What Are Doodles? Everything You Need to Know About the Colorful NFT Project

• Project name: Doodles
• Project type: PFP (profile picture)
• Original mint date: October 17, 2021
• Original mint price: .123 ETH (approximately $300 at the time)
• Runs on: Ethereum
• Highest sale to date: Doodle #6914 sold for 296.69 ETH (approximately $1.1 million at the time) on January 7, 2022

What are Doodles?

Doodles began as a collection of 10,000 non-fungible tokens (NFT) made up of colorful artwork by Burnt Toast, the alias of Canada-based artist Scott Martin. The project was originally dreamed up by Martin and former Dapper Labs employees Evan Keast and Jordan Castro.

The hand-drawn pastel imagery is made up of playful characters wearing animal costumes, bright jewelry, sunglasses and more. There are also non-human characters – like pickles, cats, skeletons and apes – dispersed throughout the collection. These attributes have been mixed and matched to create over 100 rarity traits that influence their popularity and price on the secondary market, similar to other collections like CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club.

Where can I buy Doodles?

Primary NFT sales took place on the Doodles website. Doodles can now be purchased on many secondary marketplaces, including OpenSea, Nifty Gateway and LooksRare.

What is the project’s utility?

According to the team, the project is “community-driven” and was launched to “bring joy to everyone who sees them.” The brand has since expanded beyond the initial 10,000 NFTs and has released new NFT collections, orchestrated elaborate live events and sold merchandise through its website. Most of these additional benefits are exclusive to Doodle holders.

Holders also have power over the Doodles Community Treasury, aka the Doodlebank, where they can vote for experiences, activations and campaigns that benefit the community. Users can also submit preliminary proposals that are voted on by the community before being implemented by the team. Half of the 5% royalty taken by OpenSea secondary sales revenues is also deposited into the community treasury. According to the project, the money is used “to scale our team and begin experimenting to grow the Doodles brand.”

Offshoot projects

Earlier this year, Doodles released a free companion NFT collection for existing holders called Space Doodles. Each Doodle from the original collection was given the opportunity to launch its own personal spaceship “generated from over 200 audio-visual traits and on-chain stats.” The project uses “wrapped NFTs” – a “non-dilutive” solution where the original NFT is stored in a digital vault and a smart contract is used to produce a Space Doodle. This means that a Doodle owner can only hold a Doodle or a Space Doodle at one time and that the project did not introduce more NFTs into the circulating supply. Users can unwrap their Space Doodle at any time to retrieve their original Doodle NFT.

According to the team, Space Doodles and accompanying on-chain stats (like, for example, the NFT’s piloting ability and mechanical knowledge) will be used in future Doodles experiences and is a component of the brand’s expanding “universe.”

What do we know about the Doodles team?

Scott Martin, the artistic force behind the project, is an illustrator, designer, animator and muralist. He told Fortune in January 2022 that his focus is on “making good art and reaching a large audience.” Before Doodles, he produced art for brands including Google, Skillshare, Dropbox and Adobe.

Evan Keast, aka “Tulip,” is the face of the project’s branding. He previously worked for Dapper Labs and led marketing for the popular blockchain game CryptoKitties.

Jordan Castro, who goes by the alias “Poopie,” specializes in product and worked alongside Keast at Dapper Labs as the product lead for CryptoKitties.

In May 2022, the team added former Billboard President Julian Holguin as partner and CEO to “lean into music, gaming, premium content and consumer goods.”

In June 2022, the brand brought on the musician and producer Pharrell as the project’s chief brand officer to produce “music projects, produce animated film & TV and creative direct product launches,” the project tweeted.

What intellectual property (IP) rights do holders have?

The Doodles name and intellectual property are owned by Doodles, LLC. According to the Doodles Terms of Service, they also own the rights “surrounding the images, names, logos, 3D layer files, trademarks, the website, the ability to mint 3D or voxel or other versions of Doodles, the look and feel of the user interface, the smart contract code or anything else not specifically granted by any following licenses.”

Doodle holders can use their NFT as a PFP, sell it or merchandise it for up to $100,000 through the sale of physical goods (though after reaching the $100K milestone, they need to work with the Doodles team on official licensing terms). Holders can also use the full Doodle in a piece of art they create but would need to discuss larger licensing deals with the company.

The company says it is “open” to holders utilizing Doodles in various commercial ways. However, a Doodle can only be used in its “fullness only” and holders cannot mint new NFTs that are considered to be derivatives of their character.

For example, a group of Doodles NFT holders proposed a derivative project called Noodles to the community in November 2021. The food-based project, inspired by Burnt Toast's art style, was the first officially approved derivative venture through the Doodlebank.

Doodles future plans

Following its Genesis Factory event at NFT.NYC in June 2022, the project laid out its goals for expansion, including music, events and attractions, gaming, animation, IP partnerships and consumer products.

During this time, it teased plans for its “Doodles 2” project in the form of a colorful animated video, hinting at a “mass market, identity-focused” offshoot of its original project. According to the brand, the new project will allow anyone to mint a “base-level Doodle'' and “choose generic traits like skin tone and hair color.” Doodles 2 can then be customized with wearables featuring “varying tiers of rarity.” The NFTs will be “dynamic” and the images will be available as “full body or PFP.”

Doodles 2 is connected to its Genesis Box NFT release, which was offered as a “bucket auction” to existing holders. In the bucket auction, users submitted a bid in ether (ETH) for the amount they were willing to pay for one of the NFTs, similar to a blind auction bid. At the conclusion of the auction period, the Doodles team determined a number known as the clearing price, which is the minimum bid that would win an NFT. There was a total supply of 24,000 “boxes” that featured apparel and accessories for Doodles 2. According to the company, the “rare” boxes “will be used to seed the initial “economy of wearables” and will never be sold again.

The brand also released its “Dooplicators,” a free-to-claim NFT for existing holders with “perpetual utility,” which the brand describes as a “super-powered device that will allow collectors to bring the rarest OG traits into Doodles 2.”

The project is also releasing a music collection executive produced by Pharrell in partnership with Columbia Records titled “Doodles Records: Volume 1.” The project will feature original music and hand-drawn album art from Burnt Toast, alongside wearables for Doodles 2.

Doodles has stated that it aims to become one of the largest consumer brands in the world. In September 2022, the brand announced that it had raised $54 million of equity funding, which it says would be used “to rapidly acquire a world-class team of engineers, creatives, marketers and business executives, as well as to fund product development, acquisitions, proprietary technology, media and collector experiences.”

“Our vision at Doodles is to be one of the world’s leading producers of media and entertainment,” the brand tweeted in June 2022. “We're building an ecosystem rich in diversity and utility.”