The problem Scrappy Squirrels solves

web3 education for all

As it stands, most people find the process of entering crypto overwhelming. Through Scrappy Squirrels, we are creating resources, tools, and guides that will help artists, developers, community managers, and entrepreneurs onboard into the web3 space. So far, we have created a generative art engine, an end-to-end technical tutorial on how to launch an NFT project, a sandbox environment to experiment with NFTs and minting, and a comic series featuring the squirrels explaining web3 jargon in laymen terms. Our future work involves conducting workshops for artists, starting a YouTube channel, and releasing material structured into easy-to-follow paths.

Creating value through a web3 model of patronship

The web2 model of fan support and patronship is broken. Through Scrappy Squirrels, we are pioneering a new model of patronship that we believe is strictly superior to current solutions (like Patreon). Our pitch is simple: we will create excellent content that will help you onboard into web3. If you like our content, consider buying one of our NFTs. By doing so, you will not only be supporting our work but also be inducted into an exclusive community of creators and entrepreneurs, and unlock roadmap perks such as hackathons, art galas, and conferences.

Creating synergy between NFTs and copyrights

Our moonshot goal is to create a decentralized narrative media entity. However, in order to be successful, we need to figure out a way to make copyrights work with the world of NFTs. We are not going to pretend like we have a solution but we are experimenting with frameworks and designs that could make this a reality.

To unerstand more about our ambitions and goals, please read our vision document

Challenges I ran into

Figuring out how generative art works

When we started out, there weren't a lot of public resources available to understand how generative art works. The few resources we could find were extremely complicated and typically involved neural networks and deep learning. We eventually figured out how to do this by layering PNGs one on top of the other. This was a good enough solution for 2D artwork.

Creating trait artwork

Creating generative art through layering required the creation of sets of trait artwork. It was important that any combination of traits combine together to form a character that wasn't visually jarring. Creating such a coherent set was a challenge from an artistic point of view and could only be solved through trial and error.

Working with Pillow Image Processing library

We encountered a roadblock while trying to layer PNG images with transparent backgrounds using the Pillow library. A deep dive into the documentation helped us make a fix that involved using correct transparency masks.

Crossing the financial barrier to entry in crypto

One of our primary goals is to get as many people as possible into web3. One large obstacle is the inability to do almost anything in web3 without having tokens to pay gas. Additionally, when working with a chain like Ethereum, doing literally anything could prove to be extremely costly. We circumvented this issue by building out sandbox apps and environments on testnets, thus allowing people to get a taste of dapps without having to deal with real money.