/3/ - 3DCG

The only software you need is blender.

>>667487
If you've got a good enough grasp on form, lighting and volume I'd say jump in. I would keep doing traditional art as well though, as it's a different mindset to 3d and might help you later on.
As for jobs, there's more than just games and movies/tv. I make extra money selling my renders on posters, shirts, and all sorts of stuff. There's making album artwork for musicians, music videos, and all sorts of things. I work as a graphic designer, but I use 3d heavily in my work. So to add to the list, there's that. Though I would learn quite a bit about design before jumping in there as it's an art in of itself.
You could even sell sculpts for 3d printing, or sell models online.

It's what you make of it, same as 2d or any artistic medium. You've gotta have some business sense, or connections if you want to really make it though. So keep practicing and don't rest on your laurels too much.

>>667489
>I make extra money selling my renders on posters, shirts, and all sorts of stuff.
Not OP, but I'm interested in this. What sites would you recommend? I heard of Redbubble, but this is a space I really know nothing about.

>>667487
3d printing is a rough business. You can practice on FDM machines that run like, 300 bucks in your garage and get some experience with the software side of things in NURBS modelers, but its all hot garbage. The people who are really good at this are making art/culture/sculpted adnois won't touch FDM. Those designs are extremely hi-poly meshes and fragile with too much detail to print. Requiring SLA (or even stacked powder printing) just to exist. And guess what- that's where the money is. That's the whole point of 3d printing, no one wants shitty home depot DIY plastic cases. So on top of this crazy high poly modelling that's super fragile, you gotta learn about injection molding (because your print is just a master copy that will be mass produced without a 3d printer). There is kind of a similarity between 3d printing and those anime resin figurine kits from the 90s. Artist makes the master model, breaks it into castable pieces, and uses vacuum tank with silicon to make the mold, then shoots hot epoxy into it a million times. But in your case, you will probably be running a bank of form 2 printers or if your lucky an HP inkjet that comes out perfectly after you model it and all you gotta do is mail it to the people casting it.
If you actually like blocky CAD nurbs 3d modeling, you should get into solidworks and CNC fabrication. They use tiny drills to actually make a steel mold of your blocky thing with gcode and pathing and kerf and all that horseshit I hate dealing with.
>zbrush is the best and only way to make hi poly SLA/powder 3d printed models. Blender is what you bring your model in for rendering it can't create this kinda stuff.

>>667503
I use Redbubble and Threadless.
If I gotta be honest, Threadless is a little better in terms of margins, but Redbubble is decent just because of the variety of shit to put it on, and it's just a "set it and forget it" kind of thing.
I've tried to get into Patreon for a bit more consistent income, but I can't really figure out what to really give out on there.
I also want to try my hand at printing out some of my work and selling it locally at art fairs and the like, but I haven't gotten around to it, and haven't really found a place that prints cheap enough.

>>667489
>>667514
>>667516
Wow, really cool that I got these answers I expected /3/ to be much slower.

>>667489
>If you've got a good enough grasp on form, lighting and volume I'd say jump in. I would keep doing traditional art as well though, as it's a different mindset to 3d and might help you later on.
Cool.
>the job part
Sooo, is it sort of like... the freelancer thing for /ic/? I'm OK with it as I'm only mildly sociable and I fear corporations, but isn't it difficult to find commissions? At least, right now I'd have no clue where to look. I'm EU, btw.

>>667514
Sounds like a huge upfront investment, doesn't it? Is it mostly for industrial customers or do people who want these models/molds are also smaller businesses?

>>667703
>Sooo, is it sort of like... the freelancer thing for /ic/? I'm OK with it as I'm only mildly sociable and I fear corporations, but isn't it difficult to find commissions? At least, right now I'd have no clue where to look. I'm EU, btw.
Dunno about the /ic/ freelancer thing.
But all I can say is do your best to build a following. Commissions will come with that, though it helps to remind people from time to time that you're available. A good way to get a quick boost of followers is like I said, follow trends. Do artwork tied to popular franchises like Nintendo games or popular anime. You'll build a following rather quickly as they're generally high profile and have a wide audience. Then as you feel comfortable with your work using popular stuff, gradually shift focus to what you really enjoy doing. Obviously you'd have some bits of that in your work beforehand so the transition is smoother. So for example if you like doing environments, maybe recreate areas from games or something, then later do original environments.

In any case, it's good to be aware of what you can and can't do. Don't take a commission if you don't think you can do it justice. It's also important to always stay professional, conduct yourself like a business, not a high-schooler.