Best NFT art: Hex Vanilla the artist in the making on NFTb.io
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A sneak peek into the world of NFT Artist: Hex Vanilla
A lover of pancakes and syrup, 3D art and bunnies, Hex Vanilla is far from the regular artist. Hex Vanilla’s notoriety has skyrocketed ever since entering the NFT space. Most famous for the “Taste the Gains” NFT collab with CoinMarketCap, Hex Vanilla is hands down one of the best NFT artists on NFTb.
Hex Vanilla has a distinctive 3D style featuring different colors & shapes to create a distinct and fun packed mood, describing his style as smooth, creamy, and silky.
As a matter of fact, Hex Vanilla is recognized as the artist behind the most NFT collabs with CoinMarketCap. His recent NFTb’s collab “Taste the Gains” received an astounding response, clocking over 21.k views and selling out in minutes.
Hex Vanilla took a break from his busy schedule designing artworks to have a chat with NFTb’s Art Director — Derek Obonga. In this electrifying conversation, they talk about why he loves art, his approach as a 3D artist, his experience with NFTs, his career as an artist and his hopes for the future.
Who is Hex Vanilla?
Hex Vanilla is 31-year-old 3D Artist/Bunny from Chile, who’s obsessed with pancakes & syrup from Santiago. He has been an artist for almost 15 years, nearly half of his life — a long time for a bunny.
Having a diverse background by working as 3D generalist, a modeler/retopology artist, an Archviz artist, a lighting/render artist, and a photogrammetry artist, Hex Vanilla loves to play with different aesthetics, especially from everyday items or places.
So, let’s hear form the Bunny himself.
1) How did you become an NFT artist?
I’ve been a CG artist for more than 15 years and have been creating stuff before NFTs trended. I was already in the crypto space learning about DeFi when I first heard about NFTs; I didn’t understand anything then, so I just forgot about it and chased those 10,000 APYs
I had a business back then creating 3D assets, so I was always on Instagram, making collabs with artists and following significant trendsetters like @beeple. So, when I saw what he had done with his First 5000 Day piece, I knew I needed to learn more about this.
When it comes to my work, I create things I like to see. As simple as that. I get inspired pretty much by anything but in a very indirect way. If I see a cute dog in the street, I rarely return to my computer and create a cute dog character. If I see a cute dog on the street, I might pay attention to its attitude or how shiny its nose is, or how the light enhances some features of the dog. And then go back to my computer and create something that might remind me of any of those details.
I chose NFTb because I was already using many dapps on the BNB Chain, so I was waiting for a platform to upload my NFTs because I didn’t have much luck on Ethereum, and the gas fees were super high. NFTb was pretty new when I joined, but the team behind it seemed active and professional, and my uploaded pieces started gaining traction, so I decided to stay.
2) How have you enjoyed working on the CMC NFT collabs so far?
It’s been so much fun! I was initially surprised as I am not that popular NFT artist. So I was very excited to collab with NFTb & CMC. Although I was surprised by the offer, I’ve collaborated with some BNBChain projects before getting into NFTs so I was confident I could create something awesome.
I love the ones that tell a little story, like April’s Fools Day drop. I am very thankful for the opportunity to the NFTb team.
The most challenging NFT drop was the Christmas/New Year piece, mainly because it had so much stuff, snow, fireworks, balloons, presents, a traveling camera, and a happy snowman! The render of that one had so many issues I had to fix, and it was so slow 🤣
3) Why the name “Hex Vanilla”?
Could it be because your artworks are vibrant and sweet?
That’s an excellent guess; I might have to steal it! The idea behind Hex Vanilla was to create a first name and the last name so people could refer to me simply as Hex or Mr. Vanilla (for the fancy ones). The Hex part is for hexadecimal numbers, and the vanilla part references my work style, silky smooth sweet.
Hex Vanilla’s TOP 5 NFTs:
1. CZ Bull
2. Hex Portrait — Profile picture
3. Super Mr. Baker
4. Holy Beefy
5. Daniele, The Mighty Frog
4) What is the most challenging project you’ve worked on in your career?
Once, I worked for an ad-campaign for a Canadian client, which required a hyper realistic exploding loaf of bread.
I was in charge of providing a 3D scan of the main loaf and the many pieces for the explosion. It was a logistical ordeal because we had never done something like this before, had a tight schedule, had to get the actual bread from Canada, and because of food regulations, we only got one loaf of bread. By the way, the ‘we’ in this story are just my father and me.
Once we were done with logistics, it was time to do the actual job. Working with food is always painful; you must be fast and work in a cold environment; plus, we only had one loaf, so no error was allowed. Once we got all the 3D scans, we noticed that although they looked fantastic, they were way too heavy to be usable. So we had to put in some more hours of R&D to keep all the incredible details but with a much smaller and manageable size so the client could use them.
Pretty much every project I was involved with Photogrammetry (3D scanning) was a challenging one.
5) Any upcoming or existing drops that people should pay attention to?
I am a 1/1 artist. My most known work is the CZ Bull on NFTb; I love that piece for many reasons but mostly because it was a collab between my father & me, and it was the actual @cz_binance PFP for a while. I’m working on new pieces & a collection so stay tuned and make sure to check out my portfolio on NFTb.
Stay connected with Hex Vanilla on — Twitter | Instagram | Telegram | NFTb
About NFTb
NFTb is the Complete Multi-chain DeFi and NFT platform for Communities. Our mission is to help creators get comfortable and love using DeFi dApps.
NFTb offers a premium NFT marketplace where users can access buyers from anywhere around the world and multi-chains, a DeFi platform giving users access to yield farming opportunities and a launchpad created to help creators and projects to build early support.
NFTb is backed by the Binance Accelerator Fund, Rarestone Capital and Spark Digital Capital.
