FVCKRENDER, From sports injury to leading NFT artist

FVCKRENDER’s journey from a serious cycling injury to a successful NFT artist is an inspiring one. His hard work and focus enabled him to forge a whole new career and led him to overcome struggles with anxiety and depression. He originally found success as a virtual 3D modelling artist working with musicians on their visual output, before moving to NFTs. His work was auctioned by Sotheby’s in May and he is currently working on an ambitious, multi-faceted project called the FVCKRENDERVERSE.

Where did FVCKRENDER’s NFT journey begin?

FVCKRENDER had been working 40 hours a week in a restaurant in Montreal and combining it wis his dream profession, cycling. He had gone semi-pro and while doing 250 Km per day on a trip from Montreal to Boston he displaced two vertebrae. He says when he was suddenly unable to his anxiety get out of control. He had to find something to do with his brain and started teaching himself 3D modelling software while holding down a bar job. He was able to spot the potential of NFTs early on and is now a veteran in the space by virtue of how young the space is: “Yeah I was early but there were a lot of people way earlier than me, that’s for sure.”

Growing a following

He started posting his 3D art on Instagram straight away to chart his artistic progression. He says within 4 months he had well paid jobs working with DJs and making music videos. He realised, “Holy shit! I could do this for a living!” He was very surprised by his success and admits it was somewhat of a by-product, “I just wanted to learn something. I had no plans to do 3D for a living.”

Discomfort with his work

Surprisingly FVCKRENDER took a long time to be proud of his work and there was sense that he was getting paid a lot to work with people on projects he wasn’t really interested in. “I used to really hate the work I was doing. Imposter syndrome” adding, “It is only in the last year I like my work.” He explains this as having more freedom to do the kind of work they wanted to do it than when he began.

He says he was doing 80 hour weeks when he began and was combining bar work with “I had two major depressions in my old career and it was because I was overworked. And I was burning myself to do work I didn’t like, just so I could buy nicer things and a nicer place. It was just a loop of sadness unfortunately.”

His first NFT was sold on Superrare: “Oh yeah, it was so fucking crazy for me”. His first NFT sold for 15 ETH ($6000 at that time) and sold in 24 hours. “I was sure I was not going to sell anything.” The next day he sold an NFT for 25 ETH ($10K)! He was making a salary with 3 hours work and thought, “I don’t need to do a crappy shitty album cover for $5000.” Now he only does commercial work he wants to do. He was dropping a lot of NFTs in March, April and May. He says he wasn’t thinking too much during that time, he was just doing a lot of collaborations and having a lot of fun.

In it for the money?

This is a common question regarding economically successful NFT creators but FVCKRENDER is only partially in it for the money, “Of course I want to make money because I want to live a nice life. But I want to create sick shit, you know.” And he adds, “And you need to be able to delegate to create sick shit. I was taking a lot of money I was making from those drops of money I was getting for those drops I to hire devs and people to help me make the FVCKRENDERVERSE nicer.” Investing and playing the long game is the way to do it. “I truly believe in the long term of crypto and the whole NFT space. I’m so bullish it’s crazy.”

For collectors of his artwork there is an understanding that the community is a mutually beneficial for all involved. An NFT is never just an artwork, but always an investment. FVCKRENDER, himself, has become crypto-rich because of his community following, and he wants that to be shared around,”If I am making money I want my supporters to be making money.”

The FVCKRENDER hack

In crypto the likelihood for everyone is that they are going to be scammed – it’s just part of the development phase for people when they get into crypto unfortunately. Most people have similar stories. FVCKRENDER had it happen to him after he had already had a lot of success so the value was higher. He lost around 1/3 of his crypto bag and appears to have come to peace with the idea and learned a great deal more about cybersecurity as a result.

Coming next from FVCKRENDER: “I’m always working to do bigger shit basically!” FVCK CRYSTALS is a project he is excited about. He honestly explains that he needs $ USD to pay the rent and things so he may do some more collaborations with non-crypto artists for the right artist. His new FVCKRENDERVERSE idea came about this year. He has collected 300-500 NFTs and wanted create a new way to display them. “How can I create something for people to see it and do something that has never been done before?” It is somewhat of a gallery. His own metaverse has become something of a start-up – he has now hired a team of helpers.

The next FVCKRENDER artist collabs

He said he doesn’t think he’ll do too many more collaborations with musicians. He said the cash-grabs of celebrity NFTs in March put him off. He said he would only consider it if the musicians had already been in the NFT community for a while and seemed like they would be in the community since. Manifold developers are helping him with the FVCK CRYSTAL smart contracts. A collectible project of about 4000 crystals. These keys will have utility – raffles for particular events. Only CRYSTAL owners will be able to participate in the next drops.