Why did you create Kawaii SKULL?
Nice to meet you. I'm Skull. ☠️
I am a Japanese artist.
I hand-painted 10,000 skulls in 4 months.🌈
I hadn't really talked about the process of creating Kawaii SKULL, so I put it together again in a NOTE.
I hope this article will help you to know the history of Kawaii SKULL.
Here's a quick summary of my activity history.
❶ Start studying photography at a vocational school📸 (2 years)
❷ I found out about NFT in March and decided to become a Digital Artist. 🔥
❸ Began work on Kawaii SKULL in July. ☠️
Student days (2019-)
Originally, I studied photography, and two years ago I went to a technical school in Tokyo to become a fashion photographer.
For the first year, I holed myself up in a studio and did nothing but shoot. I used flowers as my subject for practice and started creating flower works.💐
(I also did some fashion photography.)
🔻 Pictures of the flowers I was taking.
🔺 A photo of a flower taken in the same composition as a photo that imitates fashion photography with flowers.
I had been taking pictures of flowers in various forms for two years.
Since that time, I had also been creating collectible-like works.
After Corona (2020-)
The Corona of 2020 brought me into contact with digital all at once, and my way of thinking changed drastically.
I quit taking pictures of people, thinking that the Internet world would surely grow in the future and that artists would also need to go digital.
I quit taking pictures of people, and since I couldn't even go outside, I started a project to re-take the pictures I had taken so far on the Internet.
It was around this time that I began to create works that took advantage of the bug that occurs when you take a screenshot of a photo that has been taken once and then re-take it with a cell phone screenshot and import it into Illustrator on your computer.
🔻 A work using bug, "PNG".
I titled this work "PNG" after the screenshot saving format (extension).
PNG" is a series of photos of flowers that I have taken so far.
PNG" is a series of photos of flowers that I have taken so far, taken from different perspectives.
Know NFT in March (2021-)
While I was thinking about what to do when I graduated, I learned about NFT from two news stories in March.
One was the news that Beeple's work was traded for 69 million dollars.. The other was the news that Ayumi Sekiguchi's work was traded for 13 million yen. (Japanese VR artist)
When I saw this news, I was convinced that I had made the right decision and decided to concentrate on the digital world. I decided not to get a job, but to work part-time to earn my living expenses and devote the rest of my time to creating artworks.
With very little information available, I decided to create collectible works of flowers.
(I had made about 1,500 pieces.)
🔻The flower collectibles I made in April.
However, there were some miscalculations and I decided to cancel this collectible. The reason is that -
❶Lack of iconicity.
❷The entry of Takashi Murakami.
First of all, there is an impact when you see them all together, but each one has little appeal.
I felt that people would not be able to buy them when I exhibited them as NFT.
The other reason is the entry of Takashi Murakami.
When he announced "murakami.flower," I felt that Takashi Murakami would monopolize the flower collectibles market and immediately started creating different works.
（He immediately started working on other works, which have now been cancelled.)
Since August, I have been cringing, thinking that Takashi Murakami will come well prepared to present his work. lol
Works created in April 🌈
In late April, I created a single piece of floral collectibles.
🔻 Here is the work.
I spent about a week working on this piece.
This is the first work I have done on the theme of "death".
-Statement☠️
"When we die, we gain new strength"
That's what I've always thought and lived by.
Two years ago, when my grandparents died, I felt it more strongly. I did. I should have talked to them more. I should have met them more. I should have seen them more.
When a person dies, a tremendous amount of power is generated.
A few memories are transformed into strong memories.
The experience of death seemed to imprint them in my brain more.
Since I was unable to do anything for my grandparents, I decided to send them a bouquet of flowers through my work.
I decided to make a colorful bouquet to cheer them up. The skull is said to be a symbol of death, but I don't really know what death is, so I used pixels, the essence of digital technology, to express the ambiguous image of memory and death.
Exhibiting NFT for the first time.
I exhibited the work I just mentioned for the first time in June.
(It took me a very long time to register it.)
The result was a successful bid for 0.01 ETH.
While I was happy with my first achievement, I found a number of things that went wrong.
🔻It goes like this.
❶I don't know too much about NFT.
❷instgram is not my main battleground.
❸I don't have a solid fan base.
I felt that my lack of knowledge about opensea and virtual currency was a fatal problem before my work.
(Partly because there was no one nearby to teach me.)
Secondly, instgram was the only place I could advertise at this time.
So I realized that I had no ability to spread or buy anything here. I also realized that no one knew how to trade in virtual currency.
(It doesn't matter if you have 5000 followers)
After analyzing the results, I realized that Twitter was my main battleground, and I was ready to fight for it.
(At that time, I had almost no followers.)
Birth of Kawaii SKULL☠️🌈
The reason for its birth was sudden. (July 22)
I've always wanted to learn more about flowers.
I had about five interviews for part-time jobs at flower shops, but I failed all of them. lol
(I'm not going to take any more! I felt like, "I'm not going to take it anymore! lol)
It was around this time that I was inspired to create the skull by the news of a 12-year-old boy who created a dot picture of a whale.
At this time, I felt that I had no connection with flowers. and
I realized that NFT works do not need a concept at all.
I realized that the story is important.
So I decided to quit using flowers as a subject, which I had been doing for two years, and create a new collectible work with skulls.
The reason I decided to go with skulls was that I met them in April when I created a piece on the theme of death.
The skull is also very popular in the world.
I felt that there were infinite possibilities for a collectible work that combined the Japanese "Kawaii" culture ☠️🔥.
And so, in one day, I created 100 skulls.
(I was so desperate. lol)
🔻This is the first 100 skulls we produced.
#1-100 skulls do not have cheekbones drawn on them, so they might be rare.
However, I decided to rethink my strategy and not exhibit them right away.
🔥Aiming to become the No.1 young artist🔥
The reason.
❶It's still a blue ocean battlefield.
❷That there is no one in Japan who wants to be No.1.
It was only recently that we started to be recognized and there were only a few active NFT artists in Japan.
I felt that I needed to stand out from the crowd and make an overwhelming difference during this time.
僕は本当に世界的に知名度のあるアーティストになろうと考えています。
— ☠️ Kawaii SKULL 🌈 (@kawaiiskull_nft) August 12, 2021
そのためにはフォロワーさんの力が必要です。コメント、リツイート、タグ付けできるだけ全ての事をして僕の事を拡散してください。
全力でやってる人にはプレゼントをするという形で常に恩を返していきたいです。
I'm definitely going to be the No. 1 youngster‼️🔥🔥
I made a declaration.
There are very few people in Japan who can make such a declaration.
Just by saying it, you add value to yourself.
It's been four months since I made this statement, but I think about it every day.
I will definitely become No.1.
☠️Create a four-month story.☠️
Kawaii SKULL, which started in August, is a project to create 10000 skulls.
The skulls are made up of 24×24 dots.
Why? Let me tell you why I did it this way.
I made a collage of 24×24 dot skulls and wanted to include layers of Cyptopunks and Beeple in the work.
I wanted to include the layers of Cyptopunks and Beeple in my work, as well as pay homage to the works that made the digital age possible.
＋I also wanted to add my own story of the past four months to the work.
🔻Beeple 『Everydays:the first 5,000Days』and
Cryptopunks10,000 body
🔻Kawaii SKULL
🔺A work created with 10,000 skulls.
1,000 units in August. After that, we will produce 3,000 every month.
I thought I would create a story for Kawaii SKULL by letting everyone see the process.
I also thought that I could create the best work of art not by myself, but by getting all the supporters together to make it happen.
I made good on the goal I set in August and produced 10,000 skulls!
I believe that my passion for art is starting to be felt by the people around me.🔥🔥
From now on, I would like to boost the Japanese art world little by little. I would also like to take my achievements down to the world and make a success story of becoming a world-class artist.
Current Results
Now, thankfully, our trading volume has exceeded 15 ETH and 460 people have purchased our products.🔥🔥
This happened in just four months, and we never imagined it.
And with the subsequent work, I was able to put a value of 1 ETH on it.
Thank you very much.☠️✨
Finally.
I started with photography and got into pixels, which is the fun of digital, and as a result of aiming for simplicity and iconization, I arrived at Kawaii SKULL.🌈
Continuing to do something without giving up will definitely give you strength.
I hope I can convey such a message through Kawaii SKULL. First of all, I need to produce 10,000 skulls to become the No. 1 young artist, so I'll do my best until the end!☠️
For about two years, I have been constantly going through trial and error in order to get results. The fact that my persistence over the past few years has finally started to show results has given me a lot of confidence.
Please continue to support us and help us spread the word! And I would be happy if you could purchase SKULL as well.lol
Thank you for reading to the end.🙇♂️✨
See you soon.👋