Hello, I have been using Blender for quite some time and since I am trying to evolve as an artist, I think that the time to sell some assets online will eventually come to subsidize my income, since this is just a hobby at the moment. The thing is, is it really worth it or is it just me that the whole market as a business is flooded with too much content? I get it that Blender Market is a site to help the developers keep the software running, since its 100% free but the rest seem to be too greedy. Is there any alternative or should I compromise and give it a shot?
1 Like
It depends on how you define “worth it”. I make about 20-30 dollars a month from BM. A lot of people make less, a lot make more, I’m just about average. The top .1% makes a few thousand a month, and the average is about 30-50 a month from what I’ve heard. Selling assets and not add-ons will put you below average, probably 20 a month. Is that “worth it” to you? Only you can know
2 Likes
The market has been flooded with content for 10-15 years, easily. A lot of that content is also basically free.
If you have a stack of assets that you think someone might pay for, there’s nothing lost by putting them out there and seeing what happens. But, I think keep your expectations of earnings quite low. Some months, you might earn enough to buy a soda.
Obviously, some creators absolutely earn quite a bit doing this… so, there’s a market. But you’ll be competing with them for that market. 
4 Likes
I see what you mean, it’s a matter of perspective. I wasn’t planning on getting rich by selling assets alone, but 30 dollars a month is still 30 dollars a month. Thank you.
2 Likes
That’s some good advice, since some scenes or projects are already made so there should be no problem uploading some random assets here and there. I didn’t know how ola this fashion goes back in time, but as you said there is a market for everything and everyone.
1 Like
The main issue, is that like many things started community and individual-based, companies soon got involved. There are studios that do nothing but create content. And they pay workers a salary and will build huge libraries of stuff.
I imagine this had only one effect on the market. And that is to push the quality high, pitting companies in competition with each other and drove the price of quality assets lower, as demand got lower in comparison to supply which went through the roof.
So you just one guy are entering into a market flooded with companies and other experienced artists who have been working this for years ahead of you building up a library of stuff to offer.
So I imagine for a single artist to get going it would take a long time to build up a library of things, which would result in more of a steady stream of sales.
Just go in knowing what you are up against and set your expectations accordingly.
This post is exactly what I had in mind before diving deep into the field. I can’t tell how companies are involved in this but your explanation makes sense. I can’t imagine how to keep up against those odds and as far as I can tell it should not be my basic income source, if any at all. Thank you.
The only thing that everything boils down to, is mostly a matter of supply and demand.
One very important thing is to find one of the many potential uses of the assets and then think on building models for it.
- assets for game engines
- assets for 3D printing
- assets for VR
Or perhaps think of the assets by their category:
- architecture (furniture / plants / walls)
- level design (roads / rubble / garbage / trees)
- cars (tires / wheels / front masks / exhaust pipes)
You can even limit your choice to specific software:
- Blender (nodegraphs / materials / kits)
- Unreal (assets kits for levels)
- Godot (assets kits for levels)
- Unity (perhaps not now – wait for 2024 to see if they get back on track)
As you can see there are many potential combinations in terms of software/design/category/purpose. In many ways you can definitely say that you create multi-purpose addons so they can be used from a lot of different software, but the real secret the most you narrow down the scope the more efficient you would make the process for the buyers, to use the assets directly as intended, which is a very important aspect.
I don’t know if there is a far better plan? In many ways you can take the first step and upload something just to test the waters. But then you will keep pumping content in a steady pace on very standard categories, so you know exactly who are the buyers and what they seek (eg: if you make cartoon characters – you will expect that you exclude all those who seek realistic characters).
You could also consider selling Daz studio formatted assets
and not only just in the official Daz marketplace
but other markets that host Daz studio content as well such as Renderosity
And Renderhub
Yeah good point, since Daz has a very large community. If you consider such software/platforms that are somehow extensible by user content, you could even count some sort of games-platforms-metaverse and related software.
1 Like
ok sure, but just to modify the question: is it worth it to build something on your own (to do your own hosting market), and if so, in what grounds?