Issue #14: Pixel art making a comeback
Critters Cult (Suns Studios): Our first Solana project run down
It’s 2023. Crypto and NFTs have been through the ringer and lots of people have called the industry dead. But all of this says to us that it’s a great time to be active.
These are the times when the real magic happens. When the real outliers show their true colors and create really amazing things. It is the time when real technological and cultural advancements take hold and cement themselves as common place in the near future.
Take Google as a quick example. 20 years ago, there were more doubters about the internet that anyone could count. Tons of investment has flowed in to “dot coms” and a lot of those companies disintegrated. But today - how many times a day do you use Google? Whether it be Gmail, Search, Maps, Translate, Flights, etc. It has become so engrained in our daily life that we don’t even notice it is there anymore. There will definitely be use cases of technology and brands that are currently being built today that will become household names in 20 years. And we are here to uncover some of them.
tl;dr
This week we are looking at an art and story-centric project called Critters Cult.
Critters Cult was made a massive splash in the Solana art scene and continues to build a community, brand, and narrative universe that will most likely continue to be built into the future. The collection is propped up by the impressive artistic reputation of its founder RGB and the steady and level-headed loyalist community that support him. This is like the training wheels version of a Solana NFT project.
RGB
rgb0x00, more commonly referred to as RGB, is the founder and lead artist for Suns Studios. RGB has made a name for himself across the NFT land as one of the best pixel artists in the game. In his own words:
“RGB an established multidisciplinary artist on Solana, developing both generative and 1/1 pixel artworks. He is the creator behind Solsunsets, a generative collection of landscapes, and Critters Cult, a worldbuilding sci-fi mystery collection. He is a member of the Underground Royalty Society and has made custom pieces in partnership with well known projects such as The Chimpions, Particles and HotHeads, among others.”
RGB has also made an impression on the ecosystem for not only his world class art, but also for his…lets say…unique style when it comes to running his community. He has been referred to as mysterious, cryptic or just down right absent. He does make fairly regular announcements in the Discord, but he will will never participate in conversations except for private interactions with a small group of trusted loyalists.
It is undeniable that he is super well connected in the Solana NFT ecosystem and art scene. For someone that is so silent across most channels, he sure has a lot of clout. It would be interesting to look at this and study it, as its a stark contrast with some of the bombastic personalities across NFTs that are begging for attention.
Quick Numbers
Suns Studios
Suns Studios is a pixel art studio founded by RGB to gather all his creations and bring together a community of artists, collectors and enthusiasts who share the same passion for visual narratives and nostalgic pixel art aesthetics. It is unclear if he is the sole member of Suns Studios or if there is also a team behind some of the activities, but one thing is certain: the pixel art is very high quality. You can see a lot of the 1/1s and special editions that RGB has pumped out on the Exchange Art profile.
Solsunsets
Solsunsets were the genesis collection of Suns Studios and are 4313 pixelated landscapes. They are wonderfully ethereal depictions of surreal landscapes with numerous traits. They portray as square images on your everyday marketplace, but within the metadata and on the Sun Studios website, you can download a 3:1 version of each. RGB also created a subset of Solsunsets called Solsunsets Special Edition (SE). These are version of the sunsets that are lightly animated and thus garner a slighter higher price point.
Critters Cult
Critters Cult is a collection of 5,555 pixelated “critters” that are the central pieces of a narrative that is yet to unfold. The Critters come from 5 different realms and will be the main characters of both the storyline of the “Critterverse” as well as a card game dapp (decentralized app). The card game is currently under development with the help of a third party that has not been announced. It was slated to be released in Q4 2022, so the hope is that something will be released soon.
This is the collection that got the attention of the Solana (and the broader NFT) community. Solsunsets has brought some minor attention to RGB’s work, but Critters Cult really put him on the map. The Critters Cult mint was extremely hyped and even Raj (one of the founders of Solana) was rocking a Critter as his Twitter pfp for some time.
$PIXEL
I have talked about tokenomics in more than one issue, and here we are again. The token native to the Sun Studios ecosystem is called $PIXEL.
The purpose of $Pixels is to facilitate long-term collectors to purchase Suns studio creations. The token does not have any intrinsic monetary value, no liquidity pool or artificial mechanisms to increase its interest.
Holders of Solsunsets (original and SE), Critters Cult, and Solsunnies (a collection of NFTs that was made by a community member) all generate $PIXELS at a rate of 1/day. $PIXELS are earned by simply holding the NFTs (no staking required) and each claim is available every Monday. It is not required to claim your $PIXEL each week, because they continue to accumulate until you are ready to claim them.
$PIXELS are used for almost all collaboration and special art projects that RGB drops and have been used either to as a way to purchase editions, bid in an auction or buy raffle tickets for special collabs.
The exact tokenomics of $PIXEL is not full transparent. There are currently just over 2 million in circulation but it is not clear if the total supply will increase over time or other details on how the mechanics work. If you like digging into blockchain stuff, you can check the token address on Solscan here.
Collabs
Art is the main focus of everything that Suns Studios puts out. And within that, collaborating with fellow artists is a key tenet of RGB’s. The collabs that RGB takes part in are pretty significant. He tends to stay pretty close to the pixel art family, but he continues to team up with some major artists.
He has collaborated with artists such as Zen0 an MEK and projects like Claynosaurz and Famous Fox Federation. If you are familiar with the Solana NFT ecosystem you know that these are not small names - and I’ve heard some rumors of some more big time artist collabs coming soon.
Art Map
RGB’s plans for his work are laid out in what he calls the Art Map. The upcoming scheduled releases are “The Loop Chronicles” which is the web3 card game I already mentioned, “The Critters Book” which will looks like it will be community-led lore project, and eventually the next collection of NFTs called Suns:Saga launching in Q3 2023. A lot of this information is a bit vague, but the full art map is 11 pages long and it does capture the imagination.
The Community
The Suns Studio Discord is seriously slept on. Plain and simple. It is a place that is welcoming, kind, full of super smart people including founders, artists, builders of all kinds and of course full blown degens. But it is one of the few servers that I return to as often as possible. There is a solid community of people that have found their niche.
An interesting part of the community aspect here is that when Critters Cult minted, it pumped in price pretty quickly and garnered a lot of attention. As with a lot of projects, there is often groups of people that organize and bond over similar NFT traits because it is seen as a sign of a successful project. For example, there is a “Mage” trait in the Critters Cult collection. If everyone that owned a Critter with a Mage trait banded together, this would be considered what is often called a sub-DAO of the collection. Sub-DAOs are super common these days and people love to make exclusive groups around their NFTs. But when this started to happen within Critters Cult, RGB made some firm announcements about not creating groups like this, which in turn stopped just about all such activity.
RGB has tried to keep the community from fragmenting within sub-DAOs or any other type of exclusive groupings. In a way, he wants the community to be one large happy family. It is a very interesting strategy to remove this idea from a self-forming community, but it is definitely how he is putting his stamp onto the community. Again, he never writes in the Discord and is extremely elusive, but when it comes to the vibe of the community that has formed around him, he is quite particular.
Unrefined Opinions
Bry:
The project is art & story focused. I own some critters as a disclaimer.
Thinking through the last few projects that we have covered (majority of which are now in upward price discovery) we tend to look at a few things as key criteria. We look at the artist from a talent and creativity standpoint, the artist for critters cult known as rgb has been making a name for himself and has a foothold in the community as someone who is good in creative direction.
We’re amidst an NFT bull market on the Solana blockchain ecosystem at the moment and while we’ve seen many projects go up in price, this one has been slowly tapering off.
It begets the question - Is art and story telling enough?
The profile picture is nice and you will see it across the ecosystem, simply because there are few better ones. I think once more announcements get made and the community gets more involved this collection will be a lot more valuable (expensive).
n00ble:
I love this one. This is the project that brought me back to the Solana ecosystem from ETH. I had some terrible experiences with rugs and totally garbage projects in the early days and I swore off SOL projects all together. But Critters Cult created a bit of a renaissance for me. For some reason, the pixel art hits me different and the way that RGB handles the community is unique and bold.
I am long term holder of Critters and Solsunsets and I do my best to actively participate in the server as well as the art drops (when I have enough $PIXEL). But what keeps bringing me back is the impressive group that the art attracts. It is an honest and grounded group that is also full of dreamers. I know this sounds very fluffy but I strongly believe that good communities attract good people. And those good communities is where magic happens.
I am very biased here, but if you are interested in exploring Solana projects, Critters Cult is a great one with a great entry price and even better art.
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