Just recently I got interested in NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and I think they are one of the best applications of the blockchain technology.
An NFT is a tokenized representation of a material or immaterial good, such as an image, a song or a book. Being stored on the blockchain, it's easy to prove its authenticity and owner and unlike normal digital files, the good becomes unique and can be sold or exchanged with blockchain transactions.
Being an illustrator / comic artist, I decided to try and tokenize my art on hope to make it more valuable and known. I did some research and I learned that there are many platforms online, allowing the creation and share of NFT tokens without the need to deep dive into web3 programming using Solidity or other crypto languages.
The platforms
The first platform I took a look at was Nifty Gateway, but at first glance I saw it was out of my league: they partner with famous names as Steve Aoki, deadmau5, etc. and their NFTs are sold at unbelievable prices:
I decided to take a look anyway at how to apply, but they ask for a brief interview, long and short term goals, a self-introducing video... too much effort for an almost-sure negative response.
So I switched to Wax, another famous platform. Again, VIPs publish here, like William Shatner and many sport celebrities. In this case, there isn't even an apply form, I should have sent an e-mail and hope to be called back. I gave up.
Next platform I tried was OpenSea: here you can create your collection, put in as many NFTs you want, and pay a single transaction to create and turn visible your all collection. You can even add NFTs to the collection later, for free. Great, just what I needed.
My first NFT collection
I have a bunch of illustrations in my portfolio, so I looked for something "NFT-able": I published many images in various art sites, so I wanted something not yet seen around, cause I thought it could be a bit more appealing. So I found a folder from a couple of years ago: Savant. It's a graphic novel I'm writing and I hope to start illustrating soon. All I have for now are the portraits of some characters:
Cool, some portraits with a common concept, well-established characters behind them, I thought this could have some potential in terms of collectible items. I decided to use these portraits as first experiment with the NFT world.
I created and account on OpenSea, I connected my Metamask wallet to the site and I spent some time creating my collection and adding all the tokens. The process was very easy, just a matter of uploading jpg images, writing a title and a description, and adding some stats to the NFT (you can add anything you like, such as "gender: male", "age: 52", etc. We all now stats are very appreciated by collectors.
When I finished creating my Savant collection, I clicked on "Publish" and I had a bad surprise: my Metamask wallet opened and asked me to authorized an Ethereum transaction worth 120$. Ok, I said, here's the rip-off. Filled with discomfort, I gave up with this plaftorm too, and I though gas fees were killing another great application of blockchain.
Mintable
After some time, though, I decided to google a bit more, and I found another NFT platform called Mintable. It allows creating NFT tokens off-chain: they'll be stored on the site servers until they are sold, and the transaction costs are deducted from the price. Interesting...I didn't have much trust at this point, but I decided to give it a try anyway.
Again, I created an account and I connected my Metamask wallet. On Mintable you can create your own shop, but you have to pay a transaction here too (620$ this time!), or you can create your NFT token and publish it on the Mintable gasless store, for free. Of course I took this road and re-created my tokens.
In a similar E-Bay concept, I could decide if selling them at a fixed price, with a bid, or with a bid with "buy now" option. I chose the last option and I specified the minimum bid and the "buy now" price. In ten minutes I was done, and my tokens were on-sale in the shop.
The bid will go on for 7 days, so hopefully I will have at least 1 bid at the end of the term... if not, at least I learned something about NFTs and I can start thinking about my next projects in this world.
Here's my profile on Mintable in case you want to take a look and increase the views of my tokens: https://mintable.app/u/the_quaro
If you have any suggestions for other platforms, NFT improvements, ideas, etc. feel free to write in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
