What is an NFT artist?
NFTs are transforming the art industry, and millions of artists across the world are now considering venturing into NFTs as a way of supplementing their income. These artists have been motivated by artists such as Beeple who have made millions of dollars selling their artwork as NFTs.
NFT artists sell their artwork as NFTs. NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are digital assets that run on the blockchain. NFTs represent the ownership of a physical asset such as an image, a video, audio, real estate, etc. Each NFT is unique and can only have one official owner at a time. NFTs are protected by the blockchain, making it impossible to reproduce or duplicate them.
If you are considering becoming an NFT artist, you probably have many questions about how to start. The NFT world is filled with a lot of technical jargon which may make it challenging for you to become an NFT artist, especially if you are a beginner in the cryptocurrency world.
How do NFT artists get paid?
As an NFT artist, there are two primary ways through which you can make money: sales and royalties.
Whenever an NFT artist sells NFT art on a marketplace such as OpenSea, they get paid in the same way they are paid for selling physical artwork. The marketplace requires the NFT artist to set the NFT price as a fixed price or through auction.
As a potential NFT artist, it is worth noting that the NFT artist earnings are subjected to deductions since the marketplaces charge some fee for selling on their platform. Most NFT marketplaces charge a fee of between 5 and 10% plus some gas fees for minting the artwork on the platform.
An NFT artist can also set royalty on the NFT and enjoy a consistent income. The artist will earn a percentage of the NFT’s sale price whenever it changes ownership in the marketplace. Most artists set a royalty of about 10% on future sales.
How to become an NFT artist
The following are the steps how to become an NFT artist:
Step 1: Choose your Art Niche
The first step to becoming an NFT artist is knowing the type of artwork that you will be creating. Specializing in a particular niche will make you an expert in that niche and let your audience know what to expect from you.
You have unlimited options when it comes to choosing the art niche. Remember that anything can be sold as an NFT, including photographs, clothes, audio, videos, real estate, and other forms of art. For example, if you have a passion for sports, you can create sport-related pieces.
Step 2: Create your Digital Art
After knowing your niche, you should create digital art. The NFT marketplace you choose will require you to upload a digital file of the art. The file will in turn be turned into an NFT.
Use software tools such as Photoshop to enhance the quality of the art, but ensure that it is original.
Step 3: Set up a Digital Wallet
To become an NFT artist, you must have a crypto wallet. The crypto wallet should also be funded with crypto to enable you to pay the fees charged by the NFT marketplace that you will choose. Most marketplaces accept ETH payments, so it will be safe for you to fund your wallet with ETH tokens. You can buy ETH from crypto exchanges such as Coinbase. Your NFT artist earnings from NFT sales will also be sent to the same crypto wallet.
Step 4: Choose an NFT Marketplace
Next, you must decide on the NFT marketplace that you will use. The marketplace will provide you with a platform where to mint, list, and market your NFT for sale. Some marketplaces have specialized in a particular niche, while others deal with all types of niches. For example, Axie is for gaming items while OpenSea and Rarible deal with all types of NFTs.
Step 5: List your NFT
This is the fifth step to becoming an NFT artist. You should list the NFT in the marketplace that you have chosen. The process of listing an NFT is similar to listing goods on eBay.
The marketplace will require you to give the NFT a title, and description, and set its price. For the price, you can set a fixed price or decide to use the auction style. If you choose the latter, you will receive bids from different potential buyers. The highest bidder will become the new owner of your NFT.
After a successful sale, the marketplace will transfer funds from the buyer’s crypto wallet to your crypto wallet.
Step 6: Market your NFT
Finally, to become a successful NFT artist, you must market your NFTs. Your goal should be to build a community of followers who like your work. There are different ways to market your NFT, including using social media channels, building a portfolio website, and joining NFT communities on Discord, Reddit, and Twitter.
Top NFT Artists
Below is the list of the top NFT artists ranked according to their earnings:
#1: Pak
Pak is an anonymous digital artist who is currently ranked as the highest earning artist in the NFT world. He has sold about 66,352 NFTs with an average sale of $4,812.84. His most expensive NFT named Clock was sold for $20,232,912.15, which is equivalent to about 16,593.059 ETH.
#2: Beeple
Beeple comes second in our list of the top NFT artists by NFT artist earnings, but it is believed that he is the most famous NFT artist globally. Everydays: The First 5000 Days, one of his NFTs, was sold for $69.3 million in March 2021.
#3: Tyler Hobbs
Tyler Hobbs is very famous for the NFT series named Fidenza and he is one of the best artists in generative blockchain art. Hobbs uses a unique style that features blocks with different colors placed against an off-white backdrop.
Hobb’s collection named Incomplete Control was sold out before the art was revealed. The collection was sold for more than $7 million and is the most famous NFT collection for the NFT artist.
#4: Dmitri Cherniak
Dmitri Cherniak has only sold 875 NFTs, but some of the NFTS managed to attract very high prices.
The NFT artist is very popular for his generative art collection named Ringers. His artwork focuses on geometric shapes, with some of his collections created in vibrant colors while others in only black and white. Other than NFTs, this artist is also well-known for his innovative experiments.
#5: XCOPY
This closes our list of top NFT artists. XCOPY is an anonymous NFT artist, but he started his involvement in digital art long before NFTs were invented. His work follows a near nightmarish theme, which features skulls and strobe lighting.
