I thought I would write a blog about how I ended up doing NFT and more about what I did.
I see lots of people asking about how they can sell or find a place, and I was there at the start of it around a month and half ago. This is a long blog and before you start, I will say again I suffer from dyslexia and English is not my main language so please bear with the spelling and grammar.
I only joined the NFT space at the start of March. I have always done art and always been creative, from writing stories, design games, drawing. It's just my life never put me into a position to do anything about it. Always too busy and never enough time for anything.
Then the lockdown hit. It isolated me my family and friends are over the ocean and I was stuck here studying AI but not being able to go to University. It was at this point one of my friends told me to maybe look into NFT I have always had a passion to want to change things I don't just want to stand by and be passive I want to be a driving force in anything I have a passion for, this is with AI and now with NFT. I was spending a lot of my free time making Voxel art. I was sitting making random elements and practicing while in lockdown. I suddenly had a ton of free time, I suffered from Covid and it left me pretty weak. In the end, my friend told me to look into it and start being more social, they could tell I was drifting away.
So I sat down and looked into the NFT space. I did not know what to do I googled around and in the end finished my first piece of Voxel art, which was this piece brought by my Dewdrop August.
So I had a piece and what to do with it, I looked around, and basically, I heard people speaking about rarible and Opensea I, in the end, jumped onto Rarible and kind of just stumbled through signing up to metamask and listed the work.
I had done it my work was up there. I made a Twitter and an email address and then waiting.
I made a neon-looking city I love making cities and you can see themes already in the work my color palette is very built around bold colors.
I had a lot of fun making this, and it was my real first attempt at making a piece that I would then sell.
I quickly saw that on rarible my art fell into a wave of other artists and quickly got buried. I then was at a loss what to do. I had no one on Twitter. I searched around I came across places like superrare which there was no chance I would get accepted. In the end, I came across Foundation and saw it was invite only but they had a discord. I was completely new to discord but downloaded it and joined the room.
For me, the foundation discord started my raise in the space. I started hanging out in the lobby chatting talking to a few people and then quickly made friends with a few key people who I still talk to now pretty much on the daily.
They offered me help and guided me with some of the more random moments. We would hang out in the lobby talk about anything and wait for invites.
I started posting my work on there and quickly started my next piece. Which is this one.
This piece started of tiny I just wanted to do a nod to my favorite film ghostbusters however it snowballed. The time and research doubled and in the end, this turned into an 80s movie piece with the goal being 100 80s movie references. I noticed however that this would most likely take me weeks to finish.
I only had one piece to show, and this was a work in progress I started posting it on Reddit and in the WIP channel on the discord, this got some traction and people started talking to me about it this end up making me some friends and then randomly August brought my first piece.
I had twitted my piece out using the NFT hashtags and linking it to my work. Randomly one day I check and it's gone. At first, I was like what's happened to my piece, I then check metamask and see that it's sold.
I was forever happy to August. However, I was still hunting a foundation invite, and I knew only have one piece was probably not going to do me any favors. I started working on another piece.
At this stage, I was in the discord lobby every day, hanging out for invites and checking what people were doing. It was at this point I was getting involved in anything. I started seeing who people were tweeting to and trying to follow key people and talk to people on Twitter.
I cannot stress this enough if you want to grow here you need people to help and support you. Speak to other humans, share art you like to comment on people's stuff.
I think social media has made us think we are in some kind of bubble it's the screen and us and the reality is there are thousands of people who are trying to connect like you.
If you don't want to do this for whatever reason, even if you have the mindset well my art is amazing it should sell on its own merits. IT WON'T.
Unless you come pre-loaded with 15k Twitter followers or have a base somewhere, it will not sell because no one knows it's there.
I have seen some truly amazing art go unsold and you check the Twitter of the artist and nothing; they are not chatting; they don't retweet stuff it's nothing.
I ended up making some good friends in the discord and we all started to really help each other out. We retweeted stuff; we shared information, and in the end, we became an almost daily fixture of the lobby discord.
Then there was a moment in which lobsters happen and we all had a cool time and then I made this piece.
This piece in all honestly and I will be real here was a mistake from a selling market kind of way. I love this piece and it's super personal to me, and that is how I want people to see my art. I don't just want to make what's popular; I want to take risks on my work and create things to showcase my journey through space.
However, to make a piece to sell this was way too niche, and it sat there. For the first piece on the foundation it may have needed to be different, I guess. I loved this and everyone on the wall played an important part in my growth in this space.
This piece is proof, you need to have friends around you. In the end I was worried I wouldn't get a foundation invite. Then out of the blue after they had looked at work they gave me an invitation this was of course FCCView.
I see plenty of people saying they need to buy invites and give foundation a rough time over the invite system, but the IDEA behind it is novel.
Let creators invite creators to let them pick what they love and who they want on our platform. What happened was society the greed, the desperation, and the bad parts of us all rose to the top. In the end, I got an invite in around a week and a half.
I will say it again, this is because I made connections, just be yourself don't pretend to be someone else. I love to help everyone and anyone and if you follow my Twitter you can probably see that or speak to people who know me.
I went into that discord and Twitter space just being myself.
My OG lobby piece sat for a while not selling it was at this point I decided again I needed to do a smaller piece. I was slowly growing on Twitter getting more and more followers and meeting people.
I in the end decided I would make a Sci-Fi piece I love space and had wanted to plan to do a story in the NFT space. this lead to my next piece
I love this for so many reasons however I think my mistake was the black borders and information around the side, something you see I started working into the pieces later. I wanted however to keep a style and I will have to keep this style with each piece of this series. However, I would probably change this going back.
I could burn it but I believe art is progress and nothing has to be perfect and to me, it shows growth it's part of me at different times.
This piece equally sat there on foundation. It was at this point I stopped shilling my work to everyone. It wasn't working, and I didn't see the point.
I came to the idea that if someone wants to buy your work, they will and more often than not, it's going to come from someone you may have already been in connection with.
I stopped shilling and only sent my work to people I knew were not looking to just grow a Twitter follower count.
This is another important lesson, do not retweet everything under the sun I try to limit my retweets I don't want to come across as spamming and people may unfollow you if there is a wall of retweets with nothing.
I started instead posting WIP updates and normal comments; I kept the retweeting to a minimum if I did I try to make some comments and only pick stuff I think is awesome.
It was at this point I got DM from an FND mod on the discord Pixlpa they asked if I wanted to be a mod, now this came totally out of the blue I had never been a mod of their own discord before but I said yes. I then after a few weeks went from zero twitter to now having a few hundred and becoming a mod to discord that had over 20 thousand members.
There is no secret to this there is just hard work, I have spent the last month sat on Twitter and discord I am going to bed at 3 am getting a few hours of sleep, and then back to it.
With the growth however didn't come to a sale and this is where the reality kicks in. It is very easy to get into foundation it's very hard to sell NFT art. There are collectors out there and they are focusing on people they want it's like the eye of Saron.
it's looking over there and you are in shire trying to say LOOK AT MY STUFF. This is hard. Something I am still struggling with, it's not that creators don't want to find you they are looking for new creators all the time, It may just take some time for you to be noticed therefore it's important to stay true to yourself and true to the mission. You need to passionate about everything in this space and want to soak it all up; I have loved every moment.
A few weeks passed and then Yassa bid on my lobby piece I woke up to see them do this and I love Yassa they have been a huge positive in the space and helped tons of people out.
Yassa is quiet, keeps their head down, doesn't promote much, and has a good heart I want the best of Yassa.
In the end, he brought my lobby piece.
My next artwork to come out was part 2 of the sci-fi story
I was much happier with the layout of the black borders, and you can see I am trying to add it into the scene. This was my most detailed piece of work.
You can read the full breakdown of this art piece in my other blog
https://indrator.medium.com/the-girl-who-feel-from-space-91f9dc5c89d2
I spent a long, long time finishing the city. While working on this piece, I decided I wanted to do something different for creators. I monitored Niftywhale and read the information they shared. I kept hearing about investing in the artist.
I decided then to not call them collectors but Dewdrops tieing it to my name Indra I then choose to do a private discord in which I would share some more life stuff. I post food pictures, animal pictures, me going for walks; I talk about my progress with my art and just chat with my collectors and help them out.
I have enjoyed this experience and equally; it makes it a little more personal buying a piece.
While working on this piece, FCCView contacted me, and in the end, invited me to another discord. This again was unexpected and again PROVES my point of making connections.
I joined the Hypesquad I had seen cryptopompom on Twitter and really liked her work and left comments where I felt I could add something. This is another key thing: try to comment when you actually have something to add. It helps instead of coming across as fake or maybe just an empty comment. I want to talk to people, not profiles. Even if the comment is that art is awesome try to mean it.
They didn't know me I was just doing my thing on Twitter and discord I got the invite to the hype squad and was blown away. I meet amazing people there and it's a great community of people.
To honor that I put a POM in the piece above, there is also a squid, which is the logo at the time as another thank you. I released the 2nd sci-fi piece. You can find personal moments in every piece I do IN FACT every piece since the start of my Dewdrops includes them somewhere in my art.
Both pieces are still unsold now. I can't tell you why, but it shows you that having a growing Twitter doesn't mean sales.
There may be something wrong with them I am not sure it could be the platform but they sit on the foundation waiting for the collector I have decided I will wait until they both sell before doing part 3.
My Twitter was steadily growing, and I kept pushing with my belief to be true to myself: don't shit on anyone it's not my place and the NFT space doesn't need people dragging people down. Try to push everyone to the top.
This then leads me to the annoying orange.
I randomly got a DM on discord from Daneboe the creator of the annoying orange now I will be honest at first I thought this was a fake there is no way they are just sending me a DM out of the blue. However, they said they wanted to drop the annoying orange the original on foundation and could I help. I told him to contact Twitter at foundation and if he had no luck come back to me.
A few days went by, and he did. He said he had no joy and my first thought was ok this has to be fake they just want an invitation.
I then asked if he could follow me on Twitter just to confirm it's them and low and behold they did. It was so surreal.
I quickly sorted him out with an invitation thanks to FCCView again shows you to have connections. He then joined the platform.
Now me not learning my lesson from the first time I captured a moment and minted it, I then made this.
This again is the worst possible thing I could have minted from a business outlook. I carried on speaking to Daneboe and helping as best I could I had a Twitter or around 800 at this point and I am still no one and on one at foundation would help as it's their policy to let the community try to push the community and so I took it upon myself to help Daneboe because they were always 100 percent nice to me.
Let's get one thing straight I think no matter how big or small you are you should ALWAYS try to make time for people reaching out to you. The worst thing I could do is to read a message in my DM and blank that person.
Or if someone's giving you a shout-out to not even drop a heart to me, it's poor taste and I try to not do that and always respond. Daneboe has had 7 billion views, but here they were chatting to me.
So I minted the piece and left it at that. A day later I woke up to someone bidding on it to be none other than the orange themselves.
it was mind-blowing and now meant they had to be a Dewdrop and I can happily confirm Daneboe is on my private discord as a Dewdrop.
Another one of my good friends Argonauta contacted me about a wonderful creator called clairesilver12 she asked if I wanted to help make some gallery work for cryptovoxel I of course accepted.
I am currently building the seafloor to that gallery at the moment, and this is again another moment of organic connection. If you haven't clued in yet to the main thing I am pushing it's that none of this would have happened if I had not joined the discord and started making connections if you are not doing this as a new creator I don't think you will get anywhere.
This blog post is as much about telling you my journey but also hopefully trying to show you IT does not matter who you are, what the art is you can do it.
Back to the story, I have been helping Claire with the gallery and I have loved it its amazing to have space in cyrptovoxels that in the future everyone will hang out in and it will be my voxel stuff.
I needed to do smaller work. The girl who feel for space took a lot of my energy and I wanted to create a small collection series of something I love, which is the horsemen and mech.
I then just finished this piece. Due to mint at sometime soon.
I tried very hard to push myself regarding how to use the render and make a piece that at first glance you may think is real.
This is war, my first piece of the horseman, and I want to test open sea with this I want to sell 4 of each.
Which has led to where I am now. I am now working on a piece for charity I have joined up with a cool collection of artists to make a piece in which all the money will go to artists in this space.
I did something similar with my orange piece I spent the money buying a 2d sketch art piece of work because I want to support 2D I love all the 3D and high render stuff but there's something magical about a sketch.
This is my current WIP
I wanted to create a piece that supported the underdog. The idea here is you can see the immense building with its slogans to buy one get from free and you can see tiny glowing people instead of going to the small shop which is local.
I also wanted to show the power this building is sucking up, so I created an oil field of sorts however the pipes are not taking oil but life force they are literally sucking the life out of us and the tunnel that leads to that is listed as the road to nowhere.
I really wanted to show a message with this piece and to support a cause. That is my journey, I have been here for just a month and a half and have found my feet and people who are outstanding and creators who deserve everything.
If you take one thing from this blog, it's to always push, don't let anyone tell you, you can't do this. The mountain in front of you may be steep, but it only takes one step at a time to climb. If you are sitting with no followers, then reach people if you need help, then ask.
If you want to drop me DM or anything, let me know and reach out. I want everyone to reach the top I don't want anyone to be left behind. I believe if you are passionate about what you do, then you will succeed.
What are my plans in the NFT space oh believe me I have some I have plans to raise up people and I have plans to create even more chances for creators and artists. I want to push this medium. I may only be small now, but trust me within the next year you will see what I want to do. This has become a passion for me and I love everyone in this space I don't want to just stand by and listen in and watch other people pave a way I want to carve the road myself and bring everyone with me.
Anyone who buys my work I want you to know you are buying a chunk of my life my work is always full of Easter eggs and personal touches it's me in art and buying my piece is an acknowledgment that you get that but also that you want the future I want and you are helping me get there.
If you did read this and got to the end Twitter message me.
“I read all your blog and now I deserve a Keanu”
Much Love
