The Origin
In 2018, before he knew that Beans were Beans, Jack Maschka illustrated a character he couldn’t stop thinking about.
The Obsession
For the next year he continued to explore this character in the margins of his sketchbook between client calls. The style was always changing but the character remained more or less the same.
Sketches, sculptures, and hundreds of storyboards began to be built around this character and the world this character resides in.
From there Jack went on to write, produce, direct, and animate a short film (SEED SUPREME, 2019) starring this character. That production lasted about a year (on and off) between paying gigs.
Characters as a vehicle to explore new tech
All the while he began to experiment with other tech like AR in order to further explore this character.
In 2020 Jack began to focus more on short-form work and started to play with other little creatures within that world (Fun fact: this piece was a prototype piece for a collection on Nifty Gateway that never ended up happening).
Early 2021 Jack decided to try his hand at creating an animated collectible around these little creatures in a collection he called Cryptobeanz. All of which were generated by hand with accompanying music. At the time, this was a new thing in the digital collectible space.
The NFT landscape began to change and Jack went back to the drawing board.
What is the best way to carry this character’s legacy on forever?
Then Cryptoadz and Nouns happened and everything clicked. This brings us to 2024. His most ambitious project yet. On-chain. CC0. One a day. It was all a happy accident that Bean eyes are the circular complimentary to Noun eyes.
Proliferation and why it matters
Stories are the most powerful tools we have as humans. Myths, legends, memes, whatever you want to call them. They’re stories. Characters help move those stories.
Pepe, Bored Apes, Giga Chad, Punks, etc. they’re all characters in society’s story.
This is why proliferation of the character is so important in order to help support the mission.