by Petter Pentilä
Editorial is open for submissions: https://bit.ly/3aCuaEE

I am Petter and I am a motion designer from Finland. CryptoArt was something I first heard about in 2019, but it was not very popular at the time, and to be honest, I did not fully comprehend the concept back then.  However, this year I have been getting more into crypto-investing and I heard a lot of talk about NFTs on social media. The notion of using blockchain to confirm the ownership of digital assets sparked my curiosity, and after doing some research, I decided to tokenize my first animations on SuperRare. I have been on SuperRare for 2 months now, and I must say that it has been a fantastic experience, and I have learned a lot about NFTs and cryptocurrencies in general. What I especially like about the platform is the friendly community. 

I began animating when I was ten years old, back when flash websites such as Newgrounds were popular. As a kid, my ambition was to make my own animated series. I believe that the humor and style of those early flash animations influenced my animation style a lot. Today, I make animations with a humorous tone in the hopes of making people laugh. My artwork follows a certain style, for instance, all my animations are endless loops. I also seek to avoid using outlines as much as possible, as I feel it gives my animations a cleaner appearance. Sound design is also an important part of my animations as it delivers important information which cannot be done visually. I create the majority of the sounds myself, but I do sometimes collaborate with other sound designers. The way I come up with my animations varies a lot. Sometimes an idea just pops up and sometimes I must take a long walk before I come up with something. I always try to experiment and animate stuff that I have never done before, that way I always continue learning even if the animation does not turn out well. 

Even though I am a graduate student in Economics, I have always been fascinated by art and especially animations.  Growing up I loved watching South Park and it has been one of my primary inspirations. I think that there is a lot of important things that economists can learn from art. For example, I think that by creating animations, I have learned how to view things from different perspectives and that things can be interpreted in different ways. I also believe it has made me more creative. I see creativity as a process in which new ideas are developed, and it is, therefore, a valuable skill to have in any industry. I believe that everyone has the potential to be creative; however, since being creative requires one to stand out, not everyone is brave enough to do so. I, for one, have not always been very creative, but after many years of animating, I have grown accustomed to breaking norms and not being afraid of being different.