thoughts behind girlonline
thoughts behind girlonline
i. introduction ♡
i will be talking about girlonline, which is a project that i, (ina) have created.. it is my first large generative collection. i feel proud of this project and i really like how it’s turned out. so i will be going into the details on the creative process, inspirations, and thoughts i had throughout working on it.. ♡
to start off this blog post- if i could describe this project in a few words.. they would be .. girlish, eye candy, pearlescent, cotton-candied, ribbons, bows, powder pink, milky, angels, bunnies, & plush ♡
ii. genesis of the project ♡
the idea for this project sparked from seeing cute illustrations while browsing; mainly of cute girls and anime girls on the computer, and i wanted to make a cute large scale PFP for people to use at some point. just because it’s cute but also to signify they’re a cute girl whilst online. i think it’s very easy and tempting for people to make art or projects inspired by online aesthetics that are shown in a weird or edgy light, showcasing the downsides to being a girl online … there is nothing wrong with those because i do find them interesting and enjoyable too .. but i think with girlonline, those concepts are not the forefront- the approach is to display being a girl online beautifully and softly; digital girls adorned in beautiful clothing, and styles… dreamlike and unreal cuteness that we want to embody! the way we all felt like when playing our glamorous little dress up games and roleplay model games on a plethora of highly saturated and glittery sites littered with imvu, makeup product or weight loss pop up ads. it was so fun though!
just a girl online !
the main thing for the collection is that i wanted it to be beautiful, have a cohesive colour palette and appear very soft.. i wanted it to be completely visual candy.. well actually- a lot of the colours used are inspired by candy, it’s sickly sweet and pastel for a reason. ribbons and bows everywhere, sparkles, cute little bunnies, kaomoji overlays, love letters, powder pink plushies, whip cream and cakes, overly blushed cheeks.. EVERYTHING has to be beautiful and feminine.. because i love prettiness and softness and that’s the best part about making art for me.. everything in a girl’s life has to be beautiful if we can control it.. but sometimes it isn’t always.. but we sure do try .. ♡
i would say that the genesis of this project are my bisou collections, Bisou Bijouterie & Bisou Dolls. they are supposed to be cute digital collectibles, but also for people to have something sweet and girly so that they can show off the fact they’re a cute girl online..
Bijouterie is my collection for my love of fumos / plush dolls.. and Bisou Dolls is for my love of dolls and dress up games.. but it’s debatable that they are not extremely suitable as a pfp, more a rare digital collectible… so now i hope girlonline will provide something for a lot of people to wear n feel cute forever on your profile.. all while still honouring the originals ♡
girlonline is my biggest collection, and because of that there is a HUGE variety of traits n different yet cohesive style combinations.. i can picture people minting a few and being very happy with what they got and exploring the different combinations.. and then in the future, people scrolling through them all and finding new ones that they resonate with.
iii. inspirations ♡
i collected a lot of my inspiration by browsing online aesthetics, styles, / ‘cores’ and compiled a collection of images showcasing a variety .. kawaii, anime, lolita, gyaru, angelic, gothic, moe, coquette, jirai, fairy, & cultparty kei, OS-tans, emo.. a bunch of cores; nurse, web, cyber, doll, scene, maid, etc etc,, there are too many to list.. and some feel kind of like an umbrella term to other styles.. although there is a type of beauty in the way hyper online individuals turn every possible word into a core. typically it’s mocked for the ridiculousness of it all, and people’s need to hyper categorize themselves online; but i think i find it silly and amusing.
although most of these styles are inspired by older aesthetics, they still feel distinctively new.. and the hyper fast trend cycle of social media nowadays makes me think that these looks captured in the collection will kind of be like a little time capsule of this current time period.. your girlonline will have a little coquette deer and a ‘digital angel’ babydoll top and it will last on the blockchain forever whether you like it or not !!
i ended up compiling plenty of different traits representing the variety of aesthetics for each category… APPROX. 150 hairstyles, 135 clothing pieces, 70 hats / hair accessories, 20 facial accessories, 45 neck items, 50 trinkets.. and then a plethora of other traits to make up the girl online.. eyes, mouth, skin, background, overlay, etc..
while thinking of traits i was exploring tumblr, instagram, pinterest.. old and new boards i had made and also sought out styles that i’m not super into as well.. i also thought about things and clothing my friends like especially.
i think the type of people who would be exploring this side of the internet might be niche in the world of people interested in NFTs at this moment.. but i think it’s funny for people who get it, to get it. and for people who don’t get it to end up liking it anyways because everyone turns into a girlonline when they wear a girlonline.
in terms of NFTs for inspiration, i of course wanted to expand on my first collections; Bisou Dolls which included different ‘classes’ to account for different aesthetics since they were curated and dressed by hand instead of randomly generated.. such as cute, dark, nurse, scene, kogal, prep, sweet, etc.. this concept took inspiration from Milady Maker’s cores which included things like hypebeast, lolita, harajuku- which now, many NFTs take inspiration from such as Oekaki Maker with aesthetic cores such as otaku, cute, and more. HOWEVER, despite being inspired by all the different aesthetics present in these projects.. girlonline is not restricted by different aesthetic or style classes.. it was going to be- but i decided that i wanted to allow a bunch of different combinations to occur, and it created a sort of pastel amalgamation of it’s own curated aesthetic.
secondly... i want to touch on a core memory one of my friends and i had when we were about about 16 or 17. we’d text back and fourth about changing our style and being completely unable to stick to an aesthetic, it was really funny looking back on it how stressed we were about this.. sometimes you just don’t want to pick one thing, everything is changing so fast all the time we want to experiment with our clothes and style and just have fun.. so each girlonline is not restricted, almost all trait combos have an opportunity to occur .. it’s just determined by me if that generated girl will go thru to the final girls to be minted.. but i can’t lie i have a small collection of weird girls who did not go thru that i keep on my computer so they don’t ‘die’ in the void.. they’re still special to me ^_^..
iv. visual aesthetics & process ♡
each girlonline features about 14 different components (sometimes more).. skin, eyes, eye shadow, mouth, neck item, hairstyle, outfit, head item, face accessories, desk, computer, computer sticker, trinket, background, overlay, etc.
i got ideas for different kinds of eyes and mouths (expressions) from popular images, digital artists styles, and avis online.. the different eyes and mouths make each girl look different and unique with plenty of expression combinations.. each eye has a special eye shadow which might just be a dark shadow to emphasize the eye, or aegyo sal because i find it cute. it was tempting to have only 1 general eye shape, however i ended up deciding that i want a variety of different faces, each girl is different and i want people to feel that theirs is special.. regardless of not having a consistent iconic base face. from the PFP view; i think girlonlines will be recognizable based on the pose of the girl and the distinctive style and colour palette; and of course the rendering of the image.
there are lots of unique hair styles as well as including singular hairs with different colour options inspired by dress up games or piccrews. there are a variety of different hairs ranging from just cute styles but also hairs inspired by cosplay wigs from different characters beloved by girls online (ie. saya, konata, iya, yotsuba hairs). facial accessories.. bandaids, yami kawaii aesthetics.. different eye patches, cheek gauze.. and also different cute glasses styles as well. head items include different hats, clips… but also decorative head pieces, headphones, lolita headbands. the trinkets feature cutesy old tech and toys… such as idog, tamagotchis, wappy dog, and chao’s in cute palettes..
one of my favourite components are the overlays .. including inspired text and visuals from popular spiritual instagram accounts, affirmation accounts, weirdcore art edit overlays, humtwt meme quotes, and just cute hearts and picsart aesthetic overlays to blend the image together.
regarding the process of the NFT… it was actually a little bit more difficult to conceptualize compared to my past projects of course, since this project was going to be randomly generated and i was worried about how the different combinations would look.. but mainly since many traits have two components such as the eyes.. the eyes have the actual eye but also another trait underneath for the shadow which cannot be attached to the same layer. same for many of the hair styles as well. also, the different combinations regarding clothing items vs. neck items clashing / layering strange was a huge concern.. so a very very small amount of combos had to be restricted .. however some interesting combinations were left in due to me finding them cool looking anyways despite maybe the physics not working IRL.. (─‿‿─)
v. final results ♡
the final results of girlonline consists approx. 2k nfts, approx. 26 1/1s by ina, and a few special guest artists and friend 1/1s.. each randomly generated nft was hand selected with a few criteria… cute facial combination, and appealing colour palette (when drawing the hair and clothing traits, colours and saturation were taken into account during the drawing process so there would be minimal clashing thus less restrictions on combinations).
my hopes are for each girlonline to feel special and beautiful.. to me, no girlonline is just meh.. ones that were meh or clashing were simply not selected. and when i say ‘meh’ i dont mean that the girl had just more plain traits.. because i also did want to include some girls who were less ‘dolled up’ .. not every girl dresses that way! but of course she is still super cute. i want each girl that is minted to feel special and rare .. interesting combination, appealing.. and perfect as a PFP.
vi. conclusion ♡
my goal with girlonline is that people will love them, and resonate with them.. surely if you’re on this side of the internet you probably grew up / were raised online through your computer .. playing games.. browsing.. making friends, whatever.. being a girl on the internet is different.. i can’t speak on anything else but being a girl on the internet really felt magical. i remember when i was SUPER young i just used the painting programs on the family computer, throwing random pixels all over the screen trying to make something cool or beautiful. growing up, and eventually being able to browse the internet and go on sites like girlsgogames.. enjoying copies of my favourite DS pet and cooking games.. spa, dress up and makeover games.. then mmos and virtual worlds like club penguin- all of the bright pink and glittery pngs flashing all over the screen made us feel like we were in a different world when we were on the computer ! anyways, even if you grew up on the internet, and feel more distanced from this now vast and sometimes scary place it has become, i want girlonline to be a little slice, a little time capsule of a sweet and enjoyable time, and of course feel like you can resonate with what you randomly pull, and for everyone who enjoys girlonline to be able to connect with each other because of what it stands for and the inspiration behind it, starting with the indirect girlish community of the digital world when we were young. and anyone else who did not experience it, i hope that this collection feels like a little peak into this experience so many of us share and feel fondness towards.
thank you so much for reading this little blog and allowing me to explain my thoughts and inspirations about this little project of mine… it will release at a perfect time.. and erm lastly; never forget… i love you all so much (❁´◡`❁)ꕤ
much love,
ina ♡