Hello dear readers! I'm excited to launch the ALLSHIPS podcast. Our first transmission is now LIVE HERE, featuring the incredible artists @MBSJQ. We spoke live on Clubhouse a few weeks back and recorded the conversation. Here is a limited transcript with some of the beautiful artwork we are speaking about in the show.

Let's dive in...

So great to be speaking with you today. Could you introduce yourself to the people that might not be as familiar with your work as I am? Where you're from, the mediums you work in and, how you first became aware of cryptoart and NFTs.

Sure! I'm Jonathan, known as MBSJQ. Basically my background is I'm from the UK, a little town called Bath, believe it or not, and I actually began with graphic design. But just over three years ago I started 3D because I wanted to develop my skillset. I am self taught from doing tutorials, like many people. I was doing posters everyday for a good three, four years, and that sort of helped me grow within the community.

And you're doing such cool work. One of the things that I really like about your particular body of work around Astro is the idea of narrative as a binding force. There's a cohesion to the project because it's all surrounding this character in this story.

I'm wondering if you could share with us the genesis of that particular character in that story and how you started building out that world.

I've got a daughter, Boo, who sits with me when I'm designing. What I tried to do through Astro is show the imagination that unfolds between me and her. That's why Astro goes to so many different places doing different things, because it's things that I do with my daughter, but I think in a way it can connect to a lot of people and what they do in their experiences.

And Astro isn't actually a man or a woman, but a character that represents a space in which your own imagination can be expressed.

That's a beautiful way of thinking about art. There's this great quote, artists are those who didn't suppress their inner child, because we were all born artists. At first we live in these realms of imagination and creativity, and society kind of suppresses those instincts as we grow. So for you to be able to kind of have this collaborative process with your daughter injects this whole level of creativity that can pull you in such interesting directions.

Exactly. And I've always liked surrealism as well, and going back to my childhood watching all sorts of cartoons and feeling as if there is no limit to your imagination. You can kind of put down whatever's in your head. And that's what I tried to convey with Astro, and get people to question things like, why is there an inflatable Flamingo? Why was Astro on top of a Lamborghini? The answer can be because I saw it in my head. The more people question, I think the more interesting the art becomes.

I noticed you did a couple of really awesome collaborations. I'm wondering if you wanted to speak to the idea of collaboration in general and also some of your specific collaborators, such as Hackatao and BakaArts. I know that you did some awesome pieces with them.

First of all, the good thing for me with the collaborations is I'm getting back to how I used to sort of work because I used to work in an agency, where I had six designers under me and it was a very collaborative process.

When I went freelance seven years ago, I kind of missed that part. So the opportunity with NFTs is kind of connecting with new artists, new designers I haven't even met before and the possibility of combining two very different styles of work. It's really, really exciting. So, I've tried it out with some different artists, as you said, and it's been an interesting thing because it's a bit going back to the imagination where you can kind of put anything together.

And it's so exciting because you're creating your own brief. You're not getting it from a client. So there's no limits, which means that even the ideas can go crazy. There's so much you can do and how much you can develop in what you actually create.

I want to thank you for sharing your thoughts with us here today, you're really a pioneer in this space. I know you have an upcoming drop with Nifty Gateway. Can you give us some details about this event?

So my Nifty gateway drops on April the 14th, and it's called "Over the Moon." I've not given too much away about what it actually is. But what I will say is that its about the connection I have with my daughter and Astro, and hopefully what people will experience is a complete picture of what MBSJQ actually is.

Since my 1/1 pieces fetch very high prices, I wanted to find a way to allow people with smaller budgets to collect some pieces as well, so on this drop their will be open editions.

You can find the trailer and drop details here.

Awesome man. Well, thank you so so much. This was very interesting, and a compelling conversation. I'm so glad we got to get it done. To the reader, a reminder that this is a small excerpt from a much larger podcast episode which you can find right here.