How I Minted My First Generative Art NFT

art

I’ve long watched my inspiring friends make generative art and mint NFTs. I own a handful of works on paper by Dmitri Cherniak, and we’ve briefly collaborated in 2019 - Dmitri made digital works, and I drew a smaller set inspired by his output. I really enjoyed observing his process, and thought about trying making digital drawings myself, but then I stubbornly stuck to making my own works on paper. Dmitri’s recent success with Ringers selling at crazy prices was not overnight. He has long made, and believed in generative art, he’s a true artist that doesn’t care much about commercial success. Nevertheless, the $ outcomes are worthy of a mention, his art is now being recognized by collectors outside of the traditional gallery system.

Last week, after listening to a conversation with Osinachi, an incredibly inspiring Nigerian artist that has been minting NFTs for a while, I finally decided to give generative art NFTs a go.

You can buy one of the works here, until they sell out. Update: works 1-6 have sold as of March 24th, 2021.

Here’s the technicalities of how I minted my first NFTs.

1. I started with p5-typescript-starter, including fixing a typo.
2. Found inspiration in my own existing paper drawing.
3. Reproduced the sanguine (color('#850505')) shape in code, using quad.
4. Animated 10 frames and saved them to files using saveCanvas.
5. Created a collection on OpenSea. Each work is a unique result of a different frame.
6. Bought $200 worth of ETH on Coinbase, and moved it to OpenSea to pay gas on some wallet initialization process.
7. Listed work 1/10 in an auction, and sold my first NFT to my first bidder, someone I don’t know!
8. In hindsight listing as an auction was a mistake because the seller ends up paying gas fees, which are high, at about $50 per transaction. I have since listed, and sold, works 2-6 as “buy now” for a fixed price. Buyer pays gas fee for those to complete.