When to know a NFT animation is good (more importantly, don’t buy bald mannequins)
We’re not here to knock artists down. But we would like to give non-artists and non-animators who are scooping up NFTs for high prices an inside look at what goes into creating a piece. After all, if you’re spending $1,000s USD, or 1s ETH, you want to make sure you’re buying a piece of quality art.
But what is quality art anyways?
Well, I can speak as someone who has done 2D art and try to transfer some of that knowledge to the animation world.
I spent some time learning how to do logos in my younger years (side note: I suck at it. Don’t ask me for help). You know what drives me freaking insane?
This logo. I’m using a stock photo rather than one with a business’ name because I prefer not to shame small businesses — you already know who you are anyways.
Coffee shops use this in brown. Holistic centers use it in muted greens and blues. Parenting products use it in pink. Sometimes the brush strokes are more jagged (like the one above), sometimes more streaky, sometimes smooth and rounded. But you know why everyone has this logo? You can get it literally anywhere for free and spin it up in a few seconds. I tell everyone I know who has started a business, do NOT hire anyone for design work who submits this circle logo to you. They are using a template and most likely don’t really know what they’re doing.
With animation it’s the same thing, which is really important if you’re trying to invest in high-end NFT art. If you know how to spot the people using templates or default models, you’ll be able to avoid purchasing something that will be a dime a dozen (or more like, .000000000000000001 ETH a million) in a few years.
1. STOP BUYING BALD MANNEQUINS.
Seriously. Stop it. As a non-animator I put this question out there to the Twitterverse: Where are these bald mannequins coming from that show up in all the 3D models? Apparently, you can download the mannequin into whatever modeling program you’re using from sites like cgtrader.
Want to know why these models end up remaining bald and shiny?
Adding skin and hair is hard. Like, really hard. Think of how many individual movements need to come together to make hair ripple in the wind. Think of how each wrinkle moves on a person’s face when they smile/frown/etc. There’s a reason Disney animations looked like this well into the 90s:
Notice the flat hair that’s mostly a single block of color with a few stray strands or slices in it. Look at the shiny, non-textured faces. Getting past this stage is hard and it requires skill.
For example, take a look at this piece. It’s clearly thoughtful, but why is this guy walking down the street naked, and pink, and bald? And why did it sell for 4 ETH? This artist might be super talented, I don’t know. I do know, this naked, bald mannequin is weak sauce.
2. Photos with moving water and/or skies
So, here’s a fun one. Take a photo (any photo is fine, but make sure there’s a water source and/or a swath of sky, even better if the sky has star). Now download MovePic or Pixaloop. Apply filters. Done.
Voila! You too can create a NFT photo with blown out colors and animated skies/water with nothing but a smartphone.
You can spot these if you see a photo with unnaturally bright or pink-colored backgrounds and buildings with a sky of falling stars, moving waterfalls, or rippling oceans.
3. A single object with a single effect
So animation school and art school have something in common, you get your feet wet one step at a time. I can’t tell you how many self portraits I’ve had to draw to show that I can use different mediums. Pastels. Charcoal. Oil paints. Acrylic paints. You name it, I have a self portrait in it. Still lifes, too!
In animation school or through animation tutorials, you’ll often apply a single effect to an object to become proficient in that skill. For example, make something melt. Make something hairy. Make something bounce. Make something splash. These student projects can be incredibly cool, but they’re usually the animation equivalent of a still life.
There are a million of them.
How to spot one? Look for a single object on a relatively plain background (a wine glass on a plain white table) that is doing a single action (falling and turning to liquid as it hits the ground). The only detail added is in the object that is doing the action, almost no attention has been paid to the background or secondary objects.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame anyone for hawking student art. In fact, I’m setting up a whole series of digitized self portraits with crypto logos in them right now (the two things I hate most) just because I can and because the portraits are laying around my apartment anyways. You artists, go get that money where you can, I’m not hating on you!
But to the investors, know what you’re looking for and understand the difference between a truly quality animation and something thrown together for the sake of a NFT. The more skilled the work, the more value it may have long term. Things that are easily recreated are going to be worth less (maybe even worthless), because they’re less special.
Go forth, collectors, and find something unique from someone with skill to match their natural talent!
*Side note, I try not to post too many bad examples unless they’re selling well above 2k USD, because I don’t want to hurt small artists. Sorry for the lack of visuals in the second and third examples.
