Team expansion
When I joined Terra Virtua in November 2020, there were just two people working on community marketing for the business. The platform only launched in May 2020, so for a ‘start-up’, there wasn’t the need for a big team. But that quickly changed and now, the team is up at 7 full-time team members and 4 part-time members, with more ongoing recruitment. What’s so awesome is that even though we are all remote and spread over 3 or 4 timezones, the team atmosphere is so much fun and the enthusiasm is contagious.
Plus, these guys are dedicated too! On the last few big drops we’ve had, I’ve been on video calls with a number of the team watching analytics creep up as more and more people come onto the site, watching as things have gone well, and not gone well. I’m so fortunate to have an incredible team who care as much as I do and want to be part of building Terra Virtua up.
On the agenda
One of the most frustrating things about the last few months is that we have some insane IPs and product updates on the horizon that I’m just not allowed to talk about until they land. We were even embargoed on talking about Mechagodzilla until a few hours before launch of the first ever big movie and NFT launch! I sit and read through Telegram, Discord, your replies to our social posts, and conversations outside of our digital footprint to stay on top of what our communities, users, friends and critics think about what we’re doing and I just want to jump in and say ‘it’s coming’ or ‘you won’t believe what we’ve got coming up’, so it’s a frustrating place to be.
But it’s also so exciting too! I rented Godzilla vs. Kong yesterday; it was the first thing I did when I was up and online and I blooming loved it! There was this incredible feeling watching the characters I’ve been working on for months with the rest of the team, and seeing them on the ‘big screen’. I think what many people don’t realise is that the NFTs you buy from Terra Virtua have been entirely recreated for our platform. Scale-by-scale, bolt-by-bolt, hair-by-hair.
So, while I can’t tell you about all the new stuff coming up, I can tell you about the drops we have coming up from the brands you already know about and believe me when I say that you’re in for an epic month!
Drop schedule – April 2021
Those of you tuned into our social platforms will know that as of 2 days ago, we published a drop schedule. Now, remember what I said about not being able to reference Mechagodzilla before the launch? I think it was about 30 minutes before launch I was finally able to rename all the drops from ‘Godzilla vs. Kong launch week’ to ‘Mechagodzilla week’!
Now, that gives a clue as to how we’ve organised the drops over the coming weeks, and actually, our pre-marketing activity hinted at this too as we kept asking you whether you’re team Kong or team Godzilla.
Legendary Entertainment wanted Mechagodzilla to drop first, so for the first 7 days, we’ll be dropping NFTs all focused on Mechagodzilla. We’ve got a wicked collection of 3D animated collectibles, 2D statics, 2D animated and also a 3D static figure too. And the quantities we’re releasing are nearly as insane as the NFTs themselves! Godzilla vs. Kong is a mainstream, blockbuster, Hollywood launch and so we’ve built our drops around this as we expect there to be high demand.
The second week is going to be all about Godzilla and it essentially follows the same format. 2D static & animated and 3D static and animated NFTs will be dropped once a day for 7 days. When thinking about the quantities we’re minting they go from 2,500 down to 1 of 1s, and price-wise, you’re looking at anything from $35 and up. We want everyone to be able to take part in this world-first so we’ve made the NFTs and drops accessible to all.
The third week of April will then see the incredible ape himself (can you tell I’m #TeamKong?) taking centre stage and as with the previous two weeks, we’ll be dropping Kong NFTs every single day. Aside from being a massive Kong cheerleader, I have to say that the Kong drops are my favourites as there are so many ‘extras’ to include as there are props galore that are all attached to Kong. We’ve got Jia’s Kong doll, the Scepter, the giant transporter ship, I mean, it’s like a gold mine for Kong fans and collectors alike.
Now, let’s talk about the animations and the 1 of 1s for a bit…each character has been animated with specific poses and special effects and we, just as we did for Pacific Rim The Uprising, have then split the animation up into 4 sections and these are then sold as individual NFTs. So for each character, there are 4 animations that get more impressive as we go up the sequence which means the rarity and price also increase while the total minted decreases. And then we have the 1 of 1, and boy, is it a doozy!
At the end of each character’s week, we will be holding an auction for the 1 of 1. There will be a reserve price, the auction will be blind, and the highest bidder wins. Now, we’re doing this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, these 1 of 1’s are a real collector’s item. They combine all 4 animation sequences that have been released in the previous days, and there is an extra animation that isn’t available anywhere else. I mean, I’ve not even seen these scenes, that’s how under lock and key they are!
Because our audience is a global one, we’ll be keeping the auction open to give everyone the opportunity to bid regardless of which timezone they are in. If you’ve not already subscribed to our newsletters, hop on down to the footer below and sign up as we’ll be sending an email out on the day of the auctions with further details.
Tim Cantor – Firefly
March, the month of world firsts
On March 17th we hosted a live exhibition with world-famous fine artist, Tim Cantor and his beautiful wife and muse, Amy. (For anyone who didn’t catch the exhibition you can watch it on our YouTube channel here.)
Now, this one was really special to me as I studied art, I’ve been to many an art gallery in the UK, Paris and the US, and so sitting down, face to face with a world-renowned artist was simply incredible. To say I was star struck would possibly be an understatement.
One of the best things about bringing Tim’s art to a digital platform was the pure excitement Tim had in transforming his very traditional oil paintings into digital, or rather, crypto-art. I remember him saying how he was looking at all of his paintings to see how he could transform them too, he was so excited about entering a new dimension in art.
Did someone say Anime NFTS? (Spoiler alert ahead…)
Another world-first in March was the release of Pacific Rim The Black anime NFTs, timed to the launch of the 7 episode series launch on Netflix. We had a lot of fun with this one, getting to know the new characters, the locations and idea that a Kaiju-human hybrid was even a possibility!
The assets we got from the studio were awesome and everyone was excited to create 2D animated NFTs, but there was one slight issue…we had zero references to work with in terms of how the animation worked in the series as the series wasn’t released when we began work. (This same issue goes with the Godzilla vs. Kong movie by the way!) Back to Pacific Rim The Black, our production team were asking things like ‘how does bOy transform into a Kaiju?’ ‘Do the Jaegers move in the same way as in Pacific Rim The Uprising?’ Anime is such a different style and it’s a very recognisable style that has die-hard fans across the globe so we needed to get this down just right. I think you would all agree that we’ve done just that!
An art explosion
When we dropped our first collection of artists onto the marketplace in January I don’t think anyone anticipated the appetite for crypto-art and actually, this part of our business has been one of the most active in the past few months. We’ve been simply blown away on so many levels and have a huge waitlist of artists wanting to come on board and be part of the Terra Virtua art family, which is super exciting.
That’s it for now! As always, thank you for being part of our community and joining us on this epic adventure.
Fabio Fragoso – Superhero
