Scribble Together
Pre-launch Conversation
Below is the transcript of the June 25, 2024 conversation between Plottables founder Matt Jacobson (numbersinmotion) and minimizer, and a few others, in the Plottables Discord, prior to and during the launch of Scribble Together. Minor edits have been made for clarity.
numbersinmotion Hello! I am very very excited to welcome back minimizer for a little Q&A ahead of their new project "Scribble Together" going live at 1pm ET (about one hour from now) - https://plottables.io/wavesxac521ea7a83a3bc3f9f1e09f8300a6301743fb1f/1minimizer Very happy to be back!numbersinmotion minimizer is an incredible artist and builder. And also just a great person in general ❤️Their previous work includes "Scribbled Daydreams" here on Plottables (https://plottables.io/wavesxa319c382a702682129fcbf55d514e61a16f97f9c/19)You can learn more about minimizer and their past projects at https://minimizer.art/Connect with them on twitter (https://twitter.com/minimizer_art), farcaster (https://warpcast.com/minimizer), and in their discord (https://discord.gg/zsYkNqG93c)With that said please join me in welcoming minimizer! 🎉 👏 🥳How are you feeling today? Did I miss anything with that intro?minimizer Thank you numbersinmotion! You got everything!I'm feeling great 🙂 Honestly it's been a joy to work on this project with so many talented artists and to bring it all together today.It's a "bear market" but that's just about prices 🙂 The art goes on. numbersinmotion Amen haha it's the best time to be building and pushing boundaries 🙂I was looking back at your twitter and I think the earliest mention I could find of this new project was over 4 months ago https://x.com/minimizer_art/status/1761067208577372339
Does that sound right? Is that a normal project timeline for you?minimizer Yes 🙂 that's when I first started working on this, perhaps a few days in.At the time, I already had the idea for the project and the name "Scribble Together" in my mind, but I needed to get the art built first 🙂And I knew that I wanted to experiment with "recursive scribbling" in which you draw big scribbles, and then fill them in with smaller ones.So that was what I wanted to first experiment with and what that WIP reflects.numbersinmotion Awesome - obviously there is a relationship back to "Scribbled Daydreams" right? Can you give us a general idea on what the two projects share and how they differ?minimizer Great question! I think there's something fun about scribbling that keeps drawing me back.From my first project on this theme, Infinite Scribble, to then Scribbled Daydreams and Scribble Together, I find the subject to be fun, simple and easy to relate to.And then also, there's the bonus that scribbles naturally lend themselves to plotting.Also, perhaps this is true with most generative art, but I feel it the most here, which is that there's an infinite set of ways that I can keep exploring various scribbling algorithms.For example, Scribbled Daydreams and Scribble Together follow similar styles in some cases, but because of the recursion in Scribble Together, I can create a very different feel.Also Scribble Together allows for overlaps of pens too, which also creates a different feel.numbersinmotion I love this - do you ever scribble by hand or do you leave that to the computer?minimizer I definitely do so by hand too, that was probably the biggest inspiration for Scribbled Daydreams.Also I should mention the other way the two projects differ, which is also the most important.Scribble Together is collaborative.This was really important to me, as I want to explore projects that are different structures than the most common one today, which is my code + random hash = semi-random image.I was curious.. instead of just injecting randomness, why not also try to inject other people's choices into the art?And so Scribble Together features zero palettes that I made. All my WIPs used a palette that isn't available in the project.Instead, the palettes are all by other people in this space that I respect and am very happy to work with. numbersinmotion Yeah I remember when you reached out to me months ago with this collaboration idea - I was so excited to see it happen. Surreal that we are here now.minimizer Haha yes it took a little while to put it all together.numbersinmotion So from early on the intent was to explore this idea of collaboration - can you talk a bit about how that idea evolved over the past 4 months? Was it always only palettes? Did you always know who you wanted your "collaborators" to be? Do you consider the minter to be a collaborator as well?minimizer Yes, I think the idea had been in my mind for perhaps a year before.So by the time I reached out to you it was fairly well solidified in terms of how the collaboration would workThere are effectively 3 collaborator roles:1) myself, with the scribbling algorithm2) the palette artists3) the collectorsThis is because for each piece, it's scribbles are chosen at mint and can never change.Also a palette - made by one of the 20 palette artists, who made 31 palettes in total, will be assigned to the piece.But then, the collector can choose a different palette for the piece as well. The collector can switch their piece to a different palette artist and get one of their palettes, so they have 19 other choices.So in this way, everyone contributes to making the final collection.And this is the big experiment. I could have probably finished the project a few months earlier without these components, but this is much more interesting to me, and more fun for everyone hopefully, and I think will result in a better final resulting collection. numbersinmotion I have so many questions haha but I'll keep it to one at a time.How difficult was it coordinating 20 people to create palettes?minimizer I think it was important to have the right tooling upfront, that made it a lot easier.It varied, since some people were traveling or perhaps really focused on other projects.But the interesting thing was, I really enjoyed the coordination.. it was more opportunities to talk to everyone 🙂numbersinmotion People seemed to really loves the tools you made!https://x.com/_GenArtworks_/status/1802743569087869035
https://x.com/ixnayokay/status/1801370467208675553
minimizer Yes! I figured if I get the tooling to be easy and fun, it would increase the chances that people would make palettes they're happy with. The real treat was when people asked me to make multiple palettes.Actually this is one thing that changed from my original idea.I had intended to make it one palette per person, but then a few people asked to make multiple.. and that was a bit of an adjustment, but totally worth doing.numbersinmotion You certainly have a knack for tool building - it's seriously impressive how quick you were able to put some of these things together.minimizer Thank you 🙂numbersinmotion The palette artists will be receiving a portion of the primary sales right? Can you give a general overview of how that is going to work? And was this an important part of the process for you?minimizer Yes, I felt like this was really an important part of the experiment.The way it works is that after platform fees, 25% of the primary sales go to me, and 75% go into a "palette pool".This is effectively a smart contract that will hold these primary sales while minting is open.It's also the same contract that a collector will interact with if they want to change their palette.So for a given piece, if the collector doesn't change their palette, then the primary sales from the pool for that piece are split evenly amongst all the palette creators.If for a given piece the collector does choose a different palette then the proceeds go to the creator of that palette.worthalter | POAP How much are the platform fees and how do you feel about them?minimizer The platform fees are 15%, which is 10% to Art Blocks, and then 5% to Plottables.So the way the math works in total for one mint is: 0.0169 ETH * 0.85 (the amount not to the platform) * 0.75 is what goes into the pool for each palette.In terms of how I think about platform fees, actually Plottables is the only platform I've dropped on so far, and I decided to come back 🙂I have the ability to code my own art without using a platform, so the choice was really about whether I think it's an overall benefit to the project to drop on a platform, which I think in this case it is.worthalter | POAP What are the factors that make you define sale price? Why isn't it 0.169 ETH or 0.00169 ETH?minimizer This is also a great question.I was trading off two things.On one end, I wanted the project to have lots of mints, because it's important for me to have everyone's palettes be expressed well.That would for example, argue for a free mint.On the other end, I wanted to have there be some reasonable chance to make money from the project as well for each of the palette creators, which is important because they are taking the time to create these palettes.And then in the end, I had to look at what the market is currently.So that's how I ended up with that pricing.worthalter | POAP What's the target of minted pieces for you to call this a success?minimizer I've learned not to make predictions because I'm usually wrong 🙂 But what I remember I did lay out some "success criteria" for myself:1) We all have fun2) Everyone makes some money3) Everyone feels the process was a good one for themThat felt like the right way to approach it, because it's really meant to be a fun project 🙂numbersinmotion Sorry to interrupt - just wanted to give a heads up the project will be going live in 5 minutes!minimizer if you need to step away to unpause or just get a glass of water no worries ❤️minimizer I'm ready to unpause 🙂numbersinmotion Matto - Shinkai tweeted this earlier https://x.com/MonkMatto/status/1805294803250204821
I love this idea of "malleable generative art" that they talk about here - do you see yourself making more malleable generative art in the future?minimizer I think it's a really interesting part of the design space... and blockchains really allow for this.Infinite Scribble, for example, is malleable in the sense that you can change the aspect ratio for a piece."Us" allows the owner - if the are the corresponding disciple - to mint more "Lights" and those will show up in the piece.So.. yesAlso, brb, going to unpause.numbersinmotion Go go goIntermi(nt)ssion timehttps://x.com/_GenArtworks_/status/1801340592716452104
minimizer I'm back 🙂numbersinmotion Happy minting everyone!Okay let's keep things going!minimizer I'll be chatting while I watch the mints as well 🙂numbersinmotion First of all shout out to all of the palette artists.Alex - Generative Artworks, brinkman, emaily, fingacode, genlight, Haiver, Heeey, heylinds, ixnay, Jess Hewitt, josvromans, larswander, Matto - Shinkai, mikegee, nathaniel stern, Piter Pasma, rahul iyer, Raptornews, Stephen - Generative Artworks, steviepminimizer Yes, honestly, this project is tremendously better with all of them involved.numbersinmotion Okay also if there is anyone here with a question feel free to chime in ❤️ Otherwise I'll keep things going.minimizer, want to give a brief overview of how the open edition is going to work?minimizer Yes, it's a 3 week open edition. The idea is to give people time to mint, and avoid gas issues. So it closes on July 16. And then collectors will have two more days to make any final palette change decisions.numbersinmotion So you mentioned that collectors can change their palettes - can you give us a brief step-by-step for that process?minimizer Yes 🙂 On my website there's a tool, under "Scribble Together" => "Palette Selector" which allows you to see all the possible palettes for your piece, and then on-chain, update your selection. Then, after the project closes for minting, I'll make all the changes and the art will be updated to reflect your palette choice.Raptornews So many fun choices in the palette selector.Matto - Shinkai I love Trapper Keeper, btw, so much fun and nostalgia there.Alex - Generative Artworks I switched palettes I'm a terrible person.numbersinmotion So just to be clear - the palette changes won't be reflected in the live mints until after the project closes?minimizer Yes, it's malleable, for a limited time 🙂 After that, the art is frozen like all other Art Blocks and Plottables style projects.numbersinmotion Awesome 🙂 if you see any mints come through that you want to talk about please feel free. Otherwise I wanted to ask you about you gif making endeavors over the past couple of weeks.minimizer Okay sounds good 🙂On the gifs, this project is a bit more complicated than the normal format collectors might be used to, so I had to figure out how to best communicate the project. The gifs seemed more helpful than just putting together single images with text and tweeting it.And they were a lot of fun to make too.numbersinmotion minimizer you ended up building another custom tool to create them right? I love your commitment to automation ❤️ Yes 🙂 more like scripts to help with it, because I wanted to create gifs for each palette. Also, if anyone wants me to create a gif of their mint plus all the possible palettes, let me know after this chat and I can do that 🙂numbersinmotion In the lead up to today you mentioned bear markets a few times https://x.com/minimizer_art/status/1800614995501433118
Do you think the current market influenced the project in any way? Other than pricing of course.
minimizer Perhaps it influenced my decision to do the project now versus at another time.. because I wanted to do something that was really for fun with no expectations. But otherwise, from how the project would be designed, I don't think it had much of an effect.numbersinmotion I think that is all the questions I had written down 🙂minimizer I think you deserve a break! I'll be enjoying watching the mints come throughminimizer Very happy to do this conversation 🙂 Thank you for all the questions! Also it's been great to see the mints so far!
Does that sound right? Is that a normal project timeline for you?minimizer Yes 🙂 that's when I first started working on this, perhaps a few days in.At the time, I already had the idea for the project and the name "Scribble Together" in my mind, but I needed to get the art built first 🙂And I knew that I wanted to experiment with "recursive scribbling" in which you draw big scribbles, and then fill them in with smaller ones.So that was what I wanted to first experiment with and what that WIP reflects.numbersinmotion Awesome - obviously there is a relationship back to "Scribbled Daydreams" right? Can you give us a general idea on what the two projects share and how they differ?minimizer Great question! I think there's something fun about scribbling that keeps drawing me back.From my first project on this theme, Infinite Scribble, to then Scribbled Daydreams and Scribble Together, I find the subject to be fun, simple and easy to relate to.And then also, there's the bonus that scribbles naturally lend themselves to plotting.Also, perhaps this is true with most generative art, but I feel it the most here, which is that there's an infinite set of ways that I can keep exploring various scribbling algorithms.For example, Scribbled Daydreams and Scribble Together follow similar styles in some cases, but because of the recursion in Scribble Together, I can create a very different feel.Also Scribble Together allows for overlaps of pens too, which also creates a different feel.numbersinmotion I love this - do you ever scribble by hand or do you leave that to the computer?minimizer I definitely do so by hand too, that was probably the biggest inspiration for Scribbled Daydreams.Also I should mention the other way the two projects differ, which is also the most important.Scribble Together is collaborative.This was really important to me, as I want to explore projects that are different structures than the most common one today, which is my code + random hash = semi-random image.I was curious.. instead of just injecting randomness, why not also try to inject other people's choices into the art?And so Scribble Together features zero palettes that I made. All my WIPs used a palette that isn't available in the project.Instead, the palettes are all by other people in this space that I respect and am very happy to work with. numbersinmotion Yeah I remember when you reached out to me months ago with this collaboration idea - I was so excited to see it happen. Surreal that we are here now.minimizer Haha yes it took a little while to put it all together.numbersinmotion So from early on the intent was to explore this idea of collaboration - can you talk a bit about how that idea evolved over the past 4 months? Was it always only palettes? Did you always know who you wanted your "collaborators" to be? Do you consider the minter to be a collaborator as well?minimizer Yes, I think the idea had been in my mind for perhaps a year before.So by the time I reached out to you it was fairly well solidified in terms of how the collaboration would workThere are effectively 3 collaborator roles:1) myself, with the scribbling algorithm2) the palette artists3) the collectorsThis is because for each piece, it's scribbles are chosen at mint and can never change.Also a palette - made by one of the 20 palette artists, who made 31 palettes in total, will be assigned to the piece.But then, the collector can choose a different palette for the piece as well. The collector can switch their piece to a different palette artist and get one of their palettes, so they have 19 other choices.So in this way, everyone contributes to making the final collection.https://x.com/ixnayokay/status/1801370467208675553
minimizer Yes! I figured if I get the tooling to be easy and fun, it would increase the chances that people would make palettes they're happy with. The real treat was when people asked me to make multiple palettes.Actually this is one thing that changed from my original idea.I had intended to make it one palette per person, but then a few people asked to make multiple.. and that was a bit of an adjustment, but totally worth doing.numbersinmotion You certainly have a knack for tool building - it's seriously impressive how quick you were able to put some of these things together.minimizer Thank you 🙂numbersinmotion The palette artists will be receiving a portion of the primary sales right? Can you give a general overview of how that is going to work? And was this an important part of the process for you?minimizer Yes, I felt like this was really an important part of the experiment.The way it works is that after platform fees, 25% of the primary sales go to me, and 75% go into a "palette pool".This is effectively a smart contract that will hold these primary sales while minting is open.It's also the same contract that a collector will interact with if they want to change their palette.So for a given piece, if the collector doesn't change their palette, then the primary sales from the pool for that piece are split evenly amongst all the palette creators.If for a given piece the collector does choose a different palette then the proceeds go to the creator of that palette.worthalter | POAP How much are the platform fees and how do you feel about them?minimizer The platform fees are 15%, which is 10% to Art Blocks, and then 5% to Plottables.So the way the math works in total for one mint is: 0.0169 ETH * 0.85 (the amount not to the platform) * 0.75 is what goes into the pool for each palette.In terms of how I think about platform fees, actually Plottables is the only platform I've dropped on so far, and I decided to come back 🙂I have the ability to code my own art without using a platform, so the choice was really about whether I think it's an overall benefit to the project to drop on a platform, which I think in this case it is.worthalter | POAP What are the factors that make you define sale price? Why isn't it 0.169 ETH or 0.00169 ETH?minimizer This is also a great question.I was trading off two things.On one end, I wanted the project to have lots of mints, because it's important for me to have everyone's palettes be expressed well.That would for example, argue for a free mint.On the other end, I wanted to have there be some reasonable chance to make money from the project as well for each of the palette creators, which is important because they are taking the time to create these palettes.And then in the end, I had to look at what the market is currently.So that's how I ended up with that pricing.worthalter | POAP What's the target of minted pieces for you to call this a success?minimizer I've learned not to make predictions because I'm usually wrong 🙂 But what I remember I did lay out some "success criteria" for myself:1) We all have fun2) Everyone makes some money3) Everyone feels the process was a good one for themThat felt like the right way to approach it, because it's really meant to be a fun project 🙂numbersinmotion Sorry to interrupt - just wanted to give a heads up the project will be going live in 5 minutes!minimizer if you need to step away to unpause or just get a glass of water no worries ❤️minimizer I'm ready to unpause 🙂numbersinmotion Matto - Shinkai tweeted this earlier https://x.com/MonkMatto/status/1805294803250204821 I love this idea of "malleable generative art" that they talk about here - do you see yourself making more malleable generative art in the future?minimizer I think it's a really interesting part of the design space... and blockchains really allow for this.Infinite Scribble, for example, is malleable in the sense that you can change the aspect ratio for a piece."Us" allows the owner - if the are the corresponding disciple - to mint more "Lights" and those will show up in the piece.So.. yesAlso, brb, going to unpause.numbersinmotion Go go goIntermi(nt)ssion timehttps://x.com/_GenArtworks_/status/1801340592716452104minimizer I'm back 🙂numbersinmotion Happy minting everyone!Okay let's keep things going!minimizer I'll be chatting while I watch the mints as well 🙂numbersinmotion First of all shout out to all of the palette artists.Alex - Generative Artworks, brinkman, emaily, fingacode, genlight, Haiver, Heeey, heylinds, ixnay, Jess Hewitt, josvromans, larswander, Matto - Shinkai, mikegee, nathaniel stern, Piter Pasma, rahul iyer, Raptornews, Stephen - Generative Artworks, steviepminimizer Yes, honestly, this project is tremendously better with all of them involved.numbersinmotion Okay also if there is anyone here with a question feel free to chime in ❤️ Otherwise I'll keep things going.minimizer, want to give a brief overview of how the open edition is going to work?minimizer Yes, it's a 3 week open edition. The idea is to give people time to mint, and avoid gas issues. So it closes on July 16. And then collectors will have two more days to make any final palette change decisions.numbersinmotion So you mentioned that collectors can change their palettes - can you give us a brief step-by-step for that process?minimizer Yes 🙂 On my website there's a tool, under "Scribble Together" => "Palette Selector" which allows you to see all the possible palettes for your piece, and then on-chain, update your selection. Then, after the project closes for minting, I'll make all the changes and the art will be updated to reflect your palette choice.Raptornews So many fun choices in the palette selector.Matto - Shinkai I love Trapper Keeper, btw, so much fun and nostalgia there.Alex - Generative Artworks I switched palettes I'm a terrible person.numbersinmotion So just to be clear - the palette changes won't be reflected in the live mints until after the project closes?minimizer Yes, it's malleable, for a limited time 🙂 After that, the art is frozen like all other Art Blocks and Plottables style projects.numbersinmotion Awesome 🙂 if you see any mints come through that you want to talk about please feel free. Otherwise I wanted to ask you about you gif making endeavors over the past couple of weeks.minimizer Okay sounds good 🙂On the gifs, this project is a bit more complicated than the normal format collectors might be used to, so I had to figure out how to best communicate the project. The gifs seemed more helpful than just putting together single images with text and tweeting it.And they were a lot of fun to make too.numbersinmotion minimizer you ended up building another custom tool to create them right? I love your commitment to automation ❤️ Yes 🙂 more like scripts to help with it, because I wanted to create gifs for each palette. Also, if anyone wants me to create a gif of their mint plus all the possible palettes, let me know after this chat and I can do that 🙂numbersinmotion In the lead up to today you mentioned bear markets a few times https://x.com/minimizer_art/status/1800614995501433118Do you think the current market influenced the project in any way? Other than pricing of course.
minimizer Perhaps it influenced my decision to do the project now versus at another time.. because I wanted to do something that was really for fun with no expectations. But otherwise, from how the project would be designed, I don't think it had much of an effect.numbersinmotion I think that is all the questions I had written down 🙂minimizer I think you deserve a break! I'll be enjoying watching the mints come throughminimizer Very happy to do this conversation 🙂 Thank you for all the questions! Also it's been great to see the mints so far!