Rudolph Squad

Rudolph Squad is SHHAN’s second large-scale generative art project, created in 2022 after [Mimic Shhans](/projects/mimic-shhans). Although it begins in the same world as [Mimic Shhans](/projects/mimic-shhans), it is not a collection that recombines or modifies elements from the earlier work. SHHAN designed and drew the new characters’ bodies, equipment, colors, expressions, and detailed traits from the ground up.

Shared features—including red noses, helmets, and scarves—bind them into a single group. Belonging to the same squad, however, does not make them look identical. As colors, expressions, equipment, and clothing combine in different ways, every member follows one rule while acquiring a different appearance and personality.

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This structure continues the question introduced by [Mimic Shhans](/projects/mimic-shhans) in another direction. While [Mimic Shhans](/projects/mimic-shhans) showed numerous distinct individuals emerging from a single archetype, Rudolph Squad goes a step further to ask whether individuality can remain within a group whose members share a purpose and identifying marks.

Everyone belongs to the same squad, yet no two members look completely alike. Their common appearance reveals affiliation, while small differences distinguish each being. Group and individual are not opposing conditions; they appear simultaneously within a single existence.

Rudolph Squad was also SHHAN’s second experiment in its method of production. Drawing on the experience of making 10,000 [Mimic Shhans](/projects/mimic-shhans), SHHAN revisited unresolved questions of form and expression and refined the relationships among proportion, expression, texture, clothing, and traits. Because the experience of the first large-scale generative project carried into the method and visual resolution of the next, Rudolph Squad was not merely a derivative collection but a newly designed successor built from that experience.

The project also contains a simple story about why the group was formed. Christmas is approaching, but Rudolph has not appeared in the village for a long time, so the Mimics decide to search for him themselves. The search party they form is the ‘Rudolph Squad.’ Red noses, helmets, and scarves are therefore not merely decorations that distinguish generative traits; they connect to the premise that these beings share a common mission.

The story expands the world of [Mimic Shhans](/projects/mimic-shhans) from a single PFP collection into a small world in which its inhabitants experience events. The Mimics no longer exist only as 10,000 differently appearing individuals; they become beings who act together and create a shared event.

Rudolph Squad was airdropped to existing [Mimic Shhans](/projects/mimic-shhans) holders for Christmas. Rather than being a follow-up collection made for a separate sale, it was created for the collectors who had shared in the first project, and SHHAN also covered the costs of issuing and distributing it.

Rudolph Squad teaser

Rudolph Squad therefore holds two meanings at once: it is a second experiment that developed the form and production method of generative characters after [Mimic Shhans](/projects/mimic-shhans), and it is a Christmas project that returned the relationship with the work’s owners in the form of a new artwork.