Alejoh - Father of Hubble Spacecats

Alejoh was the first artist to ever work at Hubble Exchange. He was the designer of the Hubble Space Cats. Let's get to know him better!

Those who don’t know you might want a small introduction and background! Can you tell us about yourself?

Since I was little I have loved drawing. Well... anything related to art. From graffiti to digital art or animation. Although I never thought to focus my career in that direction, for me it was always a hobby. Mostly because I did not think I could make a living off it!

That's why I ended up studying law at university. And although I tried to avoid it…  I ended up working in a boring office 💀

At roughly the same time, I opened an audiovisual studio with some friends, which turned out to be a great idea if your goal is to lose money. The studio continues to represent a constant expense to this day 🥳

The office job didn't last long since I didn't like it, and although it gave me a stable life, I left it to try to focus on a creative career. Thanks to the pandemic, I was able to get more proficient at drawing and after many hours of work (and crypto) I discovered that he could finally make a living from it.

Was Hubble your first experience with working on crypto?

Let's say that Hubble was the first full-time work experience. But there were others before😜

I have to say that the friend who introduced me to defi was the great Marvin Paradox who is also an artist in the ecosystem. We have known each other since we were little and we have always been painting. If I make a living from drawing, it is largely thanks to Marvin.

When he introduced me to crypto, and more specifically to avalanche, I started doing some small works for other protocols. The first thing I did was to participate in a contest organised by pangolin.

It consisted in drawing a piece about the famous Avalanche Rush (good old times). I didn't win but Leo got in touch to do something else with them. I proposed some stickers and they liked them so the trip started there.

How did you get to where you are? You are the artist producing most of the artworks at Hubble together with Dr. Shedge, a Hubble Artist!

Yeah! It is a pleasure to work with Dr. Shedge, a true master of colour and lighting.

Well... shortly after Pangolin, Kepler contacted me. He wanted a mascot for Hubble. I had to create it from scratch !!! There was only one rule, CUTE CATS. It was incredible. I loved the idea and even though I didn't know what the project was, I loved the visuals that I could see its Twitter. So lfg!

In Hubble there has been a process to get to where we are. The designs, the mascot and the NFTs, have evolved a lot since those first sketches, as well as my style and technique, which I have been polishing for almost a year in Hubble. I think that together we have achieved a unique and recognizable style. That is what all this is about.

But to answer the question, the key to be where we are is to work hard, and maintain the aim to have fresh results.

And so the famous Space Cats were made! How did you do it? How is your creative process?

My creative process is a bit random. Organising myself to have an efficient process is a pending task. I generally don't like to “copy” or to draw with a single reference. If I have to work on something I don't know, (a vehicle, some animal or scene...) I usually collect and study the images at night and the next day I draw directly in my style.

Inspiration and references are an important part of the creative process. I find them anywhere, movies and animations, magazine pictures... I'm more addicted to looking for references than drawing, and it can be appreciated in my drawings where you can find things like objects from my room or references to movies I have recently watched.

If we are talking about Hubble specifically,  I must say the creative process at Hubble was complex at first. I had to investigate the styles that were used by other projects and in Avalanche. It was necessary to synthesise the ideas and characters, so that without becoming a logo they could be used as such. It had to be something simple but to represent a Space Cat. In this process the key was the sketching and the constant feedback with the community, that was really great.

Once we had the main character, the rest of the creative process was based on creating a lore for him. Giving objects and spaces that become familiar without ending up being repetitive

You have done lots of NFTs and artworks, what's the one you feel more proud about?

Without a doubt the work that I am most proud of is the HSC (Hubble Space Cats). Suddenly I found myself accepting the challenge of making thousands of cats for pfps, and honestly I didn't know how to do it! It was hard work, I think the only artwork that has taken me a month and a half to finish.

And after everything, they came out… and they were nice! It is by far the work that I am most proud of, together with some animation work  that also made me break my head.

Amazing! And now dozens of users use HSC as a pfp, how does it feel?

Well, I'm not going to lie, at first I was scared. I saw that pfps were appearing and I spent some time checking that everything was fine in every account I saw. When I saw that everything was fine I could not be more proud.

And to my surprise it turns out that they were adopted as governance token. So the value of those images was incredible. It still gets me excited every time I see a new HSC. By the way, it wasn't just me, I imagine that all the people that participated felt the same. It was a great project to make!

**Now you are also doing some learning material for Hubble, not just pictures. How was the process of creating the hubble webtoon? Were you familiar with the protocol? ***

The Hubble webtoon has been another great challenge. At first it started as something that would occupy two pages at most and little by little it grew until it became a whole litepaper with a friendly appearance. This is another work that I am proud of, and that would not have been possible without the work of the team (script by Dorlanz and translations by Conqueror, Tikijiu, 4mgyi and Vincagame).

Although it may seem simple,it was exhausting at times, each change meant exporting the entire comic again! The good thing is that now we are ready to get more numbers much faster.

As for the protocol... I thought I was familiar with it. Especially after so much time with Hubble 24/7 in my mind. Well, it turns out I was not. When making the comic I saw how little I knew, but also ended up learning tons about it. I guess that shows that the educational webtoon is supposed to work!