Budo Brothers NFTs

Budo Brothers is a martial arts lifestyle company. Hoping they could capitalize on the trend of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) and add another revenue stream to their portfolio, they contracted me to create some original pieces of digital artwork featuring some of their phyisical products.

We designed the NFTs to resemble collectible playing cards, reinforcing the concept of these digital products being valuable keepsakes, and making each NFT look like it belongs to a larger collection. To date, two Budo Brothers NFTs have been designed and sold on OpenSea, a leading NFT marketplace.

Hit play on the video below to view the NFTs, and continue scrolling to learn more about my process.

Mala Beads NFT

One of the products Budo Brothers offers is a mala bead bracelet. It's made of a rare and expensive type of wood, which makes sales in certain markets difficult due to legislation. The idea was to sell NFTs featuring the product, and in addition to the buyer owning a unique piece of digital art, they would also receive a mala bead bracelet as a gift - a clever way of circumventing legislation against selling the product in some markets.

The process began with a photoshoot. I took my camera out and snapped some shots of Erik against a dark background. I also took photos of the beads.

Kyle provided me with some additional photos they had taken on a retreat to the mountains. The trip was meaningful to them, so I used this as inspiration and set to work to create a moody piece of digital art that highlights the mala beads, the Canadian Rockies, and nature.

I used Photoshop to create a static composition, which was inspired by double-exposure photography. Mala beads were featured in the sky as well as the main subject on the piece. When I had approvals for the design, I exported select layers as transparent PNGs and JPGs, bringing them into After Effects to create an animated looping version of the final NFT artwork. Take note of the animated details. Waterfalls, birds, trees moving in the breeze - all subtle but deliberately included to bring the artwork to life.

Gi Hat NFT

The guys launched a new hat made using gi material which features some of their signature wave patterns and textural elements found in their grounbreaking hood-gi. To help promote it and capitalize on the trend of NFTs, I was commissioned to design another animated art piece showcasing their gi hat. For this piece, I decided to give it a more illustrative feel, using things like halftones and traditional Japanese ink strokes. I thought incorporating a samurai wearing the gi hat would be a fun way of showcasing such a cool product.

As with the first NFT, the process began with a photoshoot. I captured a variety of shots of Kyle wearing the hat in different poses, several of which would work their way into the final piece as subtle details within the ink stroke.

I applied some photomanupulations to a samurai stock figure to make it look like he was wearing the hat, then applied some pixel magic to make it seem as though it was an illustration. Using the ink stroke as a background element, I composited a vew various shots of Kyle wearing the hat, again applying an illustrative effect. As a finish touch, I used subtle halftone textures for a comic book feel. The Budo Brothers Wave pattern was also subtly introduced inside the ink stroke.

Once the guys had signed off on my static design, I brought it into Adobe After Effects layer by layer to make an animated looping video file for the final NFT output.