Originally published at theothercola.tv.

You’d think that creating digital art and then minting NFTs (non-fungible tokens) would be difficult, but with generative, artificial intelligence, and Hive’s NFT Showroom, it’s easier than you think.

Hive’s NFT Showroom

NFTShowroom.com is a website that allows users to create and manage NFTs. NFTs are digital assets that are unique and cannot be replicated. They are an evolution of blockchain technologies and allow us to trade a digital asset like a physical asset, all the while maintaining authenticity of creation and ownership across the Internet. While you can screenshot an NFT and replicate it ad infinitum, you can never claim ownership over the original image and monetize it. Showroom makes it easy for users to create and manage NFTs, and it also provides a marketplace where you can buy and sell your digital assets or buy someone else’s.

The Hive Blockchain and Your Digital Artwork

NFTShowroom.com is powered by Hive’s blockchain technology. Hive is a decentralized, cecensorship-reresistant platformhat enables anyone to create NFTs for their art. This allows the website to create and manage NFTs insecurely and transparently. The Hive blockchain also allows for the creation of decentralized applications (dApps), which is what NFTShowroom is built on. Hive makes it easy for users to create and manage NFTs, and it also provides a marketplace where you can buy and sell your digital asset or buy someone else’s.

So, what kind of digital art did I mint today?

The Tree of Metanoia and The Tear Poster

Today I minted my first NFT digital assets for The Tear. Technically the second NFT I minted, but probably the most relevant, is the poster for The Tear short film I commissioned back in 2019 just before the world went insane with Covid.

The Tear Poster NFT

The poster was conceived by me and executed by this wonderful artist in the Philippines. Of all the digital artists on Fiverr that I found, his work was the best and most affordable. I’ve only completed one transaction with him, and I’d like to do more, but his prices have become a little too rich for my blood at the moment.

Here is the poster entry on NFT Showroom. I originally didn’t think to use an NFT system for the poster. I didn’t think it was necessary because I’m never going to sell it as a piece of art to someone else. It’s never going to be part of the digital economy… if you will. I merely want to claim ownership over it using the blockchain.

The Tree of Metanoia

For this piece, I used Night Cafe’s generative AI instead of commissioning an artist like I did for the poster. Just by entering some text prompts, I commanded the AI to run several iterations with keywords like 8K, bokeh and Unreal Engine until it created a digital file worth downloading. You can run the artwork through various iterations, using different keywords to guide the AI so you can get what you want.

Here is The Tree of Metanoia on NFT Showroom

What is Night Cafe?

Nightcafe.studio is a website that uses generative artificial intelligence to create original artwork that you can use to create enough art to probably build your own little NFT market. The site’s artists use algorithms to generate unique pieces of art and has a variety of different art styles right from text. So if you can imagine it and are literate, you can probably create something close to your vision. Best of all, the AI will consistently surprise you.

Do you want to sell digital art?

For me, the goal here is to utilize this technology to not only share the fictional, cosmic horror world of The Tear with original digital artwork, but also build a catalog of concepts and images I own the rights to in a public-facing way. I consider registering items on the blockchain to be the next step in managing intellectual property rights and so I want to use it that way, but because the world is what it is, I also registered The Tear with the Library of Congress for that old school protection.

If you want to sell your digital art, you can and it’s easy. All you have to do is list the price or set an auction, but that’s not what I’m interested in doing with The Tear. Maybe someday soon, but for the moment, I wall guard The Tear’s digital scarcity and keep it all to myself like a jealous Gollum.

Get on Hive and Mint Yourself an NFT

Blockchain technology is quickly changing the world. Physical money and physical art will soon all be integrated into the digital world. Even personal finance will find itself on the blockchain soon enough, not just global finance and big-time artists.

If you want to get in on the game selling NFTs and buying NFTs, I think Hive is a great alternative to the big players – like Ethereum or Solana where the bulk of NFT sales take place – and a lot more useful for those interested in social media. Hive might be the easiest of the blockchains to use – because you can use usernames and not worry about remembering a long string of random numbers – and has a wealth of dApps that are geared to supplant the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and other social networks that are currently centralized, censorious and NFT deficient.

Click here to get your own Hive account!

The Cost of Minting NFTs

The price of minting non fungible tokens on Hive is rather affordable, but can fluctuate wildly depending on the chain you’re using. According to beincrypto.com:

“The prices for minting an NFT range from $1 to $500, and sometimes they can go even higher.”

At th emoment, the price of Hive stands at about $.90, and each new piece of art costs three Hive tokens. That’s only $2.70 to register your artwork on the blockchain forever. Not bad.

So what did I learn becoming one of the now many NFT creators?

Once you have an account on Hive, the process is simple
Selling NFTs on NFT Showroom is possible but unnecessary
Using generative AI makes creating art for NFTs an almost trivial process
Hive is a viable platform for NFTs because it’s fast, has strong community and works well
It’s cheap to register an NFT on the Hive network

My Mistake With NFT Collections

One note on when you’re minting on NFT Showroom and creating your own NFT marketplace, you can organize them into “NFT Collections” which allows you to keep track of your iterations of the same piece of digital art. I got it wrong the first time I used the platform, thinking that collections had to do with a whole category of digital assets, not iterations of a single piece.

Finally…

Digital artwork can become physical artwork in the physical world

NFT ownership allows you to do a few things. First, it cements who owns the actual piece. Second, it allows you to monetize your art in a variety of ways. Finally, it creates a bridge between the meatspace and the virtual space. If you use a service like Night Cafe, you can bring your blockchain verified digital artwork into the real world almost immediately using their printer service.

Other services like Peak Printing specialize in bringing NFT artwork to life, so you can proudly display your own art or another artist’s work that you spent way too much money on.

So mint away and get ready to display.

Hive account@nftshowroom Hive account@ashtv Hive account@kentbernhard Hive account@thetearsees Hive account@distantsignal