Meet the Artists Behind Porcupine Playground Pals
Co-Creators
Opal Siegal
Opal was 12 years old when she started incubating this idea of a generative art NFT collection in the fall of 2021. She has been creating art ever since she could hold a marker and enjoys drawing and painting both digitally and in real life. She also enjoys running, reading, music, and photography. Some of Opal’s artwork is part of the Flower Girls Art Fund NFT collection, which supports youth artists, and some of her photos are available on Unsplash.
Opal created all of the facial features, did all of the shading on the Pals and playground equipment, came up with the design concepts of each of the super rares, and more.
Bess Siegal
Bess, Opal’s mom, retired from her software engineering day job to freelance as a web designer a year after she was diagnosed with stage IVb metastatic lung cancer in July of 2020. Wanting to support Opal’s generative art endeavor and lend her skills as a coder, she adapted the HashLips art engine for Porcupine Playground Pals and created My.PorcupinePlaygroundPals.com with the Metaplex JS SDK. Bess also built the mint UI and contributed to the Metaplex Community Guides writing about it. Designing some of the Porcupine and Playground features looked too fun to resist, so Bess gave Opal a hand with some of the artwork layers, too.
Bess’ 3rd side-hustle is developing educational apps.
Meet our Family of Contributors
Advisors
James Siegal
James, Opal’s dad, is responsible for sparking Opal’s interest in NFTs in the first place. James is also responsible for instilling the deep love of playgrounds in Opal and her siblings and helping them understand that not all children have access to safe places to play. Now a Senior Fellow at KABOOM!, the nonprofit that builds playgrounds all across the US and is committed to ending playspace inequity, James has provided our family hands-on experiences in community collaboration, rolling up our sleeves to build playgrounds in neighborhoods that had gone without a place to play for too long.
Ruby Siegal
Ruby joined the team to help her younger sister and mom with trait ideas and quality control and to advise on rarity weights. Ruby also loves art and playgrounds and is always happy to lend a hand in between the hours she’s not on a soccer field or basketball court.
Meet Our Friends
Partners
Hena Khan
Hena Khan is an award-winning author of middle grade fiction and picture books and will be co-authoring a story about Pals playing as one of our Roadmap offerings for the Porcupine Playground Pals community.
Andrea Menotti
Andrea Menotti has written books for children in many forms, including pick-your-path-adventure, nonfiction, and activity books and will be co-authoring a story about Pals playing as one of our Roadmap offerings for the Porcupine Playground Pals community.
Yancey Labat
Yancey Labat is an artist and illustrator for children’s books and currently illustrates the New York Times Bestselling DC Super Hero Girls series for DC Comics. He will be lending his talents to our community on our Roadmap.
Tricia Reed
Tricia Reed is a healing arts practitioner with a professional background in secondary education. She will be offering exclusive opportunities for wellness services to our community.