Artist’s Statement on ’Right Click Save the Queen’

One of my NFT collections finally ”sold out.”

I say sold in quotes because technically it was a free mint. But people still had to go to pocket for the transaction fee – the digital equivilent of S&H, paid in Ethereum to add something to the public blockchain forever.

It’s the first time in my life I’ve sold my art to complete anonymous strangers.

I personally created everything from concept to drop, promoted it in a couple tweets and discord servers and it MINTED THE FUCK OUT – all in around 24 hours.

One of the most important ”wins” for me in my entire life. The life-changing the potential of a sold-out NFT collection is… unlimited.

Although literally anyone with an internet connection could have done it, this type of accomplishment typically takes months or planning, strategy, a budget of at least $10K, a product manager and a team of devs and artists.

Admittedly, I am uniquely positioned to be successful at this based on a lifetime of professional and personal experience. Keep that in min d if it seems like I make it look easy. Web3 is simple, but not easy. I’m at least confirming that with effort, it is absolutely possible for anyone to do what I did.

And I’m committed to leaving breadcrumbs for anyone who wishes to embark upon the Web3 journey. Be it in your spare time or “full-time.”

Here’s how I did it:

Tech Stack (you can use a cell phone for all of this):

• Any web2 server with Cpanel access
• Midjourney AI
• Procreate
• Elementor Pro and Revolution slider
• Twitter
• Discord
• IPad Pro with a pencil
• AutoMinter Pro
• Ethereum blockchain

1. Registered the web2 domain savethequeen.xyz and set up WordPress hosting on my server.

I own an agency, Q Creative Concepts and resell web2 hosting and domains. I’m transitioning into web3 consulting services. So I was able to register the web2 domain, set up wordpress hosting and create a one-page site for the collection in a matter of minutes. I’m also a web designer and have access to a lot of professional software I use for my agency clients.

This was easy for me to do but anyone can do this with any of the major site builder / hosting solutions out there. I personally love Shopify now. Looks fly af, works great.

2. Next I spun up the concept art of Queen Elizabeth II using a GAN bot created by Midjourney AI available only in beta in Discord (ver. 3).

I pay for the pro version of this as well but they give you free credits to start or you can used it in my Based Plants Discord server for free. Here’s a primer to get started using the commands and prompts: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13c8Ci-8kU2PVZu6DKghlhOOrbf4kmtc9xxCJAnPqvC0/

I selected my favorites, upscaled them and brought them into Procreate on my iPad Pro.

I imported the concept art from MidJourney into a single Procreate file, hand drew eclectic and glitchy borders and tested out the layers.

Once I was happy with all of them, I uploaded the layers to AutoMinter to preview. It cost me $95.95 to add the collection to the blockchain. Gas was high but I needed to seize the moment.

I have the pro version of Autominter (bought the NFT to get access) and used it to keep the mint function inside of my web2 page. I think that’s important. My other collections have you leave the page to mint but I can upgrade that now.

Finally, I spread the word and tried to sleep.

I published a few tweets and spread the word in my Solon discord. A few of my peers minted a bunch, but most of them were minted by strangers. None of them by ”friends” from my real life. And that’s OK.

It was exhilarating. I haven’t felt that kind of rush since publishing the Hollywood Gazette on the night we would go to press and the morning/week after.

Check it out: SaveTheQueen.xyz

Right Click Save the Queen Gets Canceled

I don’t usually post on the zuckerberg platform anymore. It’s like a mishmosh of dead friends, judgy relatives, live Karens and photo archives. But I was active over there once upon a time, and pretty jazzed about the drop so I shared about the Queens.

In no time, my ”friends” came for me as a white supremacist colonizer.

A professional photographer voiced their concern about selling art that MidJourney spun up that looks similar to famous photographs. As far as I understand AI art copyright law is on my side. For now at least.

I’m an American who only began to admire Queen Elizabeth II in the past few years as I immersed myself in current events. She was a magnanimous woman who did the absolute best given her circumstances.

As far as copyright and IP rights, do whatever you want with your Queens. They’re yours to hold or sell. I get a 5% commission on future resales. And that’s the only real royalty that matters to me.

Four have sold already at the time of this post which is just astonishing to me. About 12% are listed on secondary markets for sale. This person is willing to let theirs go for no less than $55,000 USD.

It’s interesting to me that ”strangers” in my Discord and Twitter communities were far more supportive than any of my IRL friends and family. I can only imagine this is partly due to the FUD around crypto right now in general coupled with the rising popularity of not bothering to think for oneself.

While this is disappointing, I feel fortunate to have oopsied into a self-igniting PR / engagement strategy.

It’s pretty astonishing to me what it takes to gain an ounce of confidence in youself and how quickly it seems to evaporate with one shitty comment. Like selling out a collection in under 24 hours is a BIG FUCKING DEAL. And only a handful of people in the world who know me actually know what it even means. Yet, still I question whether or not I have what it takes.

I’ve always been tenacious and never dreamt of giving up even if I have to : :dramatic gasp: get a real job. My old career crumbled in 2020. So I’m happy to have found a new passion but it’s been mostly an investment and little return.

It’s a career choice I quietly embarked upon ”full-time” whatever that means — in late Feb. 2022.

Start here if you’re interested free resources to learn web3 shor.by/Web3 but only if you to have a strong support system and the resolve to fail a lot and continue.

My wife couldn’t even speak to me about NFTs like 6 months ago. She was down bad on an Ethereum investment and had it locked up and feels it was a stupid investment. I say time will tell.