Meet the artist behind LNOW NFTs

So I meet this artist when I was chatting to another project that he is kind of involved in and he was saying he was going to be creating his own project soon , So he has since started releasing his own work so I had to get the low down all about his project . When I caught up with him he was just finished AMA .

Hey

Hey man

How's things today?

Doing alright, AMA went well and I think people are excited for the future so that's good how about you?

I am good finished work for the weekend always a good thing . Did you get asked any random questions in AMA?

Nice! Hmm, nothing too random. Someone asked about whether or not I would be adding more rewards into the WAXDAO NFT farms, answer was yes haha but that's about it , I'm super wordy and had an 8 page script that I went over, I'm pretty sure I covered most stuff they had questiuons about

Lol so your listed on Mikes site?

Yep! There, Nefty, and NFTHive . Waiting for them to respond about my KYC for Atomic whitelisting or checked or whatever it's called now.

Good luck with that . How did your crypto journey start?

Thank you haha. Well, back in the beginning of the whole GME/AMC stock craziness, I got into the stock market. Decided I didn't like it much, and started dabbling in trading and learning about crypto in.... Feb of 2020 I think? Got into some Discords of a bot called Wallet (good bot!), and one day someone mentioned a bot called "tip.cc" I got into that server and holy shit lol . Was a wild west. Started learning more about other cryptos, getting on Coinbase, etc. Modded for a couple projects, one ended up being a rugpull. Woke up one morning with the server owner account deleted, messages from them gone, and the server was still active. So I made my own server, and invited people from there over, telling them I was sorry for not seeing the rug before. That ended up being the Lighthouse Crypto server. A little while into that (6 months or so maybe?), I had been into WAX for a bit, and really wanted to try my hand at making NFTs. Started lhcnftsonwax, and have been going from there haha. Took a hiatus from LNOW from like November of 2021 till roughly March of 2022. So we've really only been truly active since around then.

Your one of the artists for Crypto Chibi was that your first place you started creating NFTs?

I actually am not one of the artists! I'm just an admin there, I don't actually have any affiliation at all to the project besides being there since (roughly) the beginning, and being a lover of them haha. But besides that, RBangBang was critical in helping me setup my first wax wallet, helping me fund it (with the condition that I would pay it forward when people need it), and helping me understand the resources side of WAX. I first started making artwork for NFTs with my original project idea, AdveNFTs, or AdventureNFTS. Was an idea of taking photographs from trips my wife and I took across the Pacific Northwest, editing them and stuff, and sharing them, along with information about the places, through NFTs. Some of the first LNOW NFTs are photos that were intended for AdveNFTs originally

Is the AdveNFTs project dead?

Yeah, it never really started lol. Some other project happened right around that same time, with a very similar idea. I didn't feel I could innovate enough to really compete, so I scrapped it before it really launched but I was still driven to make NFTs haha so I started LNOW.

So LNOW is the project when did it go live?

lhcnftsonwax (LNOW). Mm we really went "live" like in March of this year. But technically it's been in existence since... I want to say October of 2021? Maybe slightly earlier.

When did you actually drop the first NFT of the project?

The first NFT, Dawn, It's our "flagship" NFT, and has had 10 rounds of 100 dropped over the last few months. They've mostly sold out. Holders can blend 10 Dawn into a Token of Hope, basically our "early holder VIP" type NFT had it's first drop around October I believe. Maybe November. Can check for exact dates lol. Then the project kind of went dormant for awhile, was having some life stuff happen (job change and such), so I wasn't really doing much with it. The second Dawn drop (there were 10 total drops) was up for like a month or 2 before I ended it. Around then, March of this year or so, I moved all of our drops to NeftyBlocks

So the community reaction has been great?

Pretty much! There's been quite a few holders who can't seem to get enough LNOW NFTs one person bought like 16 crates total (27.5 wax each, 12 NFTs per crate) just to try to complete the whole set that was released lol . They seem to really enjoy it, enjoy the art, love the wax rewards back (6000+ wax back to holders since March), and really seem to love the community and supporting the project!

That some amount How many NFTs have you created so far?

Hmm. So far... let me think lol there was something like 20 templates that were released with Series 3 packs... 2 from series 2, I think maybe... 30-40 roughly that I've created and released.

How do you come up with ideas for the NFTs?

For Series 1, it was all just photographs that I had taken, and edited together with my wife. So they weren't super special besides neat editing done to them lol. Dawn is a prime example. For most of the others (so far), I've used different AI artwork generators (Nightcafe, Dalle 2, Starryai) to create different pieces that I feel are actually really great artwork. Something that moves me personally, or speaks to me in some way. Then I try my best to come up with a title and flavor text (details) that help someone else looking at it maybe feel the same feelings I do when I look at it. Sometimes I just think they look super cool, too I do want to try my best to get better at my own personal artwork so that I can offer that as well, but it's kind of low on my to-do list right now. too much other stuff going on with the project lol. I'm very particular about the AI images I use. for the upcoming series 5, it will tell the story of the world of LNOW, and I'll be doing that using carefully created, chosen, and edited AI artwork .Unless I can find a great artist who will take little to no pay.

What programs you using at the moment?

Currently, for AI, I use Dalle-2, StarryAI, and Nightcafe primarily. I also use the AI generator on Lightleap's Artleap app, occasionally. For editing, it depends on what I have available. I do most of my work from mobile, so I typically use graphic design programs like Canva to help me edit, make things transparent, etc. Some of my designs (like LIGHT token's picture) are designed completely within Canva, using their graphics and stuff. I also use Adobe Express sometimes, and the multiple LightLeap Studios apps to do editing and all that. But I don't actually edit them too much, at least not the AI ones. I also have been dabbling with some programs that allow me to use my face to control the faces of the AI Generated artwork

Do you have a favorite NFT in your collection?

Hmm... Dawn is special to me, because it reminds me of a good trip with my wife, it's the first NFT we ever launched, and it's seriously helped fuel the collection. But artwork-wise, I really love the Samurai designs from Series 3. I call them the "Virtues," and they're named after traits I think are important in people in some way. They've also been favorites of holders, one person made one their display picture for discord! That was a cool feeling haha.

Have you done any collabs?

Only a couple! Frazel (I’m sure you know him lol) from the online inn and food monsters has been my only real collab. We’ve done a few though! I was the 10th food monsters artist, which was Season 5 of Food Monsters, and he and I have both released NFTs on waxdao inspired the other’s collection, and sold them for that collections token. He sold his for LIGHT token, and I did a 4 day series of drops for FOOD. I’ve got an entire series, series 4, that will be completely focused on collaborative artwork, hopefully tapping excellent much lesser known artists of all kinds (music, art, etc) Selling under the LNOW collection so it gets all that comes with standard LNOW NFTs (Brilliance points, stakeable, etc), along with the artist getting a large portion of the sales, and the standard 25% still going back to holders

Do you have any artist you can mention for series 4?

I don’t see why not! The artist I have on tap right now is named elpaulio, his collection is really new, it’s https://neftyblocks.com/c/elpauliosart He came over from FrenchMonetGang, which the creator Flid and I sort of collab, as he made the bot we use for our server, Lightkeeper. He maintains it as well for a small cut of the sales of LNOW. I want to do collabs with FMG as well in time Anyway lol elpaulio has some artwork coming for series 4, and I think will become a great artist on wax in time! I’m also working with Spacely of NVNTIVZ, which is an eth based coin/community that’s focused on growing artists and using NFTs and cryptocurrency throughout it. He’s got a music artist who has a song on the way, and we’re going to add some generative artwork to it, and release that under Series 4 as well. Hoping to get an “album” of multiple songs together and release them as a pack, being able to rip certain song s and such. I’m hoping in time there can be a “Friends of LNOW” type thing where I can do bigger collabs with more established projects, and have that be separate from series 4 . So the smaller artists can stay the focus of that series.

Sounds good so you want to help the smaller artist grow in the community?

Yeah! One of our core values/mottos is “We all rise together/Together we rise,” and I think Series 4 will exemplify that perfectly.

What has been the best part of doing your project?

I think meeting all the amazing people, having them actually want LNOW NFTs, and actually wanting to see the community and project grow, has been super awesome. It feels so good to see the values of your project (basically your baby haha) “shining” through others within the community. I think it’s an idea nearly everyone can get behind, and so it really connects with something deep in people. Plus 25% back from all sales is pretty cool too I’m sure . In that distribution alone, called WBR (wax back rewards), LNOW has given back roughly 3,667 wax since march to holders

What has been the hardest part of the project?

Yeesh. Keeping myself on task, not going too far forward from where I’m at, and trying to please people the best I can without upsetting everyone else, and still holding strong to my/LNOW’s values. Not just caving anytime someone gets upset about something

What does the family thing of your project?

Mm. It’s taken a lot of time away from my wife and fur family, and that’s not exactly made my wife too happy lol. But we’ve talked a lot about it, and about balance and all that, so she’s been much more supportive of it lately. Besides that my dogs seem to hate it cause they aren’t getting pets

What you like to do to unwind?

I like to hang out with my family, we go on walks/hikes around waterfalls and rivers here in southern Oregon. Otherwise I play video games sometimes, and I like to drive my car and sing heavy metal haha.

Tell us something random about you?

Hmm I love to create music, and went to college (didn’t finish) for a bachelors of science in music production.

Have you though of collabing with music artists on wax?

I want to reach out to nasty hooks and I recently discovered a couple other projects that I didn’t know about that I’ve got on my list to reach out to!

Where can we buy your NFTs?

Multiple places! We release all of our WAX drops on neftyblocks at https://neftyblocks.com/c/lhcnftsonwax

lhcnftsonwax on NFTHive.io - WAX Marketplace for lhcnftsonwax

Once I'm able to either fix my website to not use google sites, or nefty fixes their embeds to work with iframes, you'll be able to buy them from secondary and buy our drops directly on our main website too!

https://lighthousenfts.art/

LHC, which stands for Lighthouse Crypto, was founded by Lumenascent, and is a collective of people who believe in growing together, and making the crypto and NFT space as best as we can. Our values are incredibly important to us, and we believe in them very strongly! Our collection, lhcnftsonwax.

Where can we keep up with project?

Discord (https://discord.gg/wveCtwkVdx) is the best place, although I do try to keep an update log on the front page of the website for the current month, and a more detailed log of updates and history in it's own updates page on the site https://www.lighthousenfts.art/home/updates.

Also I'll be trying my best to do more updates through the project's twitter,

https://twitter.com/lhcnftsonwax?s=20&t=p5mmJoXXyopbiuBzlbSBbg

When the next drop?

Meh I don't have a guaranteed drop time for it, although I'll be releasing some pretty soon into Series' 1, 2, and 3, to give holders something to buy while I work on the big stuff in Series 5 building the story and all that. Probably within the next two weeks though, hopefully sooner than later.

Any chance of a competition for the readers?

As in for something for them to win or something? Oh hell yeah I can do that! Have a 6-card pack and 2 promo packs from my drops on nfthive so I'll give those out to the winners!

Love it so before I let you on with your day is there anything you would to add or say?

Hmm... Maybe just that I think LNOW is an amazing project, and has really grown in a true grassroots style, with some absolutely awesome people in it. I think our hyper focus on promoting community growth will really send a ripple through the WAX ecosystem, and I hope to see more projects doing similar things! Also thank you a whole lot for taking the time to do this and stuff!

Its my pleasure man thanks for taking the time to chat to me

My pleasure as well! I hope we can chat more in the future! looking forward to all of your work!

Defiantly man

To join are competition check the link below and keep an eye out as I hope to get him on the YouTube show soon

https://twitter.com/Crackers832/status/1575231695837884416?s=20&t=p5mmJoXXyopbiuBzlbSBbg