I am a hobbyist, and my job will probably never require me to design and print anything for work.
I do really enjoy the process of conceptualizing, designing, and printing, and have done so for myself and some close acquaintances.
I’ve spent many hours/days learning the tools of the trade and was wondering if there was an opportunity to make some money as a side gig. Has anyone been successful doing this, and how did you go about it?
Here are a couple of my early designs, I plan to upload more once I clean things up a bit.
When I see prices for 3D printing service it always looks unprofitable to me. People saying filament cost only 10$ means nothing to me. My time and knowledge, electricity, initial machine cost, maintainence, dealing with failures, postprocessing… then I see big printing farms…oh thats why! I just love it as a hobby 😄
3D modeling on the other hand can be super profitable
Because it’s the harder skill, IMO. People find out I can print and start asking for really custom stuff, like all I have to do is picture it in my head and it will print.
I can draw a little in CAD, because that’s part of my day job. But I don’t know how to make a model of Mario dabbing.