Resources for my Friends

Just a quick-n-dirty informal list of useful links for my friends; not a public "showcase".

Toys & Tools for digital art

DAZ|Studio: Freeware, perfect entry point to the wonderful world of 3D art. While you're there, have a look at Hexagon too (not free, but worth every cent and more).

After you've played with DAZ for a while, you'll be ready for its big brother Poser - aaah, what bliss! Especially the MAT room, where the full joy of color and texture is at your command.

These are among my main toys, and if you'd like to see what I made with it, have a look at my 3DCommune, PoserPros, Exchange3D and Renderosity shops.

There are many 2D graphics editors available, and after trying most of them, I've chosen PhotoImpact. The user interface is intuitive, and in my opinion it's also the best value for money. Version 6, which I've been using for a few years now, has all the features I need and then some. For editing vector objects I prefer Inkscape, but the latest version of PhotoImpact has probably improved in that aspect too.

Selling your art

For artists who live outside the USA, it is often more difficult to actually get those lovely dollars into our bank accounts, than it is to earn it. So let's get that headache out of the way before I give you some links where you can open your own stores.

After years of research, I've finally found an ideal solution: Moneybookers. You won't believe how much they'll save you on banking fees, red tape and hassles, no matter where you live. In many countries, they even transfer funds in your local currency.

There is one litle snag, but we're working on it, and your help will be more than welcome. We have to convince the brokers who pay us to do so through the Moneybookers system, and these communities and organizations are more likely to adapt their payout systems if many of their members request it.

So please, wherever you join up, ask them to pay us through Moneybookers - it will make things SO much easier for international artists.

Create free storefronts

• Sell 3D/Poser stuff: DAZ also provides brokering options, but their approval process isn't nearly as efficient as 3DCommune (Highly recommended), Exchange3D, or Renderosity. Nevertheless, it's a very busy site, most likely worth waiting for.


• Yessy is a fantastic broker to sell your paintings, photography, sculpture, drawings, digital art, mixed media, glass, ceramics, jewelry, etc. You can create your own art gallery, and if you decide to keep it after the 14-day free trial period, they only charge a flat fee of $60 per year (=$5/month). Which is nothing compared to most brokers, who take at least half of your profit in commission.
• Put your art on T-shirts, mugs and about 80 other funky products: CafePress and Zazzle (my favorite). See my designs page for examples and links


• Fotolia is where I'll probably be selling most of my work from now on, because:
  • they use Moneybookers
  • their site is quick, and very professional
  • support is fast and efficient
  • they accept submissions in the SVG format, which is what Inkscape produces, and I love playing with Inkscape. SVG stands for Scalable Vector Graphics. This is the format of the future, and already well-supported. If you're not using it yet, get Inkscape immediately. It's fun, and file sizes are small, saving a lot on bandwidth and disk space -- a major factor when you're working with thousands of images.
  
  
  
• The greeting card industry always has room for more, and I recently discovered this gem of a site:
  
  
  At GreetingCardUniverse you receive 50c (US$) for each card you sell, and your work is promoted through a massive network. From what I've seen so far, their support is superb.


• Sell art to the mobile phone industry: See http://iLoveMyPhone.info for examples, but (I have to update that whole site!) ignore all links to MediaPlazza - they've buggered me around for months, and I recently saw several complaints from other vendors/artists too. If you want to get on the cellphone bandwagon, start with BizMobil. I'll add more links here later, but there's lots of details I'd prefer to verify before unleashing it on you.


• Read the next section too - there's great potential for visual art in the publishing industry. Search the Lulu forums for "art" and you'll see what I mean.

Hundreds more art-related links are scattered all over my PC. Will add them soon(ish), but these should keep you busy for a while already.

Writing, Audio recordings, etc

Start here. Through Lulu you can offer P.O.D. (Print on Demand) and/or electronic delivery. This is a fabulous service that needn't cost you a cent. However, you'll have to do a lot of promotion yourself if you don't add an ISBN number to your publication (this is the part that isn't free). Before you decide, take a look at the Amazon site, and consider the value of having your work listed there. Their traffic statistics are mind-boggling, and thousands of affiliates are helping to do the selling.

Promotion on the Internet is a time-consuming, tricky business, and I'm starting to think that a few select services are worth paying for. The Lulu/Amazon combination is one of them.

I'll test this theory with the next book I publish and let you know. It will be interesting to see if sales on my other books (that do not have the ISBN number yet) also improve due to increased traffic from Amazon. My guess is that it will. If you try this option before I do (having so much fun with 3D modelling that it might be a while ...) please keep me up to date with progress, ok?

One more thing about Lulu; the quality of their printing is absolutely superb, as those of you who have seen Journey to Freedom (in full color) will know. Having had some nightmare experiences with commercial printing and color-matching over the years, I did not even want to start promoting it before seeing the book with my own eyes. I was pleasantly surprised with this one!

OpenOffice probably deserves some of the credit for the quality of the books though. It is a free OpenSource program that is obviously compatible with Lulu's formats, and way better than Microsoft's bloatware could ever hope to be.

Although much smaller than MS Office, the current version is still a massive 93MB download, and if you don't have broadband, it's probably easier and cheaper to get the CD. Besides, it includes updates, tutorials and a year's support, which could really come in handy.

Know-How

Most of the sites I recommend here have forums where you can "ask the experts" if you need help with their software and/or services. Make use of it.The communities are friendly, and there's an amazing wealth of information available.

If the Internet seems a bit daunting to you, read the Adventures of Stupidman The excerpts I read are hilarious, and laughing while you're learning is the best way to do it.

Also have a look at my bookworms page - randomly unorganized, it contains links to several interesting sites.

Kids

As those of you who know me well will know, I can carry on for hours about the importance of treating kids right. I've started a blog about it.

There's a million things I want to say on the subject of raising the next generation. Saying it in a diplomatic way takes more time than I have at the moment, however, so the blog isn't currently being updated as often as it should be.

Even so, whether you have or don't have a particular interest in children, I'm going to ask you a favor. Please forward my blog's address ( http://monstrs.blogspot.com ) to all the parents you know. And anyone else who has an influence on kids.

In case you don't want to read the whole blog, I'd just like to bring this one paragraph to your attention:

With a grandchild on the way, I searched for the book "Birth without Violence" by Frederick Leboyer, and was delighted to see that he has written more than that one beautiful book I knew of. It made a tremendous impression on me when I was expecting my youngest, we used his methods, and I can vouch for it. In my opinion, you and I can make a huge difference in the world just by recommending these books to everyone who has anything to do with children.

Please help to spread the word. And start your own blog, too.

By the way, feel free to pass the link to this page on to those you consider worthy of the name "Friend". It is not accesible to the public from my main site; the direct link is http://FreeESpirits.com/3d/friends.php

Miscellaneous Resources

I have several handy freeware utilities that don't seem to be available on the Internet anymore, so I'm making them available for download here. If you know where to locate their authors, please let me know.

LazyCat for finding files on your computer. My eyes hate its horrid yellow-on-black interface, but I love the speed at which it finds those obscure files I'm always looking for.

ShellNew_AddRemove for trimming down the "New"-context menu in your file explorer. Don't know about you. but all I want in that menu is "new folder" and "new text document". Yet every program you install tries to feature in the context menu, slowing down the whole system when you right-click.

I'll be adding more "tried & tested" links here as soon as I find them on my PC, where Information Overload rules. I've never pretended to be the most organized person in the world, but it's worse than ever now, since my 250GB hard drive recently crashed...

Anyway, I hope you will use these links to spread your special talents all over the Globe, and be richly rewarded for your efforts.
Have Fun and Be Happy!
`_~
T

Links summary