Registration on microstocks

In this post I want to tell about most actual and best microstocks, which I recommend to work with. I work with various microstocks, about 10, and I will explain about the most popular and profitable:

1. Shutterstock. The "King of the hill" in microstock world, I just can say that it bring me about 50% of all my stock income. You will need pass exam by sending them 10 your best images. If shutterstock approve 7 or more of them, congratilations, you in! Also, you will need provide your international passport. Minimum image size: 4 mega pixels (MP).

2. Istock. Also very big RF-photobank, founded in 2000 year. Has an exams, You'll need to provide 3 images for it. Accepts photos, 3d renders, any rasters, vectors, music, flash templates. Requires some document of your own (passport, id, etc). Minimum image size: 2MP.

3. Dreamstime. Good Romanian photobank, with no exams. Often keeps second-third place in sales. Has a rating for each image, which depends on sales count. The more sales - the more rating, and more earning for one sale. Minimum image size: 3MP.

4. Fotolia. Also good and profitable microstock. No exams needed. Sells regularly, in case of good portfolio. Minimum image size: 4MP.

5. Depositphotos. Young and promising photobank. Has an exam, but not so exacting, as his older competitors ). You'll need provide 5 work. Minimum image size: 4MP.

6. 123RF. Not so well-publicized, but good microstock. Requires passport, and pass exam of 10 images. Minimum image size: 4MP.

7. Pixtastock. Japanese microstock. Average or low in rating, but sometimes do some good sales. Minimum image size: about 0.5MP.

There are a lot of other photobanks, but these are the best, the most profitable and will bring you most of your earnings. All you need - go through links and register your account, it is absolutely free!

All links will bring you to registration as my referrals, this will not affect you in any manner, but my referrals can write me personally (via personal messages) if they need any help on microstocks.

Remember, all images you produce, must be absolutely your creation, even if you redraw or copy some photo, this must be your photo also. Don't copy any work of somebody. Yes, you can browse microstocks popular works, but if you want to imitate some work, do it in your own manner, try to go deeper, look on it at another angle, with new thoughts and produce your own unique content!

Find your niche. For example, I know one very successful stocker, who makes very good sales, and creates only images of fire. All of them very quality and diverse: fire letters, musical instruments in fire, sport equipment in fire, and so on.

Good luck!

Benefits of microstocks business

Ok, why micro-stocks? What are the benefits of exactly this business? Yes, I call it business, cause if you want to get real income, You should think about it as about your business.

Well, it has a really pleasant advantages, let's explore some of them:

- firstly, you don't need a start-up capital for beginning it, as long as you want to sell 3d renderings and/or illustrations everything you'll need — computer and internet connection. In case, if you plan to also sell photos, you will need camera, but in nowadays, micro-stocks can accept photos that were even made with smartphones, because modern smartphones can shot good enough photos. What's about software? Well, today we have a lot of absolutely free software, for example blender for 3d, GIMP for 2d, and many others (google it, you will be surprised the amounts of them). Also, today, software developers offer some good subscription models for buying their products for a time when you need. For example, you can buy Adobe Photoshop & lightroom bundle on subscription basis, where price started from $9.99 per month! I guess you can spend more for one lunch :).

- as long as stocks are internet business, they don't linked to place (in geographical meaning), so you can work wherever you are. I know some people, who live in one country, but they travel often, and sometimes live in other countries, for example live all winter long in Thailand. And they can work despite of time and place. Anywhere.

- income. Actually, there no limits in amount of incomes. All depends on your wish, time and perseverance. I know some successful stockers make about 20+K per month. And this is not a limit. Many of them started as partial time stockers, and at some moment moved to full-time work for stocks and it caused appreciable increase of their income. You get as much as you worked. You can work on stocks at you free time along with your primary job, and earn ~100-2000$ per month (the actual amount depends on a lot of factors, such as size of portfolio and quality of it) or go for a full-time stock work and gain ten times more.

- you will not stop earning, even if you stop to produce and upload new images. For example, I had a difficult period of time, when I almost wasn't uploading new images for about one year. Actually I uploaded about 8 images per year! This is very insignificantly amount. And my sales hasn't disappeared, they even hasn't decreased! It is because my portfolio were enough big and had a some successful images, which I call "hit". Of course, if I didn't begin to upload lately, my sales started to decrease slowly with the lapse of time. So, you should to upload more and more, but this is life, and if it forces you to stop for a while, your sales will stay at their average level for sometime.

- you will earn by doing what you love!


Next time I'll tell about famous stock sites, give a links for registration on them and explain their difference.

What is photobanks?

What is photobanks (photo-stocks, stocks)? The photobank is a provider of some stock stuff, it is mainly photos, illustrations, 3d renders, video footages, sound effects, music. They don't sell images themselves, but sell a RIGHTS of USING of images, video, music etc. The basic license is Royalty Free, you can google it for the details, but in two words it means, that you can sell your images (or any appropriate stuff) an infinite number of times, and anyway you will remain a right holder of all your images, you just sell a rights to use them in limited way (for example, if somebody bought your image for booklet or flyer, he can only print it in limited copies, usually not more than 100 000 copies). There are some other licenses, with more extended rights of using images, but we'll talk about them later.
The scheme is simple: you draw/shot/render some image, upload it to stock-site, it sells your stuff and you receive earnings, voila! But remember, all your stuff must be absolutely yours.
Next time I'll tell about benefits of stock business versus others.
Stay tuned!

Micro-stocks for 3d artists

Hello, there.
My name is Artur.
More than 2 years have passed, since my last post here. Why I wasn't posting anything? Well, I worked hard. I try out new ways, new opportunities, new interesting things, found some useful info and gained some new experience. I found how can I do some money by doing what I love, as you maybe know it is 3d graphics and illustration. I talk about photo-banks or photo-stocks. Yes, I become micro-stocker, and I want to share my experience with my readers here, in my blog, so stay tuned, I'll try to do it interestingly and clearly!

©eranicle.blogspot.com/

China house

My current old-old WIP.

Some tests for water lily.

Trees and plants

The trees and plants in 3d always were a real headache for me. Here are some experiments in trees for one of my personal project — china house. First of all, the tree must have a "true", "treelike" geometry. One of important things, that leafs should face to sky. In my case, I used Maya's Paint FX trees, with a lot of tunings, converting to poly assigning mia material and render via mentalray.