United Kingdom-based artist Kane Tallowin, better known as Defaced, has grown a successful career by dipping into the nostalgic charm of classic animated worlds.

His creations feel wholesome like Jim Henson’s puppets and timeless like Walt Disney’s early animations, yet full of personality like Shigeru Miyamoto’s world of Super Mario Bros.

As the illustrator behind Defaced Studio and founder of the creative agency Gurt Corp., Defaced combines this childhood whimsy with modern digital storytelling, while staying sharp and attuned to the digital age.

A prime example is Gurt, the dry-witted, technologically challenged puppet who also serves as Gurt Corp.’s “co-founder.” Like NFT collections such as Pudgy Penguins and GaryVee’s VeeFriends, Defaced ties his characters to a unique backstory that has cultivated a loyal fanbase eager for Gurt's next move.

With clever world-building at the core of his practice, Defaced continues to shape the future of digital art with each new creation. Here’s more on his journey, which began in 2021.

Defaced started his daily illustrations as an artist thanks to GaryVee

In an interview with NFT Origin Stories, Defaced shared that towards the beginning of his career as an NFT artist, he listened to fellow NFT artist and entrepreneur GaryVee’s podcast, which inspired him to pick up a daily illustration habit. 

GaryVee, known for his daily YouTube show amongst other entrepreneurial endeavors, encourages others to create and pursue their passions daily like they would build any other habit. 

So, Defaced pulled inspiration from some of his favorite characters and illustrations — namely Mario and Sesame Street  — and weaved that in with his new daily habit. 

In 2021, Defaced turned those daily illustrations into one of his first NFT collections, “Defaced ‘N’ Friends.” In the 100-item OpenSea collection, Defaced introduces a more fleshed-out set of “friends,” or geometric, colorful cartoon characters, than he had in his 1-of-1 NFTs on other platforms. 

Defaced designed the characters in “Defaced ‘N’ Friends” to have their own, unique personalities. They are easily decipherable against white backgrounds, with clean lines, and mostly one set of eyes, even if some do have multiple sets of arms. 

The collection helped set the stage for recurring themes and characters in Defaced’s work, including Starman, a character with a block helmet for a head and signature white space boots. 

In an interview with The Verge, Defaced explains that creating Starman as a recurring character happened by chance but snowballed into one of his most meaningful works.  

Defaced adds: 

“Starman is meant to encapsulate the contrast between childhood, the creative process, and the fear of the unknown.” 

Gurt is a 'founder' of Defaced Studio, but also its main character

Defaced likes injecting fun, purpose, and character depth into his works. As onlookers, we can see it in how he describes his career as an artist in the NFT space.

To The Verge, Defaced said: 

“​​NFTs are the key that unlocks the door. Without NFTs, this wouldn’t even exist as a possible career path. Try finding a job where you can direct films, create games, make artwork, supervise the manufacturing, and at the crux of it create worlds from your imagination — that job doesn’t exist without NFTs.” 

In 2023, he highlighted his love for world-building by creating Gurt Corp. and Gurt, the main character in the NFT collection, “Gotta Get Gurt.” 

In a series of short videos on Instagram and across his studio’s website, Defaced introduces Gurt as a “lifelong friend” from the UK.  According to lore, Gurt moved from the UK to New York City, Miami, and then back to the UK after losing all his jobs. After being down on his luck, Gurt, Defaced, and Reg, a friend Gurt made in Miami, all started a fictitious management company, Gurt Corp. Gurt is the company’s first talent. 

“Gotta Get Gurt” is a 790-item digital card collection with 13 traits. These traits are from Gurt's past jobs in the United States. The cards show Gurt in scrubs and a stethoscope as a nurse and in his polo uniform from his time working at the VHS store, “Shiftie’s Rentals.” 

In the months since Defaced Studio released “Gotta Get Gurt,” the team continued to expand Gurt’s world into a parody talk show, “Gurt Show,” which even had a live experience talk show at the NFT conference Non-Fungible Conference 2024. 

As Defaced and Gurt continue to grow, it’s easy to see how Defaced creates his universe of characters and storylines like those of his top inspirations, Mario and Sesame Street.