If you own a 3D printer or have previously hunted around online for printable files, chances are you may have stumbled onto MyMiniFactory, a website best known for hosting digital storefronts for 3D artists. While most of the content found on the site is geared towards folk who enjoy tabletop RPGs and wargames, some changes have occurred on MyMiniFactory in recent months that opens up the possibilities not just to digital sculptors who create printable files, but also to illustrators, writers and musicians looking to make some cash from their skills.
The 3D printing hobby may not have a huge community, but it's one that’s growing at an incredible rate thanks to greater accessibility to affordable 3D printing hardware and how well it meshes with existing hobbies. The largest of this is likely to be in tabletop wargames and RPGs, where people who enjoy the genre would be expected to buy injection-molded figurines or kits from an official vendor like Games Workshop or WizKids.
In some cases, this is actually a requirement in order to officially enjoy the game (like Warhammer where using non-official armies is taboo), but with 3D printers becoming cheaper and more advanced at an incredible pace each year, more people are jumping into the world of printing to explore new hobbies that were previously inaccessible.
As mentioned, while the name might imply that tabletop and board game miniatures (or at the least, small figurines), you’re now likely to see all sorts of things on MyMiniFactory that will appeal to a wider range of people outside of the gaming community - from DIY Steampunk lamps and immersive RPG music management to open-source museum Scan The World.
While all of these systems are available externally, It’s clear that MyMiniFactory has worked hard to make a Jack-of-all-trades space specifically for small creators and designers trying to set up shop and be fairly compensated for their skills.
I spoke to the MyMiniFactory CEO, Nebo Nikolic, who made it clear that they were a community-first business trying to provide a space for artists to succeed. “If Disney were to come knocking and ask for a collab, we would say no” he laughed, adding “we’re a space for small creators looking to create a sustainable business, even if they don’t have any prior marketing or eCommerce skills. We just want to provide them with all the tools they need to succeed”.
He also expressed that despite its roots in the 3D printing scene, he also wants MyMiniFactory to be a welcome environment for people outside of 3D artists, such as writers and illustrators.
“We want to cover the entire scope of digital creators, from illustrators creating maps or bespoke character sheets, or writers who could create PDF campaigns for various systems. We don't want to exclude any medium, so where the name MyMiniFactory used to mean ‘miniatures’, that's since evolved to mean a ‘mini factory’ where small businesses can take full control of their stores and how they interact with customers”.
It’s early days, but it seems to be working. Creatives are becoming well established on the site and have growing numbers of loyal subscribers and fans.
The conversation reminded me of how discouraged I felt many years ago as a young digital illustrator. As a teen, art was a passion that I spent many hours of the day on, but was never a career I had any hopes of pursuing. Given the recognizable ‘starving artist’ joke, the idea of supporting myself or even just supplementing my employed wage off my own creativity just didn’t seem sustainable, a similar story that many young artists would have told you at the time.
Making bank without Blockchain
But what does any of this have to do with NFTs? Many of us have mixed feelings about them if we’re even able to understand exactly what they are in the first place.
Non Fungible Tokens, often abbreviated to NFTs, are a way of authenticating digital content on cryptocurrency blockchains, primarily Ethereum. This doesn't just mean illustrations or photography though - in theory, anything can be logged as an NFT, including sound clips and even tweets, but you don’t get to own the actual asset. Instead, you’re getting a kind of virtual receipt or logbook that proves the NFT is logged in your name.
Given its connection with cryptocurrency, this system can result in people spending high amounts of cash to jump on board with the trend, often for investments or simply bragging rights. Those hideous Bored Ape NFTs you may have seen used as profile pictures all over Twitter can actually sell for thousands of dollars, despite anyone being able to simply… save the actual art to their computer drive.
While I’m sick of seeing low-effort collections like those monkeys all over the internet, there was one positive keeping me conflicted: small artists were finally making some serious money using their skills. Years of offering commissions or creating work based on the specific needs of a client could be over, leaving artists to work for themselves, on whatever they liked and still make a living.
This isn’t without risks though. Vice reported earlier this week that 80% of the NFTs created on OpenSea, one of the largest NFT marketplaces, are fake, plagiarized from actual artists or straight up spam, and many popular digital artists have found their work being fraudulently sold online by scammers making a quick buck off the talents of real creatives.
I still don’t agree with the ecological or social impact of NFTs, but creatives deserve a space where they can make a living, especially without the fear of their work being stolen. It’s likely that NFTs will be around for a good while yet, but MyMiniFactory offers a compelling alternative for artists to set up a growing business that has multiple income streams, across subscriptions, file sales, and donations.
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