dievardump, a friend and fellow blockchain developer, saw that the technique i used there to visualize a smart contract as an image could be applied to well-known contracts and popular nft collections.

smartbags collectors are, in effect, collecting smart contracts.

it started on january 16th 2022. dievardump and i were discussing the anatomy of love release (the 1/1 that inspired smartbags) when, out of the blue, dievardump said: "dude, this technique could be used so that people can mint their favorite contracts! like cryptopunks or cryptokitties."

data is extracted from your favorite contract (address, deployed code, name). the deployed code is turned into a visual (see the contract). the smartbag image is assembled onchain from onchain data.

most onchain projects are simple or cartoonish because of technical limits (which is how the compressionism movement was born). smartbags goes for realistic rendering instead.

that took heavy texture compression, and hand-painting the bags in svg code.