One day, Metamorph and I began chatting because of our shared interest in Neon Genesis Evangelion, art direction, and design. He told me that he was interested in doing something in the Gooolniverse and that he had a background in industrial 3D design. I had seen his work on Fantom and Tezos and I loved it. This conversation happened over the course of a week and because we are on different sides of the world, he would work while I was sleeping and I would work while he was sleeping. So the sending back and forth of files wasn’t as rapid as this chat may make it seem, it’s just been edited for readability. -Elle

There is some art you feel is made for you. Elle’s work is exactly the type of aesthetic I consume. Exactly the colors I like, exactly the pop culture references I like, the art I like. Usually when I stumble upon art like that I end up just being jealous as if a Metamorph from another timeline should’ve created that art. This time I just decided to be part of it and went straight to Elle’s DM. Happens that Elle is an absolute beast AND kind so it was a perfect occasion to work together. -Metamorph

Metamorph: I thought about it tonight and I was thinking of a Game Boy game or something. Or something on an old VHS tape. A tarot card with depth.

Elle: When I read Game Boy and VHS tape, I thought of Shinji’s DAT walkman. Here’s a sketch I did thinking about meshing your work and mine. The headphones could have little music ghosts coming out of it. I could draw a Goool band album cover. I was also thinking of this type of foam headphones.

M: Niiiice, I love this, I need to think about this! It's going to be complicated aha!

M: We might have a problem. Shinji’s walkman is a SDAT. That means it's not the cassette tape we are used to seeing. It’s ugly ones. I think I'll go for a version that doesn't exist. A mix of Shinji’s and other ones. Hope you like retro futurist stuff...because I’m going into it aha.

E: Yeah, DAT/SDAT was only really popular in Japan. I watched a documentary about that format once. But yes, go where your imagination takes you!

M: I did the walkman. I still need to do the headset. I’ve put an artwork of yours on every surface you can use and I've put random colors.

E: You’re amazing!!! I can’t believe you made that so fast! I wonder how the buttons on the back would look if they were more retro and metallic like these kinds of buttons. It might be a cool retro future mix.

M: For the flat art, there is basically: the screen zone (we can put text like song name but an animation of a singer or musician full body could be awesome), the box artwork, the audio tape sticker, the little screen on the audio tape (can be a small animation loop with GameBoy vibe, or we can put "26:00:00" like the Shinji screen), there is space on the back (I'll just put text in texture, like our names, the voltage, some lore, etc.) For the ghosts, I honestly think my ghosts don’t fit flying there but I can put one as a strap chain on the side. It could be awesome if you made an animation of the ones you made in the 1st sketch. Just jiggling and I'll make them go up and disappear. I don’t know if it's a lot of work! We can take off stuff, etc. I kind of want to see a lot of bands’ walkman now!

I tried to interpret Shinji’s walkman with a retro futurist approach. The main traits of his walkman are the stripe with the vertical screen, 2 different plastic/colors, and a little transparent window to see if the tape is working. I tried to use those features in a retrofuturist way. The vertical screen now has more actual use but with an old display system. Basically it looks like a streaming platform on a gameboy screen instead of some limited digits. For the two different plastics, I used a combo that reminds of the iMac G3 designed by Jonathan Ive, or the Apple Pro Mouse (inspired by Jonathan Ive’s work too). So I used hard shiny plastic with a transparent one with Elle’s color combo. Since the front material was transparent, there was no need to put a window here and we came up with the idea of a small screen on the tape. I decided to use a magnifying glass of the shape of Shinji’s walkman window to look at the small tape screen. These are a few examples of how we tried to make it look coherent. Even if you don't need the product to work to look cool, I like to think that details are important to make this look real. -m

E: It looks so good already! I love the new colors. You’re working too fast, let me catch up! Maybe the slider switch and the ports should be metallic too or some other color so it doesn’t match the plastic of the tape? That way it makes it feel more like 2 different components. I think textured text and technical symbols on the back would be good. I’m working on the box art and the screen stuff now and some other ideas! And yes, I was thinking the ghosts could be a mix between the ones I usually have in my drawings but glowing like yours.

E: OK, here is the album art. There are two options for the tape art. One is printed mono and the other is a sticker. I think I like the printed mono better but you can try both. Here are some LCD screens. Here are some ghosts. Do you want to put a small pixel Pen Pen sticker (the one on the Power Goools helmet) on the back of the player to make the player look like it is more used?

When I was thinking about Metamorph’s renders in contrast to my pixels, I wanted to combine the two elements in a way that would actually make sense in the real world. Old LCD screens are interesting to me because of the way they render digital information in a way that feels analog. Like pixel art, there’s a limited grid to place the information. When Metamorph brought up retro futuristic tech, I knew I wanted to have fun with LCDs rather than something like retina displays which probably would have been more straightforward to animate. It’s all about the vibe and aesthetics! -e

M: The vertical screen artwork is the exact fucking size idk how you did that!

E: Haha, it was a lucky guess. This looks incredible!!!

M: I'm going to slow the screen animations. I have some doubts about the camera. Too close we don't see the whole headset & box but too far we can't see screens animations. I wont change this yet, I’ll wait for you.

E: Amazing! I love how this is looking! Yes the animation is a bit too fast. Should the ghosts only come out of the headphones? Also, can you rotate the Pen Pen sticker a little bit so it is not perfectly parallel with the player’s lines, so it looks like it was applied by the owner and not by the manufacturer?

At this point, we were also discussing whether to make this as a video or an interactive NFT that you could rotate and zoom. We did some tests and the transparent materials didn’t look as good as the video, the file size was massive, and we didn’t know if we could get the screens to animate properly as a .glb file. -e

E: What do you think about putting the headphones behind the player so that everything stays mostly in frame during the rotation?

M: I think moving the headphone is the solution BUT I have to remake the wires and its pain ahahah so let's be sure we are talking about the same position.

E: How about leaning against the back like this? That would also give the composition some more height and the ghosts wouldn’t be isolated to one side  (yes, don’t do the wires yet!)

M: I'm happy because my small ghost looks cute AF.

E: I love the little ghost charm!

E: I thought some more about the music ghosts and made new ones. I made them more digital like audio waveforms to go with the overall aesthetic of the piece better and added in/out to the animation so you don't have to rely on the fade. What do you think? And a couple other edits – had to make the Pen Pen border a tiny bit bigger, felt too thin for a sticker. Also made another sticker for a little extra detailing.

M: Looks good to me! It's way better with the headset like that.

E: Yessss!!! Incredible, it looks so good! The composition is definitely more balanced now. How about without the base and it was more like a seamless photo backdrop? I could imagine someone putting this in a video frame to look like a real object suspended in a box but the base breaks that illusion a bit.

M: Perfect. It’s rendering.

E: Ahh don't render yet! There's still one more thing!

M: What is missing?

E: Walkgoool logo on the front? I'm just designing it right now.

M: OK nice.

E: Small detail but makes it look more authentic.

M: The detail I’m proud of is dumb AF but it's the small line we see on the heart sticker because of the gap it's stuck on.

E: I love that detail!! I noticed it right away. C’est incroyable !

M: Ahaha Merci beaucoup !

From here, we mostly just worked on finalizing the final render and debated the amount of chromatic aberration we should apply that would be good and not too overpowering for the small details. Then I finally let Metamorph go to sleep without worrying about more edits waiting for him when he wakes up the next day! -e