NFTs, Investing, Cats
The “ImAKittyCat” NFT Project Will Challenge Your Ability to Distinguish Art from Reality
Notes on these wild cat-meme-tribute 3D photorealistic cats — from a dev team member!
I’m well over 100,000 NFTs into my career as a generative NFT programmer. And for me, it all started with cats. When COVID came around, my web development business died down and I found myself with extra time. For whatever reason, I began playing with cat pictures. I didn’t know it at the time, but what I was learning has come to be known as generative NFT programming. And somehow, as there were no decent instruction manuals at the time, I wound up authoring many of the guidelines that thousands of people around the world use every day.
I can’t say the NFT world has been the stress-free playground I once naively imagined it to be. I’ve written about some of the shocking things I’ve seen so far — but, trust me, there are SO many more.
And so it’s refreshing to get back to basics every now and again. And by basics, I mean cats!
… only the cats I want to show you today aren’t so basic, really. In fact, they’re so incredibly high-tech that they push the boundaries of artistic realism into a whole new feline level. So, let’s have a look at some of these amazing kitties coming soon to the Ethereum blockchain, shall we?
Okay, Here’s the Tail (see what I did there?):
A few months ago, I got a late-night call from Carrie Tatsu, a visionary artist within the Second Life metaverse. I didn’t know her at the time (Queen of SecondLife that she is!), but she wanted to chat about NFTs and cats. And, for me, that’s pretty much the best kind of call ever. So, we chatted at length about her ideas — photo-realistic 3D cats paying tribute to many of the most famous and beloved cat memes—and the stellar team she was assembling for her ImAKittyCat NFT drop. Some links, quickly, before continuing:
→ KittyCat: WEB → DISCORD → TWITTER → MINT PAGE → OPENSEA
It was mind-blowing stuff and needs to be properly credited here:
- Massimo Righi, who has been recognized as the most prolific and accomplished CG animal creator in the world, is the lead artist for ImAKittyCat. He is an award-winning 3D professional with nearly 15 years of experience using digital media. Massimo is currently involved in various projects in the film and game industries. He did the modeling, fur and rendering of these amazing cats. (He also did the fur for the recent sellout NFT set The Royal Cubs.)
- Cat accessories were created by Blender guru Fred Becerra. Fred, graphic designer and CG artist has over a decade experience creating virtual content for Second Life.
- Carrie Tatsu is the ImAKittyCat founder and created the generative art memes and layout for each cat. Tatsu has been a content creator in the original metaverse, Second Life. She has 15 years experience managing teams of 3D modelers, animators, and software developers, creating multi-faceted immersive content for a virtual world.
And with a team like that… these cats look amazing! Here are numerous recently minted samples for your cat-loving pleasure. See if you can recall some of the famous cat memes many of these images call to mind:
NFT buyers, investors, and collectors seem to respond to numerous factors when deciding to buy into a collection. Some like the roadmap, some the team, some the momentum / hype / marketing. And, pretty much everyone loves a set with great, ground-breaking art. And I believe the I’mAKittyCat drop has all of that going for it. As an insider (on the dev team and did the generative coding), and as someone with direct experience on numerous NFT drop teams, I can tell you that the level of planning and execution here is second to none. These are going to be some classic NFTs!
They’ve even got a wonderful, growing community on Discord, where you can drop in and chat with other cat-meme lovers, ask a Magic-8-Ball cat for a prediction, get advice from a dedicated cat-advice channel, and more. So, give ’em a visit and consider adopting a next-level, photo-realistic 3D feline when this drops! Those links, again, are:
→ KittyCat: WEB → DISCORD → TWITTER → MINT PAGE → OPENSEA
2024 Update: Though it’s been a LONG time since any activity took place with this set, in April of 2024, I saw on their Discord that they’ve released a beta of their long-awaited “bring your cat to life” phone app. So … who knows what lies ahead for the Kitty Cats?!
