Oct 23, 2021

5 min read

Columbus Omnia Luna — From Concept to Base Art

The 1st Sketch

Good morning, afternoon and evening everyone. In this article we want to share a little more background information on how our Base Art was designed and the whole thought process behind it. We recently revealed a Concept Art (unfinished) design within the Discord community, as of today the Base Art is finished.

When we started this project, we did not have a clear idea on what we were going to design yet. But one thing we were sure about, we wanted to do something that has not been done before, something original. Our goal was to create something that relates to Terra and is at the same time celebrating Terra and the wonderful community behind it.

With these thoughts in mind, Columbus Omnia Luna was born, more information on the project name can be found here.

Columbus would be the figure that is central in our NFT collection and at the same time is very close to Terra. Doing a “regular” Columbus is very boring though, we knew and know for sure that we would create all kinds of crazy attributes and traits (Hats, outfits, weapons, backgrounds, etc.) to really fit the NFT space. Starting at the drawing board, the first Concept was born.

**Image 1: Left**: *The very first Sketch / Concept Art of Columbus.* **Right**: *The same sketch with different colours to indicate possible layers / attributes*

The 2nd Goal

After deciding on what our NFT figure would look like and having a first sketch, we immediately realized this was not going to fit our main NFT utility: being viable NFT for profile picture usage.

Although the proportions are very realistic in the first sketch, the main future of Columbus and in general a profile picture was just too small: his head.
We made the decision to let go the realistic proportions to be able to put more focus on the head, and making it a perfect fit as a profile picture.

Although feeling a bit weird, we kept gradually making his head bigger until we were satisfied for it being a perfect fit as profile picture. Below the gradual enlargement of Columbus’ head, with the circle in the background as reference.

**Image 2**: The gradual enlargement of Columbus’ head to be a perfect fit as profile picture NFT

The 3rd Ph(f)a(c)se

Liking our new proportions, we further started drawing and Black & White colouring our beloved Columbus. We used a real painting of Columbus as a reference for how he should look like. Except… that after we were done, we noticed that… well… let’s say that in our opinion Columbus isn’t very photogenic. His face is very rough on the eye, and let’s be honest, the eye wants something to enjoy as well.

**Image 3**: Further worked out Columbus sketch with details

Yeah, that is more or less how his face looks like. Despite his face being quite rough, at the same time we did not want to copy Columbus’ painting. We wanted to give our own spin on the NFT Artwork, changing his looks but still being somewhat recognizable or representative of Columbus.

The third phase would be to smoothen out Columbus’ face to fit our own style and make him look less rough.

The 4th Colour

It is time to add some colour and add a first (of many) backgrounds. This way we get a better feeling on the composition before further finishing the details of the Base Art. We want Columbus to get that Renaissance colour impression, and the background to relate to Terra: the cosmos.

This was also the time to add in some more details, his hat, the COL-5 white paper / sacred document, and incorporating the Terra logo in the moon.

**Image 5**: Start of colouring the Base Art

The 5th and final Detail

You might recognize the middle Concept Art as the one that we teased in Discord. We feel that it was not clear to everyone: but this wasn’t the final form of the Base Art. We further needed to add in details: finalize the scroll, add in his hat and much more.

This was also the moment when we launched the feedback form, and some of the most provided feedback was: add text on the scroll, add in a hat, and that the Terra logo felt like it was copy pasted on the moon. Some of you also mentioned that the moon wasn’t really representative of a moon, and we agree → we adjusted the moon to look more like a moon and the Terra logo to fit the art style of Columbus.

Thank you again for all the provided feedback. Keeping this in mind and adding the more details helped us in finalizing the Base Art of Columbus.

What’s next?

This was just the Base Art, to clarify: the Base Art for us means that it is the model from where we will further design all the funky Outfits, Attributes & Traits that Columbus will get.

Some of you also provided the feedback that the art was a bit “too serious”. And yes, we understand what you mean → don’t worry, we will make sure Columbus will exceptionally fit the NFT verse in future releases.

That is why we cannot stress enough this is the Base Art / Model.

As this article is released, we already have all the other designs planned out and started drawing.

Thank you for reading and your interest in COL NFT. We are really excited to reveal our funky designs in the future, so keep an eye out for announcements :).

COL NFT Team