Last updated on October 17th, 2023
NFTs have stormed the world of conventional art with art galleries and art dealers done away for the betterment of artists. Thanks to this liberated digital world of art, no strict rules govern art and artists. Still, an aspiring digital artist must first have an insight into the NFT art scenario to take the right step in the right direction. This NFT guide will help.
What is NFT?
NFT stands for a non-fungible token, a unique digital property, and no other property similar to it exists. Therefore, you can say that NFT is proof you are the legitimate owner of the products.
According to Investopedia, NFT is a cryptographic asset on a blockchain with unique identification codes and metadata that distinguish them from each other. Unlike cryptocurrencies, they cannot be traded or exchanged at equivalency. This differs from fungible tokens like cryptocurrencies, which are identical and, therefore, can be used as a medium for commercial transactions.
People first came to know about NFTs only in 2021 when Christie’s and Sotheby’s auction houses sold digital artists’ artworks at phenomenal prices. Investors bought the NFT art pieces for millions of dollars, literally spending a massive amount of money to buy a JPEG. Of course, it is not just a JPEG but an NFT, the token.
How does NFT work?
The main reason for the success of NFTs is that it creates scarcity of that product in the market, which leads to a whopping increase in its prices. So, scarcity makes the artworks a collector’s item causing higher biddings.
NFT is a way to get secured ownership over artwork or anything else. When an artist puts a digital file of an NFT art, it is tough for hackers to crack it. So, the digital file itself becomes proof of ownership.
In the pre-NFT era, anyone could copy digital art, and the artist did not get any money for that as no one could claim the ownership. But now, due to NFT, the ownership is in place, and the artist receives a reward in so many ways.
Types of NFT Art
Mainly, there are two types of NFT art: generative and non-generative.
Generative NFT Art
Generative NFT artworks use a specific algorithm that works as a unique NFT identifier to create digital artworks. The algorithm can generate artworks from start to finish.
Here Are Some Examples Of Generated NFT Artworks
- Autoglyphs and ChainFaces are created and stored digitally, representing generative cats. Family (DNA) is stored on the chain, and these images are generated and stored on centralized servers.
- Axie Infinity is a Pokemon-like game. Family (DAN) is stored on the chain but stored on decentralized storage.
Non-Generative NFT Art
The artworks such as paintings that people create and upload to a blockchain and assigned to an NFT are known as non-generative NFT art. So, most NFT art is non-generative. They are because of a combination of human creativity and technology.
Examples Of Non-Generative NFT Art Are Plenty, But Here Are The Famous Ones:
- “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days” by an American artist known under the pseudonym Beeple, sold at Christie’s for $69 million.
- “CryptoPunk #3100” (a blue headband head) sold for $7.58 million.
- “Crossroads” by Beeple sold for $6.6 million.
- The first tweet by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sold as an NFT for $2.9 million.
Why are NFTs so important for artists?
Keeping and managing the security of ownership of products such as artworks is a new necessity of the world. People are now exploring its potential to do transactions and many things safely and securely.
Here Is Why NFTs Are Increasingly Seen As A Technology For The Change
01. Digital Representation
Previously, cryptocurrency was the craze for transactions, but it was a relatively simple concept as a finance system. Modern finance systems need a sophisticated system for real estate and a host of other sectors for safe dealings. NFTs have made the entire transactions system safe and secure by digitally representing artworks.
02. Most Secure System
NFTs are today seen as the most secure and safe way to claim ownership of the artwork. This is thanks to blockchain technology that hackers cannot crack the code. It is a tamper-resistant technology to keep smart contracts and valuable paintings and their ownerships secure and safe.
03. Eliminates Art Dealers
Art dealers are the conventional middlemen in the art world. No artist could make it big in name, fame, and money without them. Therefore, not every artist could build an identity as art dealers were not easy to approach. But NFTs have transformed that world for typical artists.
Digital representation techniques of NFTs on a blockchain have removed the art dealers from the scene. There is no need for the agents as artists can directly deal with the buyers and overall audience.
04. Source of Permanent Income
One of the great benefits of NFTs for the artists is that each someone resells your art piece, you get paid your set fees, which could be between 5 to 10 percent. So, you get paid each time your artwork resells. In this way, a famous art piece becomes your permanent source of income, unlike in the physical world where an artwork gets payment once when an artwork gets sold.
05. Manage Your Identity As An Artist
One of the benefits of using NFTs for art is keeping and managing your identity. When your artworks are converted into NFTs, each piece of work gets unique identity characteristics. Your own identity as an artist also gets preserved and secured from any potential online theft. You can create and deploy a smart contract to a blockchain for ease of use while keeping safety at priority.
06. Create Multiple Owners
NFTs have made it possible to decentralize investment in the art world. You can create another owner of the fraction of a painting with numerous owners. As a result, an artist can increase the worth of artwork and revenues.
07. Artists Create New Markets
Another critical advantage of going to NFTs is that this technology helps them develop new markets and investment opportunities. Each unique NFT becomes a new investment opportunity for investors.
How to get started with NFTs?
You can start with NFTs quickly by taking a few simple steps. While some big NFT markets such as OpenSea, Rarible, and Foundation have unique features for artists, getting started with them is much easier.
The first requirement is a Metamask, a Chrome extension that your virtual wallet. You can buy artworks on the blockchain using NFT platforms. The wallet also serves as your e-signature.
Download Metamask and create your wallet. Send some ETH to the wallet. Use your credit card on an exchange such as Kraken or Coinbase. Once the verification process is complete, you can send ETH to Metamask and start minting and buying NFTs.
4 Steps To Create (Mint) NFT Art
Now that you are interested in taking your artwork to the NFT platform and exploring its benefits know how to make NFT Art. Make sure to educate yourself about cryptocurrencies and how you should create a crypto wallet. Learn also how to use the Ethereum network and mint first NFT.
Step 1: Buy ETH and Set Up Wallets
- First, you should register your account with a centralized exchange like Binance, Coinbase, Gemini, or Kraken.
- Then purchase $ETH. Ether ($ETH) is the cryptocurrency you need to buy. Ethereum is the blockchain for the processing of transactions.
- Now, create a crypto wallet by downloading the MetaMask browser extension, which will act as your wallet and coin base account.
- Make sure that you write down your seed phrase, the recovery phrase. If you do not remember it, you can read the phrase from the piece of paper or any document. Remember that blockchain-based decentralized applications do not allow for password recovery. So, if you forget the password, your seed phrase and wallet are gone forever.
Step 2: Pick An NFT Marketplace To Sell Art
- Use curated marketplaces such as Portion, SuperRare, MakersPlace, and Foundation if you want to mint 1 of 1 piece of digital art such as digital logo or so on.
- If you are looking for marketplaces that allow you more flexibility and control over projects, choose sites like OpenSea or Rarible.
Step 3: Price Your Art
- When determining the price of your NFT art, think of the costs you incurred in creating the art and the time you invested.
- Visit the art market to find out what similar artists are charging for their artworks.
- Set your prices of artworks equivalent to that of your 1 to 1 if you’re minting either a 1 to 1 or multiple.
- Pay attention to the price of ETH. The NFT market follows in ETH’s footsteps. When the market slows down or is volatile, the ETH price rises.
Step 4: Auction or Buy
- At this last step, you need to choose how to sell your NFT art. You can select an auction style or directly sell it to the buyer at your quote price. So, NFT marketplaces let you auction your artwork and then sell it to the highest bidder. Other marketplaces give you more choices. While some marketplaces strictly offer the option to create and sell NFTs via an auction style, others allow more choices.
How to Market NFT Art?
After creating your NFT art, you need to promote it aggressively on all platforms for increased visibility amongst your target buyers. A vast NFT community will appreciate your art provided you reach out to them. Most such NFT community is on social media, where they collaborate and share their experiences. Most artists and art lover communities are on Twitter, Telegram, Reddit, Clubhouse, and Instagram. Also, check the virtual platforms such as Cryptovoxels and Decentraland that help you build your community.
Remember that NFT art is a competitive market where thousands of artists create and market unique artworks. You should be driving the attention of potential art buyers in such a crowded field of art. So, ponder on how to sell NFT art.
Here Are Some Helpful Tips:
01. Have The Supporting Spirit
You should approach the NFT market with an honest heart to support your fellow artists. If you are an expert on the art, share your experiences and guide the upcoming artists whenever they ask.
Social media is one platform where the more you share, the more people like you. So, you need to build an audience by sharing your artworks and thoughts. If possible, even buy their artworks which you find exciting.
02. Use Twitter To Your Advantage
Twitter allows you to convey your message effectively with a few characters. You should master this medium to talk about your NFT art but engage your audience honestly. Make sure that you post visuals and text content of NFT art very often. Post your content consistently to engage them with your works. It will help grow your brand publicly.
03. Avoid Shilling Too Much
Do not overexpose yourself as an artist everywhere by linking your works in comments and DMs. That may not build a good impression of you as an artist. Also, do not send unsolicited DMs.
04. Know Who Is Interested
Find out which artists and communities are more interested in talking to you over your artworks. Then, engage them more often with your content.
05. Keep Learning
NFT is one growing technology with artists and other people experimenting, making it even more exciting and valuable. So, instead of resting with what you know, keep a tab on the latest developments in this field. Understand how other artists best use the technology and art to benefit commercially and otherwise.
How to set your NFT art price?
First, know that you need to pay a fee upfront when you take your NFT art to a blockchain. So, you will be paying different blockchains costs if you want to take your art to many of them. But the price is worth bearing due to the proof of work and safer way to secure your ownership of the work of art.
Avoid minting the NFT art when the fee is higher than the art price when paying the gas fee. Then, you should set your NFT art price depending on how rare it is. If your NFT is a rare piece, you can raise its price.
Also, note that many NFT projects offer additional benefits, including membership benefits, exclusive merch, events, and metaverse land. You can put your NFT art prices a bit higher on such platforms.
However, if you are new to the NFT industry, start with a lower price and gradually increase as the community recognizes your work.
Top 5 Popular NFT Marketplaces
There are several NFT marketplaces for artists to sell their NFT art. While many marketplaces are available to artists, some of them are still popular. Here is their list:
01. OpenSea
OpenSea is the most popular NFT marketplace that artists visit and use to sell their artworks. This marketplace has already crossed the $10 billion trading volume mark in a single year. This user-friendly marketplace is based on the Ethereum blockchain and has no issues and glitches for the artists.
02. Axie Infinity
Axie Infinity is the second biggest NFT marketplace with more than 270 million tokens. The marketplace is more responsive and is welcoming to crypto people. It has a platform that visitors can interact and sell NFT things.
03. Rarible
Rarible is amongst the NFT marketplace, linking sellers and buyers to mint NFTs. This is still one of the most popular and influential crypto spaces, with its RARI token setting a new legacy in the crypto space. The marketplace joined hands with popular ventures to make the selling and buying of NFT products credible. It is based on the Ethereum blockchain platform.
04. Decentraland
The users can buy assets, artworks, and even land on Decentraland using cryptocurrency. This marketplace has more than 6 billion dollars of capitalization and is amongst the biggest crypto meta platforms.
05. Super Rare
Super Rare is yet another NFT marketplace supporting paintings, music, and videos to buy and sell. This responsive NFT minting medium is one of the earliest platforms that started marketplace minting. It adopts a lot of API & wallets to increase the marketplace’s efficiency.
How to be a successful NFT artist?
Now that you have an insight into NFT art, its importance, and the significant marketplaces to visit, you will be looking for tips to be a successful NFT artist. While hard work and dedication are the ordinary virtues you need to follow, there are some specific tips in the NFT field.
01. Pick Your NFT Art Niche Carefully
NFT art is a vast field of work for artists. A vital characteristic of NFT art is that trends do not limit it. The artists create whatever they like, so many artistic expressions make this art world.
However, you cannot master every art field to appease and please all the audiences. So, it is better to limit yourself to the artworks you have an instinct for and make that your niche. Then, you should develop your skills around that niche so that your audience can appreciate your efforts.
For instance, you may be more interested in creating digital portraits. Then, create those posters very often as people like and expect that from you. If you make something else, your followers may not like it, and you will confuse them. So, pick a niche and be consistent with it.
02. Have Your Logo
You should give your NFT artworks an identity so that your target buyers and followers can recognize you immediately. So, have an NFT logo for your artwork. The logo will appear everywhere you take your art pieces on social media, videos, websites, and marketplaces.
If you do not know how to create a logo, let professional designers do the job. You can visit Designhill, a leading design marketplace, to launch your logo design contest with your brief. In a few days, designers worldwide will submit their logo ideas. You can pick one suitable logo design for your NFT works.
Create Your Logo With World’s #1 Logo Maker
03. Choose Software
To create NFT art, you will need software such as Adobe Illustrator, Lightroom, Piskel, and Photoshop to edit digital images. You should decide on software based on your art niche. For instance, you will need a photo-editing program if you take nature picks. But if you are creating art from scratch, you will find some editing software.
04. Know Which Digital Art File Format To Choose
You should also choose a right file format for the type of art your niche creates especially if you are into creating startup logos or similar brand related products. Many file formats are available to artists today. Here are the file formats you should choose for your niche NFT art.
05. Create Something Unique
There is nothing perfect in the NFT art world. People are creating all sorts of art, and many pieces do not comply with conventional standards. So, avoid being perfect in making your non-fungible art pieces. Instead, just follow your intuition and passion.
Take the example of Beeple, a famous NFT artist, who put all the 5000 art pieces that he created over 13 years in one frame, and it became a new and unique artwork. He sold it for $69 million!
06. Choose An NFT Marketplace
After creating your NFT art pieces, think of how to sell them. You should choose the right NFT marketplace that best suits your art niche. Plenty of marketplaces are available with their pros and cons.
But start by posting your NFT art on popular marketplaces such as Open Sea and Rarible. These are also more accessible sites to publish your work. Then, try to sign up with a complex website such as SuperRare and NiftGateway, which review applications. If you are interested in futures trading in cryptocurrency, then look for an exchange such as FTX or Binance.
Ensure that you provide your social media links and website links to your profile while applying to create your account on the NFT marketplaces. People who will follow can know you more through your social media and other platforms.
07. Build Your Following
Do not just post your NFT art on a marketplace, hoping someone will come and buy. You must also promote your art on social media pages and other platforms to build your following. The more followers you have, the higher are chances of people buying your artworks.
A great way to build your following is to join the NFT comunity of popular NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea and Rarible. Visit their forums, participate in a discussion on a topic, and answer queries with your experience. You should also ask questions to show that you are a passionate artist.
You should always be active in the NFT community, including podcasts, forums, and blogs. Think of posting content that helps project you as an authority and brand in your NFT art niche.
08. Explore Social Media
Join every social media platform such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Then, post your artworks and related content regularly and at least 1-2 times daily. A good strategy is to post the same art piece across all the social channels for many months to be familiar with it. Use hashtags to enhance the reach of your social media art posts.
Make sure that your social media name is the same across all the social platforms you sign up with so that people can identify you as an artist.
09. Have Your Website
A website is the best way to showcase your expertise. When people visit a website, they perceive the products or services it projects as authentic. Similarly, your dedicated website for your NFT artwork and skills is your way to make an impression on your followers.
The website will be where followers can find your entire range of artworks with a blog to read about different aspects of your art and skills. You don’t need to build all of this yourself; there are plenty of agencies that specialize in marketing your NFTs online for you.They can learn about your many facets as an artist. The opportunities to project and sell yourself as an artist are endless at your website.
10. Have Patience and Be Consistent
No one tastes success overnight, and that is true also in the world of NFT art. Therefore, you must have patience as the desired results will be visible after years of practice and building trust. Remember what iconic artist Vincent Van Gogh had to say. He said, “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”
Learn from the example of Beeple, an iconic NFT artist. He practiced the art and skill for over 13 years before his art started selling at phenomenal prices. So, continue to post your work and be consistent with what you do.
So, these are the key points you need to keep in mind while pursuing NFT art as your career. Hopefully, this guide gives you an insight into the fundamental of NFT to start with. But keep on learning new about different aspects of the NFT art field and technology.
Wrapping Up
NFT art is a fast-growing field of digital art with no boundaries and a fixed set of rules. Still, you should follow some basics, such as creating digital art pieces, a bitcoin logo, etc. and learn whom to sell them. In addition, you need to consider the right NFT marketplaces where your niche art can sell. Many such aspects are crucial to know beforehand when figuring out how to proceed.
