In the previous article, we discussed on what kind of creative works can be NFT art. So this time, let’s look on what kind of art you’d better not to create.
As an NFT artist, being strategic and has a marketing scope is important as much as purely pursuing the beauty of art. However, if you go excessively towards commercialism and follow commercial trends instead of building up your own art style, you will definitely fail in unsuccessful career building in the NFT market. So, let’s look on the typical 7 boring art themes and styles which collectors never want to pay for or never wants to collect even for free! If your art pieces apply to any of the following 7, either you are too lazy to have your own creative idea or simply you are lacking in talent (no offense, and I hope you have been just too lazy).
Note: I would not mean to say all works in the following styles have no value. There are of course many works with additional originality and I do love them a lot!
1. Symbol of Ether (Bitcoin or Tezos)
This is one of the most “basic” art theme that artists often adopt in their works when they have no idea on where to start their creation. Yes, having Ether symbol in your art is very convenient. With this, you can easily create a digital art which is at least related to cryptocurrency so thus NFT, without any effort of creating your own story.
Of course, there should be works with a meaningful Ether symbol, with a dramatic background story, I guess. But 99% is not. Sometimes they alternatively use Bitcoin or Tezos, depending on platforms or contexts, but this is basically the same. I recommend you using these crypto symbols in your art only when you are confident to tell the story behind or when you are confident to say you have added originality more than enough on it.
2. CryptoPunks (Bored Apes, or Pepe) Derivatives
Well, I would say the CryptoPunks was great and epoch-making. I fully understand the value of the aesthetics and minimalism of the 24 x 24 pixel art, yes. But these values apply to the original only.
Cynically, since the original CryptoPunks has built the record sales, many artists follow the style and created a great number of derivatives. I wouldn’t say they are copies, rather they are derivatives, as I admit that they are not copyright thieves but artists who followed the way of legend.
But as you can see, most of the derivatives are looking almost the same as the original CryptoPunks. Nothing new, nothing interesting. Who would buy them?
Of course, there are some brilliant works in CryptoPunks style with new ideas, but if you have your own creative idea, you’d better not to follow this style to get labelled as a “basic” artist.
3. Doge
Doge itself has a funny story, but how about NFT works with Doge in them? Are any of them ever funnier than the Doge itself?
This is a very common theme that thousands of artists are choosing to create, but if you want to take part in the trend and create something with Doge, you should note that this creation has a high risk to degrade your career as an artist.
Doge is one of the final weapon that artists would take when they fall into a terrible slump of idea creation. You might still have another tactic to take, before you exhibit your mediocrity in public.
4. Elon’s Portrait
Needless to say, it’s not interesting at all. Not new, not creative, not valuable, but sadly thousands of artists are creating art with Elon’s face with them. Why do you need to use Elon as the main actor in your story? Would he tell your story of art in effective way? Why don’t you create your own character to perfectly convey the story of your art?
Obviously, artworks with Elon’s portrait have no story behind. They might have a bit of superficial item descriptions, but you will get no meaningful drama from that.
Maybe, in a small chance, there are a certain people who wanted to express their love, anger or any types of emotion against Elon through their works, but you should note another thing, that it still has a risk of portrait rights infringement. Selling pictures of someone’s face (no matter how famous they are) without permission is basically prohibited by laws. Even though Elon is unlikely to sue against every single NFT, If you are an artist, please learn the basic laws about copyrights and portrait rights.
5. Trading Cards
The idea that a virtual 3D-looking trading card is spinning in virtual space is indeed quite interesting. But now too many artists are creating this kind of NFT works and there are no longer characteristic variations anymore.
The problem is, artists have been too lazy to think up a good idea of what content they should put into the cards, because the spinning card frame itself can look satisfying to them already. Through the creation, artists unfortunately tend to go blind and lose their ability to evaluate the quality of the art. This is why collectors think the trading card NFTs are all looking the same and they often skip those items.
To matter of worse, there are often combo of battle cards & Doge or Elon…
6. Invisible Property
Last week you were probably surprised to hear an invisible sculpture by Italian artist Salvatore Garau was sold for $18,300 and this brought up a controversy. Some people admire this as a sophisticated progressive art and others mention the idea is already old and it is nothing but “nothing”. Well, here let’s put this discussion aside, but now what I would like to say is that even a famous artist did not sell his invisible work without receiving negative comments so how can small artists sell invisible works peacefully?
Sadly, there are some artists or dreamers who are trying to sell invisible or excessively conceptual art (such as one-pixel art) but here is an advice, it looks easy, but it would never be easy to get the instant million bucks without lifetime story building.
7. Copyright Thief
Last but not least, actually the most importantly, as a creator, you need to thoroughly understand copyright laws but unfortunately there are many amateurs who don’t recognize copyrights sincerely or deliberately ignore. You cannot steal someone’s creative idea which is protected by copyright laws, including other artists’ materials and branded characters. Typically, copyright infringement commonly found in the NFT world is such as Nintendo’s yellow electric rat or the world most famous “Mouse” character.
If you create and sell NFTs with these copyrighted characters, you might get sued by the right holders in quite large odds. Even if not, sensible collectors will never pay for taking such risk. If you already made any, I highly recommend deleting all of them as soon as possible and clear your contaminated career by revising your portfolios and any online information about your artist page.
Create Your Own Ideas!
Learning from pioneers is essential for inspiring yourself, but following someone’s style is not always a great idea for your own brand building. If you have your own creative idea, keep sticking at it and you will get connected to right collectors sooner or later.
Related posts:
The Easiest Guide for NFT Artists: Understanding the Basic Concept of NFT
The Easiest Guide for NFT Artists: Preparation Before Creating First NFT
The Easiest Guide for NFT Artists: Budget Plan for Minting an NFT
The Easiest Guide for NFT Artists: How to Set the Right Gas Price and Gas Limit for Minting NFT