inxe ▚▘▚▘▚▘

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[Majin 魔人 @majinbysoto]

The level of activity in Discord is a direct reflection of the community's morale. As a founder it's your job to encourage and nurture it, because it's the lifeblood of your project. Newton called it the Law of Inertia: an object in motion stays in motion.
Mind you, not a single person was able to join our server the past 7 months. We're a tiny circle and completely private. Still, I drop announcements on a regular basis and ensure everyone is up to date and can be hyper bullish. That is the environment you need to create before you open your doors up to the public.

Be sure to turn on your notifications on Twitter and join our group chat. We will soon share invites with which you can finally join and claim the OG role (special perks).

[Majin 魔人 @majinbysoto]

Good question. Simply put, instead of creating a cookie cutter collection with templates, we establish a whole universe first — which is pretty much how every web2 manga / anime IP was created.
You can check the image below and zoom around a bit. A lot of those characters look vastly different. But it's clear they all belong to the same IP / brand. So it's mainly about style, colors, artistic aesthetic etc. and much less about the shape of the template. I think we've been dumbed down by what digital collectibles look liked like over the years and set our expectations of what a great collection can look like too low.

[Majin 魔人 @majinbysoto]

The approach for traits which I describe in this clip is risky and has never been done before. But I also believe it's necessary.
Especially with respect to your holder's personalities, I don't think it's wise to expect everyone to identify with the exact same base template.
The next logical step after the groundwork laid by the current bluechips is to introduce more uniqueness, diversity, stronger identities, different body types etc.
We cannot continue to repeat the same recipe over and over and over again. It's time for something new to push digital collectibles further.

[Majin 魔人 @majinbysoto]

The reason people value hand drawn art over AI content is emotional satisfaction. If something was created by hand it contains: TIME.
And time equals effort. The artist had to learn the craft, hone it, and then put it to work with intent and passion.
AI on the other hand produces everything in seconds by recycling things which already exist. There's no effort behind it. It doesn't actually --create--.

Let me give you an example. Let's say you'd hand your mother a letter that expresses your gratitude and love for her. How do you think she'd react if you told her AI wrote it. She'd be disappointed, right?
Because even if you gave AI the input and even if AI maybe wrote the letter better than you could have yourself, it lacks the effort. It's simply not real.

And no matter how good AI will get, this void can never be filled. Anyone bullish on AI art or AI movies is completely out of touch with human nature. We do not value things which contain zero effort. Naturally we understand that they are hollow copies of the real thing and hence worthless.

Traditional art has proven the same point a long time ago. You can buy almost perfect replicas of famous paintings. But why are they worth so much less? Because, again, the artist can only give his soul to the artwork once. It cannot be copy pasted by plagiarizing the original.

Humans value time, effort, passion, and a love for the craft. That will never change. Never. In fact, that appreciation will only grow stronger as the world is flooded with slop.

That's why Majin builds on the foundation which Azuki laid. We honor the craft, we respect artistic integrity, and we make sure you can feel the soul in everything we create.

[Majin 魔人 @majinbysoto]

For our character concepts I focus on creating unique and memorable personalities. Not only with regard to their look, but posture, angles, and expressions are crucial to explore too.
Your PFP is your online identity. That makes creative diversity one of the most important aspects. From my perspective we had enough of the "Stormtrooper collections", where it's pretty much just 10,000 clones with different hairstyles and colors. At this point, the space has matured enough where we can do more and create a much deeper IP.

[Majin 魔人 @majinbysoto]

Not all monsters are bad.

beach house - space song (slowed + reverb)

[Majin 魔人 @majinbysoto]

New PFP ₍^. ̫.^₎

[inxe ▚▘▚▘▚▘ @inxe0_0]

@majinbysoto Cute

[Majin 魔人 @majinbysoto]

For the creation of our logo we relied on hand-brushed calligraphy by a Japanese artist. We went through hundreds of analog iterations before we arrived at the version which you see below.
Even the color is based on 朱色 (shuiro), which means; vermilion, and is a traditional orange-red.
Everything we do is done with purpose, great attention to detail, and respect for Japanese tradition.

[MetaTravelers @MetaTravelers]

We've been seeing so many awesome shots of the action figures from the community. Check out a few recent ones from Michael Mansell, Toy Immersion and Joe Reiss!

[Majin 魔人 @majinbysoto]

The NFT space has progressed so much over the years that simply “being better” isn’t enough anymore. You have to be different too.
That’s why I pursue novelty in the unique aesthetic of Majin. The more art we create that's interesting to you because you've never seen anything like it before, the more we set ourselves apart from everyone else.

[Majin 魔人 @majinbysoto]

In the next live streams we'll start diving into the utility and roadmap of Majin. Because behind the pretty packaging, there's an absolute beast of a ponzi, sorry, I mean fully sustainable economic model.

[Majin 魔人 @majinbysoto]

I want you to carry the spirit of Majin throughout your day. So every now and then I'll drop bangers from our playlist. Dark, badass, underground remixes which you never heard before.

Drake x prtmotherluv - NONSTOP
[guitar cover]

[Majin 魔人 @majinbysoto]

The key to exciting a big audience is simplicity. Because no matter how great your product might be, if it's not attractive on a surface level and easy to understand, you'll have a tough timing scaling.

This is why we put a tremendous amount of work into the visuals of Majin. What we want to achieve is that it only takes one short glance to evoke the curiosity of the viewer. And any closer look immediately sparks the thought: "Damn, this looks good!"

If you manage to achieve that, then there's a very good chance for attention and growth to accelerate. It's also the straight path to mass adoption. Not explanations, but visual appeal, and fundamentals + utility to back it up.

[Majin 魔人 @majinbysoto]

This was an early draft of the fallen angel.

When you click "Show more", you'll get to read part of my vision for this illustration. I believe it's valuable for minters to have context about the depth of the artwork, because it sets a different scale of expectations compared to what they might be used to.

"In this scene I would like to show an angel that is in the process of falling from heaven (metaphorically and literally). The main notable details would be that the halo of the angel is shattered and turning from gold to black. And that the wings of the angel are falling apart. In the world of Majin, the demons on earth are former angels that fell from heaven. When an angel falls from heaven, it loses its wings and the halo shatters and turns black (they still wear them above their head, but it’s now black and not intact anymore with particles floating around the black broken halo). When fallen angels reach earth, they hit the ground with loud thunder and lightning-type impact and explosion.
This moment of the angel falling would also foreshadow the transformation of the angel into a demon. That being said, I would still very much like for this scene to have a heavenly feeling to it and overall be bright / colorful. Maybe at the bottom there could be an indication of darkness. I would also like that the scene feels weightless. Like in zero gravity. It can also show almost an endless space of infinity.
The point of the illustration would be to show how beautiful heaven is but at the same time convey that the angel slowly realizes desperation / sadness from losing their position and being exiled from heaven — something which is a very dramatic moment."

My full vision combined with the character sheet, scene references and talent of the artist then allows us eventually create the final masterpiece.

[Majin 魔人 @majinbysoto]

In order for the collection and lore to be congruent it was important to build the world first and not just throw a bunch of PFPs onto the blockchain. I understand this is the way it has been done so far in the NFT space, but that creates a plethora of issues further down the road.
For example, right from the start you’re limited with the depth and authenticity of the lore. Because you have to come up with a story and meaning after the fact. That’s never going to be fully convincing and believable. And it’s one of the main weaknesses most on-chain IPs suffer from.
Another problem is that your future artwork, story, animations etc. is now dictated by randomly generated characters. None of them have an actual personality or justification for their existence. I believe most collectors and holders can feel that whenever a brand tries to go beyond being just a collection. Maybe it’s also the reason why even the biggest successes we have seen are primarily sold as gimmicks or toys, and not something that comes with the same charisma or weight as "real" IPs.

[Majin 魔人 @majinbysoto]

We'll stream live tomorrow in the @vvvdotnet Discord server.

Tune in for new art, fresh alpha, EXP codes, and chips rewards!

5 pm CET / 8 am PT / 11 am ET

[Majin 魔人 @majinbysoto]

The private test run of our version of Squid Game is now live.

Once we verified everything works correctly and cheating is hard / impossible, you'll soon be able to participate to unlock server access, WL spots, and more.

[Majin 魔人 @majinbysoto]

The first challenge goes live tomorrow. Access will be shared in the private Discord.

[Majin 魔人 @majinbysoto]

We are all about villainy and breaking the rules.

That means if you manage to hack, crack or cheat your way to the top, that's fair play.

Just be careful, because walking the dark path comes with traps and risks.