As a longtime 3D artist and animator, Chris Guyot leads his animation studio, Toast, that has partnered with some of the biggest brands in Web 2. Over the last three years, he’s set out to create a new category of high-end art in Web3. His vision is to create the highest quality and most curated 3D PFP collection to date.
John: Every artist and studio has a unique story. Can you tell us a bit about you and the origin of Good Vibes Club, and the vision behind it?
Chris: Absolutely! I’m originally from the Midwest, spent nearly a decade in NYC, and I currently live in Puerto Rico. I’ve always been deeply rooted in both music and art in my earlier years. Before nearly pursuing music professionally, I discovered that animation is the marriage of the two mediums that I love. I quickly became obsessed with all things motion… starting with 2d, then frame-by-frame cel, and then ultimately discovering the wonderful world of 3D. What really captured my heart about 3D is the complete control you have to create high fidelity worlds packed with lush vibrant color and expressive playful motion. Creating worlds that make me feel that sense of joy and childlike wonder has always been the primary motivation behind what I do creatively. Good Vibes Club is an extension of that.
Since starting our animation studio, Toast, we’ve been fortunate to work with some incredible brands. Not many know this but every year as a studio, we dedicate spare time to (at least) one internal project in the background of our commercial work. In the past, those projects have been purely about art for the love of creating. It’s our way of giving space for myself and our artists to push our craft, and create for the sake of the art itself. About three years ago, what has now blossomed into GVC began as one of those explorations—a passion project where we challenged ourselves to make the best art we could. Over time, it has evolved into its own IP, with a 3D PFP collection dropping soon.
John: How would you describe the artistic philosophy that drives your animation? What sets your work apart in the digital art and PFP space?
Chris: Light, form, color, and movement all combine to form a magical sort of dance in 3D that isn’t often felt within other mediums. If it flips, bounces, pops or grooves… chances are I’m into it. In many ways I think that my artwork is an extension and expression of how I see the world. This naturally comes through in my work, whether it’s a full-blown pink world made of candy colored clouds, or a little cute stylized character flipping and bouncing into place.
Along with this, I love to obsess over the more technical aspects of my craft. Diving deep into all things keyframes, texture maps, lighting, color theory… The more “real” light and texture feel, the more someone is able to connect with the artwork. It’s what makes a 3D image feel high-fidelity and relatable. This is what led us to take such a long, extensive approach to building the highest quality and most curated 3D PFP possible.
John: How do you balance the technical limitations of PFP formats with your desire to innovate artistically?
Chris: Our goal was to create the highest quality and most curated 3D PPP collection ever. Making a generative PFP in a high-end art approach means that everything needs to feel custom – starting with hand sculpting over 700 traits in 3D. This is so that every piece in the collection feels unique with personality. We even went as far as creating over 100 hand drawn patterns and other textural details that simply took years to create. At the core of it though, every image needed to be rendered in camera to preserve the lighting and GI bounce.
On the technical side, we had to build an entirely custom pipeline to have all of our curation rules happen within C4D itself, which enabled us to render every PFP in camera. All of those lighting interaction nuances between traits is where the magic of 3D really comes alive. This is the heart of the whole workflow.
John: The name 'Good Vibes Club' exudes positivity. How does this ethos influence your creative process and the stories you tell through your art?
Chris: Good Vibes Club is all about celebrating the best parts of the human experience in an authentic way. The overall art direction itself is rooted in what makes me stoked. A pink plastic bubble gum dude in a light blue suit? A lime green leather jacket homie with rainbow bubbles shooting out of their eyes? Sign me up. On the surface, vibrant colors, funky groovy music, and perpetual sunshine fuel the engine that takes us down the tracks. So while GVC is all about the fun aspects of what Vibetown represents in all of us, it’s also about connecting with one another authentically and supporting each other in a genuine sense. That’s really at the heart of the IP we’re building and the community we’re curating. The art is just a manifestation of that – aimed to spread the best vibes humanly possible.
John: What inspired the creation of this fine art PFP collection, and how does it reflect the unique aesthetic of Good Vibes Club?
Chris: I began my journey as a 3D artist many years ago back in 2009. Since then, I’ve obsessed over every part of the high-end professional production pipeline; modeling, lighting, rendering, animation, compositing, you name it. When considering the idea of GVC initially, I really wanted to bring this high-end technical approach to the 3D PFP space. When we were discussing the possibilities of GVC, we quickly realized that a generative PFP in 3D hadn’t been done at scale before in this way because it requires an astronomical amount of time and attention to detail to complete. Which is why we spent 3 years in development and production.
Every single trait in the collection has a custom curated design ruleset. One set of glasses may not work with all hairstyles because the geometry intersects. Or perhaps one trait with floating elements can’t combine with another trait that occupies a lot of that same space without intersecting. This led us to render over twenty-five thousand test images to curate these rulesets, and enabled us to produce maximum quality at scale.
John: Can you share any insights into the visual themes, narratives, or characters that are central to this collection?
Chris: We grouped each trait by color to pre-compile various generative combinations so that every piece feels cohesive. It required an enormous amount of curation and testing, but produced the highest possible quality result. A PFP is intended to be a form of self expression – we wanted our collection to represent high-end art in its quality, but at the same time representative of what “good vibes” means at the basic level. The traits are an extension of our IRL hobbies and interests that create the shared experiences with our friends that we love.
John: The PFP space thrives on community. How do you envision the community around this collection forming, and what values do you hope they share?
Chris: Almost immediately, we’ve seen people embrace this idea of authentic positivity. By focusing on cultivating an organic community of art appreciators and collectors, we’re able to really curate the community to be representative of the collection itself. Good Vibes Club is all about stoking out with your friend and connecting over what makes us happy, with high-end art as the foundation.
John: How does this collection tie into your long-term vision for the studio? Are there broader goals or projects you’re building toward?
Chris: The long term vision of GVC is to build out the studio around the IP. At its core, it means continuously creating art. However, we want to lean into our strengths from working with so many Web2 powerhouses in helping them build their brands, to fully building our own. We haven’t shared too much about our roadmap for post mint but at the core it’s pushing the IP – we have some exciting stuff in the works though.
John: What’s next for Good Vibes Club? Are there upcoming dates or ways to get involved
Chris: We’re heading into our mint late Jan/early Feb. We have some exciting updates to share soon but people can follow along at https://x.com/GoodVibesssClub