Question from a graphic artist (2D and 3D )

[2D3DArtist]

Hello everyone. Please excuse  my total noobieness here in Second Life (is my first day)... I am 2d texturer, illustrator/painter/comic creator, and 3d modeler (some 3d animation, too). I worked for some years as game artist covering those areas (and mainly , anything graphic).  Right now work as designer for web and print, and pixel/icon artist.  All this outside Second Life, I mean. 

I am completely new here, but I was wondering if one can sell or do custom textures/skins here, as well as modeling or any of the above areas. But mostly, if there's some known data on the average value (in dollars) the people typically asign for doing one of these items... Or...what is the average income if is sold in a passive way (ie, per copies, subscriptions, etc)

If there is no info about it, or the question is very inappropiate, please... excuse me.

[Jenni Darkwatch]

Textures sell for next to nothing. 3D work, i.e. mesh and sculpts, sell better. Not enough for a RL income I'd think, and not enough to be worth it as a professional endeavor. Just go to the SL marketplace and check prices. Divide the price by 250 and you have the approximate US$ amount.

[Ziggy21 Slade]

It sounds like you have a great skill set for SL.

It really depends on how much you want to commit yourself, but I would advise creatiing a range of products and selling them yourself rather than doing custom work for others. Because things sell for relatively low prices here, people have low price mindset so it's very difficult to earn a decent rate doing custom work, if you manage to make minimum wage you will be doing very well indeed.

Creating your own products and selling them won't bring a return as quickly, but over time someone with your skills can easily make a decent rate on a product. As an example, a product I developed, originally from free scripts which I have modded, has sold over 2000 copies over the last 4 years, each sold for around $2 US each, which means I have made over $4000 US from selling a product which took a total of around  40 hours to develop (I have updated it a few times). As a rough guess, if I had paid you to develop this for me, you would probably have walked away with about $400 US. The other main advantage I see is that you get to make what you want, when you want. On the down side, marketing your own products is time consuming, packaging, creating listings, managing a store (if you decide you need one), all these things seem to expand to fill all available time, most creators enjoy a lot of this stuff, but it's not for everyone, If you are currently in a serious RL relationship, you may not be for much longer if you decide to take this route.

Prices for textures are usually pretty cheap, although sets of textures that work together can go for much higher prices, L$3000 ($12 US) per pack for instance. Skins vary in price from Free through to about L$4000 ($16 US) for a quality posh one.

Residents who are not involved in creating and selling or have so far been unsuccessful at it, have absolutely no idea how much money it's possible to make here, people can and do live off their SL earnings ( I make about 2 thirds of what I make at my fairly low paid RL job), although it has to be said such merchants are very much in the minority. Having said that there are thousands of us who are making a credit crunch busting extra bit of pocket money each week.

I suggest you check out inworld search > events > education (not sure if its the same in the new viewers), where you will find plenty of free building classes, give a few of these a go, even though you already have skills, it will open your eyes to the possiblilities.

Good Luck Dude ! 

 

[2D3DArtist]

Thank you very very much both of you for such a great information. I will dig the several possibilities then, and will give it a thought, and will see what I can do.