer, you know?

[00:57:40] David: Um, so yeah, , that's very much why, Yeah, 

[00:57:45] Ness: for me it's been like, I can kind of breathe, like the bull market was just fucking crazy. Um, it was just 24 7 craziness. Um, I mean, financially, obviously I wish we were still in the bull market. Um, but I, I mean, I guess I'm. Proud to say that I wasn't an idiot when it came to crypto.

[00:58:07] Ness: Um, like I already knew about it, so it was like I sold at good times. I'm holding, I I paid my taxes. I'm not underwater, 

[00:58:15] David: blah, blah, blah. I was, I was kinda an idiot. Yeah. I just now, or just like a couple weeks ago, had to sell the a i I had no 

[00:58:23] Ness: problem with, I mean, I sold all my apes. I had no problem with that.

[00:58:26] Ness: I held for taxes, paid my taxes, blah, blah, blah. You know, I, it was just like, it, it went well. Right. Um, cuz it, it was super thought out. I'm happy to say I have an awesome CPA who, like, I actually paid him with my NFTs too. 

[00:58:41] David: Um, No. Fucking, I need to like, Yeah, he's, 

[00:58:45] Ness: he's in, he's fucking, he's, he's great and, and, and so on.

[00:58:49] Ness: We're doing like an art bass thing too, um, which is fun. But, um, shit, what, what was I saying? Um, Oh yeah. So it's been like I've been able to spend more time with my fiance, like we've actually been together, right? So that's been great. Um, and it's not just me on a computer all fucking day. Um, we also, we bought a house literally right when like the bear market started.

[00:59:13] Ness: So we've been doing that like house stuff and like I'm building another house on my land for my parents cause my dad has MS and is disabled. So we're doing that and that's really nice to be able to do that. And, and it, it's kind of just relaxing and, and preparing for when things do start to go back up again in, in the next bull market.

[00:59:35] Ness: Cuz I definitely think, um, it will obviously in, in my opinion. Um, so it's a nice little kind of time to build more stuff and, and just relax and be like, Okay, this is what it's like to be a person again. And kind of experiment too. Like I'm getting more into photography, which has been fun and. And doing night photography too, which has been really fun for stars and so on.

[01:00:00] Ness: Um, and just kind of, you know, like chilling for a little bit and breathing, um, and kind of getting ready to just do it all over again and shave off 10 more years of my life in, in a year of a bull marker. . 

[01:00:18] Klutch: That's awesome. It sounds like, sounds like you guys are doing a lot of things right. 

[01:00:24] Ness: It, it took a fuck ton to get there though.

[01:00:27] Ness: It was like that thinking back right now, like 2020 feels like 10 years ago. It was just, it was crazy in the, the artist's seat, if you will. Cause it was just like hundreds of dms dealing with things and, and blah blah blah. You know? I mean it was all great and all, but it. Stressful especially, I don't know about David.

[01:00:52] Ness: David, I think you're the same. You don't have a 

[01:00:54] David: manager represented by anyone. No, not at all. Yeah. So 

[01:00:58] Ness: there, there's other people who have these big teams and takes off stress, but I'm absolutely everything. So if you talk to me, if you send a message to me, it's, you know, you're, you're not getting my management or my assistant or some shit.

[01:01:11] Ness: So 

[01:01:12] David: that was also, it feels like 10 years, it feels like it's been a decade since 2020 also, because just the world has changed so fucking much in that time. It's been fucking crazy. 

[01:01:22] Ness: Yeah. Definitely 

[01:01:26] Klutch: been very, uh, stressful compared 

[01:01:29] Ness: to . It's probably the prior 20 years and how things changed so drastically.

[01:01:35] Ness: Yeah, it was, I mean, it was worth it, obviously, but it was, it was a lot like an absolute shit Tom to, to kinda deal with. Well, thank you 

[01:01:49] Klutch: guys. I do have one hot take. I'll add real quick. It was just that, uh, if people are going to get butter over people using assets, uh, they should probably start going after the Clause artist too.

[01:02:03] Klutch: So it's pretty similar. . Uh, I don't think any we need to add to that at all, but I just wanna say thank you both. Uh, you guys were both really, really great to listen to hear your stories. I learned a lot. I hope our audience did. Anything you want to add, Noriel? 

[01:02:22] NorCal: No. I, I had a great time. I, I learned a lot and it was just nice, uh, you know, focus chat and I really appreciate you both, uh, just flowing well together.

[01:02:33] NorCal: You guys are, uh, awesome to 

[01:02:34] David: interview. Oh, thank you so much. It's, it's been a pleasure. Like, yeah, I'm honored to be on here with you guys. I've, uh, NorCal, you're one of my top collectors. You're fucking awesome. And. Uh, yeah, it's, uh, you know, great company Alex. You're fucking badass. And yeah, let's keep going.

[01:02:51] David: Let's keep building stuff. Awesome. Will you 

[01:02:55] Klutch: everywhere. Do, do either of you have anything you wanna, uh, plug last minute You got any projects coming up? Where can people find you? 

[01:03:03] Ness: Uh, where you can find me is my name. You'll find me if you just search it. pretty simple. Um, as long as you don't get the bot accounts, cuz now there's a lot of bot accounts.

[01:03:12] Ness: Um, I was gonna say, so I'm doing some stuff in Art Bale on December 1st and second I believe. So if anyone's gonna be there, just send me a message and, and I'll tell you about it. I'm gonna post about it. But, um, but yeah, just seeing if anyone else is coming to. And that's about it. 

[01:03:32] David: I've got a really interesting project coming up that'll release in less than a month with a team.

[01:03:38] David: It's a very small collection. Well, it's 333 pieces, um, of the first, it's the first GIA certified diamonds on the blockchain. So it'll be a collector experience where collectors go through these NFTs that evolve and upgrade, and then they burn them to receive a physical diamond piece. Uh, and I'm working with this team in Israel, this collector tweezers whose big, uh, Rafi, Anadol and pot collector.

[01:04:04] David: And yeah, it should be very cutting edge. They're working a ton on creating a very high end. Website, uh, with like a parallax scroll and all sorts of crazy technology going into it. So I'm really excited about this project. I think it'll be really successful even though we're in the bear market. Uh, and then after that, I've got my nifty drop on December.

[01:04:24] David: I've been pushing that drop since literally fucking April because I've just had so much shit going on, like whether it's life stuff or this other, this Diamonds project. But for that, I'm gonna be designing a series of futuristic car races, Uh, but taking that to an even more insane degree than what I've done before.

[01:04:40] David: But I really like, I might push it again because I need at least two months to get this thing done because I want it to be ambitious, this book and really, really good. Uh, I don't want to, you know, if I'm gonna release something in the bear market on Nifty, you know, I want it to fucking crush it. So I need to take my time.

[01:04:57] David: Uh, and then beyond that, I'm doing, you know, I've got like a manifold collection that I've started. Um, NorCal purchased several of those pieces, and that's my abstract psychedelic style that I love. So much. And I wanna create like a collector discord. It's been a long time coming to do that. I wanna do some burns and airdrops and play around with the supply of that and the scarcity and continue building in that world.

[01:05:19] David: Uh, and just continue supporting my collectors. Um, and yeah, you know, I've also zeds knock into my door to do some, uh, concert visuals and I definitely want to do that as well. Cause that's like the, the most fun job I've ever done. Like 2019. I worked for four months for Zed and, and Gabe here. Um, and it's just, I love it.

[01:05:39] David: So yeah, those are, those are things in the immediate future. We're also like, um, you know, my wife and our roommate Nate are kind of forming a studio down in the basement. We've like spent a year on this project, like I said, and it's fucking sick down there. I got a pinball machine, like we've got some, you know, like it's got a full kitchen, a dance studio, uh, you know, living room and our office.

[01:06:01] David: And we're going to, our first project is a studio slash nft. Collective is going to be, um, bringing back this character that my wife and I created a few years back called Bumble Mouse, um, which is just like this cute mouse slash b character. And Nate's a really great fine artist. He's, he's so good at like, sketching and um, and sculpting.

[01:06:21] David: So he's gonna sculpt out a bunch of characters. I'm gonna learn rigging and proper character animation and bringing this world to life. And so, yeah, that's, you know, the beautiful thing about NFTs is that we can all collab together and we can just do whatever the fuck we want. And there's so much freedom and it, you know, the art can come like way more from the heart, uh, with just integrity and authenticity.

[01:06:41] David: So that's, those are the goals right now. And then beyond that, Chelsea also wants to. Start a ranch, like potentially an NFT project that's, um, that where collectors can buy their own cabins that are designed with, uh, or like, potentially like artists could sponsor their own cabins. Like Nest, if you were to buy a cabin on this property, it would be like accessible to you for certain number of months out of the year.

[01:07:07] David: And we would steam it, you know, with your art and mind. So it would be like a disgusting desk or something like that, you know, desks everywhere and weirdness like, and you know, and just like, like art, like different barns that, that allow you to paint, allow you that have NFT exhibits that, um, you know, like one where people can trip out on my psychedelic art and smoke weed.

[01:07:28] David: Like, so we, we've got lots of ideas. It's just a matter of like what we're executing and when. Nice. 

[01:07:35] NorCal: Wow. Got a lot of stuff coming up, both of you and, uh, I look forward to it. I know Clutch is. And, uh, audience, thank you for listening and gonna close it out and just appreciate everyone for coming out and joining us and, uh, we'll get this pot up shortly.

[01:07:50] NorCal: Thanks.

[01:07:55] David: No call. Clutch, I'm sure that's keep new. All about the art. No Tom Shield. They heard first so you know the deal. Show some respect to the Dope Connect. They drop the outfit. You won't forget. No waste in time. It's all bad design. Hot takes to make you straight.