10 Passive Income Ideas for Beginner 3D Artists

10 passive income ideas for beginner 3d artists here at style light station we are huge advocates of helping 3d artists empower themselves and create streams of income outside of their 9 to 5 job to help them regain some sort of control in their lives so today we decided to put together a list of 10 simple passive income ideas for beginner digital artists to help them jumpstart their journey to financial independence with some pros and cons of each income idea so let's get started passive income idea number one are selling courses a lot of people get put off by the idea of selling your own course it's a ton of hard work and most people are afraid that others aren't interested in learning about what you have to share with them the truth is everything you know about 3d art can be made into a short and compelling course and no matter how much or how little knowledge you have on a subject that knowledge will be valuable to someone now whether you'd like to sell unlimited access to your course via your own website or use a skill learning platform like skillshare or udemy that pays you per minute watched selling an online course is a very lucrative evergreen way to get some more money rolling into your bank account now if you want some real in-depth instruction about creating courses and setting up a largely passive income stream using them feel free to check out my passive income guide for digital artists where i teach you how to create a course from scratch then how to build an audience and how to lock down your first sales i'll leave a link in the description for anyone who is interested okay so what about the pros and cons of creating a course well once you finish with your course it will forever generate income without you having to do basically anything besides market it once you've uploaded a completed course on any platform you can more or less forget about it and go to work on other projects if you're uploading on a platform like skillshare or udemy plus not only that you will learn a ton of valuable things yourself as you're building the course it's also a great way to give back to the community and create a reputation for yourself published courses will make you look like an authority in your niche and help you connect with other 3d enthusiasts now for some cons you will need to invest a ton of time into creating a compelling course it takes a lot of time on top of structuring and writing out the content a well selling course will require some video editing skills and a decent microphone on your end if you're not interested in sharing your profits with another learning platform you will also have to learn the subtle art of marketing which can be a pretty complex topic fortunately i cover a lot of cool tips and tricks in my passive income guide so i really do recommend checking it out if you want to go down the route of selling courses passive income idea number two is selling 3d printed models 3d printers are becoming more and more accessible by the day which means many people will be looking for ready-made assets to print these can range from small objects like dslr lens covers or even soap holders to decorative objects when it comes to 3d printing there is virtually no limit to what you can create only your imagination and modeling skills are going to limit you optimizing your already made models for 3d printing can be a pretty simple process albeit it can take some time so if you already have a library of assets and a reasonable time investment on your part setting up a small 3d printing business can help bring in some extra cash in this new and exciting emerging market let's talk about the pros so you can already optimize your already made assets for 3d printing which will in turn deepen your own understanding of modeling good topology and the printing process what i mean is you will basically become a better artist while you're working on this and as 3d printers become more powerful and more accessible good models will continue to sell and professionals with experience in this domain will have more and more opportunities to make a ton of money this is a newly emerging field and there is a ton of room for growth but on the other hand your models will have to be perfectly optimized for printing which can take some time to master in the beginning and to keep up with the competition you will constantly have to add new models to your store this is a pretty saturated area now on top of all of this there is a considerable financial investment at the start you need to make to get your first 3d printer with most decent printers starting in the say 200 range however as technology advances these options should get much more affordable passive income idea number three is selling material packs the reason why node-based systems can be daunting to a beginner is the same reason why material packs sell for pretty great prices 3d artists will always look for new things to make their lives easier and procedural materials do exactly that even if you're not a master at creating materials building a pack with lots of simple yet creative textures will save lots of artists a ton of time and bring you some extra money each month now if you want to learn more about creating procedural and stylized materials using substance painter consider checking out my 3d coloring book where i teach you how to create beautiful and creative stylized textures with just a little bit of practice and guidance i'll leave a link in the description if you want to consider getting the course so let's talk about the pros and cons of creating material packs on the plus side a material pack will continue to generate revenue without you having to do basically anything later on allowing you to spend more time on marketing or working on other asset packs moreover creating procedural materials that will save people time will also save yourself time in the long run since you will be building an entire library which will be available whenever you need it and since procedural materials are not so easy to master the competition is pretty low right now for cons you will need to dab into nodes a little bit especially if you want to learn substance designer substance painter can also be pretty hard to master and you'll need to put in some time to make your material pack sellable through demo videos or even tutorials just like any product you'll need to get a decent understanding of marketing in your target audience but overall i would say this is a pretty easy market to get into passive income idea number four is selling your digital work as art prints if you spend some time creating visually appealing compositions you could sell them as digital downloads for people looking to update their home decor you could also go one step further and print them out and ship them as limited edition prints sales will definitely depend on your artistry level and ability to market yourself of course holding the occasional giveaway and telling your friends all about your new business will help as well for the pros this is a great way to make art and express yourself while also putting your work out there art prints can do wonders for your reputation and they are a ton of fun to make you're basically not even working if you really enjoy doing it and knowing that your artwork is on display in someone's house is such a great feeling i can't even describe it for cons this is an extremely saturated market you will have to advertise your work very well and very creatively if you want to reach your potential buyers moreover to ensure that you get constant revenue from this you will have to add new artwork to your store pretty regularly passive income idea number five is making game asset packs now the fact that just about anyone can download a piece of software like unity and create their own game by themselves from scratch is still mind-blowing to me many game developers are creating games as side projects in their spare time and most of them don't want to spend the time to model game assets themselves it's a very time consuming experience even established game studios will use asset packs for their smaller projects so you can also get a quick buck by sparing some developers some precious debugging and animation time you can go as simple or as complex as you want but remember that if your pack is easy to create someone else is probably already selling it and they might be selling it better than you so on that point you might want to skip the low poly trees and shrubs and try to create something unique but still useful to small game studios now creating an asset pack will do wonders for your modeling skills after finishing a pack you can just upload it on your desired platform and more or less forget about it even if you're not great at modeling you could sell low poly packs or pixel art for indie games i have a few models on various platforms that i've uploaded over the years and i forgot about and are still bringing me in some decent cash every month but unfortunately to keep your customers happy you will need to optimize your packs for video games this is not a hard process but it can take some time especially if you're just starting and for your packs to sell well they will need to be a complete package with everything someone might need to create and put in their game your biggest enemy in this market will be the time it takes to create these packs so if you have a lot of time on your hands and you have decent modeling skills this may actually be a great option for you passive income idea number six is selling your vendors as stock photos here is a unique one that you may not have actually thought of great stock photos will always have a market now as a 3d artist you will always have a huge advantage over other photographers in this space your 3d suite will allow you to change lighting conditions colors customize the subject infinitely and even put together 360 degree stock photos dreams time around roundme and 123rf are all great platforms where you can start without worrying about the voracious competition on sites like shutterstock now on the plus side stock photos are more or less a thousand times easier to obtain with 3d software when compared to a studio you don't need bulky studio equipment or expensive cameras and lighting you can just set up your scenes in more or less seconds especially if you are a advanced artist this flexibility also ensures that you will have several variations of color and lighting thus increasing your chances of making a sale now on the negative side since stock photos are relatively inexpensive and most platforms will retain a commission you will need an extensive library of stock photos before you will be able to gain any significant income however regularly posting new stock photos will also put you one step ahead of the competition which is still pretty intense passive income idea number seven is ad revenue ad revenue can be an absolute godsend for digital artists if you're willing to put in the tedious work of growing your audience initially a youtube channel or a blog can certainly pay the rent and more you might think it's too late to dip your toes into this area but i assure you it is definitely not the best time to start this was yesterday and the second best time is today if you deliver great content that adds value to your viewers constantly you will see your project grow day by day until eventually it will be able to support you now creating an online community can be amazing for your self-esteem and your perspective on life you will get to connect with like-minded individuals and support each other through learning process and the money from ads can be pretty great even if you don't have a massive audience on youtube especially it's all about views it's not about your subs now on the negative side building a community is very difficult and you will need to put in more work than basically any other income stream on this list so in this aspect for the first year or so this will not feel like a passive income stream at all but more like a second job however coming from experience as someone who has done this successfully multiple times it is all worth it i promise you passive income stream idea number eight is affiliate marketing another great way to get some extra cash if you already have an established audience is affiliate marketing finding brands you resonate with that offer quality products or services and advertising them to your fans will bring you a percent of anything that they buy using your links amazon has one of the more popular affiliate marketing programs in which you can link basically any product on their website and earn some cash every time someone uses your link to buy something so this way creating a youtube channel or blog in which you review or recommend products to your audience that they might find interesting can turn very profitable very fast on the plus side you get to chip off some cash off of purchases that people are going to make anyway at no cost to the customer and if someone opens your amazon affiliate link anything they buy on the site will bring you some level of profit even though you are not advertising that product itself it's pretty cool moreover a lot of brands have very lucrative programs for affiliates even in 3d space so look around and you'll never know which sites are actually offering really cool affiliate programs now one of the major downsides to affiliate marketing is you will need an established audience or you need to put in an initial investment to make it some ads if you're working with several brands you will also need some really strong organizational skills as they can get pretty complicated you'll also need to cold email some brands and ask about their affiliate programs so people who aren't very social will have a hard time with this i've also heard some horror stories about affiliate programs kicking people out for even the slightest offense or violation of their policies and basically terminating their contracts and knocking their revenue to zero overnight so keep that in mind passive income idea number nine is nfts you might already have heard of nfts or non-fungible tokens a way for artists to mint their digital artwork and allow people to bid on a limited set of your original work however they are still somewhat controversial at the moment due to their environmental impact but still new and improved solutions are being developed as we speak to bring energy consumption down in this new space it's a very interesting and extremely volatile market right now so i would definitely recommend keeping an eye on it even if you're not interested in it right now not only selling your artwork as nfts will bring you some extra cash but you'll also be contributing to a more transparent artistic community there are many nft platforms you can use but the most common ones at the moment are open c wearable and super rare now nfts are an upcoming market so you will position yourself for success if you start selling and working on your artwork now even now in its early stages some artists are making a ton of great money selling their nfts not only that you will get the satisfaction of being an early adopter of a piece of technology that might forever revolutionize art however there are a few caveats that come with this you will need to get familiar with blockchain technology before even touching this space in order to sell your artwork you will need a cryptocurrency wallet like metamask and posting your first nfts for sale will require a small fee on your end also while this is really profitable for established artists if you don't have a big online presence you may have a hard time gaining traction early on just like everything else passive income idea number 10 are selling ebooks long gone are the days where you'd have to beg publishing agencies to take a look at your manuscript amazon lets just about anyone self-publish ebooks on their platform and a lot of people like myself are inclined to buy ebooks versus buying paperback writing an ebook doesn't even have to be a really daunting process for example you could compile tips and tricks that you've learned about 3d software you use or document your learning process you'd be surprised how many people may find value in it in fact i'm actually thinking about creating a small ebook to give people some fun tips on stylized stuff i'm not sure yet but it's a pretty cool idea now for the pros of ebooks once you're finished with your manuscript you won't really need much other effort on your part you can publish it on any platform you wish like amazon and let it generate revenue as you're working on other projects not only that but giving your ebook away on occasion in exchange for email addresses can build an audience for you it was said that you would destroy this and not join them which will allow you to build other passive income streams but i'd like to talk more about that in another video now one of the biggest downsides of writing an ebook is that writing and editing a book can take up quite a bit of time well it will take up quite a bit of time and there's no guarantee that it will be a best seller you will need to find an interesting topic do a ton of market research in the area and provide actual value for your buyers and then spend some time bringing the book to people who will benefit from it as you may have noticed marketing is a major wall artists will have to overcome when selling products i think i've mentioned marketing as one of the biggest roadblocks in every single one of these points so mastering marketing should be a huge priority for you if you want to start gaining some level of financial independence i really hope you guys enjoyed this list every single one of these that i've mentioned have been utilized to create a massive passive income for many people out there every single one could change your life forever if you decide to really focus on it honestly all you need is a lot of persistence and a desire to improve your financial situation every single one of you out there absolutely has what it takes to do this successfully i really really believe that i'd love to hear some other passive income ideas from you or what you think about these videos and what you want to see in future videos so make sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think thanks for watching guys i will see you in the next one

Channel: Stylized Station

Views: 167,006

Keywords: passive income, passive income ideas, passive income online, art online, making money with art, digital art passive income, nft, making money, selling art, tutorial, making money with blender, make money online, digital product, entrepreneur, how to make passive income, art income, make money online 2021, how to make money online, how to make money, passive income 2020, make passive income, smart passive income, 3d artist, passive income streams, 3d modeling

Id: 3WRxvKrR_d4

Length: 16min 8sec (968 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 28 2021