Galverse #4 - Secrets Revealed, VTubers, Making of Galverse and more!
Secret Project - VTubers Revealed!
We've been keeping this one under wraps, but it's time to show you behind-the-scenes of this project we've been working on for a while!
VTubers!
Wait... What's a VTuber?
A VTuber / Virtual YouTuber is simply a virtual human or influencer. Usually, it's a human behind a webcam, puppeteering their digital avatar to chat, act, perform, and generally entertain!
Imagine being able to embody your 2D Gal PFP, anywhere you use video.
We've been talking and experimenting with groups such as Hologram Labs, community members like Sally Danger in the video below, and a lot of VTubing companies in Japan to find the best way forward on this exciting project!
Check out Gal Holder Sally's handmade VTuber in the tweet above!
Just like every project the Galverse team works on, we are approaching VTubers with an 'Artist First' mentality!
At its most basic level, this means we set a very high quality bar, that reflects the care and attention Ayaka put into the original Galverse artworks.
We have been exploring options and what it means for the project, team, and community - outsourcing vs in-housing the project, whether to use automated tools or artists, and many other considerations.
At it's heart, we really believe VTubing has huge potential for the Galverse community and project at large!
This is all a work in progress. So why are sharing this now?
Well, for one, it's more fun to build this in public. We've found that the more we share with the community, the more time everyone has to think about how to play with these new ideas and technology, which generally leads to better results for all of us!
We'll keep you up to date - in the meantime, here are some small ideas we've had on how VTubers might work in the world of Galverse:
Audition your Gal for a chapter of Manga, or an episode of Anime.
Become an entertainer! Stream as your favourite Gal PFP... or become a talent manager and hire some talented people to VTube as your Gal!
Want to try out voice acting? Time to really get in character!
Re-enact scenes from the manga with your best Gal Pals, or act out the unique story of your Gal!
Bring the metaverse to life with cooperative VTubing - what would happen if your Gal met your DeadFellaz PFP or Crypto Coven Witch?
Show up to an important work meeting as your Gal PFP!
These are just a few ideas, and we're sure the community will join us in bringing many more possibilities and opportunities to life!
WAGMAMANGA!
You all know about WAGMAA - we're all gonna make an anime!
Well, in July, we launched WAGMAMANGA - we're all gonna make a manga! Now Ayaka is working full speed on the Galverse manga for Gal Holders, we have kicked off the first experiments for community input into the world of Galverse.
This month, Ayaka asked for input into four big categories:
The name of the brightest planet in the galaxy
The name of some cities on that planet
The name of a hero's companions - a robot and alien
The name of an aggressor planet and its invading forces
We've been blown away by the community reception to the first round of WAGMAMANGA! We'll be rolling out awesome new ways to gather community input and decide on winning suggestions, WAGMAMANGA quests, and rewards for Gal Holders who take part.
The Galverse anime is still underway, but making manga is a much faster process. We can test out lots of awesome ideas of how the community can get involved, very quickly, and see what's the most fun and engaging for Gal Holders!
Ayaka was very excited to announce the first winning ideas for the manga!
Tanuki came up with the name of the planet: Amatera! Inspired by the Shinto goddess of light.
lowkeyops picked the name of the robot: Dex! That's catchy.
Miss Purple suggested the name for the alien: M-Lezi! Inspired by Mlezi, the Swahili word for 'Guardian'. So cool!
Rin contributed the name for the aggressor planet: Gevurah! A mystical biblical reference that references strength and judgement.
There were even bonus winners - Ayaka loved Digi's suggestion of the planet name Lumia, and quickly renamed a main character in the story!
Manga Sneak Peek!
Speaking of Manga - the next set of pages is right around the corner. Ayaka has almost finished and will be uploading the next part of the story for Gal Holders very soon! You'll be able to find it on the MANGA section of the galverse.art website, in Japanese and English languages.
The Making of Galverse!
Ever wondered how we generated the 8,888 Gals from Ayaka's art?
We sat down with Bueno to talk through the process of creating the Shinsei Galverse art with the help of their platform.
This is a really fun article that provides a lot of behind-the-scenes insight into creating a huge collection like Galverse!
The team made sure to document the creative process, so it contains early prototypes of Ayaka's Galverse art, what the Gals looked like before generative rules were applied, and a bunch of other 'making-of' type material.
An incredible amount of work went into launching Galverse. We'd love to share more about the process with the community and other teams - feel free to jump in Discord or Twitter and suggest what you'd like to hear!
Gal Collabos!
Stay tuned to rift watch! If you listened in to Town Hall, you would have heard that the next Portal collabo is in the works.
This one might be a little more chaotic than our first exploration of the rift with our friends at The Pssssd...
We were very happy to kick off an art collaboration with our friends at Citizens of Tajigen in July!
Their artist, Nao, is a Japanese manga illustrator based in Australia. Ayaka drew the outline of a Galverse trait for their collection, and Nao colored it in the Tajigen style. We think it looks incredible!
Of course, we had to turn that Tajigen character back into a Gal. Does that mean she exists in both stories? Is this a metaverse crossover thing?!
Also in July, Gal Holders got the chance to mintlist for two other great projects. Neko Nation, an amazing Ukiyo-E styled project by Anifam member and accomplished artist Rociel, and Studio Zomi, the follow up project from the team at Tsubasa, in partnership with Anonymice Devs!
Finally, the team at Arcade Dot Inc revealed a pixel Gal coming to their game in the near future! Cool!
Gals in the News!
Our new friend Benoit put together a nice profile of the Galverse team and our aspirations. Check it out below!
However, I recently stumbled across Shinsei Galverse...
Gals IRL!
Shinsei Galverse takes the skies! We asked 10 Gal Holders to nominate their Gals to appear in the latest IRL exhibition.
This one took place in Haneda International Airport, one of the main gateways to Japan. Even cooler, Galverse was displayed alongside art from legendary studios like Studio Ghibli, and series like DragonBall!
We're looking forward to giving Gal Holders more opportunities for their Gal PFPs to appear IRL!
We're always being approached by more media, galleries, TV and more, and they always want to display a selection of awesome Shinsei Galverse PFPs!
Impromptu Gal meetup IRL in Tokyo - Ayaka, Emi, some Friends of Galverse and Gal Holders met up. Looks like a lot of fun! Let us know if you're planning Galverse meetups IRL. Thanks for sharing Asami!
Emi also made a lot of IRL appearances at Japan Blockchain Week in July, speaking on heaps of panels and sharing the good news about Galverse!
Friends of Galverse!
Friends of Galverse explodes! We welcome two new amazing Friends of Galverse from the massively popular group EXILE this month!
Mandy and Sekai both look amazing as Gals, and shared their new PFPs to their hundreds of thousands of fans! Sekai is also the first Gal to feature ombre hair - something special.
We were also super pleased to welcome Natsuko Shoji to the Galverse. She was just recently named as Asia's best female chef for 2022. An amazing, inspiring Gal!
As always, we are looking to grow the world of Galverse by inviting special friends and reaching out to more people beyond the Web3 world!
WAGMAA on the Way!
Last month, we shared our feeling that a Music Video was a great place to start for the Galverse anime - rather than just a trailer or teaser.
It lets us release something quickly, draws on Ayaka and Emi's expertise, and will help us reach an even wider audience.
Well, Team Galverse likes to move quickly. We put together a beautiful proposal deck and have been sending it out to major artists already. More updates to come!
In parallel, we are looking at ways to move WAGMAA along quicker than we planned, and are currently in discussions with some top tier advisors on next steps for the music video and main production.
Coming Soon..!
We were excited to announce an upcoming Art Matsuri (festival) on our Town Hall!
The team are currently in the planning stage for this, gathering up prizes, guest judges, and aiming for maximum reach across the web!
Expect prizes like ETH, Gals, custom merch, and special artworks made by our community members. There'll be a multitude of categories, for pros and the less artistically inclined out there, so anyone will be able to take part!
Our first special prize reveal is a custom pair of AF1 sneakers from Gal community superstar SekureD! He's been live-streaming the creation of a pair for Emi on his Twitch account.
The next pair will be for the winner of our Art Matsuri category winners, featuring their Gal! SekureD is a true creator, and has worked with massive brands like Jordan, Nike, Adidas, Lego and heaps more!
Our Favorite Fan Art!
An amazing start to Galverse fan art this week with a submission from Tony Huang! Tony reimagined his Gal as a dangerous space ninja. Check out those beam kunai!
Okay, well this one isn't really fan-art. Devin commissioned amazing 3D artist William Liu to recreate his founder PFP in 3D. William's first attempt was amazing - recreating the look of a vinyl toy in the picture above.
The Galverse team has also been investigating how to recreate an authentic anime look in 3D for an upcoming secret project, so we asked William to explore some shaders to capture that classic effect.
Check out the amazing video in the tweet below - sound on!!
We also saw a bunch of amazing webtoons, comics and manga this month! Eislyn made these awesome panels featuring shizisthis's Gal!
Our good friend USGMEN made this smallcutecat PFP based on Emi's Gal!
Mucho drew their Gal in a realistic, badass style! She looks powerful!
Tweets of the Month!
Galverse = Fashion!
Ava's nail art is awesome! Click through to see all of the amazing art!
Lovely words. I'm not crying, I swear!
Okapii put together this amazing yonkoma gag comic! We love the way they used Yuzuki's two character traits to create such a fun story. Okapii even made a second comic - check it out on their twitter!
Finally - Galverse loves Flamingo DAO! Thank you for sharing your Gals!
And that's it!
