GM

people are going to go blind looking at the sky today

yet another reason to stay indoors (forever)

Links for the Top 25 drops are HERE.

Ladies and gentlemen, he’s back

Context 

He’s back. We got our first sneak peek from Roope Rainisto’s upcoming Vacation collection (above), which is set to launch on Verse in May. 

Our take  

I’m writing this from my local Boulangerie Charme de Lune. I just told the lady sitting next to me that Roope is dropping another collection and all she gave me was a blank stare – no reaction at all. 

The poor thing hasn’t a clue, and clearly doesn’t read Mint or Skip. We’ve been talking about Roope since the newsletter began over a year ago. 

Here’s what we said about his first major collection, Life in West America, which we ranked in our Top 10 drops of 2023: 

Roope followed LIWA in April 2023 with Reworld, which didn’t quite hit the same high notes but was still a collector-favorite. Then he went on a few “side-quests”, such as Smile on Solana and an alignDRAW remix called Rainisto Variations on Verse. 

But now he’s returning to his roots with Vacation, which feels like a spiritual successor to LIWA and Reworld. Roope says this will be his main art collection of 2024, and that he’s been “labouring on this for over 6 months now”, so that’s enough for me to get hyped up. 

Anyway, back to the sneak peek above.

Roope’s signature natural landscapes and color palette are back, combined with floating ski lifts that hang like decorations on an invisible Christmas tree. 

The more you zoom in the more things start to fall apart. For example, orange jacket guy in the lower right corner has an extra set of knees that casually break in the opposite direction. 

This is Roope once again leaning into the imperfections of today’s AI generation. 

It’s fun because it’s honest. Like I said in the LIWA blurb, we’re just a few years away from always-perfect AI photography where these kinds of glitches will only show up when the artist makes the creative decision to “go back” to retro AI days. 

Today we’re in that brief window where those limitations are still there, and Roope is once again bringing that to our attention.  

Still waiting on price and supply. 

✨ Added to Top 25 ✨

NOTE: These drops are lightly curated. Our only requirement is that they have recognizable founders. As usual, DYOR. To learn more go here.

Doppelgangers by Gruff

Following big PFP success last year with Gruffters, pseudonymous digital artist Gruff is back with a new high-supply collection Doppelgangers.

It’s a mix of his recognizable gritty style and some Jack Butcher inspiration in the form of Opepen character outlines.

Market-trend purists might be especially interested, given that it’s dropping on Base and seems to lead into an upcoming Ordinals drop.

Autoscope by Erik Swahn

Following two sellouts on Verse last year (Fields and Funktor), Swedish generative artist Erik Swahn goes for a third with Autocospe.

Each piece presents a different colorful animated environment made up of pixelated and sometimes grainy geometric shapes that slowly undulate.

Kinda feels like looking at an artistic rendition of an old video game’s insides, an aesthetic with high chances of finding a crowd among generative art nerds enthusiasts.

Stained Glass by slander.eth

Another addition to Base szn comes through with this collection by pseudonymous artist slander.eth.

This will be the first generative work from slander, who gained a following last year from abstract digital releases like Synchronicity and Tesserae.

Stained Glass features a similar abstract style but more minimalistic.