TIGERBOB GENESIS

2022

Project Summary

The Tigerbob brand initiated with the sale of the Tigerbob Genesis digital collectible art work in May 2022. The intention of this work was to introduce the Tigerbob brand’s IP, namely the pixel tiger head. The artwork is a series of 1,000 square pixel digital illustrations showing variations of the Tigerbob pixel tiger head. Customers who purchased Tigerbob Genesis received the digital art in the form of an NFT, or digital collectible. 

This format, popularized by the Cryptopunks project (2017), allowed for brands to introduce their character, story, or other IP and build community around the work. These projects include anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 variations of a character, usually generated algorithmically from a series of individual drawings. This optimized the artwork as social indicators for personal branding, community membership, or cultural affinity. 

By using this format, I was able to introduce Tigerbob as the umbrella for my projects and processes, and provide a new name to the community of fans around my work. 

Background

Between 2019 and 2021, I fell in love drawing a specific tiger design for my tattoo practice. It became so familiar that fans came to me to get one of my tigers tattooed on them. 

I knew I wanted to scale up my artwork by creating a fashion brand. Pixel art made sense because I intended to focus on knitwear. Tigerbob Genesis was designed in the months I began working with the knitting machine - the knitting process informed part of the design.

The pixel art became the static and most iconic image of my character, Tigerbob. Tigerbob Genesis was my first introduction to the Tigerbob character. 

For the NFT project, I wanted to explore color palettes, variations of the Tigerbob characters, and other objects in the world of Tigerbob. I assembled all 1,000 Tigerbob Genesis NFTs myself, from over 1,000 hand-drawn pixel drawings. This helped me reflect on the character and gave me design ideas for future projects.

Further Reading

ABOUT - Learn more about the Tigerbob brand and the history and purpose of the Tigerbob motif.

MADE-TO-ORDER - Information about the made-to-order fashion line produced by Tailored Industry.

MACHINE KNITTING - My background and purpose for using this process in my work.