Artists on Their Way

Robin

The pace and progress of Robin's work is extremely encouraging for me. From what I understand, Robin is a new digital artist based out of Scotland starting just 9 months ago in December, 2022. Robin hasn't flooded his account with projects. Instead, they have shown restraint and discernment in their published progress which has made it very easy to see improvement along the way. Robin took an leap this April with Whisper. Robin seemed to be well aware of that large step forward as he confidently increased mint count and mint price. Whisper was followed up by two more strong projects including the unmistakable Twofiftythousand. Robin has expressed an approach to be more intentional in his approach to his next projects. There's nothing more encouraging in a growing artist than to see one lean into patience rather than quickly minting every idea that might come to their fingertips!

pixelwank

Pixelwank has had quite the summer, particularly the projects they published in July and August. I was particularly impressed with the run pixelwank had starting from their colab with Qotonana (a name you may see again) through Floating Point. Grille : Protection was my favorite from that notable run. I, personally, might like to see just a little more selectivity when it comes to their publishing schedule. Although, there is something to be said for a growing artist to get their work out into the ecosystem pushing for fast growth from faster iteration. In other exciting, pixelwank news, make sure to catch their interview with the great Ken Consumer!

hrunz

Hrunz had a nice breakout in August with the painterly shapes in Притяжение, which is where I started to take note (even though I had minted Distorted Decay previously). When I went back to look deeper at hrunz's older projects, Slices was a stand out for me in its stark simplicity. I'm drawn to artists with an ability to make interesting outputs from simple shapes and rules using varying techniques.

sapirco

Who here is having fun collecting art? Well, it sure seems that Sapirco is having fun creating art! I can't think of a better single world to describe her works on fx(hash) which only started this June. Puzzles and Mysteries caught a lot of eyes with it's puzzley nature. It's a great sign to me that Sapirco's strongest project, in my opinion, is her most recent, the wonderfully balanced Pashut. The WIPs Sapirco has been posting on twitter recently give no reason to think that the fun will be ending any time soon!

evil

If you're super attentive in Discord, it's possible you've already seen me explain my excitement about evil's progress. I went a bit crazy picking up what I thought were absurdly cheap FluxMongers in July. It was a convenient set circumstances of a small project graciously released at 0tz (I believe they all went to previous collectors). Those kind of mints often have very low initial floors regardless of how good the work is. A bit shortsighted if you ask me. Just take a look at evil's set of fx(hash) projects and tell me there's not tons of potential. It makes me even more excited when I see evil tweating about putting the work in to get even better! I will confess that evil's genesis, Caterpillars, is still my favorite in their catalogue. Sadly, I missed that mint and I've only managed to grab one at this time. But, I do have a lot more evil exposure via nearly all of their other projects and that's a trend I'm absolutely certain will continue.

Qotonana

Honestly, Qotonana almost didn't make this list. That's not because they aren't deserving, but because I wasn't sure if they were already past the point of being seen as an up-and-comer that this article is intended to highlight. I mean, Odyssey was just recently included in Tender's list of iconic projects! I decided to move forward with the inclusion, because marketplace data seems to indicate that the rest of the community hasn't quite picked up on how good Qotonana has gotten. This might be your last warning!

Artists Who Have My Eye

Christian Rohr

Varillas has been my favorite of Christian's current set of work. I'm happy to see Christian's steady work continue even if they haven't all hit me the way Varillas did.

Dirbots

Only two projects to talk about here, but Dirbots was making this list even before their second project, Misplaced released just earlier this week. Why? Because I love Bloc.Plan! I'm a board game nerd and I can't not think about Welcome To when I see the retro, top-down architectural views of Bloc.Plan.

NeoMent

Up until their most recent project, Choices & Tradeoffs, which is built by stark angles, just about all of NewMent's work has exploring flows. Flows are commonly used by new artists because they are just so dang pleasing no matter what you do. My own project, Adherence, was built on flows. Of their flow work, Solutions and Privacy Policy stand out to me, while other fans were quite taken by the more recent Expectations.

HappyAccidents

Ummm, have you seen HA-3? It's good....it's really, REALLY good!

UpOnlyFan

Po1nts! is a large project at 500 mints whose diverse algorithm makes that number absolutely worth it! I strongly encourage you to browse through the collection. I'm confident you'll find a very affordable piece that will connect with you....probably more than one!

Protozoo

It was way back in May when Rhythms was published and yet it still catches me every time I see a mint from that project. It's another large 500+ project and it's still holding a healthy floor at 5tz. Protozoo might have fallen off of a few radars, but they have posted some recent WIPs on twitter that have my mouth watering.