Meet the artist behind The Sneaky Wizard

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Written by

#CLUB1BCH

1 year ago

In community: Cryptocurrency and Blockchain(7b7f)

Topics: Interview, NFT, WAX, Artist

So where do I start with this one the artist goes by Papa Tortuga don't ask me why lol I first bumped into him when I was hunting down the Dust team but Il be honest I ended up in his Telegram channel recently and his project that started out for his clan has now gone public and the work is class .

Hey man how's things?

Going good how about yourself.

Cant complain what brought you into crypto?

I heard about crypto years ago but never really looked into it at the time unfortunately. Wish I did haha. By 2020, I was running a successful golf Twitter account then I injured my shoulder and couldn’t play so kind of lost interest. Sitting around the house I spent more time on Instagram and just kept seeing more and more posts about crypto. Finally started investigating more and loved what I was hearing so finally took the plunge and started investing.

What started you in Wax?

Banano. Through my researching crypto I came across Publish0x and through Banano it led me to CryptomonKeys. Bantano actually sent me my first NFT which I thought was pretty cool. It was a To The Moon NFT and it’s still one of my favorites I own. I’m actually an author on Publish0x too but I haven’t written anything in a long time. Hope to start again someday .

I think we all find Cryptomonkeys at some point lol and you should get back to writing on there . And am I right in saying your involved with the dust team?

Yeah definitely it was one of the first collections on Atomic and is still going strong. Love me some monkeys. I’m still writing, but in different ways. I’m writing quests and lore for NiftyWizards and I just started writing NFT descriptions for FunmanGalaxy. But yeah I definitely need to get back on 0x. And yeah you’re right, I’m on the Dust team as well. I handle the social media and do a lot of outreach and community work as well.

How did that happen you?

Shortly after I found NFTs I found my way to NiftyWizards. Dust was born from the game so it was natural to start gravitating towards Dust as well. There I met Kurty and Big Mike and we just clicked. We’ve been tight ever since. I’m also a staff member for NiftyWizards so it’s been a lot of fun being involved with 2 projects that I’m very passionate about.

When did you decide to create your own project?

I wouldn’t call it my own project. It’s definitely a team project. The Stoned WarLords is a group of clan members from the Nifty Wizards game. Inside the game there is a battle feature where you can fight other players based off of the NFTs you own. A group of us decided to band together and clan up in order to watch each other’s backs while in battle. From there, we ended up with an incredible group of people. Clan members include artists, collection creators, content creators, coders, devs, and much more. Several projects have been born from our little chat. Our chat is Dust enabled and over 90% of the Dust earned is given back to the clan members. So I made some NTTs for the raffle, then made NFTs for our clan members, then decided to expand out from there.

Oh so it was never meant to be a project?

No not initially. Even when I created the collection I never expected that we would have close to 3k NFTs out in the wild in a few months. It’s been crazy and a lot of fun.

When did you launch to the public as such?

That’s a good question. The collection started in mid-June this year. So I’d say probably 3 months it’s been more public. The first drops were just shared in our chat and then they started being shared from there. Near the beginning I started a WaxDao farm to give back some rewards to our clan members. Then when people caught wind of the farm it kind of took off on its own from there.

What was the first NFT you dropped for people to buy?

The first public drop was done on atomic and is called Stoned Warrior. Since then, the drops have been released on Nefty Blocks and WaxDao. The drop is still open and only 1 wax if anyone wanted to jump into the collection.

https://wax.atomichub.io/drops/90995

How did the community react?

The community had a very positive response. Honestly, it’s the only reason the collection has been able to grow. Hearing that people are enjoying the pieces we are putting out has been a big motivating factor to keep going. I think that by the collection being AI art it really allows for different styles that can appeal to a broader audience. Some NFTs sell better than others but that’s life. The da Vinci series has been pretty popular and one of my favorites. I’m a history buff so I’m having a great time making those. The collection has also collaborated with a couple other collections to release a cross-collection blend and some NFTs as well. I think that’s been a great validator of the good we have been doing. When other collections wanna be a part you know your doing something right.

How many NFTs have you dropped so far?

Only 62 so far with plenty more to come. Our latest NFT is actually the collab piece we did with Dust for their newest enhancer Warlord’s Apprentice. It was just released yesterday under the dust collection.

Can we have a pic?

How do you create your art?

The art is made using an AI generator. Different ones have been used, but I keep finding myself drawn to Mid Journey. I find it gives me more options for filters and to play around. It’s easy to get sucked in for 1-2 hours before you know it. For someone like me who can’t draw worth shit, but still have a creative and imaginative mind it’s been amazing to be able to find a way to express myself in an artistic fashion. I have mad respect for the true artists out there. Same for all the coders and devs out there.

Can I ask with these software's do you own the copyright of the NFT?

According to their TOS, you own any asset you create. So that’s pretty cool.

What's your favorite you have created?

Oh man that’s tough. I’ll go with 3 haha.

King’s Coronation is probably my favorite because, well, it’s backed with wax haha. I mentioned earlier that the Dust profits from our mine is raffled off to our members. Same goes with the wax the collection earns. The vast majority of it is raffled off. I still need to win a raffle haha.

My other favorite is Imaginarium de Sanctorium. The utility of this one is really cool. This NTT is handed out to people that are staking their Nifty Wizards baby wizards to my castles. I’m the game, castles farm different NFTs and the baby wizards work as enhancers. So, basically, the baby wizards work at the castles. It sounds fucked I know haha. But, this NTT uses mutable data to track how many babies they own and what prizes they’ve received so far. Huge shout out to Arief, LShaf, and Caio for helping make this one a reality. Another NFT I truly love is an unofficial piece of the collection.

The collection is called killthekingx and the NFT is called Kill Tracker. This NFT uses mutable data to update all of your kills in the Nifty Wizards game. Also, if you kill our XP King Dust Junky members of our clan will collect a bounty including Wax, Dust, LEEF, SHING, WOJACK, and more tokens.

I know you have done a few collabs is there a dream collab out there for you?

A few days ago I would have said Dust. But that dreams a reality now. So, I’d definitely have to go with Taco. I got into Taco early and absolutely love everything they are doing over there. Incredible project and incredible team.

Who is your favorite wax artist?

Another tough one. I’ve always really liked the art of Bitcoin Origins. Really hoping for a revival. Dingleberries is always an awesome and fun collection. My favorite would probably have to be Stocci though of stoccistudio.

What's the long term plan for the project?

Long-term there are a few things in the works. When I started the collection I wanted it to have utility right off the bat. With the WaxDao farm we were able to achieve that right away. Now with WaxDao V2 farms just being recently released, there will be a new farm starting in 2023. Blended and rarer NFTs will have higher staking power in that farm. There are also plans for a second farm. This farm would be exclusively for NFTs in the promo schema. A SWL token is also on the horizon. I’m hoping to release that with some VIRL stuff. That being said, I don’t want to just release a token for the hell of it without there being some type of utility. Beyond that, the SWL are always creating something new. The latest project to come up is called the Wax Wallet Shop. Here people can interact with a bot and purchase custom wax addresses where you actually own the keys. The Space Invento bot that will be released soon is really going to up the game for Nifty Wizards and Dust. Stoned Apes on Wax will be be having a pack launch soon. More collabs are definitely in the works too. Fingers-crossed whitelisting on AtomicHub and NeftyBlocks too.

What's been the best part of doing your project?

Learning how to do different things along the way and growing my knowledge base of NFTs and the blockchain. Experimenting with different things. Trying to push the envelope. Meeting great people and giving back.

What's been the hardest part of doing your project?

Nothing haha not to sound cocky or anything. If anything it can be challenging when we are trying out new things. But, man some of those guys we have in SWL are absolute geniuses. Which is great because idk shit about coding or dev work haha

Is this a full time job?

No most definitely not. I have a professional career and a family. Those come first. Well, not always hahaha.

What your family think of your project?

They are starting to come around. I got the wife to mess around with the AI and she thought it was cool. Same with the kids. But, no one is really into crypto or NFTs in my family or with my friends. A couple people invest but they are very casual about it.

Tell us something random about you?

I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about these things here I believe this is a family friendly article haha. Hmm something random….the strangest food I’ve ever eaten was pig brains in Cuba. Or maybe it was that time my friend’s mom tricked and fed me chicken butt. Not gonna lie it was good. Pig brains tasted like mushy raw lobster. Nasty.

That sounds nasty what you like to do to unwind?

I like to spend time with the family or friends, travel, golf, watch movies, TV, or sports, defending my fantasy football championships, and mess around with NFTs.

Where is the best place to keep up with your project?

We recently created a public Telegram channel and that’s the easiest way to keep up with the project for sure. Every person that joins will get a free member NFT that is stakeable on WaxDao and an NTT that will whitelist them for future drops. All are welcome! Except bots and multi accounts…We just got a LEEF mine up and running today. So after syncing to the bot you’ll earn some LEEF tokens for every message you send in the chat. Dust and KCHAT coming soon too.

https://t.me/SWLshowcase

Where can we buy your NFTs?

https://neftyblocks.com/collection/stondwarlord

https://waxdao.io/c/stondwarlord/drops

Lastly, people can also check out the WaxDao farm

https://waxdao.io/farm/stondwarlord

Stakeable on WaxDao for SHING tokens 🌟 The current farm is set to expire at the end of the month. A new farm will be coming after that. More than likely a second farm as well just for the collab pieces.

Anything else you would like to add?

Yeah just want to say thanks for inviting me to do this. It was a lot of fun. Hope people enjoying reading it as much as I enjoyed participating! Also want to give a huge shoutout to my SWL brethren and all our supporters!!