20 WAYS TO MAKE MONEY AS AN ARTIST WITH PROCREATE!

Hi everyone, welcome back to Ghost Paper. My name is Leo and welcome to a long overdue video that I wanted to have made for the longest time, but I find that in times as we're living right now, I think, you know, the times of a virus that's forcing us to stay at home in self-isolation, I cannot think of a better time actually to make this video, which is basically 20 different ways that you can use your iPad and Procreate to try to generate some supplementary income. It might even be your first source of income depending on your situation. So I'm also hoping that within these 20 different ways that there is one that will adapt to your art style and your skills so that you can try it out. Also, I've created this list separated into three sections. So the first section is dedicated for selling your art, the art that you create. So if you have a very specific visual language or an art style, what are the different ways that you can use that in order to sell your art online? The second one is about creating content. How can you create content tools and toolkits and brushes? How can you sell that online? And the third one is as a freelancer and as a hired illustrator, what sorts of avenues can you use to actually generate some supplementary income? Also, if you know any other way that is not here in these 20 different ways, let me know in the comment section. Let me know in the comment section if you know any other ways to use your iPad and Procreate as an illustrator to actually try to generate some supplementary income. So now without any further ado, let's get with the list. So the very first couple ones here on the first section, I just wanted to get through with those because those will require you to have some sort of a following on social media. And I know that is not the case for everyone, but in the case that you do have some sort of a following, doesn't need to be a huge following actually, you can still get some stuff out of these first three. The very first one is to sell your art directly to clients. So say that you already have something on the go, you've been working with a certain number of clients, you could be selling your art, the art that you create, and you're posting on your Instagram, on your Dribbble page. You could be selling the license for clients to use your artwork. So you don't necessarily need to create anything new, but rather find clients, find the right partner that wants to license that artwork for a specific price. It could be for perpetuity, it could be for some time allocation, it could be for a specific product, and you can certainly work out that arrangement. The next one, as I've mentioned before, is using pages such as Dribbble to post your work and find clients that are willing to buy that specific artwork that you create, or that very specific visual language that you create for their products. So you're not really creating, you're not really working on something that they're asking you to do, but rather just selling your art as licensing for clients. And the third one that does require a bit of following is to get your artwork and do limited edition prints, and do some sort of a limited edition run where you're signing these pieces of artwork, and you're choosing the proper materials, the proper paper materials that you want them printed on, and creating some sort of a buzz in letting people know that these are limited edition prints. So that actually really works well because viewers and fans of your art, they will know that this is a limited edition, that these are not, for example, these are actually the total opposite of print on demand, which we'll also talk about in this video. But I find that the idea of a limited edition does have a lot of qualities, such as it's more exclusive, it's only going to be for a certain while, and that doesn't mean that you can do other limited editions once the first one runs out. It just means that you just have to create some sort of a, you can do by seasons, you can select a specific theme and just work on themes and keep creating those limited editions. So now let's talk about a few ideas and opportunities if you don't have such a big following. For example, you can set up a website such as a Shopify website and then use print on demand possibilities such as Printful, for example, and sell your prints online without having to step outside your home to actually go and buy the paper or even to deliver the goods. You don't have to deliver the prints. These services, they do all of that part themselves. You just have to create the artwork, upload, and put that into a website. So in this very first idea here that I'm talking now, we are creating a website, a curated website that you will decide on the theme and the layout, but the service of printing is a print on demand service. This is a little bit different from, for example, creating an account on Society6, Redbubble, Teespring, Thisplate. There are so many other websites which allow you to create an account and kind of like a shop page where it allows you to post your artwork and then be printed into multiple things such as mugs. You can print them on t-shirts, hats, like shoes and pins and stickers, and there are so many different ways. But the differences that I was just mentioning between the previous one and this one is that on the previous one, you're setting up a website and you're curating that website, and you could use, for example, Google AdSense and Google AdWords to try to market that website. And on the second one, which is creating a page on Society6, Teespring, and many other websites, they do have many users on those platforms, and those can actually find you either by searching on the platform itself or by your profile being featured. If you're creating something that it could be very current, or somehow you just get lucky and you create something that resonates to their website, and they can feature you on their front page. Another idea that's a little bit more creative, actually, say that you like to create or to make a lot of these repeated patterns on Procreate, such as stencils, floral patterns. And if you're willing to, if you have a couple of these, you could get in touch, for example, studios such as Slowdown Studio, which works with fabrics, tapestries, and things like that, and you can submit your artwork to those places. And if they do choose it, they'll commission you, they'll give you a commission, and they'll print, and they'll take your design and print into their products. And now, finally, if you don't really want to deal with the fact of printing and all the offsite stuff that needs to happen, you could also sell your digital artwork in a shop on Etsy. So you're selling as digital downloads, and you're letting the consumers, the people who are buying your art, to actually decide on what paper do they want to have it printed, or if they want to turn them into stickers, you're basically just providing the art, and you're probably also providing the layouts for those specific mediums. So if you're selling stuff that goes on a pillow, you're making a square kind of piece of artwork, or if you're selling something that goes as a print, you're already giving it the dimensions and the DPI, and everything is properly set up as easy as possible for someone to take that into a print shop and have it printed. So now let's talk about the second section, which is creating content. And now, it's not really as important for you to have a voice or a specific art style, but rather to be able to create assets, toolkits, and things for people to download and help them out in creating their artwork. So the very first one, which is quite common in the procreate art world, is to create brushes. So creating custom brushes and selling those on websites, once again, such as Etsy and Gumroad. For myself, for example, I do have my own shop on Gumroad, and the link is always in the description of my videos. If you want to check that out, you'll definitely see some of the options and some of the things that I've created and I've put onto my own shop. So once again, those are very specific. Maybe your focus is on a certain style, and you can create brushes for that style. For example, watercolor painting, you can be creating brushes for that specific style, and you could actually get specialized in creating the best brushes for that style and trying to offer some examples as well on your Gumroad page. Now, the next one is also taking away the fact that you're not selling your own artwork, but rather, let's just say some evergreen content or some typography, but like creating t-shirts that you can sell on Amazon Merch and Redbubble, t-shirts with typography and designs. They are not necessarily the stuff that you like to create or like your own artwork, but stuff that actually appeals to maybe a broader audience. So you could be making certain amount from those designs, giving you the means to actually create your own artwork on the site. And still on this avenue, I think that a lot of people probably don't know is that you can create books, for example, coloring books, and sell them on Amazon using the Kindle extension, which allows you to actually submit your book, and Kindle will have it printed, and then you sell on Amazon as a print on demand as well. So you're not going to be pre-printing these books. Those books, you're going to submit them as digital files, and they have to pass a few rules and formats that, of course, they need to be clear of. And then Kindle, then you are able to list them on Amazon, and you're also able to sell them. The next one is one that I actually do quite a bit myself, which is to create learning content, creating classes on Skillshare and Udemy. And this one does require a few things. It requires you to have a camera, to have a microphone, and good quality hardware, not necessarily the best camera out there or the best microphone, but it requires you to be able to be comfortable recording a video, to have the sensibility to convey a message and to be able to deliver a clear message on whatever is the course or class that you want to do. But there are also options where you don't have to be on the camera at all. You can just be recording a top-down video. If you're doing, for example, once again, watercolor painting with real watercolor paints and just paper laying it down on a table, or you could be doing a slideshow kind of presentation where you're only filming the screen. You're not really filming yourself, but you do need to actually be able to come up with the idea. You have to plan it out. There's a few steps involved into that. So it's not necessarily the easiest way to actually generate some sort of a supplementary income, but it's definitely a possibility. If you're interested, there's also a link in the description of this video of my own Skillshare page, which gives you two months free, which will allow you to actually check my course and other classes and other mentors and see their teaching styles and kind of study that a little bit before you try to create your own content. Now, the next one is kind of similar to Skillshare, but it's a little bit different and it's also quite interesting. But it's to create, say that you're creating periodic content. So you're creating some weekly episodes or monthly episodes and you're still teaching things or tutorials and walkthroughs and speed paints, but you're actually selling those on Patreon. And there's another website actually called Ko-fi, which allows you to have a place with the premise of buying a cup of coffee for a specific project that you need to be creating every month. So this is more like some sort of a paywall and offering periodic content. You're still teaching people, but you're basically getting some sort of a subscription. So it's a very interesting premise because it's not really creating a course, defining a value, and that's a one-time thing, but it's more about supporting an artist in order to create content periodically that will help you in return. The next one, in case that you were actually really thinking about creating a short animation, a short series, or a short set of stills, is to create a GoFundMe page, Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and try to get the funds necessary to move that project. So this one is also a little bit different because instead of being something that you're getting every month per se, it's more about generating the funds and the means to carry that project through. But if you generate enough to actually carry the project and that project takes a couple months, you're still going to have that clear and you're still going to have something that is the conclusion or the product of that exercise and all the work that you're going to put into. So there's a lot of activities that I've been seeing lately, especially with everything that's happening right now, especially on GoFundMe. For example, even my barber created a GoFundMe page where they're just trying to help people that work at the barber shop try to stay afloat. So there's a lot of other places such as coffee shops and places needing to keep afloat and creating GoFundMe projects. And that also means that if you have an artistic project, you can totally create that as well online and ask for some help. And finally, since we're talking a little bit about animation, if you are using Procreate and your iPad mostly to create animations, another really interesting thing that you can do on Procreate, especially having the iPad as a mobile thing, is to create toolkits and small animations with alpha and you can sell them at the Envato market, for example. There's tons of stuff over there. There's this really, really cool 2D library of elements. There's people creating titles, supers, lower thirds, transitions. There's so much you can create. Your creativity really sets the roof there as far as you can go. As long as you have a strong idea and you create a set of elements that are as versatile as possible, giving options for colors, frame rate, sizes, you can actually create some really cool toolkits and use Envato as the selling platform. And now for the third and final section, as some freelance work, what are the things that you can do using Procreate and your iPad? So the first one is actually quite similar to the very first item in this video, but in this case, once again, you're not going to be selling your art or your art style, but it's to work as an artist hired by a studio or a brand to create whatever they need you to create. So whatever sort of illustration, logo, design asset, but you have to be versatile to be able to execute their vision, their design brand, and their brand guidelines. And you have to basically reproduce their style. So as long as you're comfortable doing that, you can for sure work as a hired illustrator. Now, of course, that does require you to be able to have some clients. So in the case that you don't have, there are some amazing websites out there such as Upwork, Fiverr, and even the Dribbble Jobs. If you have a Dribbble Pro account, you can certainly check for those opportunities and work as a freelance illustrator. Now, also getting a little bit creative here, you could be creating design elements and toolkit elements for channels on YouTube and Twitch. So you could be working for content creators that actually need a visual language for their channels. You could be doing stickers, logos, animations. You could be doing their super chat, like little pixel art icons. Really, it's going to also be up to you to create a compelling argument and a list of items that you can offer for these content creators. Now, if the thing that you like to create the most is concept art for landscape and characters, if that's more sort of like your style on working on Procreate, for example, you could create a page on ArtStation with your work and stuff that you like and try to create opportunities for studios and shops who are working with games and again, short films and things like that. And that actually may lead not only to freelance work, but to actual jobs in the future. And here's another creative idea. You could also work as a private mentor or it's like a one-on-one session online, so you don't have to leave your home. And you could be helping people to enhance their skills. So this is sort of similar to what Patreon kind of offering could be, but you're working as a one-on-one mentor. You could be working out of your Instagram, you could be working over Skype, you could be working over Zoom calls, and you're being like a consultant for brands, other illustrators, other artists that need some help either on their skills or on some technical level on software. They need to maybe even learn a little bit more about Procreate. And finally, since we talked a little bit about animation, because Procreate does allow you to actually animate on Procreate and it does have some animation tools, you could be doing some little things, some little animation works as a freelancer for, once again, studios and brands that need some animation assets. So if you're working on, in fact, on let's just say a short film for like a studio, you could be doing a scene, you could be doing some elements on that scene. Like say there was a scene with rain, there's some effects that need to happen. Or if it's more of a graphical music video, you could be doing a short scene there. You could be painting on top of photos. There's a lot of things you can do with mixed media. And the point that I'm trying to say with this last item on the list is that you can work as an animator freelancer on Procreate. May not have a lot of the options that you find even animating on Adobe Animate or Adobe Photoshop, but you still have a few options there and you can still try to do a little bit of work. So guys, I believe that's the list. Once again, if you know, or if you do other things using Procreate that actually help you generate some income, let me know in the comment section down below. Or if you've tried some of these that you saw here on this list, also let me know your experience in the comment section down below. So that's it for this video, guys. I hope you guys enjoyed it. If you did, a like would be super appreciated, as well as make sure to hit the subscribe button and the bell notification icon so you don't miss any of these tips, reviews, and speed paint videos. And that is all for you to become a better digital illustrator. Now on the right side of the screen, there's always more content for you to expand your knowledge on Procreate and other areas of digital illustration. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you on the next one. Ciao!