The PFP NFT presentation not only brings a sense of belonging to a community group for the holder; it also serves as a pivot between the project and the player through the artist's style of painting, mapping to the different identities of each holder's personality and, most importantly, attitude, as " GoblinMode".
According to the May 30 data, Goblintown trading volume increased by about 355% in the first 7 days, and the total volume has now more than tripled compared to the pre-26th peak of 4.4K ETH. Goblintown also topped Opensea's 24-hour trading list on the 26th.
Source: NFTGo.io
Over the past 7 days, Goblintown's trading volume peaked on the 25th with a 300% increase compared to the previous 24h period, with a total of around 3,500 sales and purchases transacted in this range.
Source: NFTGo.io
On May 21, 2022, Goblintown NFT was made available on the ethereal chain via a free public sale with a total offering of 9,999 units. Style is one of the key factors behind the explosion of Goblintown NFT. The style of the drawing plus the meme features spread and other features made the project a dark horse against the trend within the bear market in a short week.
1/1 NFT for high identification
In addition to a wide variety of magical creatures, Goblintown's 1/1 collection "touches" a wide range of other famous characters, giving the images a high degree of independent recognition. The images include Kevin from Pixelmon, Steve Aoki, an electronic dance musician known for his "anti-finger" on Twitter, the Harry Potter-like Headmaster of Hogwarts, and Clint Barton from Marvel's Hawkeye.
Source: NFTGo.io
Notably, Goblintown #8995, #7944, and #5948 finished in the top three highest traded deals with 69.42e, 30.3e, and 26e, respectively, of all deals sold. And a total of 7 1/1s sold for at least 9e in the top 10 highest trades, with an average change of hands of 2.1 times. This shows that the project owner has an ulterior motive in the design of rarity, so that the high rarity collections all have their own independent special characteristics.
Source: NFTGo.io
Meme The Style Factor in the Wave
Language style
Since the project sold out, the Gobilintown project owners have been spreading the word about Goblins through official social media, Twitter Space, and other channels. The total online discussion on the 26th was observed to be three and a half hours long, with a maximum of over 1,700 simultaneous listeners. Interestingly, each holder speaker got into the vibe of the goblin role-playing identity and enjoyed it.
Source: Twitter
AUUGHHH! The phrase it's a meme in itself, and according to data reported on Tiktok related to it, the total number of short videos linked to #auuughh has reached 32.2M views as of May 30, 2022.
Source: Tiktok discover
Wacky painting style
When first seeing the project, some will be drawn to its uniquely styled official website and dialogue text, adding an extra layer of mystery and curiosity to Goblintown. It's worth noting that Goblin Town itself, as literally translated from English, represents the current market sentiment - an ironic description and sigh of "ugly" and "grotesque " hinting at the current market chill and overall blue chip price pullback. At the same time, it also reflects the negative and depressing mood and mentality of people under the economic downturn after the pandemic.
Photo credit: Twitter
Today, there are more and more project parties looking to create a wave of buzz with unique and groundbreaking painting styles. So, how do you judge a project's style? "Impression" is extremely crucial. And this is reflected in the overall execution of the art style, so that everyone is impressed after viewing.
From overpriced avatars to subcultures to weird art styles, NFT has been surprising the market time and time again, and Goblintown is certainly an interesting take on the art style. So what is the role and place of style in the NFT project? How does it become a veneer for people to show their emotions and express their attitudes?
Throughout the whole NFT market each project has its own style of drawing. Especially during the explosive period of the total market value of the NFT market in the last year, many styles including Japanese manga style, mecha style, cute style, and minimalist drawing style have gradually joined the whole NFT ecology. Some of the projects in the NFT market are listed below according to the classification of drawing styles.
Source: NFTGo.io
Painting style is not only the cornerstone of every NFT project at the beginning, but also the hub that connects different nodes in the subsequent path of the project. To the left, it is a bridge to carry on the artists' transition from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0, continuing the artists' former creative styles and providing a consensus on the early fan base and aesthetic values; to the right, it can serve as a carrier to connect and link the cultures of different communities, and spread the genes across countries and nations in Web 3.0. Under the vast dome of decentralization, the three ideas of artist/project - painting style - culture are interconnected and intertwined.
Photo credit: NFTGo.io
Aesthetic arts consensus
NFT's painting style is a continuation of the painter's and artist's earlier styles. Doodles, for example, is derived from the work of illustrator Scott Martin. From Scott's early illustration works, we can see that he loves to show thick lines and warm shapes, and this style brings a sense of simplicity without losing a bit of cuteness. Scott was also an internationally known artist before he transitioned to freelance commercial illustration. He has collaborated on numerous publications and events around the world for companies such as Google, Facebook, Dropbox and Red Bull.
Source: early illustrations by Scott Martin
It's easy to see that Scott's history has given Doodles' image design a certain amount of fan base from the beginning. The aesthetic value of Scott's unique drawing style also served as a bridge from web2 to web3, to a certain extent, laying the groundwork for subsequent success and providing aesthetic security.
Source of data: NFT Education
GENE_SIS SENSHI is also one of the cases that continue the creation style of the artist. Ghaly of GENE_SIS SENSHI project started as an original game artist and had joined Nexon as one of the collaborative artists of Dungeons & Dragons 2. Before starting the GENE_SIS SENSHI project, he had more than three years of experience in creating the same style of painting. In 2019, Gharly officially left to become a freelance illustrator, and gradually built up the style of "Mecha Girl", a post-apocalyptic worldview.
Source of data: Foundation.app
Integration of identity personalities and cultures
Whether it's the spirit from Japanese animation in Azuki, or the collision of mourning culture and free money culture in mfers and BAYC. The common narrative purpose behind the different painting styles connects to the idea of breaking down centralized structures and creating de-ethnicized, decentralized, member-governed communities in a future universe. Once people are integrated into the world of Web 3.0 and the Metaverse through NFT, after taking off their nationality, ethnic identity and even gender identity defined by Web 2.0. The notion of equality and communion will also allow each participant in it to autonomously choose their own identity and growth path in Web 3. The PFP NFT with different themes and different painting styles has undoubtedly become an intuitive choice for personalization in the Web3 world.
Source: CryptoPotato
Azuki's drawing style has a very obvious and strong Japanese character in terms of art composition. By using the art style of mainstream Japanese manga with the thick contour lines of American style, Azuki subtly blends the secondary genre with the European and American styles. At the same time, with the background that the history of the Japanese animation industry and Western culture are intermingled, Azuki amplifies and spreads this concept of cultural intermingling again in the territory of Web 3.0 through the drawing style of his project NFT.
Source: Blocktempo, Zipmex
In addition, the characters of NFT PFP project mfers and BAYC are presented in an unglamorized and original way, connecting NFT with the "funeral culture" group. The characters reflect the state of society today, the psychology of people who are passive and escapist, and the boredom of the money world. The minimalist and rough style of the mfers' drawings also allows many people who share the same experiences to relate and empathize with the physical movements depicted in the characters.
For each NFT project's seemingly simple painting style, the storage capacity carried and accommodated behind is not to be underestimated. With the gradual development and maturity of the NFT market, the collision under more cultural intermingling will also bring more independent and outstanding projects. But what remains unchanged is the cornerstone of the painting style, building one interoperable bridge after another for painters, participants, and Web3.0. The future of the NFT market will also grow stronger and stronger on the road of diversity and inclusiveness.