How to Start Out as a Digital Fashion Designer and Monetize your Creations
Samuel Jordon, a 22-year-old artist from Florida, began creating virtual accessories for Roblox three years ago. What started as a hobby of designing digital accessories turned into a lucrative virtual fashion business. Fast forward to 2022, and he’s one of the top sellers at Roblox and is now assisting some of the most well-known brands, from Forever 21 to Stella McCartney enter the metaverse.
Given the rising popularity of web3 and the metaverse, more and more famous celebrities, brands, and individuals are setting foot into the next phase of the internet. Web3 has opened up a lot of opportunities for everyone willing to make the new-age iteration of the web more valuable, where the possibilities for digital fashion designers/creators are as limitless and extraordinary as the industry itself.
There are many brands that are collaborating with digital fashion creators to enter the metaverse and disrupt the fashion industry. For instance, XR Couture, a digital fashion platform, has various collections from numerous well-known and independent artists globally, such as Klaws Designs, Lucii, T Hippie, and more. At XR Couture, we welcome collaborations and partnerships with individuals or brands looking to step into the next frontier of the internet, and add new utilities to digital wearables.
So, if you have a fascination for design and couture, and are considering turning your passion for fashion into a thriving career — this guide is just for you.
Develop an understanding of 3D Fashion Designing Tools
3D fashion designing tools are the foundation of starting out in the digital fashion industry. They ease the entire designing process, and save time & money. These tools are transforming the conventional ways of fashion designing with advanced technology that simplifies pattern-making, fitting, product development processes, and much more.
Here are some of the best tools you can start with:
- Clo 3D
- Marvelous Design
A few other 3D softwares used by 3D fashion designers are :
- Blender
- Cinema 4D
- Maya
How to Monetize as a Digital Fashion Designer
As we’ve now delved into how you can start as a digital fashion designer/creator and the necessary 3D designing tools you need to know about, let’s look into some ways you can monetize this passion.
Collaborate with Gaming Brands
Scouting for gaming or metaverse brands that collaborate with digital artists is one of the best ways to monetize your passion. One good example of such brands is the popular online gaming platform Roblox, which even Samuel Jordon is associated with as we’ve learned in the beginning. Here’s one of the designs he created for the Roblox ecosystem and then proclaimed it on Twitter:
Roblox allows digital artists to create and sell virtual items for in-game avatars, and the best part is that it makes it super easy for artists to do so. If you want to learn more about their selling process, you can head to their support page.
Another popular gaming & metaverse platform is The Sandbox. Unlike Roblox, The Sandbox is a decentralized platform and is owned and run by its users. Users can easily buy or sell items such as buildings, equipment, decorations, and of course, virtual wearables.
Similarly, you can also look for other gaming or open metaverse platforms like Zepeto, Minecraft, Decentraland etc that allow individual artists to create and sell their creations.
Become a Creator or Sell Designs on Marketplaces
Individuals who are more into business or commercial dealings, like selling products online, can build a presence on platforms like Blender Market, Sketchfab, or Gumroad. Blender Market is a premier marketplace where users can either buy stuff or become a creator themselves and list their products, designs, art, etc.
5th dimension, for example, has listed a few Nike shoe models and other creations on Blender Market for users to buy.
Another artist named SAMO3D has listed a lot of digital wearables on the platform, like the one shown in the image below.
On the other hand, Sketchfab allows users to manage their 3D assets, distribute 3D and AR assets, showcase their work, collaborate with others, and trade 3D models. It also has an in-built 3D editor that allows users to fine-tune their creations on the go.
For example, a designer dubbed ‘Paris’ creates 3D models of virtual clothing and sells them on the platform. Here’s one of their creations:
NFT Marketplaces
What’s better than turning your art/design into an NFT and listing them on major marketplaces, right? Well, OpenSea and Rarible allow you to do just that, and the best part is that the process is pretty simple to follow.
Before we get straight onto the process, have a look at Lucii’s (one of XR Couture’s inspiring digital artists) profile on OpenSea and how they trade virtual wearables & accessories on the platform:
Here’s another masterpiece from one of XR Couture’s designers, Klaws Design, on OpenSea:
Now, let’s see how you can turn your art into an NFT with OpenSea:
- Head to OpenSea.io and click on create NFT
- After that, you’ll be redirected to the creation page where you have to upload your NFT, name it, and give it a description
- Upon doing that, you can customize your NFT further and simply click on create to finish up the process
Once you are done creating an NFT, you can sell it on the OpenSea marketplace. You can find out more here.
(Also, note that the default blockchain on OpenSea is Ethereum. You can choose to mint your NFTs on different blockchains as well.)
Collaborate with Digital Fashion Brands
Collaborating with digital fashion brands or scouting if they have any recent openings for digital fashion creators is one of the best ways to land a job. Brands like XR Couture collaborate with independent artists/designers, as we’ve seen earlier in the article. You can check it out here.
Besides that, DRESSX and Artisant, these popular virtual fashion brands, have various collections from numerous well-known artists globally. They allow collaborations and partnerships with individuals and brands to provide opportunities, a varied set of collections, and a better experience for their users. You can simply head to their website, click on the collaborations option and find more information regarding collaborations and job openings.
Join the XR Couture Masterclass by filling up this form and learn how to create incredible designs and monetize them!
Conclusion
There is no doubt that digital fashion is disrupting the traditional fashion industry and becoming more mainstream. Popular brands, celebrities, and a great number of people hopping onto the trend is a great testimony to the above statement. As web3 and the metaverse become more prevalent and adopted, digital fashion will play an integral role in our daily lives — whether related to gaming, business, virtual events, parties, or even conferences.
XR Couture is one such digital fashion platform that caters to the users’ needs on everything related to virtual fashion. As a gesture to support digital artists and create more opportunities in the space, we’ve always embraced collaborations with digital creators and empowered them with a platform to showcase their talent. Not just that, but our recent partnership with the media giant, Snapchat, will enable digital fashion to be more accessible and adopted globally.
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