Joining OpenSea’s Flagship Collection… @bryanbrinkman’s NimBuds, the collection that brought personality to pixels, vibrant, hand-coded clouds that captured the optimism and experimentation of early generative art. Welcome home, NimBuds 57. More below.

Launched in January 2021 on @artblocks_io, NimBuds was the 10th generative project ever minted on the platform, a landmark moment in the history of onchain art. Created by artist and animator Bryan Brinkman in collaboration with coder Manny Morales, the series blended interactivity and playfulness in a way few had seen before. Each of the 400 animated clouds blinked, boxed, and glowed with bright neon energy, symbols of connection in an increasingly digital world. Brinkman, whose career spanned from The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live to Christie's and Sotheby’s exhibitions, poured his pop-art sensibility into web3. His clouds weren’t just cute, they were conceptual. NimBuds explored how identity, data, and creativity live together in the “cloud,” turning the idea of storage into story. The lore behind NimBuds is rooted in optimism. These are beings made of air and color, linked by wires that represent our shared digital ecosystem. They nod to the artist’s recurring themes of rebirth and connection, echoing influences from classic animation and modern network culture. Over time, they evolved through sequels like NimTeens and NimButtons, extending the narrative into new mediums while preserving their onchain DNA. NimBuds’ presence across major exhibitions, features, and collector circles cemented them as icons of early NFT artistry. But more than that, they embody a philosophy, that even in an algorithmic world, personality and warmth can shine through code. Adding NimBuds to our Flagship Collection honors a project that defined the playful soul of generative art and proved that creativity, when shared, can live forever in the cloud.

Find the OpenSea Flagship Collection here: