MTjericho

Big things are ahead.

This is Wolfy, one of the companions in our collection. But the real alpha is the rare weapon which you see on display: the shrimp gun 🦐

To achieve originality and authenticity, there's no way around effort. And I think that's exactly what digital collectibles have been missing since 2021. Bored Apes, Azuki, Cool Cats, Doodles... they are all original, made with passion — but they were also all created 5 years ago. Since then, the amount of effort and creativity that goes into collections has severely declined. That's why we haven't seen any innovation in our industry and why the market constantly punishes new projects that take shortcuts. Especially when it comes to art; buyers, holders, and collectors value effort. Because only genuine passion and love for the craft can lead to beauty and novelty.

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One of the most important aspects for me is that our collection has meaning. Because I'm convinced that holders and collectors can sense when you create with purpose. And I believe the way your art is valued on the market goes along with that too.

The approach for traits which I describe in this clip is risky and has never been done before. But I also believe it's necessary. Especially with respect to your holder's personalities, I don't think it's wise to expect everyone to identify with the exact same base template. The next logical step after the groundwork laid by the current bluechips is to introduce more uniqueness, diversity, stronger identities, different body types etc. We cannot continue to repeat the same recipe over and over and over again. It's time for something new to push digital collectibles further.

The reason people value hand drawn art over AI content is emotional satisfaction. If something was created by hand it contains: TIME. And time equals effort. The artist had to learn the craft, hone it, and then put it to work with intent and passion. AI on the other hand produces everything in seconds by recycling things which already exist. There's no effort behind it. It doesn't actually --create--. Let me give you an example. Let's say you'd hand your mother a letter that expresses your gratitude and love for her. How do you think she'd react if you told her AI wrote it. She'd be disappointed, right? Because even if you gave AI the input and even if AI maybe wrote the letter better than you could have yourself, it lacks the effort. It's simply not real. And no matter how good AI will get, this void can never be filled. Anyone bullish on AI art or AI movies is completely out of touch with human nature. We do not value things which contain zero effort. Naturally we understand that they are hollow copies of the real thing and hence worthless. Traditional art has proven the same point a long time ago. You can buy almost perfect replicas of famous paintings. But why are they worth so much less? Because, again, the artist can only give his soul to the artwork once. It cannot be copy pasted by plagiarizing the original. Humans value time, effort, passion, and a love for the craft. That will never change. Never. In fact, that appreciation will only grow stronger as the world is flooded with slop. That's why Majin builds on the foundation which Azuki laid. We honor the craft, we respect artistic integrity, and we make sure you can feel the soul in everything we create.

For our character concepts I focus on creating unique and memorable personalities. Not only with regard to their look, but posture, angles, and expressions are crucial to explore too. Your PFP is your online identity. That makes creative diversity one of the most important aspects. From my perspective we had enough of the "Stormtrooper collections", where it's pretty much just 10,000 clones with different hairstyles and colors. At this point, the space has matured enough where we can do more and create a much deeper IP.

This is one of the earliest concepts for the worldbuilding of Majin. The purpose of these illustrations is to visualize ideas for the brand. It’s also a way to test the color palette, get a better feeling for the “vibe”, place items or traits within the world of Majin, and to explore how we can communicate scale through art. Again, this is just a concept so don’t get too attached to it. But a variation of the "black broken halo" will be one of the many traits in the collection.