Galverse #16 - The Year of Anime!
2023 finished with an explosion of technology - ママ Mama AI came to life and Gal Profiles launched into the cosmos! The new year is going to be full of excitement as we work towards the anime release!
Welcome to the sixteenth Shinsei Galverse monthly newsletter, shooting across time & space to make the galaxy a better place! Here’s the rundown this week:
1️⃣ Our custom AI model comes to life - meet ママ Mama AI!
2️⃣ See your Gal in a stunning new light! Gal Profiles are here!
3️⃣ 2024 is going to be amazing! Let’s look to the year ahead!
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Meet our custom AI model, ママ Mama!
We released version 1.0 of our Galverse image model, ママ Mama! Trained on Ayaka Ohira’s artwork, ママ Mama lets Gal holders create infinite Galverse fanart using AI tools.
Mama captures the ‘Galverse vibe’, including Ayaka’s trademark heisei style. Gal eyes, hair, outfits and line thickness is all faithfully recreated even in this first released version!
Gal Holders can use the model as much as they like for free in our Discord. Check out the #Mama-ママ channel and type /generate to get started!
It has the features you’d expect from any modern image model including upscaling, rerolling, custom weighting commands and img2img functionality too!
The Making of ママ Mama!
We realised long ago that AI was a major unlock for the Galverse team and community. GPT helped us write mountains of metadata for the Galverse collection, and Midjourney turned our community members into concept and character designers for WAGMAA.
The obvious next step was a custom model trained on Galverse art. About a year ago, we kicked off experiments with community member and AI engineer JarvisSan.
Early results were cursed or blursed, but hidden amongst the bad results were some magical ones that could have been drawn by Director Ayaka herself.
LORA models, finely tuned image models based on a handful of images, were a breakthrough. We could quickly train datasets of 10~ images and test the results on the same day.
The results improved as we got better images from the music video production and Ayaka. We gave v1 to a handful of beta tester Gals and then released it to everyone via our custom Discord bot. Thanks again to Jarvis for his help on the model and bot!
So far, Gals have made well over 5,000 art generations! That’s incredible!
We’re not stopping at v1. As we get more images from the full anime, we’ll be testing out new versions of the model. Some of the LORAs trained on individual Gal characters look quite interesting too…
Why is she called Mama? In the world of Galverse, Dr Asuka Wagami created the ultra-intelligent AI “Mother” which eventually turned into the holy planet which exploded into thousands of Gals! Our AI isn’t quite that powerful yet, so she’s just called Mama for now!
Scroll Forever! The Gal-lery!
There’s a new way to find your forever Gal - and it’s lightyears ahead of browsing on OpenSea or Blur. Check out the Gal-lery!
For the first time since launch, all 2,200+ unique visual traits are easily searchable, along with most of our story-driven metadata as well.
The Gal-lery is also integrated with every major marketplace, so you can sort by which Gals are for sale and where. More importantly, when you click on a Gal, it takes you to her profile page…
Gal Profiles! You’re the star the story!
Every Gal now has a unique profile page that highlights their unique stories and visuals. It’s a beautifully designed artifact that develops alongside your Gal!
You can check out all the features on Devin’s profile page. Each Gal’s story, motto, unique metadata, and upgrades are featured.
There’s handy links out to marketplace pages, cosmic inventory, a snapshot feature, as well as quick shares for Twitter and Lens!
More than that, Gals can display fanart of their character in their personal gallery, as well as show off their cosmic inventory contents at the bottom of the page.
Click around and try and find all the easter eggs and features!
Contest - Galverse Legacy: Origin Story!
We're asking Gals to use their VTuber and ママ Mama AI to tell their Gal's origin story! This is the first in a series of creative competitions for Gals utilising our creator tools.
Every Gal has an origin story written in her metadata, and Team Galverse always hoped our community would take that snippet of text to the next level and expand on it with their own stories, manga, and videos. Now’s the perfect time to get started!
Grand Prize: $600 USDC
Runner Ups: 5x $100 USDC
+ Gal NFTs for special categories:
Best use of a VTuber!
Best use of ママ Mama AI!
Director’s Choice!
Social Specials!
Entries are due at the end of the January! You can check out Discord for more info and heaps of tips on using our VTuber and AI tools!
Some Gals are already sharing early works in progress…
2024 heating up! The Year of Anime!
Team Galverse took a couple of weeks away from daily operations over the end of year holidays to lay down strategy for 2024.
We’re laser focused on the anime release that’s coming up. To that end, we want to give Gals the best WAGMAA experience possible (behind the scenes + co-creation of the anime), while reaching as many potential new Galverse fans in the world too!
WAGMAA Renewed!
There's been a lot of great opportunities to contribute to the anime so far, and we're going to be working harder than ever to get you access to the studio with diverse and exciting WAGMAA assignments!
Right now, we're asking you what worked well in the past and what changes you want to see for the year of anime - let us know your thoughts in the Discord discussion!
Cosmic ID Stamps and Assignments!
On that note, the months before launch will be your last chance to fill out the WAGMAA stamps on your cosmic ID card!
There'll be incredible rewards for those who fill out all six stamps on the ID card. We're planning some cool stuff here - your name in the credits, physical rewards and memorabilia, and personalized ~stuff~ from the team!
We'll be doing our best to give everyone at least one more shot at each stamp before launch! So far, we've only given you a shot at 5 of the 6 categories - the final category, DESIGN, will be up soon! Don't miss it!
Socials Unchained!
We’ll be much more active on socials for the year ahead, and we want to amplify you! If you post anything awesome featuring Galverse and tag us in across our Instagram, X or upcoming TikTok account, we’ll be sharing it onwards.
Expect much more public facing anime content as we shift to reaching the masses of future fans, too!
Anime Update!
The Galverse OVA is officially shifting from pre-production mode into production! Late last year, the full storyboard was drafted with the final touches and fixes being made right at this moment by Director Ayaka and SoK studio.
This means the animation team will be scaling up to kick off work on the layouts and, shortly after, keyframes. Things start moving really quickly from here, and we’re looking forward to sharing more.
Hand-drawn Storyboards!
The Galverse storyboards come in at 189 pages, all hand-drawn by our storyboard artist before being checked by Director Ayaka and the animation directors in the studio.
We’ve shared a few pages, and are working on getting them to Gals… without spoiling all the twists and turns in the OVA story!
Incredible background art!
Meanwhile, Ogura Atelier is hard at work on background art for the anime. We’ve been sharing drafts and sketches of the planet Amatera and Ring’s Hideout in the Galverse holders Discord. We’re looking forward to seeing the colorized versions!
Cosmic Character Designs!
The character design process for the anime is practically complete, with polished character sheets including outlines, shadowed, and colored versions all being reviewed by Director Ayaka!
Meet the Fierce Fighter, Ring!
This week, we’ve put a focus on a main character from the OVA, Ring (リング)!
Ring is the spirited commander of the Amaterran resistance fighters, born into an unending war and torn between their duty to be a leader and their will to fight.
Ayaka puts a lot of thought into her character designs! Ring’s look is inspired by the classic 90s anime hero look complete with voluminous one-sided hair.
The torn cape appears on many fighters from Amatera. She explains that, since Amatera’s forces are poor and worn down by years of fighting, they can’t afford fancy uniforms. Cloth and rag are easy to find in the ruins of their planet, so soldiers took up the torn cape as a simple, practical unform and unifying symbol.
Ring appeared in the Galverse manga and the Tove Lo Music Video. You can check out more details about Ring in our Twitter Thread!
VToobi Relaunch - Gal Style!
We’re big fans of the folks at Voltaku who created the VToobi app! It’s the easiest way for people to get started with their Galverse VTuber, and now it’s even easier.
‘Vodcasto’ has been relaunched as ‘VToobi’ and features Zero as the default VTuber avatar alongside a whole lot of Galverse background art!
Zero is also the first full-body Galverse VTuber to appear! Most Gals are just shoulders up, like the original PFP. You can download VToobi and try out Zero for free today on the Apple App Store!
TokenBound Community Spotlight!
We were super happy to join Benny Giang from the Future Primitive team to talk all things Galverse! Benny and his team created the ERC-6551 standard that we built the Cosmic Inventory on top of.
It’s a super wide-ranging interview that covers the team coming together, the anime production, the art, the music video, our tech projects and the Cosmic Inventory.
Big thanks to Kay for translating on this one! And Ayaka’s cat Moopie!
Merry Christmas from the Gals!
It’s a little late for Christmas wishes, but we wanted to put the spotlight on Ayaka’s amazing Christmas card art (featuring Porcini the cat + a bunch of community Gals!).
Every Gal with a VTuber upgrade was airdropped three of these Christmas cards directly into their Gal’s Cosmic Inventory.
If they send it onto a friend as a gift, those friends will get access to behind-the-scenes WAGMAA in our Discord for the month of February!
Give the Gift of Gal this Holiday Season! We’ll be looking for more opportunities to show people our special holder experience in the future too.
Upcoming Event - Jinnan House!
Director Ayaka Ohira will be showing her Galverse artwork and selling Galverse merch at this upcoming event at Jinnan House in Sendagaya, Tokyo!
If you’re in Tokyo, make sure to stop by and enjoy the art, music, food and drinks! Show your support to Ayaka. The last remaining Tove Lo merch will also be on sale!
Dig Shibuya - Art Meets Technology!
Galverse joined in to celebrate with Dig Shibuya this January. A gathering of art and technology, Dig took place over a number days around the centre of Tokyo, with talks, exhibitions and events happening all over Shibuya.
There was also a treasure hunt for NFT stamps around Shibuya. Anyone who collected them all got this awesome mandala by Kazuki Takakura! We love the way Kazuki-san interpreted Zero, and we were lucky to appear among other friendly projects and artists.
Collabo time! Sloths and Potions!
Team Galverse had a few exciting art collabos with other Japanese projects lately.
First up was Sloth! This cute little creature collaborates with Japanese artists and projects across the web3 space wearing their iconic costumes in a chibi kind of way.
Next up was Zielchain, a project made in collaboration with legendary artist Yoshitaka Amano. Gals could claim a free potion NFT that will play a role in the Zielchain project in the future!
Our friends at IRI-DO also put together some a Galverse trait for their latest collection! We love Ponko-chan’s version of the Shinsei Earrings!
Looking back at 2023!
Last year was huge for Galverse. The team put in thousands of hours (and cups of coffee) to deliver a mountain of work and progress on the project. Here’s just a short list of achievements and highlights from the year just passed:
Locked in an anime studio and kicked off WAGMAA with all the Gals!
Released our first animation, our music video with Tove Lo! Over 460k views!
Entered pre-production and production on the main Galverse OVA anime!
Released custom VTubers available to every Gal!
Rebooted the Discord experience with the WAGMAA intern interviews and Cosmic ID Stamps!
Launched the Gal-lery, Profiles, the Cosmic Inventory, and Mama AI!
Celebrated our first birthday party with Lens Protocol during ETH Global in Tokyo!
Dropped the Cosmic Scramble, an intergalactic chat between many Japanese projects!
Threw an amazing Gal-loween party with FWB that was full of creative cosplay!
Released the Creative Asset Pack with everything you need to make anything Galverse!
Presented Galverse and our AI and creative tech projects to the Japanese government!
Held gallery exhibitions around Japan and the world!
Dropped our first merch with Tove Lo!
Presented Galverse on stage in Japan, France, Australia and beyond!
Most of all, we had a great time expanding and getting to know our dedicated community members better through all of the amazing launches and events above. Here’s to a great Gal 2024 together!
Gals in the Verse! Community Best!
There are so many community highlights it’s hard to keep this brief… so let’s make it long!
First up is our dear friend Betty of Deadfellaz giving us a shoutout on the TL!
Soyjoy and Twirl created the most amazing Christmas video featuring VTubers, Mama AI generations and a lot of custom animation! This is just incredible!
Ava gave us a look at Galverse in pixel style on her Miyoo Mini! Nostalgia overload!
Non-Fungible-Collector jumped into the world of VTubers! Awesome Gal!
Tanuki shared their progress on Galverse Legacy: Origin Story! The animation is awesome!
Asami has been hard at work on her Origin Story entry too. Peaceful…
Risa has been super active streaming games on Twitch using her VTuber. Tanuki even made her a thumbnail of her Gal using Mama AI!
Good morning from Benny!
If you say GM, you have to say GN too! Thanks Benny!
We love Hiroro rocking his winter wear with the awesome Tove Lo scorpion hoodie.
Meemo has been making amazing stuff with Mama AI - this was early on, she’s a real master of it now!
Ris has been dedicated too, Gal-ifying herself in all sorts of ways with Mama AI! We love the punk rock vibe.
Our friend CloutStrife transforming PFPs from other collections into Gal style! Cool idea!
Lysithea went wild with her generations on Mama AI. Amazing stuff!
Soyjoy really is a master of Mama generation by now!
Moon Cath doing great work as she always does! Midnight just works!
Ikumi showed off her awesome Gal collection with their unique profile pages!
Benny showing off Aminata’s profile page! It’s easy to share yours with the social buttons on your Gal’s profile.
Junya with a blast from the past! The Roboto x Galverse mural was painted in May 2022, and now lives in an NFT cafe in Tokyo.
Maturi jumped into the IRI-DO x Galverse collabo and was lucky to get one with a Shinsei earring! Awesome!
It was time to celebrate holiday cheer! Ayaka made these fun Galverse assets to attach to your PFPs, and Investor Boo jumped right onto it!
Moon Cath even rocked the santa beard! That’s true style.
As Jarvis rightly points out, the best way to ring in the new year is with HATS.
That’s all for this month! Join us in the Discord, check out the video for ‘I like u’, and follow us on Twitter!
