Original Pudgy Penguins Artist Finds 'Freedom' With New Berachain NFT Collection

Antoine Mingo left his role of concept artist for popular Ethereum NFT collection Pudgy Penguins in early 2023, due to creative differences with leadership. Now, he’s leading the art for a new NFT project called Burrrs on buzzy layer-1 network Berachain, giving him the creative freedom he’s craved since entering the industry.

The Washington-based artist picked up the Pudgy Penguins job in 2021 via gig-work platform Upwork, back when founder Cole Thereum was at the helm of the collection. After a brief consulting gig, Mingo went on to create 8,888 NFT profile pictures for the Ethereum project, right as the NFT market saw explosive demand. To his surprise, his artwork was a smash hit.

Work started to flood in for Mingo, who had previously only worked in the Web2 world but was now being approached by tons of Web3 projects. He kept on as an artist for Pudgy Penguins, even after Cole Thereum controversially emptied the project’s treasury and was booted from the project in 2022; the IP was later purchased by entrepreneur Luca Netz.