xo.chocolamb
Brokkr : Master Blacksmith
A couple months ago a friend in the crypto and NFT space reached out to me after my wife mentioned I do art again. You know what, most of my work is by word of mouth and referrals. I think in that way I have a wonderful plan to unite such concepts with what I am currently doing, more on that later though.
Brokkr Finance, a simplified defi investing company, and they needed an artist to do a collection of hand drawn scenes of the character Brokkr. Brokkr is one of the two dwarfs that helped create Miljonir, Thor's hammer. They also created a golden boar that could be ridden across the universe and had bright light hair made of gold. Many more weapons were crafted, but the concept changed a few times.
First, it was Brokkr making the weapons, but because Brokkr was collaborating with TerraLuna, it needed to incorporate terraforming planets in it. You can see the first two concepts here, First one was playful cartoon style and the second was more digital and shimmery gritty.
*Here I used Procreate on the Ipad Pro 2021, which is only important to know for the fact that later I would be utilizing the 3D feature in Procreate to develop my final exports.
They wanted something like Magic the gathering quality on each one, but that would be way too difficult in the one month time spent given. Reminds me so very much of my last project making a card game, gosh, I hope this isn't a long trend.
I started with a sketch and then kind of filled it in with colors. The rendering was more organic. The idea was to have Brokkr, hammering away at Mjolnir. In mythology, Loki morphs himself into a fly and bites Brokkr. The handle ends up being short because of it, but some would say it is the reason Mjolnir acts like a boomerang and returns.
In the end, this didn't feel like something modern or fresh for the current NFT trend. Trends in this space move faster than anything I've been a part of before.
In the second drawing, I went more green at their request. Their brand is based on neon green and pale yellow with fill colors of black and whites. The same concept of Brokky hammering at Mjolnir. This time I went heavier on proportion control and clean linework. Also, the terraforming idea was implemented in 1/3 of the painting. I used Procreate for this and used a technique I created for my previous project of mine, Fragmentz the card game.
The idea of creating 30-40 of these #NFTs within a thirty-day stretch, you can now see that it would be quite ridiculous and may leave me incapable to draw for weeks. The hammer he was using to make Mjolnir was oversized and obnoxious. I can't say I didn't like this one, but I felt they wanted something more PFP style. (Profile Picture)
My clients wanted something that represented the weapons and was simpler. So, just a weapon would do and maybe I could utilize some new tech.
When I say new tech, I mean the Oculus Quest 2. This beautiful unique VR system has changed the game for everything. Now"Metaverse" will not be the top brand for sure, but they will run the gambit for a long bit.
Graphics need a few more years of work and the interaction in the metaverse needs improvement, mainly safety and sound I think. For the most part, this is so fantastic, I pretty much preach it to everyone.
The sword to the right is Mistilteinn easily named after "Mistel toe" for its shape. I didn't want a couple of red balls dangling from the sword, so I reimagined red fuel exhausts and left that for a heat attack. Also, I made the end of it a spear so that when thrown, the exhaust act as jets to guide the Mistilteinn to its destination. A very powerful and cool weapon, super under-rated.
Probably my all-time favorite sword is Tyrfing. It is this sword that is cursed and magical. It was said that each time it was drawn from its planet core, it must kill a king. ( My interpretation of it but, if you want a more accurate story, click on the names of each sword. )
I made this sword have three projectile missiles launching from the center of the blade. able to spin and rotate its mechanism to fire and retract back to a smooth blade, makes this one beastly sword.
(The cool thing about creating objects in VR, is that once the object is complete, you can duplicate it as many times as possible and rearrange them in multiple positions. Makes life that much easier.)
The first weapon I decided to craft in #GravitySketch on the Oculus Quest 2. I imagined a jet blade, one that would thrust in great power once swung at its foe. The theme had to mainly be shades of green since Brokkr's branding was that. You can see in the video below the final .obj files that I colored in Procreate. Hrotti, the sword above has a navigation system, jet propulsion, and charged green mercury blade and yet still requires a life when drawn from its case.
Since my limited skills in VR couldn't produce the desired results, I was left to fill in color and effects in Procreate. Absolutely fine with me, but for people wanting the .obj file with all textures and colors, well they will be quite disappointed.
The animation to the left was created in Mental Canvas I believe. I may have made it in Adobe After Effects as I do with most animations.
Below, I placed a few of my favorite weapons of the collection. Mjolnir, Thor's hammer is the lightning-charged battle hammer that Thor himself holds in the picture just to the right. Hofud is a great sword because it can call upon the Bifröst or Bilröst, a rainbow road that connects the nine realms. It wasn't easy thinking of a futuristic and stylistic weapon that is named for its "head" shaped blade tip. I was startled as I began to imagine it "ridiculous".
Gullinbursti, the golden boar made to be glorious with immense light and the ability to travel anywhere. I enhanced it of course, to more of a tank-like ship. Ridill is a sword with double edges and a golden handle. It was said to have torn out the heart of a dragon called Fafnir.
This entire project could have been drawn in Procreate, but I wanted to learn VR and 3D modeling and using the Oculus Quest 2 made my life pretty easy. Now that I know how to design in VR, the possibilities are endless on what I can do.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to DM me or email me.
