Takashi Murakami x RTFKT Studios Avatar NFT Project

The virtual fashion collective RTFKT Studios has made no secret of its ambition to bring a ‘hype’ sensibility to the NFT world. In January, when HYPEBEAST covered their first step into virtual fashion, they described themselves as a “new age Supreme, for a digital audience”, and laid out their ambitious plans for a number of high-profile collaborators during this year.

So far, it has included sales of virtual sneakers with designer Jeff Staple and crypto artist Fewocious, which raised $ 3.1 million. USD in seven minutes. But today, the brand has unveiled its most honored collaborator to date: the Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, who has teamed up with RTFKT on a large-scale crypto-art project to be launched in November.

The two work together on a series of ‘Avatars’: that is, 20,000 digitally generated 3-D characters, each with a randomized selection of pre-designed features. Murakami has contributed designs to eyes, mouths, helmets, clothes and ‘features’ of the characters that incorporate signature elements from his well-established, cartoon-like aesthetic.

The project is a clear tribute to the CryptoPunks series, developed by Larva Labs as one of the earliest NFT projects in 2017. As with the original work, the randomized creation of characters will result in some ‘rare’ combinations of features – which, RTFKT hopes , that they will become future collectibles (as a point of reference, the rarest CryptoPunks characters have sold for over $ 7.5 million each – and one was even at the center of an alleged half-billion-dollar advertising stunt earlier in the week.)

Unlike CryptoPunks, however, RTFKT’s avatars will be fully 3D-rigged models, meaning their owners could easily use them as AR filters on camera, in Zoom meetings or in games.

A logo lockup for RTFKT x Murakami.Rtfkt Studios

Murakami himself is no stranger to cross-cultural collaboration: Apart from his well-known connections with characters from Kanye West to Louis Vuitton, he has in recent months alone borrowed his designs for everything from t-shirts to tennis rackets.

In March this year, he launched his first NFT project: a series of 108 digital flowers inspired by Nintendo, which ignited his enthusiasm for the medium of crypto art. But it was while scrolling through Instagram that he discovered RTFKT’s work. “I’ve been very interested in NFTs and their potential,” he says. “We started chatting and came to love each other’s work. I’m very excited to create with such an innovative team.”

On their part, RTFKT describes Murakami as their longtime “idol”. “Bringing Murakami, our favorite artist, to work with us on these avatars and share our vision is the greatest thing we could have dreamed of,” they said in a joint statement.

Although the release date has not been finalized, it is expected within the next fourteen days and will be launched on the project’s dedicated website. The first 10,000 Avatars will be made available to existing RTFKT collectors in a 48-hour pre-sale, after which the rest will be publicly available after that.

Elsewhere in the art sphere, HYPEBEAST’s dedicated art vertical, HypeArt, has announced the details of its own NFT project.