Guardian Demons

2020 was a crazy year. We collectively endured the COVID19 pandemic, and the digital art world was taken over by NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens) — or basically art that you could purchase on the blockchain.

I was inspired by the Hashmasks NFT project — a collboration of several artists on a generative art project that included simple portraits, randomly composed from many different styles.

I had completed the first set of my linocut project "You Are Not Dead, Yet" and was deciding if I should continue more skulls, or try another halloween-esque theme that I had been exploring.

On a mountaineering trip to Ecuador I became fascinated with the Tigua masks, and loved the idea behind the depictions of demons and monsters in their masks. Much like the gargoyles on gothic cathedrals, the grotesque images of monsters, demons or devils was not to depict evil, but rather to match its energy and scare evil away.

The concept was to create a playful "demon machine" that would generate an unlimited numer of whimsical demons that would protect you from evil.

A proof of concept came together pretty quickly, but the project itself was a signifcant undertaking. Over 400 individual illustrations, along with generative code and dynamic color programming brough the project to life.

It was fun. I sold hundreds of NFTs and prints, and still have the generator that I play with once in a while for fun.

In this book, I'm sharing a selection demons, and examples of the illust...