This week’s Gazette is a nod to the Genuine Undead’s mysterious founder—seen here selflessly donating the mint 3 PFP, NATURE. 

The past week saw the sudden rise of the Genuine Undead–a PFP project excellently executed in pixel art–through its community’s undying efforts. We had the opportunity to interact with the team and their followers on various occasions on Twitter spaces, and we have to say that they are an exciting bunch with likely great things to come. We would also like to point out that our article which was earlier published gave alpha to our readers on this prospective project built with a strong community. Lo and behold a few weeks later they are pumping. Did you mint one anon? 

We huddled for the Gazette cover discussion to form a concept on how to depict the donation of their legendary PFP Nature to the community wallet. After some ideas were thrown around we fixated on a concept to show the founder in an underground laboratory where the GUs are created. In a large glass capsule you see Nature floating, and in the surrounding are several monitors showing the different legendary and rare PFPs. After a brief moment of thought, the founder bids goodbye to the Nature, and the GU immediately is transferred to all holders, depicted by the changing of PFPs across all screens. This transfer and pump coincide with the spaces where our founder Redlioneye joined to chat with their team. It’s a historic moment for PFP projects and of course, will play a critical role in the trajectory of the GUs future growth. 

Once the sketch was agreed upon by the team, I set on to try the photo bashing technique, but immediately scrapped it as we thought painting it would be more appropriate stylistically. Following this decision was one of the most nerve-wracking sessions of painting in a long while. We spent long hours trying to perfect the artwork and its several aspects. After many, many hours of sweating over the drawing tablet, we had the artwork ready, partially. 

The artwork was then handed over to Dudly who added the magic that was needed to bring the cover artwork to life or to make it absolutely undead in the most sickest way possible. The smoke effects, the transition of Nature, the switching of PFPs, lighting, and the mixing of a bad-ass beat to pump it all to the finish line. We also added a small frame-by-frame animation showing the founder embracing the capsule right before Nature transfers.

Overall, we are extremely proud of the results we have, given the kind of deadline we work with on these cover artworks for the Redlion Gazettes. And as we earlier said,“In the depths of a secret lair, a furtive founder forges 10,000 faces… and sacrifices his own for the greater good. Dead men tell no tales…. the only evidence is Gazette #109”