Month: September 2021

Categories
art technology

Brilliant 3D artists to follow on Twitter

Greetings everyone, and thank you for viewing this gallery of artwork from my 3D, VR and AR artist colleagues. I was very happy with the response to this call for submissions, and I hope to make this a regular feature here on Saint Joan Creative Studio.

Want to make friends on Twitter? This is the best group of artists to be around. Be kind enough to share this post, as well as the artwork, on your favourite social media platforms. And, if you are on Twitter, engage with the posts so that your followers will see and appreciate them, too.

Zenshy, or Zen, as we call him, is one of the most popular artists in the NFT community because he has a great personality, a charming voice and is always there to support fellow artists. He is the first member of my “Special Voice Club” for Twitter Spaces, and if you hear him, you will understand why. He helped spread the word about this gallery showcase and I thank him very much for doing so. WAGMI.

As you view this gallery of artwork, remember that the #NFTCommunity on Twitter is one of the most close-knit and supportive groups around. If you want to see this in action, follow them and watch your timeline. They are professional artists who work together to offer each other practical advice and encouragement.

Bhushan Vishwas is the 23-year-old co-founder at CodemireGames, a game studio he runs full-time. He has been creating NFTs for more than 6 months. After the latest update, WordPress deleted my logo image, and if it were not for Bhushan, I would not have noticed that.

Something he always tells us is, “Stop saying thank you, we are family.” And because of that, I now have no words to express my gratitude to him for his warm support. A double feature for you, Bhushan, because you are amazing.

Magda Górska is a collage artist from Warsaw, Poland. The only tool she uses in her artistic work is a mobile phone. Apart from producing 3D art, she creates minimalist paintings. Her most recent collection is called, “A pillar of strength” and it is inspired by the power of the mind. I am awestruck by her minimalist, monochromatic style whenever it appears in my timeline.

Elnaz Mansouri is a Canadian 3D artist and photographer based in Reykjavik, Iceland. As you know, I am biased towards all things Icelandic, so when she introduced herself in a space I was cohosting, I quickly “captured” her. I had to duel with an astrophotographer to claim her as my own, and I am happy I won in the end. Elnaz is also a drone pilot. She sells non fungible tokens of her artwork on the exclusive invite-only platform, Foundation.

Aqmal was the first to respond to my call for submissions, and I want to thank them for that. They are a digital illustrator from Tangerang, Indonesia, and their non fungible tokens are featured on the tezos platform Hic et Nunc. If you feel adventurous, connect a tezos wallet (from your Google account, you have a Kukai Wallet) and buy something from their collection.

Beer is a 3D artist from Thailand. He makes music in various genres. His project goal is to complete 100 songs within this year. Please view his media folder on Twitter to see his artwork.

GIMME WORK loves skeletons and biblical references, so I knew we would get along. In the Last Supper Skeleton, he gives a twist to an old favourite. Great imagination, awesome work.

NRN (artwork featured at the topmost section of this tweet) is an artist whose work you love to crave. Enigmatic, elusive, and mysterious. The definition of a muse. Follow them on Twitter for more fabulous art.

Antony Joseph is an automotive enthusiast and die cast model hobbyist. His sleek style and mysterious presentation make him seem otherworldly, and not “just another human being”. He was kind enough to share some of his 3D artwork with us. He has been an artist for 8 years and is now exploring his way into NFTs. He looks forward to connecting with you, so please visit his profile and make friends.

What is exciting about Subin K is that he is a self-taught CGI artist and game developer who works with augmented and virtual reality programs. He resides in Kozhikode, India, and works very hard to perfect his craft. He is only 21 years old, which means he has plenty of time to captivate a global audience.

Architect, author, computational designer and music enthusiast. His work is so vivid and detailed, it is hard to tell that it is all made up. I am happy to feature his work, especially because he supported me as I was trying to reach 3000 followers. After that, we hung out in a space together. Thank you for everything, Arjun.

Say hello to Cat, sculpture artist from Thailand who creates 3D concept art, visual art, and character art. They will be creating non fungible tokens of their 3D artwork for the time being.

Hitendra is a self-taught 3D artist from India who makes high poly 3D cars in the Blender app. He regularly showcases samples of his work on Twitter. Above, you can see him sharing his work in the thread of a well-known collector of NFTs. We all have to showcase our work, and eventually, after much practice, we will become experts at it.

Meet Mint from Thailand. Their NFT concept is “Bring your childhood to heal yourself”. They promise that this “Tale of Tail” collection will make you a smile and relax from your hard days. This presentation is accompanied by a sketch of the animated work. As you can see, it takes a lot of work to get to the final presentation.

And finally, say hello to Luchong, a Nigerian artist who draws all of her 3D faces on her phone. Here, she is showcasing artwork from his collection “Thea”. It is a collection that portrays the diverse beauty of dark-skinned African women in a unique style. It goes without saying that talent goes beyond boundaries, and I believe that we are all richer for the diversity that exists in our world.

Thank you for viewing this gallery. I hope that you enjoyed this presentation. Please give these artists your support by sharing this blog post to your socials. See you at the next showcase.

Categories
about me creative writing entrepreneurs opinion poem poetry women writing

Greetings from the Metaverse + Twitter (Spaces) update

Happy Monday, creators.

Photo by Anna Shvets

Does anyone remember that time last year, when I was crying into my phone about Twitter? Well, I took my own advice and it seems to have worked. I was miserable because I felt I had to change myself to fit into what I thought would gain traction. However, with this new account, I started out with the intention of doing what I wanted to do.

A musician I met on Saturday had this to say this morning.

Being a person with broad interests and unquenchable curiosity might have helped. After deciding to focus on non fungible tokens as a subject, I had no idea that all of my favourite topics would collide under that niche.

Unlike my previous post, in which I showed how you can get Instagram’s smart tech to work for you, Twitter is tricky. I can only give you generic advice with the caveat that everything depends on your specific subject matter. As you read, remember that I am using Twitter to promote sales of my creative projects, including fiction writing and fine art.

Social audio, specifically Twitter Spaces, allows me to hear from machine learning specialists, Buddhist and Hindu philosophers, philanthropists, musicians, authors, poets, programmers, game developers, actors, singers, tech venture capitalists, marketers, attorneys, architects, publicists, and blockchain specialists.

My work has been to use Twitter Spaces to create one large thought bubble, wherein everyone discusses a topic from the perspective of their areas of expertise. Reaching for a cognitively rich experience has made my time on Twitter stimulating instead of exhausting.

An example of a good bio tweet

In the list below, I will share some general ideas for working within your own niche with the help of Twitter Spaces. The most important principle to remember when marketing or promoting your work on any platform is simply, “Do what works, not what you like to do.”

  1. Spend time on Twitter. Can’t tell you how many times I have had people tell me they had no time but wanted to know the one tweet they could post so they could gain 10,000 fans overnight.
  2. Curate your feed. Do not scroll. Stop and engage with tweets for about ten minutes. Like it, share it, or toss it. Use the “Not interested in this tweet” option and add specific reasons. This helps the smart tech to learn more about you.
  3. Tweet a bio tweet like the one in Sreeran’s example above. Thereafter, when you enter a space, say your account name and your personal tagline and the smart tech will index your account under the correct topics of interest.
  4. Join Twitter Spaces and listen in as a priority, even if invited to speak.
  5. Use your time on a speaker panel to give a voice to your engagement. You may want to say that you have commented, liked, or retweeted a speaker’s tweet.
  6. Support other accounts more than you tweet about yourself. We use the word “shill” to mean “self promote”. Shill for others because as a rule, do for others and they will do for you. If you receive no support from an account, focus on other accounts until you find your group.
  7. Take your time and work consistently. Results will multiply over time, because your diligent effort will earn you trust within your network.
  8. Keep the hashtags to a minimum (2 – 4 maximum) until you meet your ideal threshold of engagement in terms of tweets, retweets, comments and likes. Thereafter, use them rarely.
  9. Avoid negativity. Rephrase your words positively (for the smart tech). Do not follow accounts that are antagonistic towards your principles.
  10. If you must be outspoken, discuss and debate in spaces where your ideas will be heard, even if others disagree. Same rules go for all audio spaces. Keep rants super short.
  11. Quote tweet. Own the conversation by bringing it to your timeline. Bring it up later in spaces and ask for feedback, shares or other engagement on your tweet.
  12. Tag accounts and mention them in tweets with requests for answers. This raises your engagement by putting you on their timeline. It is also a great way to start a conversation.
  13. Consciously disengage. When you disagree in a comment, etc., the person with whom you disagree gets a boost by the algorithm because the smart tech will read your engagement as POSITIVE interest.
  14. Avoid engaging with inactive accounts. Twitter’s smart tech loves fresh content, so keep within a view/comment/share threshold of about 17 hours.
  15. Follow accounts that you genuinely like and want to support. As a rule, I avoid following popular accounts and add them to lists instead.
  16. Any support you receive must be reciprocated. And focus on supporting accounts that give you support in return.
  17. Analyse, rinse and repeat. If you start gaining support from your activities, try them again and see what happens. If a thing is working, keep doing it, regardless of whatever “advice” you receive, including mine.

Remember to try many things. Do what works and not what you like to do (for example, staying off Twitter or only tweeting about yourself). After joining Twitter with a fresh new account on June 19, 2021, my account now has 3107 followers today, September 27, 2021. The final push to 3000 happened last night (Sunday) when the count was at 2992. Thankfully, when I asked for some help getting over the line, my friends were there to offer their support. And that is how it should be. That’s all for now, and thank you for reading. See you in the metaverse.

Categories
about me art artificial intelligence creative writing fiction opinion People technology

Instagram’s smart tech is a loving me thing

It is Saturday afternoon and as I write this, I am waiting for a meeting to resume. Unfortunately, two expatriates seated at the far corner of the conference room are talking loudly about assorted bedroom activities. I gather that the man is gay and his friend is a married straight woman. I suppose they are comparing notes?

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio

It was impossible to hear myself think, so I am standing near an open window to let the sound of traffic drown out their voices. And while I am here, I thought it would be good idea to update you with my Instagram goings on.

At the moment, I’m hardly posting on Instagram. But for the past eight days, every 23 hours to the hour, I see that I have 25 new followers. This exact number, at exactly the same time, tells me that this is the work of a machine. 

Remember that last year, Instagram was burning my posts. And now, after two months on the platform, the smart tech is working for me. I was advised in a Clubhouse room, a couple of months ago, that Instagram was doing a big reset. I was also advised to take advantage because this was a once-in-a-lifetime event. The problem is that I am an introvert and going live on video will never happen. Because of that, I needed a modified approach.

Photo by Tim Gouw

Here is what happened after two months and 18 reels, 3 (15-second) stories daily, no lingerie selfies, and zero live posts. I am at 472 followers. My account is growing every day, so I will continue on this path. (If only Twitter were as malleable).

Metrics 

  1. This is a business account. 
  2. I do not pay for ads which means that all of my engagement is organic. 
  3. All of the new followers brought over from Instagram’s smart tech are 85% artists in the NFT community, 5% follower boosting accounts and 10% crypto investors. 
  4. Quite a number of my other followers are from Clubhouse. The apps share data with each other. Instagram will automatically suggest my account to anyone following me over there and vice versa.
Photo by Fiona Art

Posts and engagement  

  1. After my first five posts, I started posting reels in the form of animated videos showcasing my artwork. 
  2. Avoid captions. Only a few of my reels have them. Instead, I tell a story in a slideshow or MP4 video. 
  3. Nearly zero hashtags on posts or reels. Instagram treats hashtags like spam. 
  4. Edit all videos or images (to create a slideshow) in the IG native editor using filters.
  5. Add music and carefully choose clips within the song to match the story. Music choice is the number one compliment I have received so far. People seem to have a positive emotional reaction my artwork because of the music. 
  6. Repost my own reels/posts to stories. 
  7. Hashtags only in stories – limited to one per story and this is always NFT related. 
  8. Follow back as many accounts as possible. Check occasionally to make sure that all followed accounts are active. 
  9. Restrict spammy, fake looking accounts and never follow sales people (crypto investors). 
  10. Reply to all comments and respond to private messages. Delete messages I don’t want to answer. Accounts look spammy if they don’t talk to each other. 
  11. Mute accounts that post more than 5 reels in one hour. These kinds of accounts rarely engage with my posts. Then I look spammy to the smart tech. 
  12. Visit new followers’ profiles and engage with posts. 
  13. Engage with my timeline. Hide, mute, like or share posts to friends.
  14. Join live broadcasts even for a few minutes. Send comments and reactions while there. This signals that I am a real person.
  15. Engage with my followers’ stories by sending reactions and comments. Gauge feedback to these and mute accounts that are not responsive. 
  16. Remix posts from active followers and share them to my stories. Add music, fun stickers, gifs, scribbles, text and mentions.
  17. When a follower adds the above remix in their stories, immediately share to my stories.
  18. Use voice memos or calls where possible. 
Photo by Steve Johnson

If you are interested in testing this approach, try it on your Instagram account. I must point out that I am niche specific. I am an artist in the NFT community. I focus on graphic design and I’m interested in paintings from visual artists. And though I never tell Instagram what my specific niches are by using captions or hashtags, the smart tech introduced me to blockchain specialists, abstract painters and 3D/animation artists in the NFT space. Then, bear in mind that I spend no more than 30 minutes a day creating at least three stories. I also respond to all of my messages.

No selfies, no bikinis, no bare butts. Only plenty of good music, interesting stickers, and artwork to inspire me. Best of luck.

Categories
People

Music for book marketing

Do you like classical music? Are you squeamish about reading romantic fiction? Well, I am working on a story you might like. I am vaguely romantic in my head, but do not give me any details, please. I do not want to know what happened after the first button came undone.

In this post, I will share a marketing strategy that I am working on for my current WIP.

Photo by Jansel Ferma

After stumbling into the NFT community on Twitter and Clubhouse, I found myself minting my artwork on the tezos blockchain late last week. When I first discovered NFTs in March, I set about minting the treatments for my current and future writing projects to protect the copyright.

Then, after selling out my first three collections of art as of Monday, I had enough to cover the costs of hiring a composer and musician to help me create music for my YouTube channel. My YouTube channel with 43 followers. It is great to know that for once, I am not out of pocket with marketing costs. And if I plan to do bigger projects, I had better sell more art.

Photo by Ludwig Kwan on

You may recall that I had mentioned this music project in an earlier post. I wrote that, “My YouTube channel is dry and ashy so I asked a composer friend to help me out. I am hoping to share the music with artists and creators who like listening to music as they work.”

I am happy to announce that this project is ongoing. After waiting eight weeks to hear back from the composer, I was told last week that his schedule had cleared up. I am officially a music producer. And I imagine that this sounds fancy but it really means working to find the right sound, recording them, and refining arrangements. It has been great waking up every morning this week to find new tracks and librettos in my inbox.

Photo by Budgeron Bach

What we will have arranged is a suite of nine etudes for piano, violin (which he plays) and cello (which I play). Three tracks have been completed so far. Two of them sound fantastic, and one needs to be redone. It will take time for the entire suite to be set in jelly, but it is on the way. I wanted to share one of the tracks with you right now, but the composer will surely m3rd3r me, so I will not.

The purpose of the compositions is to capture the moods of the story and develop emotional ties with readers. The moods are serene, romantic, regal, grounded, and broody. The music is created for writers, artists, and other professionals who enjoy listening to background music as they work. My social audio apps of choice for promoting the music are Greenroom, Clubhouse, and Twitter Spaces. By the time you read this, I will have already spoken about the project on Twitter. And soon after that, I will be asking my networking contacts on the other two apps to consider streaming the songs in their rooms.

Photo by Eleazar Ceballos

Quite a number of armchair marketing experts say that you have to sell a project before you start it. Why will my plan work, even though I am not selling the music? As I mentioned earlier, several people from social audio have bought The Quarter Percent, and they also enjoy classical music. Pitching (shilling) the second book will happen every time I talk about the music. Even for people who do not read, playlists of classical music have value over time. They might share the playlist with friends who may enjoy the music and might want to read my work.

Again, the music is pure marketing, but I will be minting the librettos and artwork for the story. The former process will protect the copyright and selling the latter will generate funds to pay for more bizarre marketing stunts.

Please watch this space because one of the tracks will be featured here when it is uploaded to my channel. I hope that when I do, you will visit my channel and listen in.

Thank you very much for reading. See you soon.

P.S. I am getting better at shilling. Last night, I tricked a friend in Dehli into buying my book off Amazon. In vocal fry, I said, “Yeah, dude, like, did you not read my Twitter bio?” But he also read the reviews out loud while I groaned in agony. So, we are even.