Speaker A: All right, hello and welcome everyone to another episode of Waiting to Be Signed, a very special interview episode, a doubly special interview episode, the rare 2-guest interview. Joining us today, we've got Rick Crane and Rich Poole, and Trinity is here as well. Of course, we are spanning 3 different time zones with this one. Rich, Rick, Trinity, how's it going? Welcome, welcome.

Speaker B: Really well, thanks.

Speaker C: Hi.

Speaker D: Yeah, good.

Speaker C: Honestly, just so glad to have you 2 here. It's been a while since we've had our, like, a dual episode, and I think that you've both been, like, collaborating together since What, ManyScapes came out in beta, right?

Speaker B: I think it did. Yeah, it's way, way back. So you guys have been talking, you guys have talked about us and we've been listening. So now we're on the other side, which is quite fun.

Speaker C: So yeah, in terms of timeframe, that's such a long time here on this platform and can't wait to hear everything that you've just been doing and talking about. And you just have such long history in the Web3 world as well. I'm not calling you old, um, at all, but you know, you have stories to tell. I think this is the point here.

Speaker A: We're all on the older side of Web3, you know.

Speaker C: Speak for yourself.

Speaker B: Ancient at 2 and a half years.

Speaker A: Well, yeah, Rich and Rick, it's great to have you on. And as usual, the first question to kind of open it up would be to ask you both to introduce yourselves to the audience. Tell us a bit about your backgrounds in art and coding. and how you came to find NFTs as a way to release your work.

Speaker B: I'll launch in. So, hi, I'm Rich. I tend to go by Rich everywhere because I normally get called Richard when I'm in trouble. So bad memories from my childhood.

Speaker A: Same.

Speaker B: I got into coding quite a long, long time ago. So like many people who are kind of creating art in this space, software engineer by trade. So I was doing that for about 15 years or so, actually worked as a product manager as well. I got into NFTs in, I thought, was quite a kind of odd way, but I've heard quite a few people with a similar story, which is actually via plotter art. So I was creating that and actually selling physical pieces just locally, dabbled a bit kind of online, but it didn't maybe translate as well. People like to actually see the plotter, see the pieces and how it came together. And actually, I kind of got into NFTs via a platform called EthBlockArt, which is still around, although not that popular anymore. Has some kind of ties to fx, so quite a similar kind of method. And yeah, I got into that purely just off a couple of other people who I worked with and said, hey, this is quite cool. We just started dabbling in it, just shits and giggles, and it kind of snowballed from there. So that was way back in 2021, before kind of like the A/B thing really kind of kicked off in earnest. And then from there, I've done releases with multiple platforms. So GM Studio, I've done work recently with Verse, which is great fun. Lovely guys there. Did some work with gen.art, rest in peace. Several projects on fxhash. So fxhash have been a mix of solo work, some collabs with Rick, done another collab with Balsarino as well. That's how we've got to this point. So most people would probably know me on fxhash predominantly for the the work with Rick. That seems to be what's going to capture people's attention the most.

Speaker C: We were thinking back last night as we were recording to, I think it was our first interview or was it our second interview? And, you know, just hearing about people getting into— I think it was Abstractment.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, because I met him via Gender Art because he was submitting work and I was actually working on the sort of panel there as a volunteer. And so, yeah, we got chatting a lot and I'm actually working with him separately on a collab as well. So He's awesome. Such a lovely guy.

Speaker C: Just the community that was really kind of brought around before, even before Art Blocks took off, there was just so much there and just so much to do and to share.

Speaker B: Some of that magic, I think, is kind of maybe what some of us are kind of hoping to recreate or someone will recreate, because that early fxhash days was just like magic in a bottle, you know, such great vibes. So maybe once this sort of shitcoin era kind of ends, we'll be well poised for I hope so.

Speaker A: And Rick?

Speaker D: Yeah, so I was a graphic designer previously. My father was a graphic designer as well. He's now a fine artist and I've kind of moved, I moved from that into t-shirt design, did a lot of t-shirt design and then sort of transitioned from that into NFTs. I won quite a few t-shirt competitions a while back and with the money I thought, I've heard about this kind of crypto NFTs, so I put Put the money into into crypto and got my head around that, and then just kind of logical progression as an artist to move into NFTs. And that was back when Hen was alive, and I remember the first time I went on the site and I just what is this? I don't get it at all. But slowly you kind of navigate and learn what you need to learn, and that was where I really started out. Loved the Tezos community, so many collaborations and competitions and charity things. So and then sort of progressed into other chains. I met Rich because somebody copied some of my work and then released an fxhash project, I think. And so I kind of went into Discord moaning about it, what can I do? And most people were quite sort of blasé about it and I didn't feel very supported. But then Rich came along and backed me up and then we just started having a conversation and it went from there. So it was a sort of match made in heaven really, because we've worked together for coming on 3 years. 2 years, uh, and this is our 3rd project. So yeah, excited for this one.

Speaker A: So it was kind of an if you can't beat them, join them kind of thing. Like, if people are going to steal your— so what were they doing, stealing images that you had put on HEN and then making like image composition?

Speaker D: Just kind of the concept, had completely taken the concept and then sort of redone it in their own way. But it was, for me, I mean, I've had to tackle this a lot as a t-shirt designer. There's a lot of copyright issues and it's quite a struggle, to be honest. So, so when it happened in the NFT space, you I just kind of got my back up because I'm used to having to spend a lot of time dealing with kind of takedowns on sites and things like that. So it was just too close for comfort, really. And Rich came and saved me and backed me up, and we've been friends ever since.

Speaker C: Silver lining, like CopyMinters just bringing people together. Right.

Speaker A: You need every aspect of the ecosystem. You know, we need even the bad actors that sometimes Create these connections. Well, let's talk a little bit more then about your history as collaborators. And that's such a funny story for how you two got together. From there, I mean, was it just Rich saying like, hey, that's not cool, why don't you work on a project with me? And then how did you end up at Minisculpt for the first project that you released?

Speaker B: I think that was about it, really. I think there's a piece that Rick has its own foundation called Soundscape. So that was the one that someone had— they basically borrowed like 99% of it and then tried to pretend that it was their idea. But when I saw that, I was like, that is actually such a cool piece, like, you know, really kind of just clean, kind of simple concept, but like done so well. And so yeah, when I was chatting to Rick, and after we kind of got that taken down, and they'd kind of admitted, yeah, okay, well, maybe we did copy all of it, I said, hey, look, if you're ever wanting to kind of dabble in this and actually work on something, then I'd love to partner up and see if there's something we can do. So I think it wasn't that long after that, maybe even couple of weeks, a month or so, and we started kind of bouncing kind of back and forth. And Miniscapes emerged actually kind of quite quickly then, just as this idea of kind of playing with, like, you know, what's the most we can convey with the least? And that was kind of always the sort of underlying tenet of it. Took us longer than we expected perhaps, because we both have perfection disorder. I'm definitely on the spectrum, as my wife reminds me on a regular basis. So when you bring kind of 2 people together with that kind of OCD, things don't necessarily move fast. But we just got on really well from the get-go, had a good laugh about it, never kind of argued over kind of like, I want to do this, I think this is a really good idea. I think we agree on 89% of the stuff that we tend to like or dislike, and then the 10%, 20%, it doesn't come to blows about kind of I like pink. No, no, no, it should be red. We managed to find a good way forward with it all. So I think we just really enjoyed working on that. And it was almost as soon as we finished that, I think we were going, right, we should do this again. And yeah, Acequia emerged off the back of that. But yeah, miniscapes, I still love it. Every time I see a miniscape in the feed or shared on Twitter, they just make me smile. So they're probably one of the favorite things that my kid likes. Maybe not so much now. Now she's kind of 13, they're probably not as cool as she thought they were. They were a couple of years ago.

Speaker C: I think they're fun and delightful and have like a little bit of that, I don't know if it's like a retro vibe, but it's, they're just so clean. And, you know, I think that across both this and Acequia, like there's just something about like the colors and the proportions and the way that everything just feels so intentional. And, you know, from what everything that you've just said and everything that we've heard about the process of creating things, it, there's a lot of intentionality in there. It seems like you both truly co-own the entire end-to-end process just to make something that is like actual perfection rather than just like good enough, so to speak.

Speaker D: Yeah. I mean, I think for me, I'm, I'm kind of like, I don't like it when there's a pixel out, you know? So, you know, we do work well together. I think if, I mean, it can be good, it can be bad because, you know, we can go on forever sort of tweaking and refining a project. We have to kind of be hard on ourselves sometimes and say there has to be an end limit. But at the same time, when you're collaborating with someone, it's really important you have a good relationship and you can work together because, you know, if one of you is a bit hasty, like, oh no, let's just get it out there, you know, it's— nobody has to compromise when it comes to me and Rich, you know. And like you said, surprisingly, we do have a good relationship. We haven't argued at all. I mean, there's still a couple of weeks to go on this one, so there's still time.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker D: But yeah, it's been a gift really because he has skills, amazing skills and brilliant and amazing patience. So when our skills come together, you know, it fits together well, it's ideal. I love collaboration because, you know, you can bring different skill sets together and make something different and take your work in a different direction.

Speaker A: What is it like? And I think maybe this question you can probably both participate in answering it, but Rick, you don't code. So a lot of your work you're either doing like with graphic design or illustration, and then Rich is there looking at this stuff, your aesthetic, trying to implement it. into a generative way. I guess my first question is, was there ever a temptation to do this as an image comp type of thing where, Rick, you drew a bunch of the component parts and, Rich, you helped assemble them in an intelligent way? Let's just start there. Was that ever part of the discussion?

Speaker B: I don't think so. I think if you do that, then it is just an image comp and that takes away from the ghost in the machine, which I think is an awful lot of the fun for me in creating and complexing generative art projects. So what we've done in this case, similar to Acequia, is there's obviously a lot of stuff that is kind of pre-designed. It's not just, hey, throw it at a flow field and magically make some cubes. But what we attempt to do is to kind of go out, if we have a base design, we think, all right, how can we push this? Can we kind of like bring kind of edges in? Can we add kind of extruded parts, intruded parts, that kind of thing? And so try and put in enough variety that what you get is still a surprise, even though you can recognize Hey, those trees are in miniscopes, they're always triangles, who knew? So it's trying to blend that together because if we let it roam completely bizarre and free, they wouldn't then speak to Rick's design work and his other work. So the idea is that everything that we do as a collaboration should sit alongside his existing work and feel part of the same aesthetic while still having that generative side, which is what people know me for. So there's a lot of kind of back and forth, a lot of stuff that hits the cutting room floor. I think we threw away well over 100 pallets with Acequia, heaps of cubes. My job is to kind of take what Rick's done, go, right, can I make this weirder and stranger? Can I do odd stuff with it? And sometimes Rick will very politely go, I'm not sure about that, which is kind of code for back, back. But every now and then we kind of find something, go, actually, yeah, let's explore that some more. But I think, yeah, we certainly set out— I think we said it in Miniscape's blog— delight and surprise is probably what we go for, while still keeping a collection that really feels coherent and consistent across. And I think we certainly, with Miniscape and Acequia, kind of managed that. And I think there is probably that separate question of how diverse should a collection be before it stops being a collection anymore? We're always kind of mindful of that, of not wanting to have really diverse, odd little corners where people get one of those and go, hey, this should have been the whole collection. So I think we're trying to kind of keep that kind of relationship together. What do you think, Rick?

Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, I'm all about the aesthetic. And so for me, I like it to be coherent and it to be recognizable. I think Miniscapes brought something slightly different to FX Hash when it came out. It was quite charming and it was quite refreshing for a lot of people. I mean, landscapes always speak to people, I think, anyway. And I'm a big fan of kind of bringing nature and landscapes into my work. I think we can all kind of recognize and relate to the natural world to varying degrees, everybody. So I think it just touched a lot of people in a simple way. You know, with regards to me and Rich, you know, he's literally like a magician in my mind because I'm not technically minded. I've kind of— it's been a big learning curve getting into Web3 for me. And, you know, I just kind of come up with some visual things and he just makes it work, you know, and he'll just make it do amazing things. So it's a real delight to work work with him because it's funny really, because sometimes I chat in the real world to people and I say, so what do you do? Oh, you know, I'm a sort of digital artist. I work with crypto and art. And they're like, oh really? And I said, I'm just working on generative projects at the moment. So what's that? What's it? You know, generally a lot of people don't know what that is. And then you have to sort of try and explain it. And it's, you know, but it's really exciting for me to be with collaborations diving into a whole new realm of art. I like to change things up and challenge myself and try new things. And that's what this has been.

Speaker C: Working in this long-form generative space is, I mean, obviously like incredibly different from probably the art that you've traditionally done. What has it really unlocked for you, Rick? What do you find appealing about operating in this way, just in terms of like that quote unquote infinite realm of possibility?

Speaker D: Initially, actually working with Rich, I found it quite challenging because as he's touched on, you know, I'm kind of a bit of a perfectionist about You know, the nature of what I do is like minimalist, geometric. Everything has to kind of line up and be right, otherwise it looks off. And so it was quite challenging because I was releasing some of that control to the code and to the computer, you know, to another form of technology. And so initially it was quite challenging, but I've sort of softened to that and actually started to really enjoy seeing what can unfold from what I might have originally conceived differently. So it's exciting in that way. It's like, it's a whole nother level of creativity and creation that I find fascinating.

Speaker C: I think especially with both of these, Miniscapes is 400 editions, Acequia is 343, which are not small projects by far. And so there's a lot of kind of, I guess, surrender to the algorithm at that point in terms of what can be produced.

Speaker D: Yeah, and it's always quite interesting, you know, because you spend so long— we spend a long time on these projects, you know, half a year for Acequia nearly, and definitely half a year or more for this one we've been working on. And the good thing is we don't really tire of what we're doing, you know. So we might have a period where we need to step away and get back to real life, but it's amazing what, um, how it evolves, you know, and how things can unfold in unexpected ways.

Speaker B: So I think there's a reason we don't see maybe more people doing this kind of representational work, which is, it is crazy time-consuming to do. I think part of why super abstract work is really quite popular, I think, in generative art is that you can actually spin it up comparatively quite a lot quicker. And if you know what you're doing, you can get something looking pretty attractive pretty fast. Projects like this, there's a whole heap of design work where we're bouncing stuff back and forwards before we even actually start worrying about how we're going to code up these individual elements, and then how are we going to kind of fit them together? And then what kind of rules, kind of traits are we going to put in place so that these things kind of actually feel intentional and we kind of have the variety that means it will support a series, not just 5 one-of-ones? There's an awful lot that kind of goes into it. And I think a lot with Acequia actually was when we had all these building blocks kind of ready to go, it was going right now we needed all the rules to make sure that we were kind of getting coherent kind of pleasant outputs often enough. And so if you've got 1 or 2 rogues in like, you know, 100, that was okay, but you don't want 1 or 2 kind of great ones. And I think that's maybe something that's kind of pivoted a bit. I think kind of like early generative art, people were quite happy to mine for gold almost to go, yeah, there might be 400 outputs and 10 of them are crazy great. And then there's 50 that are pretty good and don't look at the other 340. You'll be sad. So I think collectors are kind of maybe kind of demanding more, and artists kind of more of themselves to go, look, if you're going to spend anything more than like $20, you kind of want something to actually be pretty good. And if you're spending $100 or $500 or $1,000, you're entitled to kind of expect that the result should be, you know, at least broadly in line with what's been marketed to you. So I think we take that perhaps too seriously. Sometimes we beat ourselves up on it too much, but I think we want everyone who collects a piece to be happy with it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And even if they go, hey, I'd have wanted one from like this style, but the one I've got is really cool, it's like, well, cool, hopefully you can find some to trade with or sell yours and buy one that you do want. But we wouldn't ever want someone to go, oh, you know, that sucks, I've got one I don't like and no one else is going to like it either. So that does drive us a lot because, yeah, we do think a lot about how, how the collectors are going to feel about if they got this output or this output, you know, and put a lot of thought into that side of things.

Speaker D: For me, you know, I could, I could work on a one-of-one previous to generative art and spend forever perfecting that one thing and know that I'm 100% happy with it and hope that that someone else will be out there. But yeah, trying to be happy with 400 outputs, you know, it's— it can be challenging.

Speaker A: But for the both of you, it sounds like that a good chunk of the collaboration really comes in that fine-tuning and just the mutual agreement over like, yes, like this hits the mark for both of us. Like we love these palettes, like the compositions are consistent. But I'm curious also like from a coding perspective, Rich, I won't claim to know all of your work, but I don't I can't think of anything that you did that's more figurative in what I know of it. So what were some of the challenges for you, like, coming into this and making these textures for the colors, making it feel more illustrative, like, also coming up with these types of compositions? Like, were there things that you really, like, learned in the process of these, especially the first 2, right? And probably most— mostly from Asechia, I imagine you learned the most from.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think from my side, doing the Plotter art, a lot of that actually was more kind of representational. So it wasn't crazy difficult to kind of pick that up and translate some of that across. The toughest part with the Sekiro, without question, was the water aspect. And that was something that I think when we were initially talking, we didn't actually kind of, you know, hadn't kind of considered. And, you know, we knew we wanted to do kind of something in that kind of isometric kind of space. And then I introduced the idea for it and said, hey, wouldn't water be cool? And I think initially we thought, hey, water would be cool just in like a static sense. And then I was like, hey, you know, it'd be like way cooler as if the water was animated.

Speaker D: Yeah. I just want to state this was definitely Rich's idea.

Speaker B: Okay, there you go.

Speaker D: Every time he was pulling his hair out with vector maths, I'd remind him that it was your idea.

Speaker B: I'll take the credit and the blame then, so I'll take both. I think particularly with the secant, because it gave us that kind of core, kind of tends to wrap around of like this kind of animated water. But that was rough because you're then trying to go, how would water behave in the real world? But then I need to go, how would it behave in an isometric world? But then I also need to think, okay, how's this actually going to visually appear? Is this still going to feel nice? Because there's no point going, hey, it's a proper accurate water engine if it doesn't look nice as it's actually happening. So we had to make some kind of weird decisions to go, right, water is going to move this quick when it's on a flat, it's going to move this quick vertically, it's going to move this quick—

Speaker C: Is there like an isometric Newton out there who's defining the rules of gravity within an isometric space?

Speaker B: That'd be maybe me and Rick just kind of going, hey, what feels nice? So like when it's going down a diagonal, we're like, okay, well, it would go quicker, but if it goes the same speed as vertical, that's going to feel weird when they're next to each other because one's going to out-accelerate the other. The whole plumbing for Acequia is one of the things like technically in terms of work I've done, I'm most proud of because it looks like it's one continuous flow of water, but actually each of the cubes is just individually aware of its kind of water state. So it's actually like a whole series of plumbed-in cubes underneath where each one's going, hey, how much water do I currently have? Am I filling up? Am I feeding into another cube? So when we start to put it together, even fairly early on when we had a couple of these water cubes, I was like, right, I've now set up the plumbing and we can start putting down cubes. I was like, okay, holy crap, this actually looks like it's flowing from top to bottom. That is just what we wanted. And then we put the little lip on the edges so that you've got a water glint effect. Yeah. Like, whoa, this is looking crazy good. That water was without doubt the toughest part, because Rick came up with some incredible kind of designs, and then it could take like a day to 2 days on each of them just to break down, right, how's this actually got to physically work? And then go, right, where are all the transitions when the water would kind of fill up and then it hits a lip, so it stops filling up behind anymore, and then it comes to the lip, then it overflows, and then, oh, hold on, it's overflowing, but it's going to hit a hard surface, so it needs to transition again.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker B: So that took a long, long time. I basically broke myself. At the point where Acequia went out, my brain almost just went, that's it, we're not coding ever again. We don't want any vectors, we don't want any code, we're done. Yeah, that was probably the toughest part. But yeah, in terms of the transition, I love that sort of stuff, like coding, maths, nerding out on that kind of thing is my happy space anyway. So it wasn't a difficult kind of artistic transition. It's just maybe perhaps if we'd have known how much work it was going to be at the beginning, we might have backed up just faced with that sheer wall of this is what you're going to have to get through. And not to say that it wasn't worth it, but just when you're looking at that, you're going, whoa, that's a lot.

Speaker D: I mean, for Rich, he's great because you give him a challenge and he never says no. And he says, well, we'll give it a whirl, I'll try, you know, and usually it works his magic and it makes it happen. And I think that is the beauty of it is that He can just make anything happen or work. It's impressive.

Speaker C: You haven't quit and gone back to t-shirt world entirely?

Speaker D: Me?

Speaker C: No.

Speaker B: No. We've got him now.

Speaker A: Okay, but what about a generative t-shirt?

Speaker D: Well, there's an idea. Rich wouldn't say no to that, I don't think.

Speaker B: No, no, actually, I was listening to your interview with Snowfro and he kept talking, you know, harking back to kind of, hey, people might not want generative art project, but they would want a generative cap. And I was kind of thinking, well, there you go. That's the avenue in is we take the t-shirt and make that generative and let people kind of, you know, pick design online until they get the one they want and they go, right, there you go. So it is something I've considered kind of broaching to Rick kind of once this is done, maybe there's some we can partner up with because there certainly seem to be a few people in the Web3 space trying to kind of shift into that kind of physical side.

Speaker C: And you can definitely hook an algorithm up to embroidery machines as well to make it a little bit more long form.

Speaker D: That's what I love about Web3. It's like it's always evolving and, you know, sometimes it's a bit tiring because you feel like you're riding on a wave and you don't want to fall off the back or whatever. You've got to keep riding it. But it's always new things are coming about, always new crazes, new fads, new techniques, new technology. So it's quite interesting. It kind of keeps you alive from a sort of creative perspective.

Speaker A: Well, you know, if it ever crosses your mind to design something for a beloved podcast, you know, we've been talking about doing merch for 2 years now. We've never done it. We also don't know how to do it. That's part of the problem. Let's keep going on Acequia because we've talked a lot about that one. I think it's the project that really defined you two as collaborators and took it off of fxhash, right? It was an fxhash project, it was on Tezos, but it broke through in such a big way to the Ethereum community and to just art collectors in a broader sense. What was the inspiration for that piece originally? How quickly did it come together after Miniscapes? Because there's, there's a lot of similar aesthetics, but it's obviously very different, right? It's in that isometric style, all the cubes. And so did that come from a piece of yours, Rick, originally? And then you decided to adapt it for generative? So yeah, like, let's just, let's just hear the story.

Speaker D: Yeah, that is the story really. I mean, Miniscapes was so much fun and it was very well received. I think in hindsight, you know, one of the biggest challenges is actually, despite everything we've talked about with code and perfectionism, is, is Judging the market, getting the price right, getting the supply right. Those are conversations we have time and time again whilst going through a project. And also the market changes throughout the course of a project and you have to reassess it. So that is a challenge. But Miniskips was received so well. I think it sold so quickly. You know, we were quite hyped and excited and we jumped straight onto Acequia. And I did a vector-based illustration of a kind of Escher-style, you know, Is it Monument Valley? A lot of people say my work looks like Monument Valley. Stairs going in all directions and doors, and it was just a flat piece. And I was going to collaborate with an animator to make something of it, but then things change and collaborations don't happen, and I put it forward to Rich and it just sprung from there.

Speaker C: Was this a style that you had been working in? Like, looking through what you have on Threadless, which is super cool, it also just really throws me back to high school in so many ways. Is that isometric style something that you would consider part of like your signature in some respects?

Speaker D: Interestingly, no. But I mean, vectors and geometric design and colorful things, yes. But that piece I created was actually my first attempt at isometric design, and I really enjoyed it because, you know, it just satisfies the kind of geometric side of me. But yeah, that was the first attempt. So, you know, it accelerated quite quickly into Acequia, and that sort of has become something I'm known for. And like you say, it was quite phenomenal watching it unfold because I'd been just immersed in the Tezos community. I'd done a few pieces on Ethereum, but to see so many people jumping over and all these big names and, you know, it just literally exploded. And that was quite very exciting to see.

Speaker B: I remember actually as I was working even in the early stages saying to Rick, it's like, we've got something really good here. And you could tell he was like, what do you know? Honestly, it's like, if we can do this Well, if we can do this concept justice, I think people are really going to go for it because it kind of straddled that charming plus the kind of just the visually striking kind of concept. But we didn't expect quite the reaction that it got. I think we were quite wary, we kind of put Miniscapes out and we got that pricing wrong. I remember you guys actually talking about it. I think you just talked like, this is the worst kind of Dutch auction or something because like it just went at the top tier. So we'd completely messed it up. And so we're like, oh no, the pressure's on because the Wait to Be Signed guys are going to slag us off if we get the Acequia pricing wrong as well. But we really wanted to try and keep to this kind of cube number thing. I don't know why we kind of latched onto it and we thought it's funny, which is why you've got 343 and the pricing kind of dropped in cubes. And I think we actually got that one fairly accurate for the primary, but then the secondary took off. So we're kind of going, oh, have we done it right? Have we not? You know, is this— have we misjudged it? But it was a fantastic reaction that we got.

Speaker A: I mean, I think the unfortunate answer is you have got, you get it right when it does take off, because that's what you want at a certain point. Like that's how you establish yourselves either individually or as a duo, as artists that people should be minting for better or worse, like probably for worse, right? You would rather it just be everyone just gets like the maximum price all the time, but especially back then, the way the market was, there had to be a flippability to a project. And if you priced it too close, you would just get annihilated. So I think it, in retrospect, did well. Although I do remember, Rich, you were like trying to calculate the hourly rate.

Speaker B: Oh, it was not— it's still not a profitable project, right? Because we put so much into it. I don't have any regret. I still, you know, I think it is a crazy cool project. I think we really did that idea justice. And I remember at the time thinking we must have done something right because I had people who hadn't collected on Tezos before, DMing me saying, how do I set up a Tezos wallet? How do I collect this? You know, I haven't done this before. And we didn't have that for Miniscape. So it's like, right, we've done, we've done something here that's resonated with people, which is fantastic.

Speaker A: Do you know how it broke over? Was it through BlockTalk or like how did that project proliferate out of Tezos?

Speaker D: There were some certain names, certain people that got in there and then, you know how it works, you know, people start sharing, people start shouting about things, people that are inspiring and other people look up to and respect their judgment and it just snowballed. And I think it really injected quite a lot into fx hash at the time, which was really exciting to see. I think one of the challenges for us this year is that sort of unintentionally, really, we set the bar so high for ourselves that it was hard for us to come up with a third concept. And, you know, we did a lot of back and forth trying to come up with something strong because Acequia was so well received. You know, it's hard to come back. From that.

Speaker C: So maybe that's a good opportunity to swap to like talking about this 3rd collaboration that you have coming up, unless, Will, there's anything else you want to talk about with Acequia personally.

Speaker A: No, I was going to transition too, so why don't you take it away?

Speaker C: You know, obviously your first 2 drops have been on fx hash. You know, Acequia has been— when did Acequia come out? Oh my gosh, a long time ago. November 2022.

Speaker D: So yeah.

Speaker B: A lifetime ago.

Speaker C: Almost a year and a half. A lifetime ago. But I'd love to hear what you can tell us about IsoMetro, what this collaboration has been like. When did you get started? What can you tell us about it? Like, I don't think there have been many WIPs that I've seen, but I also might live under a rock. So if there are many—

Speaker A: No, we just got the secret ones.

Speaker D: We have been really top secret about this one. Yeah, we haven't shared much. We're going to start kind of next week. I'm not sure when this goes out, but wanting to get it to a state where, you know, not quite perfect, but nearly there. We're doing a lot of fine-tuning at the moment. But yeah, Rich can tell you more about the whole process.

Speaker C: I try to—

Speaker B: when we started, we took a few months off after Acequia because I needed to repair my brain. But it really wasn't long after that that we were like, hey, this has been awesome fun again. We should do another project at some point. But we wanted to kind of wait until something came along that we actually wanted to do rather than going, right, hey, we need to do a third thing. And so we started bouncing some ideas, would've been February last year, and we bounced a couple of ideas that we tried. In some cases, we got like a month or so in and actually just didn't feel strong enough. And so that was quite tough to kind of go, right, we've done the design partway, we've done the coding. So we put that down. twice. And then I think we had like a sort of come-to-Jesus type talk again, right? What is it that we're trying to make? And what is it kind of about these projects that we're dropping? Is it that's not working? And I think we always kind of kept looking up at the mountain and kind of seeing Acequia and going, right, okay, that's still what we're trying to kind of recreate, that level of kind of like accomplishment and kind of taking idea and kind of crafting it. And I think from that, it's okay, well, what if we took the Acequia tenet, which is kind of these country sort of vistas, but in a cube thing, and said, well, flip it into a city instead. And so that was kind of where we started, sort of the IsoMetro idea, which at that point was just kind of, I think we just called it Urban Acequia, because we hadn't got as far as trying to come up with catchy names. And from there, Rick started designing just like some individual kind of cubes and ideas, and it just kind of grew from there. So we've been working on that now for 8 months, I think, must be about 8 months. First month or two kind of on-off, and then pretty hard out since then. And yeah, just really pleased with kind of how it's taken shape. I think it's kind of getting its own identity separate to, while still kind of feeling part of that family. What we wanted to kind of do is to go, hey, if you collected Acequia, then you're probably going to want to have a look at these because there's some similarities, but not going, hey, it's the same project. If you squint, you couldn't tell them apart. So it's trying to kind of get that balance so that thematically they feel like family members. But without being kind of like, you know, twin sisters. It's the idea.

Speaker A: And how did you link up with 8NAP? I guess it's technically a platform, right? I mean, they haven't released anything yet, so you're going to be the first ones to release a project with 8NAP.

Speaker B: Yeah, no pressure. Yeah, no pressure at all.

Speaker A: But it sounded like you originated this project probably before working with Jared and that team. So how did it end up— or maybe not, maybe it was like simultaneous. So can you tell the story of that?

Speaker D: I think we were working on it without We knew we wanted to do something on Ethereum. That was always our intention for the third, our third collaboration, but we didn't know where we were going to drop it. And I don't think it was long before Jared contacted us and we were sort of tentative for quite a while because we wanted to be really comfortable with the project. The project was, it was quite a slow burner to begin with, and then it's kind of escalated into something we're really happy with. But Jared is just Yeah, he's such a nice guy in the space. You know, he's really open-minded. You know, he listens. He's he was very much about creating a platform that is artist-centric, so putting the needs of the artist first. So we were quite excited to be the first on a new platform. So he's such an approachable and sort of helpful guy, and we discussed every element of the drop with him. He's always interested in our feelings and our opinions on it. So that's been really good because a lot of the time you don't really have a relationship with the platform, you know. As much as there is a big community around certain platforms, it's almost impossible sometimes to communicate with the people behind these platforms. So that's been a really nice relationship to have where they're part of the process as well.

Speaker A: You know, I know Jared and the Collector's Corner guys are big champions of Acequia, so it makes sense that he would have reached out to you or, you know, you two would have found each other. But Had that not been the case, would you have considered like Art Blocks or Verse, or would you have just like YOLO fxhash it again? What do you think you would have done?

Speaker B: I'm honestly not sure. Like, the market now is pretty— obviously AB are kind of on a hiatus for several months and have made it kind of clear that effectively what they're going to do is focus on— from the Art Blocks platform themselves, they'll have this, you know, really curated releases that might be 3, 4, 5 a year. You know, I think we'll all wait to find out exactly what the cadence might be. I'm intrigued to kind of see how the studio side goes, but my understanding is the same as yours, is that that will be kind of A/B existing artists only. And I'm still intrigued to see how that plays out. Is it a free-for-all where if you've done work before, you can throw it in? So it then becomes hard to kind of shout above the rest of the stuff that's going out there versus largely a kind of by invitation kind of thing. And I know from chatting to Jamie that they have a lot going on in terms of trying to kind of work with galleries as well. So I think that's maybe part of their focus. And I think they already have probably the best part of the year, I think, kind of planned out. So it is, it's tough actually, if you're looking to go, where'd you go? There's also GM Studio I've done work before. They're also like that parent DAO is kind of diversifying into Ordinals. So it's tough at the moment. You know, FXHash is in a tricky spot. I think we're, we've all, I think, probably discussed either in the FXHash community or kind of Tender, kind of like the challenges there and what we'd love to see. But at the moment, It is hard to make a case for releasing kind of work there when it's alongside work you don't necessarily want to be kind of sat alongside. So I think honestly, we'd probably just carried on developing it and sat and waited and kind of go, look, we'll be patient. We'll wait for the right opportunity to come along. I think that Jared, I've chatted to him for really quite a long time because, yeah, as you mentioned, he was one of the first, quote unquote, sort of big collectors kind of people in the space who got really into Acequia. So we chatted quite a lot. We did a deep dive into Acequia, which was awesome fun. We'd never actually had the chance to do that before. The thing that strikes me is that he's just a really kind of authentic guy. I think he's trying to actually kind of go, look, we want people who are going to come here and collect art for a longer period of time, not just an hour, a day, a week. He knows a lot of the people who you would want to kind of own your work. From my side, from Rick's side, that is a definite win that he's able to kind of chat to those kind of people and say, hey, this is what Rick and Rich are thinking, does this sound sensible? What do you think of what they're doing? And so I think most artists are kind of trying to look now to go, how do we try and make work that is still relevant and still exists and people still want to and can collect in years' time, not just in months' time? Does the space need another platform? I don't know. I think there's plenty of platforms anyway. But Jared's intention is that the releases will be really pretty spread out, pretty slow. He's got some great things he wants to do on the artist side. So actually helping us with stuff like, how do you actually run yourself as an artist? So your own brand, the marketing side, providing coaching services and a lot more wraparound rather than, hey, we love your project, we love your project, we're going to shill your project to the nines, your project's out, thanks, bye. And I think for a lot of us, that's kind of how a lot of these platforms feel. Otherwise, it's a conveyor belt of art rather than actually having more analogous to kind of that gallery artist relationship.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker B: where a gallery takes you, and they invest in you as an artist and vice versa. So I think that's more the relationship I think he's trying to kind of put forward so that it's a mutual thing that lives beyond the drop. How that pans out, hey, who knows? I think it's kind of— I think for me and Rick, it's like, well, this feels like a good time to try that and see if that takes wing. I think being the genesis project is awesome. That's kind of quite fun. It's intimidating. But also, if it does do well as a platform, then that's a great opportunity.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And a win for us as well.

Speaker C: You're the squiggle of 8NAP.

Speaker B: There you go. Who wouldn't want to be that?

Speaker A: 10,000 editions for you.

Speaker C: Oh no, I don't. But I don't know, like, you're— I, I love what you're talking about in terms of like that supported and supportive environment. And obviously like there's a sort of like a community support through things like BlockTalk or the FX# Discord, probably less so on the platform level directly. But is that something that either of you have experienced when releasing work previously, either on the blockchain or off the blockchain, more of that partnership model?

Speaker B: Not really.

Speaker D: Personally, I haven't, no. And I think that's why it's quite refreshing. And I think, you know, it's all well and good when the market's really alive and everyone just, you know, you can just literally drop something and you know it's going to be gobbled up and everybody's excited and it's moving fast. I think with the market as it is and how it's just sort of grinding slower, it's important to have to get more value in that way. So I think for me that was a pull because, yeah, a lot of the time it is a— there isn't a relationship between the artist and the platform so much.

Speaker B: I think sometimes the platforms tend to let the community pick up that slack and kind of in some ways go, hey, we're giving you support by the community. And like, well, that's the community giving us support, not the platform giving support. Working with Verse throughout the drop, they were really great at kind of providing feedback and discussing even how we're going to display the art and which pieces I was keen to display. So I think actually they did that pretty well. I think once the drop was out, they were so busy that they were like, hey, it's been great, it's been awesome. They sent a little kind of Christmas kind of present through, but obviously they've got other stuff to get into to kind of keep themselves going. So I think that's—

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker B: Something that, yeah, is missing a little bit, that kind of sort of deeper connection between platforms and artists. So maybe that's something that, you know, I think maybe Art Blocks' focus on curated is they're trying to do that so that they do have then the people that they want coming back, not doing 1AB, getting curated, and then going, right, now I'm going to go and do Tonic, Bright Moments, whatever it might be, all these other places.

Speaker D: I like what Verse do because they kind of trying to bridge the physical more, and, you know, like art prints become more of a of a relevant thing on some of their drops. And I like that because I think it's nice to kind of merge the real world and the digital. I did something quite exciting recently where this called phygital, you know, where I had an NFT that was connected to a t-shirt and you have a little chip inside a t-shirt and you can just zap it with your phone and it links to the NFT that you own. And I think these things, you know, it's quite fun to explore and merge the different realms. Rather than being kind of an underworld thing.

Speaker A: Let's talk about the aesthetics of IsoMetro. Like you said, the images have not gone out to the public yet. You were kind enough to share a couple of WIPs with us so that we had our bearings about the drop. And let's also plug that this is coming out on April 23rd on the 8NAP platform. And you don't need to be a member to mint it necessarily, right? There's going to be, I think, pieces available for non-members as well. So don't feel like you're out of the running if you haven't joined that platform. But looking at the WIPs, my first question is, are there gonna be cars? Because I see little roads in here, you know, I can see the similarities or like the, the roots in Acequia, but now instead of rivers or water, we have roads. And I'm like, oh, is there gonna be a little guy driving down the street here? Like, what are some of the things that you've built into this? Like, how do you think it's evolved beyond Acequia? Because You've been working on it for like 6+ months, and so there's got to be a lot of detail in here and a lot of ways that you've changed it. So can you kind of talk a little bit more about that?

Speaker D: It's funny because sometimes it's like Acequia. It's kind of like a world without living beings. It's similar. And people often ask, like, I wonder what sort of people live there in those little houses with those little lights. The animation aspect is huge, as we've touched on with the water. We did joke about having little cars, but it just It suddenly opens it up into something completely different and a lot more complicated, you know, with vehicles and people or whatnot. So what I like about it is it's representational, but it's also slightly abstract and weird. And I quite like working within that realm of your brain acknowledges and recognizes something representational, but it also kind of messes with your mind. And so it's got that sort of vibe similar to Acequia. I don't know what Rich has on that point.

Speaker B: Yeah, we did toy with the car idea and then we're like, oh, how is it? If we thought water going around a corner was weird, how's a car going to look? And then only a couple of days ago, we designed a little kind of hot dog stand. And then we realized it looked a bit like a bus cut in half and like, oh, people are going to think that we tried to do a bus and then it fell apart. So we toyed with it. I think the reason that we didn't go with that is I think one of the strongest points that Sekke had is that the statics, which is what you can print, you can't print A moving piece. Yeah, maybe, maybe that tech will come. And when people share, they're predominantly kind of sharing statics. So we're like, hey, we've got to have something that kind of when people print it, which is something that we really want people to do, and when they're sharing it, it looks great. Okay, if we have these cars that are kind of moving around the whole time, how do we decide where they would stop? And does it look a bit twee? And I think we've tried to always kind of stick on the charming side of twee, not getting into kind of like novelty gimmick. And I think that's quite an aligned kind of thread. And again, if you're trying to appeal to people who are going to want to actually just print these things and display them, you know, we've changed the aspect ratio so that the idea is that these would be a square format. So actually partly as a nod to kind of miniscapes, because that's what that had, partly as a nod to kind of fxhash, because that tended to be all the early fxhash work was square, but also with the intention that people can then actually kind of display kind of grids, you know, 2 by 2, 3x3, people want to go crazy and collect loads of them. The idea is that then we need them still to have an abstract look so that you can pair things up with different scales, different palettes, and they would feel coherent.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker B: I suppose the nearest analogy, if you had the Archetypes project and you started putting little people in there, all of a sudden it stops being something you would necessarily put up in a dining room or kind of like, you know, your sort of like sitting area. So we were quite mindful of wanting it still to have an artistic appeal, not just a, hey, that's adorable.

Speaker D: Also, because a lot of my work uses quite thick line weight and it makes things quite tricky, and drawing representational things in an isometric grid is actually really challenging. And when you're looking at detail but with quite fat lines, It's really tricky. So it's been quite an interesting challenge. You know, we've had to kind of— we've had so many ideas, and then you sort of start implementing them, sketching them out, code them up. It's like, oh no, actually that doesn't work, you know. So yeah, there are quite a lot of limitations with isometric and the particular style that we kind of work in.

Speaker C: Other than like the hot dog cart and the people, were there any other kind of deviations that you tried out and moved away from? Things that you just thought could work, but, you know.

Speaker D: We did talk about waterways, aqueducts, and then we just felt like it's kind of leaning a bit too close to Acequia. The challenging thing about isometric grids is you can't go too high or too wide with any sort of component. Otherwise, however wide you go, you then have to go the same depth. You know, it just works like that in the grid. So it's suddenly gets quite tricky. You quickly come up against a wall with what you can achieve. We've had lots of ideas, you know.

Speaker B: Lots of weird ideas. We kind of thought at one point doing, um, sort of adding animation via kind of like lifts going up and down in buildings.

Speaker D: Clouds going past.

Speaker B: Yeah, clouds going along. And each time, like, is it just gonna feel like a gimmick? The animation in Acequia felt so natural that you almost couldn't imagine it without it. And in this, like, we'd end up just putting this in for the sake of it. And that doesn't feel true to the approach that we've both taken with these collabs, which is if it doesn't serve any purpose, then we bend it. And then what was left was hopefully kind of fairly immaculate design. And then there's a lot of kind of funny stories on the floor, not necessarily ones that you've kept in, just for kind of giggle value in the project.

Speaker C: I guess also, as we're thinking about the infinite space that can exist, especially within things that are a little bit more geometric, isometric, is there anything that you can share around like How many pieces this will be and why it's that number and how many you think it can support? I think it's always an interesting part of any project. It just kind of speaks to the breadth.

Speaker D: That's another challenge for artists. I think that we all, you know, I'm in a lot of chats with different artists. We all support one another, we all learn from one another, we all help each other out. And it's just a common thing. It's like, I don't know how to price this. I don't know how many there should be. And what we do is we send out loads of outputs, we look through it, and we sort of see where, you know, where we need to create limitations on how many editions there are. I think we're going similar to Acequia and Miniscapes. Obviously, the market and how well things will be received has an impact on how, you know, how you plan it. Interestingly, this project has been faster in some respects. Like, we spent so long choosing palettes naming palettes, rejecting palettes, refining palettes in Acequia. And I think we've learned from that. It just was a bit more fluid this time and things worked. The challenge with isometric is you've got 3 sides and they're repeated, so very quickly colors can clash, or, or you move one color in one direction, it starts to look like another palette.

Speaker B: So there are lots of challenges that without having this conversation, a lot goes unnoticed for I think one of the things we try to be mindful of is kind of what can the algorithm and the collection support, whilst also, again, if we're trying to encourage people to collect maybe a couple so they can pair them up nicely and have maybe someone who loves a particular style or palette, you can have a close scale and a far scale, and then it feels like a zoom-in effect if you're putting them next to each other. And equally being a bit mindful if it's going out as the first project on a new platform, You don't want it to feel crazy exclusive and go, right, you've made like a walled garden literally with the very first project. So we're trying to be kind of sort of a bit mindful of that as well. And particularly because there is a pass for the platform, so there'll be 100 people who will just be able to kind of mint with no contention. We don't want to go, well, hey, for all the people who've also collected work or like our stuff, go, well, it sucks to be you. There's only like 20 left for you, so good luck. We wanted to try and make sure that kind of like, yeah, price-wise it's accessible and that supply is giving, for the most part, anybody who wants one a good chance to kind of get one as well. That feels quite important, I think, particularly in like this market where the adage has always been there, buy what you want to own with no expectation of kind of reselling it. And so it's actually easier said than done. We've all been there where we kind of bought something thinking, hey, this is going to be a great move, and it hasn't been. But I think we are trying to kind of be supportive of that and not try and make an environment where there's kind of official kind of FOMO to go, There's such a limited supply, you'd be crazy not to get one. You can flip it on. It's trying to actually go, look, hopefully people just love what the project is, love what we're about, and therefore would just want to collect one and can do that. With that, Rowan, it's gonna be a huge amount. I think, you know, this upcoming Verse one, there's like 4,000. So I'm really intrigued to see how that goes. That feels like a lot, but in the PFP land, you're barely warming up at 4,000. So—

Speaker A: That one's a bit of a different beast. We actually have an interview coming out with Jamie Or that came out with Jamie yesterday, and we talked a bit about that. But I wasn't familiar with that artist, but Jamie was like, oh yeah, this guy sells work for a lot.

Speaker B: Yeah, I've seen a couple of his works. Yeah, he's got some really kind of cool work. So I think it's something that we're all still feeling out a little bit. And I think maybe one of the best aspects to come out of this sort of bear market is it is making people kind of think, either you've got to think with your heart, do I love this and I just want to own it? And hey, if someone comes along and offers you $20 grand for something you paid like $20 for, then you'll go, Okay, I love it, but I also love 20 grand and I can buy a whole heap of other art with that, so that's cool. Or you have to buy with your head. And I think it's if you get stuck in the middle, if you're kind of like, hey, I kind of like this and other people are saying it's going to do pretty well, that's where you can maybe come unstuck because you then get something you don't love. And then if it doesn't rocket in price, you're just looking at it with regret. So if you have that kind of confidence to go, hey, I really think this is something that is going to do crazy well, I'm going to buy it.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: to move it on quick, cool, that can work. But I think otherwise, if you buy art you love, that feels more sustainable. Otherwise, we're just trying to get people in to join the pump and the pyramid, and I think at some point we need to flatten that out.

Speaker D: Yeah, I think, I think Rich touched on— for me, like, I have so many collectors from very different backgrounds, you know, and different types of people, different types of collectors. So it's nice to always be able to offer something that is obtainable. To a sort of broader audience rather than just being kind of a grail thing. So, uh, like I said, it's always a challenge trying to judge all the unknowns. You know, there are so many unknowns when you, you try to control everything and plan it, but there are so many unknowns. What's quite exciting in some respects, and what I was harking back to what I was talking about before about relinquishing control over everything, when you release something and you think, oh, this, you know, everyone's got a different personal taste, but then you're often surprised by what the general feelings are and what takes off and what people actually really want to collect. And what, you know, a second year it was the CMYK palettes. We didn't necessarily know that was going to be the case. So I'm excited to see what people get excited about for this next drop and what they really are thirsty for to pick up.

Speaker A: Trinity, I know you got a jet soon.

Speaker C: Did you want to leave us with a question or anything before you It's always interesting to talk about the market, which is something that you've talked a little bit about already, just in terms of needing to change release structures just when you're working on something over the course of 6 months. You know, like things change, especially in crypto, super rapidly. And, you know, also, Rick, you've been like working in like more of the Web2 sphere for a really long time.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: So how do you think about markets overall? Or understanding when to pivot to take advantage of something that's hot and striking, like for example on Solana when it's blowing up or transitioning to Base Chain if it's blowing up. Like, how do you kind of manage that as people looking to make a living from art?

Speaker D: I mean, for me, I'm a little bit tentative, so I kind of watch and observe and I see what's happening. I often feel like I'm a bit too late all the time to things, but then I'm sort of pleasantly surprised that there's still an appetite. So off the back of Acequia, I did an open edition on Manifold, a sort of project with a kind of roadmap, you know, burn and redeem. That was kind of a craze, and I really enjoyed that because I love the kind of— not the gamification, that's sometimes people don't like that word, but the kind of the mechanics and the different ways in which you can deliver something. I really enjoy that. So, but I'm always a little bit tentative. I don't just necessarily jump onto every wagon, but I like to have a go. If things catch my eye and I think this is exciting, this is interesting, this could be fun, I'll give it a go. So yeah, I was quite loyal to Tezos chain for quite a long time, like a lot of people are, and then dip my toes in other things. And it feels like as the market— there used to be a lot more tribalism about chains, and I feel like that's definitely loosening up and people just have a go at doing what they want. And I quite like that. too many boundaries or just different ways to be creative and express yourself.

Speaker A: Rich, I heard you kind of— I don't know what the right word is for it, but it didn't seem like you were thrilled about Bitcoin earlier in the episode. Have either of you ever looked at Ordinals as a way? I mean, I know there's probably like technical challenges with file size, so I don't know if your collabs would work, but what do you think about that trend currently?

Speaker B: I think for me, I think that I try best I kind of can in all regards to do the right thing. And I feel if I kind of went Wardinals and kind of sort of tried to drag Rick across Wardinals, it'd be a financial play. I can't see a technical kind of upside for our work. I can't particularly see an artistic upside at the moment. And some of that is just like when I've tried to dive into it, it does feel like a lot of the Bitcoin stuff is kind of like, you know, people have very impressively hacked some of this together, but it does still feel a bit kind of hacky in that regard. And there's quite a lot of the post-photography work, but then when you look into it, the part that's actually on-chain is like a really reduced size version, and then the rest is actually off-chain. I think people who are kind of jumping into that, there is clearly like a lot of money to be made. And I certainly wouldn't say, hey, Bitcoin degens aren't allowed to have this moment, because, you know, ETH did through late 2021, 2022, it went crazy. We've had that in FXHash as well. So I got zero objection to it. I think I just, when I look at it for myself, the moment it struggled to kind of pick out Probably more a platform. I think that's what I'd look for. I'd look for a platform that was doing something different enough to go, hey, that makes sense then to jump to Ordinals, not just jump to Ordinals because people are throwing a lot of money around on it. I think this just feels more true to us. We've released work on ETH before, so it's not a kind of a crazy leap in the dark. I don't love the Solana side, like the centralization side doesn't float my boat. But again, if people are releasing on there, hey, it's all valid. I think the state of like the Tez market is You know, you guys have discussed it, we've all seen the charts, it's not great at the moment. So I think anybody who has released predominantly on Tezos is going to be looking around and looking for alternatives. I hope that pivots, I hope kind of that comes back, but I, I don't see that in the short term. I don't see anything that's going to kind of spin that around. So I think for most people, it's maybe wait and see and consider other options.

Speaker A: On the other hand, though, you said that Asequia might have had a hand in bringing a lot of new collectors over to FXHash. So maybe what we need is another It's another—

Speaker B: is it? We considered it. We kind of go, oh, should we, shouldn't we? And then I think as we put more and more work in, it's just maybe too much of a gamble. And unfortunately, there hasn't been much that's massively come out that I think we're keen to be put alongside. And that is something that we have to kind of consider, is to what extent we're doing a platform a favor rather than the other way around.

Speaker C: Did they do ETH now? They do Base now. You don't have to stick with Tez.

Speaker B: They do. I think I've made my kind of concerns on FXHash kind of fairly well known kind of in there and to the team, you know, and they've come back and said, hey, that's all completely valid, you know, we are working on it. But I think 2.0 was sadly a bit of a swing and a miss. I think there was a lot of stuff there that we all expected and understood was coming that didn't come. And I think since then, I think the ETH and the base stuff hasn't really landed maybe as it hoped. So I think that whole just the collector experience and even the artist experience to some extent isn't where it needs to be. It feels a bit like a platform that's kind of built and designed by coders and developers. And I think the space has moved on a lot since those early days.

Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, it's been interesting because the market's changed so much. It's been interesting for me because, you know, in 2021, I literally could not make art fast enough and release art fast enough. It was quite exhausting, but it was a lot of fun. And as things have slowed down more and more, it's actually quite nice if you can afford the luxury to be able to really explore where you're gonna release, what you're gonna create. And I've taken quite a bit of time out of releasing work, to be honest. So yeah, we've been just full on in, uh, in this sort of isometric urban environment for quite a while. But I'm excited to release something. It's going to be like all artists, you never stop feeling nervous, you know, about release. Um, but, uh, yeah, it's gonna be exciting.

Speaker A: I think we should start working towards wrapping it up. We're over an hour now. So usually we do a couple rapid fires. Trinity, if you want to fire one off, or you got to go?

Speaker C: I will fire one off, but I will not hear the response.

Speaker D: Don't make it a tricky one.

Speaker B: Throw the grenade in and then leg it.

Speaker A: Let's hear it. What's Trinity's rapid fire?

Speaker C: You know, the story goes that you accidentally or semi-accidentally donated the Acequia that you minted How and why did that occur, and do you want it back?

Speaker B: Is that to me? Because I donated one to someone who missed out.

Speaker A: I'm pretty sure you donated your only mint to us, and it was the last one in the series. And then you said later that actually, like, you hadn't realized that it was your only, only one you had left.

Speaker B: So I think I donated 2. So one person had actually missed out on minting, and I was like, oh no, that, you know, that's awful, right? You know, hold on, I've actually got the one I minted for myself. And then we deliberately wanted to hold one back for you guys as well. But it's only when I got to the end, I was like, I've got one left. I was like, oh no, let's give it away to beside people. And so I think, Rick, I think you got one.

Speaker D: It's a funny thing really, because we didn't set any reserves for ourselves. We didn't mint any while it was live, you know, and then suddenly the secondary just went crazy and we were like, I really need to get myself one of these. So I managed to get one for myself at about 260 Tezos at the time. I almost kind of got priced out because it just really went crazy and I, you know, I didn't know where it was going. So in hindsight, we should have kept a few for ourselves. But, you know, it was all fun. I wouldn't— I can't complain about how it went.

Speaker B: I think we wanted it to be open. I think that was the idea. I think we thought, oh, we shouldn't keep some back for ourselves. And then, yeah, then it just kind of ran off and had a life of its own. So I think I ended up getting one. I think I swapped one for I think I had a Towers in my collection with Mark, with a Q, I think it was. I think we did a trade so I could get one. So I was really happy with that actually, because I got one in the Apollo palette, which is the one that meant quite a lot to me because it's actually inspired by a piece that Ken Consumer had actually done. So I was super happy to get that.

Speaker D: Waiting to be signed. You got the last mint, is that right? It was the— I think it was the last piece, wasn't it, Rich?

Speaker A: The piece that Rich donated to us was the last piece in the series.

Speaker D: So what was really nice about that purely accidental. Is it? I don't know. I can't remember the guy's name, but he does a thing called Bookends where—

Speaker A: so-and-so.

Speaker D: That's it. Um, and he takes the first and the last. And what's really nice about that, uh, Asekiya, is accidentally the first one was very black and white but mostly white, and the last one was black and white but mostly black. So they really sit nicely together.

Speaker A: Still sitting in our wallet. You know, Trinity did kind of soft offer it back to you, Rich. It feels like you declined that offer.

Speaker B: So let's consider it a gift If it's not freely given, then it's not a gift. So I think, you know, it's— you guys have done and continue to do kind of so much that it is at least we can do to kind of give you guys something. And then you guys can decide whether, again, you love it, you go, hey, if we get a good enough price that keeps the show going and keeps bills being paid. So that is equally important.

Speaker A: Well, I think we weren't aware that you had traded for one, so I think we were sitting over here worried that you still had none of your own.

Speaker B: I think at the point where Trinity initially said, no, no, no, you know, you can have it back, I didn't have one. But then, yeah, fortunately, I think, yeah, Mark was eyeing up the towers I had, and he was like, hey, have I got anything you want? I was like, well, actually, I could really use an Acequia because I don't have one.

Speaker D: It's crazy.

Speaker A: I'll just do one more here to wrap up the episode. And talking about Acequia again, I guess also maybe this kind of dovetails into your upcoming release, but if you remember the episode where we talked about Acequia, I was a little critical about some of the funny palettes that you did, like the, the green kind of like Retro computer screen one.

Speaker D: Monitor, yeah.

Speaker A: And the Blueprint one. Uh, so I guess the first question is like, are you planning on doing that type of thing for IsoMetro? And the second part will be to freely respond and defend your decision to do that and own the end of the show and tell me why I was wrong for, for disliking that.

Speaker D: What I think is quite interesting with palettes is there is something for everyone. We as a whole, we want it to be cohesive, how all the palettes kind of sit quite nicely together and you make sure you've got something from the whole spectrum in there. But yeah, people like very different things. For a lot of people really resonated with Monoliths and they loved it, you know, so it's a bit kind of like Marmite, you know, you love it or you hate it. So yeah, we probably take a similar approach with this one. Like I said, the palettes come together a bit quicker with this one. So hopefully something for everyone and who knows which one everyone's after.

Speaker B: We'll wait and see which one you don't like so you can tell us.

Speaker A: Oh, you can always count on me to say what I don't like. That's a given. And waiting to be signed.

Speaker D: Well, it's good to be honest.

Speaker A: All right. I mean, if there's anything else you guys want to plug before we wrap it up, I'll say again, IsoMetro is coming out April 23rd on 8NAP. Are you guys going to continue to collaborate? Anything else that we might expect from you for the— I mean, at the rate you turn out work, it might not be till the end of the year.

Speaker B: Yeah, we haven't, we haven't bounced ideas on anything else, but I, I wouldn't be surprised if you do something else. But yeah, probably is likely to be late this year, even into next, and by the time we bounce something and then start working on it.

Speaker D: We're not tired of each other. I'm definitely not tired of Richard. He's a pleasure to work with. And, um, I mean, I've got a few in real life things. I want to convert my van and go traveling a little bit, so I might take a step back for a bit after this drop because we have been working pretty solid, long days, weekends. More recently and got a way to go fine-tuning. And then, you know, hopefully soon we're going to start like sharing some stuff on social and that so people get excited about it.

Speaker A: Any solo stuff for either of you to plug too? I know, Rick, you said you're going to maybe take a step back, but Rich, anything else you've been working on?

Speaker B: My kind of plan, and I decided this like last year, is just to release work a lot more slowly and considered. I think collectors are demanding and expecting work of a higher quality. So I think that's why a lot of Artists, maybe people think they've been quieter. I think actually it's the fact that we've had to go away and go, right, it takes a lot of time to kind of come up with these things and actually try and turn them into an idea that you want to pursue and then turn that via code into something that actually represents that idea and then to polish that up.

Speaker D: So yeah. Sorry, if you think about it, if you think about it, that's kind of how it should be anyway.

Speaker B: So that's it. And that's why I think it's a positive. I think this bear market is kind of making collectors be pickier. Rather than just going, hey, I can flip this on, he's going, actually, I want this. So I'm working on that. I'm hoping to do some stuff that has more of a plotter crossover, actual kind of plotting works with a digital kind of accompaniment as well. But there are challenges within and around that as well, so I might do that as like alongside something that is just sort of pure digital.

Speaker D: And at some point we're going to get together, me and Rich. He did come to the UK this year, but we didn't manage to get together. The weather kind of stopped us, so, um, I don't know if I'll get out to New Zealand, but that's also a plan to actually meet each other in real life.

Speaker B: Drive the van.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, because we, you know, we literally are opposite ends of the world, and, uh, it's quite interesting time zone-wise. So yeah, it'd be nice to meet for real.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, Rich, I'd love to see Plotter stuff. I got my Ken Consumer piece up here over my shoulder if you can Plotter art is just super addictive to make and to collect.

Speaker B: There's just something super therapeutic. I do quite often, we have a little sort of artist in residence, which makes it sound really fancy, but it's artists go to like local libraries. And so some people will be painting and I'll take the plotter along and it's always one that gets a heap of attention, particularly like kids love to kind of chat to you about how it all works.

Speaker A: Sick. Well, this has been excellent, guys. I hope you had fun and we're so thankful for the two of you to organize around us. Given the global scale of this episode and, and make it work. And, uh, I hope everyone listening enjoyed. I hope you are all looking forward to IsoMetro again, April 23rd. I think that's it. I think that's a wrap. How do you guys feel?

Speaker B: It's been a pleasure. Yeah.

Speaker D: Thanks so much for having us.

Speaker A: All right. Well, that was Rich Poole and Rick Crane of Acequia fame and soon to be of IsoMetro fame. Hope you all enjoyed. We'll be back again soon with another episode. Later everyone, bye.