Tag: crypto

New Concept Art on uncut

I’ve just released a new NFT that is ready for minting at the (extremely) low price of 5 ArtX. There were 25 total copies available, now a day later, only 18 remain.

I like it a lot, but not enough to include it unchanged in the Moonshadow canon material.

It’s on the Uncut.Network, which is filled with incredible artists. The community is actually the main reason I post there. Everyone is very cool and also very insightful.

  • Jack
  • ”Love is not a victory march.”

UPDATED: April 4, 2025, including the number still available.

Where I’m At

on Moonshadow

I’m currently keeping activity to worldbuilding, style, characters, places, and stories. It’s my favorite part really. I feel a large pull from this project that keeps me coming back. I add to it every day. I also cut stuff from it daily. I’ll be at this til around midsummer, I’m thinking.

I’ve been working on it since the start of December. Three full months. At lot of which were spent on getting and keeping my self inspired. Now, I’m forming these early ideas into bigger finished concepts.

I’m releasing some of my early designs(that I won’t be using in Moonshadow itself) as NFTs on Rodeo, Surreal, and Uncut. I’m looking into how to release the writing. Threre are a couple of good services out there that make NFTs that are entire books. That’s tempting. It’s also tempting to publish to my paragraph, and push for people to mint entries that are canonically relevant to a final novel or novella.

It’s an odd idea to wrap up, as I come to the end of the encapsulated setting. Could a novel succeed as blog posts that are minted? Each a page, or chapter. Hmm….

  • JL

New POAPS & Animation

I am currently looking for people who would like to help me fine tune elements of my new art and fiction setting, Moonshadow. These would be one-on-one talks. I might ask for opinions, proofreading, thoughts on certain aspects of the art and the world.

Qualified applicants should have an eye for art, be able to follow basic instructions, have an interest in the fantasy genre, and be available for discussion 1-2 times per week, depending on length of discussion and scheduling.

In other news, I’ve posted my first animation on Rodeo for minting. The series of art and story, Only Shadow has come to an end. I am in the process of arranging all of the art and fiction into a book format. The book will include many animations never before seen. I’ll be posting some of these animation for mint.

The first animation can be collected here:

https://rodeo.club/post/0xf3D6fA558e52ff73DCDb8FC54c49433e53b46417/11

Those interested in joining my focus group can contact me directly, or fill out the form below.

Thanks!

Jack Lhasa

Lens @exoteric

Farcaster: @jacklhasa

A Brand New Way to Blog

PenX.io offers an incredibly robust blogging platform with a host of features that would normally require the use of a half dozen sites and services.

Part 1 in a series: Intro

Last weekend I discovered a brand new startup blog service, PenX. I really enjoyed its unique feature set, and sleek themes from the get. If you are used to the massive theme selection of some web2 blog platforms, the choices here may seem limited at first. I ran into a few problems with some of the more complicated aspects of it, and reached out to the Discord server.

The next day I had a reply from the projects lead developer. He’s a great guy, and took a lot of his own time to walk me through some of the problems I was experiencing.

This is when I learned that the team was very small, and that PenX was in a still very early phase of development. Due to our conversations, 0xZio made several adjustments over the next few days, reconciling all the issues I’d encountered thus far.

0xZio.eth is the lead developer at PenX. There is a Farcaster channel for PenX, in which I’ll be aiding in the moderation. There isn’t much there at the moment, but that will change fast.

Now, because of the extremely early stage in the PenX lifespan, I recommend creating a new wallet to interact with it. Or perhaps you have several sitting around for exactly this reason(As I do).

You’ll need a wallet that is compatible with the Base L2 chain. With this wallet, you’ll sign for most actions, even if they involve no monetary exchange.

PenX has 2 features built in that you cannot find in any other blog suite. The first of which is a fully customizable, set any price you like, establish as many tiers as you like, membership system. Lots of blogs have membership systems. I’ve never seen anything give the user this much control and freedom over how memberships work.

The second, which ties in with the other features is a CreatorFi Launchpad. Here, any PenX user can mint their own token in base, and allocate it as they see fit. Again, there is a high degree of freedom here, unlike any launchpad I’ve ever used.

These features will cost you a fractional amount of ETH on Base to cover the standard, super cheap gas and such of Base.

Another feature you’ll notice quickly is PenX’s proprietary token, which any blog owner may claim daily. The $PEN token currently has no equatable value, but as more users discover this incredible package, I expect that to change.

All content can be token-gated as the author sees fit. And every post can be set to collectible, in the manner you’re probably used to seeing on Paragraph and Mirror. This feature is the final setting before posting publicly, so you are always aware of a posts collectibility. Posts can also be gated until they are minted, which is a unique twist on what we’ve seen from the other Web3 major platforms.

Any post can be commented on. All posts have a Tip button so your readers can reward you without minting. There’s also a fully detailed collaboration system.

Currently content can be set to several formats, including, Journal entries, Blog posts, static pages, an image gallery, and databases.

Each blog also comes with a personal subdomain option, mine is https://exoteric.penx.io/, for example.

I’ve only begun to really dig into the real robustness of this new platform. It’s also available for self-hosting with a one-click deploy.

That’s where I’ll end this post, however, as it’s already far longer than I intended.

Jack Lhasa
A Shaman with an addiction for fresh startups.

Https://exoteric.live

Https://exoteric.penx.io/

Be on the lookout for more posts about PenX from me, as I intend to do a deeper piece on the features I’ve only briefly described here.

December Update

In this style, next year, each month will have an update. These posts will be much like you probably expect.

Content

I will be adding a new category of posts, as I intend to do at least one long format post about music every month. Sometimes this will be more often. I may venture into other areas, as I intend to continue experimentation.

zkSync Era

This month we launched the meme token, $BALLS on the zkSync Era blockchain. This token is something that Jean and I have been discussing/planning for many months now. We’ve received quite a surprising amount of interest. We haven’t exactly dug ourselves out of poverty, but it is still incredibly exciting. The token has been fully generated, and we expect to reach DEX listing very soon. I’ll post about that when we get there. The future is bright, and you gotta have $BALLs!!

NFTs

I continue to offer my own art, mostly set in the fictional universe of Exoteric, on several fronts. Lens is sort of the ‘proto-release’ area with conversation and community being the core. The Uncut Network is home to the majority of low priced, readily available NFTs. In news there, the Only Shadow collection will be coming to a close in January. This region of the Exoteric World is very likely to show up again in the future. The Cost of Magic collection will move to the forefront at Uncut. Details forthcoming.

Fiction

The fictional Storyverse called Exoteric will continue to grow. Each NFT release has included some light flavor text, adding small details to the world. As focused NFT collections begin and end, so will the stories of the related region. I am working on a knowledge base that will debut soon. It will always be a work in progress. An ebook is planned covering The Only Shadow story, including the all the current images used for NFTs, as well as new art, and the story that ties it all together.

Knowledge Base

The upcoming knowledge base will be reminiscent of an RPG manual written in the wiki format. Once I’ve completed a sufficient amount of its skeleton, I’ll make it public while I continue to add to it. The Knowledge Base will become increasingly important to the Exoteric project, as I hope others will want contribute their own stories, art, music, design, etc within the Exoteric multiverse. Anyone interested is welcome to contact me at any time, but I won’t actually be seeking out other creators to collaborate with until I’ve made more of the setting public.

That’s all folks!

December can be a tough time. I hope that my efforts can provide some pleasure to others. The goal is to make my vision come to life, in a way that is fun and relatable; to create a massive fictional context, in which others want to add to themselves, becoming fans and creators.

Okay, that’s enough for now. Thank you all for your purchases, support, companionship, and inspiration.

  • Jack Lhasa

The Process

The method I use to create NFTs

((Published to listed.to and my paragraph ))

Interview Answers

  • questions from https://warpcast.com/lampphotography

From Farcaster Conversations

My process

(published as replies on Farcaster)

Questions were asked by Lauren at Lamp Photography

https://far.quest/lampphotography

(How did you create it?)

I use a really complicated method for most of my art.

It started with a photograph. I then tweaked it with GiMP, creating the color swatches and removing the background. Then I put it into an AI, in order to make it not look like a photo. After tweaking the AI multiple times, I got a nearly finished image. This I took and ran back through GiMP and Snapseed, getting rid of marks that were out of place, toying with the full color settings and filters. And this got me to the final image.

I do this(roughly) same process for most of my nft art. I try to put in the extra effort so it’s not an AI image, just an image that I used AI during the creation process. This also keeps my work free of any copyright issues.

——

(How long does it take?)

Well, it’s not as big a deal now. I’ve been refining the process for about 18mo.

I don’t like the way AI is generally used for images. Anyone can type stuff in. Although there is an art to crafting prompts.

I wanted my work to be free of any accusations of copyright infringement, and to keep the commercial rights free.

I can’t say exactly how long this image took, but in general, images I create this way, I do over several days. Some parts of the process are quite fast. Others not so much. I’ll generally work in 3 separate phases.

  1. The photo or 3D render, and its first adjustments.
  2. Working with AI changes(this is the real time consumer)
  3. Final image processing.

If I know exactly what I want as the end result, I can finish one in a few hours.

——

(You must be one of the first authors in the world to use such a process)

Well, it’s also very personally tuned. There’s nothing stopping others from using the same applications, but I spent months playing with the order I did things in, trying dozens of image editing apps, and dozens of AIs.

Something I think everyone should do is keep notes on their process. This can make things much more streamlined in future creations.

I save every AI prompt I use in a notebook. I also keep notes on filters and tools that I use often.

——-

(Do you recommend any apps?)

There are tons of good ones!!

But, Drafts is by far my favorite. It’s only available on iOS and Mac Though.

I also use Obsidian a lot. It’s great for writing long form.

Logseq is also an excellent app for notes.

I recently started using Standard Notes, because you can publish a note as a blog entry directly in the app.

And Omnivore is absolutely wonderful for taking notes on web articles as you read them.

I try out every new writing app I can as soon as I can. Always looking for a better or unique method.

—

The Short Story

I minted my first NFT in 2021. On the WAX chain. A simple pic that I was using for profiles at the time. I spent the next 2 years doing mostly test mints. Learning how things worked on different chains and in different markets.

Minted stuff that no one else ever saw. Or I sent directly to friends. I took this across many blockchains, learning the nuances of their NFT processes. I used the following blockchains: WAX, Polygon, BSC, Pixie, Base, Optimism, Degen, Zora, & more.

What that gave me was a broad appreciation for NFTs as a medium and the skill to create them anywhere.

LENS chamged that forever. It’s so much easier on the creator, the collector, and the trader. No other protocol has anything so easily used. And now, as Lens migrates from Polygon to a dual-chain system based on ZK rollups, it is poised to change the world’s view of NFTs, as well as revolutionize web3 social media.

Lens is a Game Changer.

Originally posted on lens 04/27/2024. Edited for blog use on 12/30/2024.

Future Provings

The most pressing feature of dapps that no group is doing is NFT curation. Like a lot of people, I have tons of NFTs. Music, video, lens posts, art, literature, etc. and it’s nearly impossible to find any single NFT without trouble.

We need searchable galleries. We need to be able to organize them in a variety of ways. Some apps allow the user the ability to ‘spotlight’ or grouping into niches, but they don’t go very deep.

This is also a really important step to widespread adoption of crypto and NFTs. Owning hundreds or thousands of NFTs without a smart organization tool is incredibly draining, and eventually leads NFTs to be treated like piles in a hoarder’s house. How can mainstream users ever understand the capabilities of NFTs while their oldest NFTs sink to the bottom?

If anyone knows an app that is already doing this, please reply and let me know. As of now, orna.art is the best in this endeavor, but they are limited to Lens, and therefore don’t provide the necessity of doing this across chains and protocols.

  • Jack Lhasa