Yes, you can make enough money to buy a new PC. I did, plus it has got me an LCD screen, printer, L-Series lenses for my Canon camera, and a few other bits and pieces.
One can make enough money to make a living out of it, I did that with Blender for 3 years until the finance crisis came over us…
…the trick is not how GOOD you are in Blender, of course you must be suffient to create stuff for your client, aka meet the deadline and produce acceptable results, but a lot of people can do that already.
The trick is in SALES.
You need to convince your clients WHY they need your services, this is 95% of your job, the rest of the 5% is peanuts once you have established contracts, customer relations, an understanding OF your customers real wishes & goals etc. Yep…modelling & rendering the final image is really just 5%, so consider that before you wander off thinking that you´ll be doing modelling for the rest of your life, you´ll be doing SALES.
100% agree… We live in a world where Art is luxury… unless you do any “conceptual art” with enough maketing speach behind it. :eyebrowlift2:
For commercials, all you need is a keen view about what the client’s results are concerned.
You can really make money with Blender. But as ROUBAL pointed out, it can be difficult. Taken Blender aside, it’s not easy to earn money with 3d in general. I had the luck to get a job in an advertising agency 3 years ago, who didn’t do 3d before and so I could introduce Blender there easily. Now I started my own business using Blender only. I’m doing mostly architectural visualization and other not so exciting stuff, but sometimes I even have the luck to do some more advanced artistic stuff, which I really enjoy. You have to find out the demands of the market, that’s the whole secret.
Aside from that, your skills didn’t impress me that much, that I would immediately call you in the first place, if I had 3d work to share. But don’t get me wrong, it’s a good start. The better your skills, the easier is it to find a job.
And productivity is another crucial factor.
How many hours will you work per day? I think 18 hours in Blender are better than 8 in hours in 3DStudio (but obviously you will need to be freelancer, nobody loves his boss that much).
Experience is another important factor.
10 years of experience in Blender are better, than 5 years of experience in 3DStudio Max.
This is a practical comparison that the human factor counts better than the software.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!! YAY!!!
P.S. Having productivity (doing things fast, but also work many hours per day), talent (be dedicated) and having experience you will be like a shark in the water, making money with Blender will not be a question, it will be a FACT.
I have to strongly disagree. People look for quality and will pay a premium for well-done, outstanding work. Focusing on your quality instead of “sales” will also do you much better in the long run, as you get to be respected and valued for the high standard of work you put out instead of the number of sales you generate. Another upside of that is that eventually clients find you and not the other way around. “Acceptable” should never be the goal, you want to blow them away every single time so they don’t even think about going somewhere else for work.
Modeling and rendering take up about 70% of my time these days but a great deal of time does go into meeting with clients and talking over revisions and ideas.
Stompin
I think JoOngles has a point but his text is can be misunderstood.
I do not agree with the percentage rate, but the most important part is:
- figuring out what you clients wants, and is able to pay
- trying your best to convince you client that they need a particular level and try to sell it to them.
At the end you are an educator to the client and not just an individual that delivers a service.
This is simple business 101 for freelancers.
There is no point in trying to come with long render times when the customer does not have the money
or maybe does not need the level.
It is also silly not to explore maybe the opportunity to sell something better in case the customer is unsure and might be able to pay for it.
It is also stupid to convince the client about top notch work for a high price tag when the function of the work would be delivered already with less work. It is about the effectiveness of design. And high glossy is not always needed.
Again here it comes to the designer to consult the client right and to find the correct media and level of finish to make sure that the message is comes across the best way.
I wonder if I could find something local to work on. Like commercials for bussiniesses. I live in a town of about 10,000 people, and a city near me has about 45,000, so not huge cities.
EDIT: So, goosey, what did you you to make that money?
And how about doing a Dvd for sale
- It’s a good idea ?
-you can earn something to do another one? - of course give some money to the BF
I make my small-but-expanding living using Blender as part of a workflow with Poser 7 and DAZ Studio 3.0. I make models in Blender, assign vert groups, and then finish the rigging in Poser (which has a proprietary rigging system, so it has to be done there or in Studio). There are links to my stores in my sig. Rendering in Poser/DAZ is a hobby market and the hobbyists generally buy (or download; there’s a large freebie community too) all their props and content to make their renders. Making these forms of content is very complex, so the hobbyists themselves seldom learn.
The paying market for items made in Blender, rather than exported from it, is very small at present.
You can sell stuff using a ballpoint pen on paper. Make something interesting and it may get the right attention. Art is not only production, but business and self-promotion. You gotta get your stuff out there where people can see it.
I got into Microstock several years ago when it was taking off. Its sooooo much harder to make an impact now because stock sites have catalogs of ~12million files, but because some of my early works were popular they still come up early in searches, and thus sell regularly. I made a very simple 3D image of a “tick” that sells often and depending on the size the buyer wants can go for $0.25 - $10US each time. I then stopped producing for about 2 years, yet my portfolio still worked for me (albeit with dwindling returns).
Unfortunately its now a game of volume, and I now spend 8hrs making images that look photoreal and fantastic but they sometimes barely sell at all. Lucky I enjoy doing it I guess. I also find stock images a bit soul-sucking as true creativity doesn’t necessarily sell well.
If you are as good at texturing as your samples, you can master lighting, and get noise-free clean images at 3000px by 2000px minimum you could be making money.
A warning though, it can be hard to get accepted, and it can be hard to pick a winning topic - especially one that hasn’t already been done. Oh, and watch out for the copyright clauses.
P.S. even if you dont make much money, its a good way to get your skills up to a commercial level and all goes towards your portfolio.
Fair points, maybe it was misinterpreted a little bit. I completely agree with not doing more work than is necessary (common business sense) and tailoring the work for the needs at hand. I guess I was thinking more along the lines of tailoring your work for the high end so that eventually you can minimize the amount of potentially uninteresting/petty projects you take on. It’s a way to drive your skills and at the same time market yourself to the clients who do have the money, thus securing a bit of stability for yourself.
It may be difficult to find some work locally in such an area, but don’t underestimate working through the internet, at least for finding the work or marketing yourself. In my experience, I’ve probably met less than half of my clients face-to-face. The rest is by phone and email, often times in different timezones and continents. Globalization at its best, I suppose. Who knows, maybe one of the local firms will find you on the internet somewhere, see that you’re a local yokel and call you up.
[quote=“StompinTom,post:33,topic:488518"”]
… … …
It may be difficult to find some work locally in such an area, but don’t underestimate working through the internet, at least for finding the work or marketing yourself. In my experience, I’ve probably met less than half of my clients face-to-face. The rest is by phone and email, often times in different timezones and continents. Globalization at its best, I suppose. Who knows, maybe one of the local firms will find you on the internet somewhere, see that you’re a local yokel and call you up.[/QUOTE]
There’s also a matter of proportionality: not so many people are potential clients, well. But how many 3D creators are there to take you a job away?
The few things i could sell where very small things, but they give you visibility and some “seriousness” when offering your services to your clients’ neighbours…
Of course, if you live in NewYork, you must kind of swimm in a lake of 3D artists and studios!! :yes:
If you are just looking for enough money each month to save up for a computer, you can do the Turbo Squid route. The returns are crap (you only get 50% - 60% of what you earn), but if you get a few models up there, and they are of decent quality, you can save up for your computer.
There are various ‘rent-a-coder’ sites around that allow you to bid on jobs. I’ve never tried them out so I can’t say if they work or not.
If you want to make ‘real’ money then you are going to have to investigate an a particular area of CG and then start hitting local businesses to tout your services.
If you are REALLY good, then you can approach a studio and ask for a job.