Interview with Artgerm: The artists who collaborated with DC and Marvel are here, a journey of collision between traditional art and NFT

Stanley Lau is known as Artgerm in the art world and is a digital artist in the entertainment industry.

On April 19th, we are very honored to be able to invite Stanley Lau (Artgerm) as a guest in the Whale community to chat with you about the journey of millions of fans of traditional artists~

Stanley Lau (Artgerm): Stanley is an illustrator, designer, concept artist, creative director, and co-founder of Imaginary Friends Studios. Imaginary Friends Studios is a world-renowned digital art studio that produces high-quality works of art for entertainment and game industry giants such as Capcom, DC Comics, and Marvel Comics.

1.Question：okay, firstly, pls @Stanley Lau give us a brief intro about yourself~

Answer：Hello everyone, my name is Stanley Lau (刘丕政), I’m known as Artgerm in the art community. I’m a digital artist in the entertainment industry. I’ve been doing art commercially for the past 20 years and I’m working with many great entertainment clients such as DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Capcom, Valve, Riot Games and many more. I was born in HongKong and moved to Singapore at the age of 17. Currently I’m also running a 12 months diploma course of digital art in Singapore with students from all over the world. My school is awarded as one of the top 10 digital art school internationally.

2.Question：How do you get to know NFT in the first place and how do you decide to get into this field?@Stanley Lau

Answer：I was introduced to NFT in early 2021 through my art buddy. Since then we’ve been talking about it everyday and observe the NFT space very closely. We are very excited about the idea of NFT cos this is the first time digital artist can offer something “original” to the collectors and bring additional values to the digital creations, which was not possible in the past. We see NFT as a new form of economy for artists, even though we still have many questions about its current structure.

However as an art educator, I believe that it’s my responsibility to learn more about NFT by getting into it so that I can offer better understanding and advice to my students, including my fans and followers.

3.Question : As an influencer and well-know artist, what’s the advantages you have compared to others both crypto-native and traditional ones? Are there any problems you encounter when first entering ? @Stanley Lau

Answer：At the moment, the NFT space seems to be quite different from the art world I came from. I see many crypto art that may not do very well in the traditional art market but is doing extremely well in the NFT market, and vice versa. It’s quite surprising to see. Maybe NFT is still too new to the general art community for now and I do expect things to be normalised eventually, so artists with better art and greater social media followings should do better in the NFT space.

4.Question：How do you respond to Beeple’s artwork hit $69,346,250, Nycat’s first drop hit $656,100, xcopy’s Death Dip hit $2,187,000? Would you regard this as a bubble ?

Answer：What Beeple and the rest of them has accomplished is mind-boggling. I’m happy to know that collectors see such a high value in their art, however I’m unsure if such value is sustainable in the long run. From my perspective, I do see such phenomenon as temporary and it will only apply to a very very small group of artists, so most of us will not see such big transactions in our art

5.Question：With the NFT boom, more and more ppl are driven to this field. Some artists or musicians are saying that “ Artists are supposed to focus on the art itself and leave the social media and also NFT assets integration for a third party like a curator.” What’s your perspective towards that? @Stanley Lau

Answer：As an artist working in the industry for decades, I think managing my social media (Marketing) is just as important as making art. Personally I don’t use any art agent or art curator for my hand-painted work as I prefer to connect with my collectors directly. I enjoy that “personal touch” and I think my collectors appreciate it too. Therefore I will choose to be more personally involved with my 1:1 edition NFT art. However I think it is reasonable to let the third party curator to manage my NFT assets if they are open editions or selling in big quantities.

6.Question：For crypto-native artists and traditional well-known artists, who would you think will dominate the market eventually? @Stanley Lau

Answer：Just like the traditional art world, artists with better art, bigger fanbase and stronger emotional engagement with their audience will do better in the crypto art market.

7.Question：Your art is well-known for imbedding with a strong sense of aesthetics & visual fluidity and also a blend of eastern and western art styles. How do you think it will implement the market? With a lack of oriental art piece in the market, how do you think Asian artists should get involved and get compatible ?

Answer：Riding on with my previous answer, I think artists should incorporate their own cultural influences into their work and make it visually unique and interesting to collect. What makes my art successful is the “international appeal”, the sense of aesthetics that both eastern and western audience can enjoy and relate to. It’s also important for the “old school” artists to consider learning new technology, such as 3D, VR and motion graphics and integrate them into the crypto art space.

8.Question：when we mention the "postioning " of artist himself. Is there any advice you wanna recommend if a beginner wants to be an artist ? What’s your awakening moment as an artist?

Answer：I believe that good art is built on good art foundation. A new artist should focus on the art fundamentals and learn to build his fanbase early, and continue to find his own voice in the art community with his unique art style.

I think so, eventually. For now it can be a little different for the outsiders to buy NFT. But I see more platforms offering direct credit card payment so that will make things easier.

But it will take a while for traditional art collectors to see the collecting value on digital art.

9.Question：Let's led it to the next question: Which artist you admire the most both in NFT realm and non-NFT ream? Why?

Answer：At the moment, I think I’m too new in the NFT realm to find my NFT “Idols”. However I do think artists such as Beeple and CryptoPunk set a great example that the NFT space welcomes all form of art, which is very encouraging to all artists.

10.Question：Alright, the last quesrion from me:We’d heard you are ready to drop your own very first NFT drop, could you pls share

more info about it? (topic/background,etc.)

Answer：Yes I’m planning to drop my first single edition NFT art on Foundation this week. It’s a very personal piece featuring my own original character, Pepper. It is an abstract visualisation of the NFT minting process that represent an entry point in my crypto art journey. I’m also planning to set aside a big % of my NFT earnings to establish an Artgerm Scholarship so that I can sponsor young and talented artists to my school and learn art with me in Singapore.