3D game artist NeonGlitch86 is well-known in the Mona community for popular spaces Neon City, XCOPY Bar, and Temple of Cult Crypto Art. His work is inspired by sci-fi and cyberpunk.
His avatars, five Mona White Claws, are based on an inside joke amongst the Mona team. We talked to NeonGlitch86 to learn more about his art and what influences it.
How did you get into AAA game development?
I went to school for Game Art and Design, which helped me land my first job at a small indie studio. After a few years, I moved on to some bigger companies with larger teams and titles. After 15 years in the game industry, I am now back to a smaller indie team.
How did you get into creating NFTs?
I started creating NFTs in 2020 when the market and crypto news were at a high point. While working from home during the pandemic, I wanted to try it and see what it was all about. My interest in building a metaverse space actually came from seeing Mona's build-a-thon challenge on Instagram. I read the details and quickly realized that my game development skills would easily translate over to building for Web3.
How would you characterize your style?
My style is heavily influenced by the movies and games that I loved growing up: lots of sci-fi, hard surface, and future tech design language. I’m a huge fan of Blade Runner and the cyberpunk genre.
Talk to me about the Mona White Claw – why did you build it?
The Mona claw was spawned from a joke between Mona Co-founder Justin Melillo and me. We always joke about cracking open a White Claw at the start of a weekend. I thought it would be hilarious to have a MonaClaw can as a VRM to bring to a party in the metaverse.
Why a non-human avatar?
I get a great sense of joy when I see non-humanoid characters running around in a space. I love all the household items, like trashcans and shovels. My favorite non-human avatar was probably a shopping cart that showed up at one of our NFT parties.
Walk me through your creation process. Where do you start?
I always gather reference images and create a mood board when starting something new. Then I do a simple space blockout in Unity and see if it feels good to run around in before creating any art. If I like the feel, I create more complete assets in Blender. I texture in Substance Painter for final assets.
What’s your favorite world you’ve built?
The XCOPY Bar is by far my favorite world that I have created. I worked on it with a good friend, 78Special, and it was so significant for the beginning of my crypto art career. It’s what made me fall in love with building spaces. The amount of collaboration, sharing ideas, and trying to make a space to match the feeling of XCOPY’s art was amazing.
Collect the MonaClaws here:
Raspberry MonaClaw
Mango MonaClaw
Lime MonaClaw
Ruby Grapefruit MonaClaw
Black Cherry MonaClaw
Follow NeonGlitch86 on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/neonglitch86 Follow NeonGlitch86 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/neonglitch86
