A cautionary tale about NFTs

Recently, I was contacted by someone unexpectedly who claimed to have seen my work on ArtStation and wanted to purchase some as NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens). This is a deep topic, but through a process called minting, digital imagery can be converted on a blockchain into a unique file that somehow has value for trading, like stock. He was offering a good bit of money for each one and it seemed like a good idea. Anything like this is done with cryptocurrency, in this case, something called Ethereum, which I've been told is a kind that is not energy efficient and costs a lot to create. In case you didn't know, cryptocurrency requires a lot of computers and energy to create, so it's not so 'green.' 

I say seemed like a good idea, because there is a scam that works very much like this. At any rate, I needed to jump into the cryptocurrency market, set up a wallet, and find out how to purchase Ethereum with my hard-earned cash. To mint NFTs from digital images, a marketplace must be used. In this case, the potential buyer would only use Mintplazza. I went along with this, although Mintplazza charges a hefty fee upfront to mint each one. I was hesitant, but looked at this as an opportunity to make a profit by investing my own money.

In the end, I minted the four requested images, the unknown buyer bought them, and it looked like I have a decent profit, but Mintplazza is making it impossible for me to withdraw it to my own online wallet. After I went through this process, shelling out a few thousand dollars, Mintplazza initially charged me a 16% 'marketing fee' to withdraw my profit That's steep, but what makes is worse is that they won't take it out of my profit, but are requiring me to pay them more Ethereum before I can withdraw. Some of the NFTs have supposedly been resold, so my profits are increasing. Cool, but as they go up, so does the fee to withdraw them and for some reason, the percentage is also increasing. I've tried to get some questions answered by Mintplazza's support, but they have so far been unhelpful and are suspiciously unavailable when I really need them. They have very strict and unrealistic policies to withdraw profit from their marketplace, but none of this is mentioned on their website. I had a short window when I had enough paid to them to withdraw my profit, but their withdrawal page did not work then and their support would not respond in a timely manner.

Am I the victim of a scam? It would seem so, although I'm not sure who the real culprit is. My warning to anyone else that receives an offer like this: Don't use Mintplazza. There are marketplaces that will mint NFTs for much less or even have what are called 'lazy' minting fees, in which the buyer pays them. Don't put out much (if any) of your own money to start the process. Find out beforehand what the fees are to withdraw your profit and how they can be paid. I didn't enjoy this process or the money I lost, but perhaps this can be a lesson to future me and other digital artists out there. Learn from my mistake. Money can be made by buying and selling NFTs, but maybe this was not quite the right way.

Read about an NFT buying scam that sounds eerily similar to the offer I got. 

Wrapping it up

And here it is. I think it's the final version. There's not that much difference between this and the image in the last post. Often, it's just small, significant details that get that last push to 100% complete. To get to this point, I added more highlights to the water wings, the shorts, and the top of the head. This is to pop out a bit of contrast in those areas. I also wanted to give a rougher feel to the rock he's sitting on. This was done by painting more defined highlight and shadow areas. I also added a layer with Noise to give it a bit more. I hope it comes through. I think this image is finally done. I think I like it. I would call this one successful. In case you were wondering, there's no message or commentary; it's just a frog sitting by the water.

It's the little things

My intention all along was to add some kind of fun, colorful designs on the swim trunks. Some of my students suggested flies and that seemed like a good idea to me. That's what those little blobs are if you can't tell. I also painted the valves on the water wings. One is out and one is pushed in. I don't know why, but that's just how they are. It's good to avoid too much symmetry and that's important in a scene like this; the left side should not be a mirror image of the right. It was also time to start thinking about the bottom of the image where the frog is barely dipping his toes in the water. Reflections like this can be simple scribbles. They don't need too much precision. And for reflections, they should not be as bright or saturated as the item that's causing them.

Working with shadows and more details

To increase contrast and work toward a finish, shadows must be considered. I paint shadows on their own layer, set to Multiply mode. This is in addition to any value ranges underneath. In this case, I painted the shadows with PMS 7526, which is a very reddish brown. I want to keep a lot of warm colors in the shadows. This also helps with the translucency I'm going for in the amphibian skin. The shadow layer is above everything and not clipped to any one layer, so I'm able to use it all over, not just on the frog. This might tie disparate colors together a bit. I also paint some details on the water wings, going brighter and darker than their base color. It should be noted here that these images don't represent a strict step-by-step approach; I didn't wait until this part to start on shadows.

Changing swim trunks

I wasn't really liking the color of the trunks, although they may have been fitting in well with the overall color scheme. I used the base layer of the shorts as a clipping mask for a layer on top. That's where I painted the blue and put in some details for wrinkles. It might not fit in perfectly, but I like how they stand out more and seem whimsical. I figure this frog doesn't have a great sense of color anyway. To bump up the contrast and give it more texture, I paint shadows under the frog on the rock he's sitting on. Of course, these are on their own layer in Multiply mode. I used PMS 448 as it's the darkest step in the yellowy brown I'm painting here. In Multiply, it made some nice shadows. They're dark, but not quite black yet. I also painted in reflections on his eyes to give them some life. The solid dark abysses on either side of his face staring into my soul were starting to get to me.

Adding highlights

It's a good idea to start out with a bit of limited values and work toward the extremes of dark and light as the image progresses. This means staying away from black and white for as long as possible. I don't usually paint with those colors anyway. As it was time to go brighter and add highlights, I did that on a new layer in Linear Dodge blending mode. Instead of white, I used Warm Grey 1 to continue the pinkish hues on the front of the frog. The densest areas may actually become white, but but areas of lighter opacity will brighten underlying colors while still allowing the warmth to show through. All these layers overlaying each other also help to suggest the skin translucency. I'm also thinking about the added elements like the swim trunks and water wings. For these elements, I'm using my traditional method of starting with solid color silhouettes on their own layer. The water wings are the usual orange. For the shorts, I'm thinking about a warm red to keep with the color scheme, which is leaning complementary.

Next step in the process

I continued working on this image during down times in class while my students were working. In this step, I lowered the opacity of the sketch layer and began painting on a layer on top of it. For the green values, I picked from the darker steps after PMS 580. Working this way is useful in that it gives me a range of values in the same hue to work from. The warmer areas were painted with 7620. Even though I'm starting with simple PMS colors, as I vary the pressure, they mix with underlying colors and create new colors. The painting becomes my palette. I continued to vary my brush choices, sometimes adding Scatter to add randomness. To refine the edges, I used a smaller brush and painted more carefully. Pretty quickly, it's starting to come together. At this point, the values should tell the story, even if they aren't to the extremes of dark and light yet.