Daz 3D’s ‘Cronos-7 Visitors’ to Land at Crypto.com NFT
3D artist Mario V speaks about his PFP collection with Daz 3D, featuring 7,777 otherworldly avatars.
On June 9, Daz 3D is set to bring 7,777 extraterrestrial avatars designed by Mario V down to Earth — landing exclusively at Crypto.com/NFT — with the colorful and curious aliens ready to colonize their new home on the Crypto.org Chain. A leader in NFT strategy, marketing and full-stack development, the company has previously worked with iconic brands like Warner Brothers, Champion, Coca-Cola, Louis Moinet, RTFKT — now Nike — and others to create NFT drops and wearables for the metaverse. It also offers advanced 3D avatar technology, which the veteran 3D artist used to create the upcoming “Cronos-7 Visitors” profile picture (PFP) collection.
“Cronos-7 Visitors” is the culmination of Mario V’s evolution as a 3D creator. The NFTs are created from over 200 properties, each carefully designed, textured and rendered with awesome detail. Mario V has been making 3D art for decades, but discovered Daz Studio — Daz 3D’s free modeling software — in 2016, opening up a world of creativity for the artist. “I’ve been drawing since I could hold a pencil,” he said. “3D art became my passion, and I spent 15 years as a lead game designer before leaving to explore the [other] possibilities of 3D. I wanted to create 3D art without so much worry about performance or operating within a strict workflow. Daz 3D allowed me to find a new height for what I can do.”
Mario has turned his skills into a successful side hustle, selling his creations on the Daz 3D online store as a published artist. He got Daz’s attention and, when the opportunity arose to collaborate on an NFT collection, they jumped at it — finding the project a home as a curated collection on Crypto.com NFT. “Crypto.com’s NFT marketplace is truly a phenomenal leading platform with great artists and communities,” said Jessica Rizzuto, Senior Vice President of Ecommerce at Daz 3D. “‘Cronos-7 Visitors’ fits perfectly into their high-quality ecosystem… Bringing Mario’s creative and fun work to Crypto.com NFT was a no-brainer for us.”
According to the project’s lore, the Visitors will arrive from Hestia — the seventh moon of the fictional planet Cronos. There is a rich story behind the Visitors that will continue to unfold over time, as collectors learn more about the race, where they came from and why they’ve chosen Earth as their new home. The collection is full of variety and includes characters belonging to nine distinct themes — such as ninjas, vampires and space troopers, to name a few — each with traits that don’t appear elsewhere in the collection at large. Furthermore, “Cronos-7 Visitors” also features “Visitor Legends,” which are entirely unique one-of-a-kind characters with homages to pop culture.
Crypto.com NFT sent Mario some questions about the inspiration behind the quirky collection, more details about the alien adventurers, his own creative journey and working in the NFT space.
“There’s always been an accessible market for 3D content creators, but less so for what you create with that 3D content — a bit like having a market for words and dictionaries, but not for poetry. So if you’re someone who enjoys words, but also creating poetry, there’s a good chance you may only be able to work on dictionaries — with the world potentially missing out on a lot of great poetry.”
Read the Q&A with Mario V below and visit the “Cronos-7 Visitors” drop page for more information.
Where are you from and what was your upbringing like? How has it affected your work?
I was born in Switzerland to Spanish parents and grew up going back and forth between the two countries. I spent first to fourth grade in a boarding school in Spain, which was where I first got obsessed with drawing.
There really wasn’t much else to do — no toys, very limited TV and nothing for kids to play with other than our imaginations. Owning a set of playing cards was the absolute highlight during that time.
So, when I wasn’t running around in circles with other kids, I would sneak into class and start drawing — filling entire pages with stick figure battles. Sometimes there would be aliens, and sometimes superheroes fighting back.
At some point, another kid [who was] a few years older than me noticed my obsession and showed me how to draw a basic pose with lines and circles for joints — and then use it to draw simple human figures that weren’t just stick figures. This completely changed drawing for me.
After boarding school, I got access to comics — which further got me into drawing. I just never stopped, until I discovered 3D — which was another milestone that changed everything for me.
I started with 3D thanks to games like “Quake” and “Unreal.” Being able to see your creations from any angle, move or just have volume was fantastic — they were alive! It was a small, negligible detail that they were always trying to kill me inside the game.
When did you first know you wanted to be a professional artist?
I don’t think I ever wanted to do anything else but draw, but I also never saw it as something I could do professionally back then. My brother wanted to be a pilot at first, then a car designer, [but] I always just wanted to draw. Becoming a professional artist was a dream, and I’ve always been a bit of a dreamer, but it was not something I actually expected to work out. Back in the day, the internet was young and slow. The world felt a lot smaller with opportunities limited to whatever you could find locally, which wasn’t much at all.
I studied as a graphic artist, designing t-shirts, pins, restaurant menus, etc. — which was the most visually creative path I could find. At the same time, I took all the side gigs I could find — like illustrating fantasy stories for local roleplaying magazines. Later on, as games like “Unreal” and “Quake” appeared, I worked on mods for those games — and some failed commercial projects.
Eventually, through the people I met at some of those mods and failed projects, I ended up in Canada — working at [video game developer] Digital Extremes on some of the “Unreal Tournament” games and everything else there for a total of about 15 years, which was an amazing experience.
What other mediums have you worked in?
I did plenty of silk screen printing, some gold leafing and typical graphic design — back in the day, while working as a graphic artist — and I’ve had the opportunity to do the odd photoshoot over the years, which is always a lot of fun. But 3D has mostly taken over all my time.
I tried to get into pottery, which has always fascinated me — but in the end, picked up 3D printing instead; less dust involved!
What do you love most about working in 3D?
I love the different aspects and disciplines involved, and how it’s always evolving — making it difficult to get bored and keeping you on your toes with new advances.
You can get a 3D model done in various ways. You can take a more technical or artistic approach to building something, and then you can paint or texture it using various techniques too — or you can resort to photogrammetry, if it’s an option. I tend to have several projects going on at once — so depending on what I feel like doing at the moment, I can work on one project or the other.
The other thing I really love about 3D is its utility. You’re not just creating a flat snapshot of something, but a fully functional 3D object or scene that you can view from any angle or 3D print. As someone who’s always loved photography too, there’s another layer of fun to be had once you’re done creating a scene or location and can switch to finding the best angles and lighting for some renders.
What inspires you artistically, in general?
I usually get inspired by something that I see, or the mood and feeling I get from something or a place, and then use music that helps recapture and maintain that mood while I work.
These last few years, I’ve started to use [Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR)] YouTube videos too. Rainy forests and crackling fireplaces set a great mood for medieval and fantasy artwork.
My mind gets distracted by ideas and art very easily, so it doesn’t take much to make me add new project ideas to my list.
What are the common themes of your work?
I used to do mostly sci-fi, during my time in the games industry — which I loved, but always left me wanting to do the opposite. So nowadays, I mainly work with fantasy [and] medieval themes — like medieval inns, hobbit homes and the likes. I love old architecture, stone walls and muddy forest paths — so that’s currently where I am.
I’ve been slowly working my way back to some sci-fi and superhero-ish work, with some side projects. I’m looking forward to seeing how those work out.
What do you consider “good” art? What makes art “good” to you?
I consider any art that successfully accomplishes what it set out to do “good.” The medium, technique and goal don’t really matter. Whether you’re trying to implant a feeling in people with a painting, [have] them forget their dietary goals with a fabulous looking cake or trying to get them to watch a movie by creating a great trailer for it, it all involves and requires artistic talent to excel at it.
So I would consider a painting that makes you think about the state of the world and a movie that makes you forget about it for two hours both good art. I usually don’t judge art by my own taste, but simply by whether it was successful in general at accomplishing its goal.
What’s more important: technique or message?
The message, definitely. It would seem counterproductive to obsess over techniques in a field where creativity and experimentation are so important. If you worry too much about techniques, you’re probably just limiting yourself.
If you could collaborate with any artist throughout history, who would it be?
I would absolutely love to do a project with Leonardo da Vinci. I like to think he’d have a blast with today’s possibilities too, and it would be great to see his mind at work with today’s tools and technologies.
What do you think you’d create?
I honestly don’t know what we’d create, which is part of what makes the idea exciting. Given his interests, imagination and today’s tools, I would imagine it would be something that combines drawing, 3D, 3D printing and rapid prototyping, and some handiwork.
How have you been monetizing your art since leaving the video game industry, before NFTs?
I’ve done some contract work within the games industry since leaving it — but mostly, I’ve been doing 3D content for Daz’s store.
What were some of your favorite projects, and why?
I’ve always loved doing things from start to finish, from art direction [and] resource gathering to execution and final touches — so being in a position where I can afford to do just that has been great.
Luckily, my favorite project is usually the one I just finished. It’s probably not always ideal, as it means that some simple projects end up taking more time than I initially expect — but I always end up loving every project equally, wanting to give everything I do the same amount of attention and care.
What attracted you to the NFT space?
There’s always been an accessible market for 3D content creators, but less so for what you create with that 3D content — a bit like having a market for words and dictionaries, but not for poetry. So if you’re someone who enjoys words, but also creating poetry, there’s a good chance you may only be able to work on dictionaries — with the world potentially missing out on a lot of great poetry.
Creating 3D content for a living has been awesome for me, but there’s still always this other part of you as an artist that’s left unused because it’s hard to find an audience, community or platform for it.
NFTs have been interesting for me from the beginning, because they seem to offer this missing platform [or] vehicle to today’s artists — allowing artists of any age, art style and discipline to find an audience for their creative projects and ideas.
What do you like most about NFTs and working in the NFT space?
The NFT space feels like the art galleries for the next generation of art and artists, complete with communities for like-minded people.
I also love that it’s incredibly inclusive. You can find photography next to classic paintings, next to 3D animations and music, and right next to something that combines all of the previous elements. I think NFTs offer a new frontier for digital art, and it’s pretty exciting to think about how they could help evolve digital art over time.
As for me personally, there are a lot of projects in my head that I would love to realize that go beyond 3D content creation — and the NFT space offers a platform for all of those ideas.
If you could change anything about the NFT industry, what would it be?
Well, there’s the clear issues with rug pulls, fake duplicate collections and similar things, right now. But I think that, more than change, it just needs time — time to mature and time for artists to experiment and discover everything they can do within the NFT space, and time for the world to find ways to integrate and have digital NFT art coexist with regular analog art.
Tell us about the NFTs in this collection; what inspired them?
There’s always been something pleasing about designing cohesive collections of something in one form or another, be it a set of tarot cards or themed 3D content — so designing an NFT collection was an exciting project right away.
I’ve always loved creating worlds, with their stories and backgrounds — it’s part of why I ended up working in the games industry for 15 years — so I’ve always been looking for opportunities to do that outside the industry. As soon as I discovered the NFT space, I had so many ideas. The space feels very limitless. This was during the pandemic, and my team and I went through all of the ideas we had — and the Visitors kinda won our hearts over. We wanted to make something silly and uplifting — and these aliens discovering a new world, and trying to adapt to it, was inspired in part by the pandemic.
The pandemic probably had the largest impact on what the collection eventually became. My team and I had tried several ideas, doing some test renders for each, and then let them sit for a month or two while working on other projects. When we came back to the tests, the Visitors stood out immediately. They were lighthearted, funny, silly and positive, which in the middle of the pandemic [were] very good feelings to be working with. Their background of being aliens trying to adapt to a new world and reality was also something I think most of us could relate to during the pandemic. As we worked with those themes and emotions, the Visitors just started to take a life of their own and we simply fed their curiosity, silliness and sometimes sadness.
What else can you tell us about the Visitors?
They’re a curious, well-meaning and adventurous race, still trying to figure things out. Everything is new to them and they deal with the same issues we do. Some really love tea. Some properties come from the Daz Store library, while others are custom-made assets. These aliens come in peace — mostly!
What about the Visitor Legends?
Legendaries are so much fun to do, and this collection has plenty of them. The legendaries have different themes inspired by classic pop culture and things that are popular today. You’ll find [Visitor Legends inspired by] horror, sci-fi, fantasy, superheroes and more.
Do you have any goals or future plans for your art, in the NFT space or otherwise?
Plenty! I’ll always enjoy creating 3D content, so I don’t think that will ever stop.
On the NFT side, we had a great time creating the Visitors and I wouldn’t be surprised if another species found their way to earth too.
There are also other projects I’d love to realize, for which the NFT space is ideal. There are a lot of years’ worth of ideas in my head looking for an outlet, including some going all the way back to my childhood — inspired by artwork and artists that inspired my drawings back then.
Browse the “Cronos-7 Visitors” collection by Daz 3D.
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Editor’s Note (Oct. 4, 2022): an earlier version of this article was originally published on June 7, 2022 and has since been edited and/or updated.
