How I make a living designing Minecraft textures

For the past year and a half, most of my freelance design work has been Minecraft skins and texture packs.  The work is super reliable and I can basically do as much as I want/need to do.  In this blog post, I'll run through the way I got into designing Minecraft skins, the technicalities of the job and some ideas of how you can earn money designing Minecraft skins.

The skins and texture packs that I make are destined for the Minecraft marketplace.  I don't personally have an account that has been approved to sell on the marketplace but I work for one of the larger content creators on there.  I landed this gig through one of the freelancer marketplaces over a year ago, but after a few months of working together, we decided to take our working relationship off that site and communicate over skype/pay via paypal.  This worked well for me as I have a good profile online, and I got lucky with that job, but it probably doesn't apply to most freelancers, as there isn't a constant stream of Minecraft gigs to be had.  An easier way to score some texture work would be as follows:

If I we're to be looking for some Minecraft texture work now, I would take the following steps:  Firstly, I'd get together my best skins and textures and present them nicely by taking some screen shots in-game.  I'd compile these in one place on a web page so they are easy to view.  Then I would look at the Minecraft marketplace and research some contact info for the creators on there.  I would then reach out to them with a link to my Minecraft portfolio.

Texture packs are time consuming.  It takes me over a month to make a full pack, so there is demand for people who can make them, and there is plenty of work available.  If you know what you are doing, can work fairly swiftly and make some good quality textures, it's not difficult to get the work.

Skins or Texture packs

I started off by making skins.  This was a easy job, and most designers would find it easy, therefore, there is a lot of competition, and the packs in the marketplace have to really stand out.

Now, I exclusively work on texture packs, this is basically a reskin of all of the blocks, items, mobs etc.  It is more time-consuming and difficult, but there is less competition for me as an artist, and for my client also.

Tools

For designing Minecraft texture packs, you don't need any special tools.  I predominantly use photoshop, but you could use GIMP.  This is fine for all of the blocks and items.  for the mobs, I use novaskin which is a website with an editing tool for all of the mobs and entities.  I also use blockbench for any mobs that aren't on novaskin.  blockbench is free, as is novaskin.

You can download the entire resource pack for vanilla minecraft on the minecraft website, this works as a starting point for your designs, and also contains the models for use in blockbench.

Does it pay well?

I'm happy with the amount I receive for this work.  It is really reliable and pretty stress-free.  It isn't going to make me a millionaire, but I like it.

Sailing Tshirt Designs

Here are some sailing tshirt designs available in myshop, I am creating a range of sailing tshirt designs and spearfishing designs too.  Available here:  Sailing Tshirt

WIP designs for a restaurant rating app

Here's a simple and clean concept for a restaurant rating app.  It is a redesign of a current app, maintaining the existing functionality but with a more modern appearance.

Space Brew - A drinking game with cards

Space Brew is my new project.  It is a card game in which the players consume drinks in order to defeat retro space monsters.  Monsters drop loot such as equipment, cash and spaceship parts.  You can also hire mercenaries to help you.  The game is simple enough to be picked up quickly in a party atmosphere when players may already have been drinking.

There will be 200 cards or thereabouts and I will be launching the project on kickstarter as soon as I feel that there is enough buzz for the project to succeed.  Production and distribution are already priced and arranged.

Please visit and like my facebook page so I can gauge the awareness of the project and so you can hear all the updates:

Space Brew - Drinking card game

Here are a couple of samples:

Woodland Preschool - Educational App for Preschoolers on iOS and Android

Here's my latest app offering.  it's an educational app in which young children can learn basic counting, colours, numbers and shapes.  There's an achievements page to collect stars which are awarded according to performance.  I've released as a paid app with no in-app purchases or ads.  I will be adding more mini-games which will be delivered as free updates to app users.

As a father of a young child, I have a lot of apps like this.  It's aimed at kids under 5 and you can get it here:

Woodland Preschool for iOS

Woodland Preschool for Android

Woodland Preschool

Woodland Preschool

Dragon Wing - My new android game.

Here's a little re-skin of a game I made.  Pretty simple, avoid obstacles and score points.  The iOS universal version is in the queue at the moment with a gamecenter leaderboard.  I thought I'd try and get some run-off popularity from game of thrones by going with a dragon theme.  I decided on the 8bit style as that's what I like (child of the 80s).  It's free anyway so give it a try.  There's also no iaps just some interstatial ads for monetization:

Dragon App

Dragon Wing for Android

Mobile game design with a bird that isn't a flappy clone!

Here's a commissioned app that I have completer recently.  It's a simple, retro game in which you fly upwards past a range of obstacles.  It's a cross platform app available as an iOS universal download and also android.  Monetized through iAP on iOS and revmob on android.  Soaring Bird iOS universal  Android

Android workout and fitness app

I've just finished designing a fitness app for android, It's basically a guided workout that trains your whole body using a range of 100 exercises.  I made a bunch of animations to help the user perform the moves correctly.

I have used insanity workout and p90x and they are both great, so I decided to go for a similar intensity and pace.  Having tested the app, I'm satisfied that it achieves this.

I designed this workout app for android to run on html5 so I can also release it for iOS in the near future.

Sexy lady Ninja Illustrations

Here's a couple of vector ninja ladies I drew for a project.  I roughed out the poses in photoshop and took the sketches into illustrator to make the final image.

Cute Dinosaur Illustrations

I was just looking at the patterns on my son's clothes and I decided to make this...

10 Tips for Making Money from Stock Illustration

I've been contributing to istock for a while now.  I go through stages of putting stuff on there and not putting anything on for a while.  I've made some observations on how to keep a passive income trickling in from stock vector illustration :

1.  Keep Contributing

I've noticed that when I upload more, I get more downloads.  if I haven't put anything on for a while, my downloads drop off.  Keeping a steady trickle of work going on there seems to keep the downloads coming.

2.  Think Boring

The work that you like doing probably wont make the most money.  Think about where your images will be used and play to that audience.

3.  Think of a Niche

If you can find a topic that hasn't been covered much, then get in there and exploit it before everyone does.  My most popular file is this retro robot illustration, when I first put it on there, I was getting loads of downloads off it.  At the time, there weren't many similar files on there.  Now there's loads, and most of them are better so I'm not getting so many hits on it these days.  It's made me over $1600 so far though so I'm very happy with that file.

4.  Strength in numbers

If the quality of your work is good enough to consistently get accepted, then keep piling stuff on there.  The more work you have on in a variety of styles, the more chance you have of getting downloads.

5.  Cross Promote

Make sets of similar styled and themed images and link them to each other.  Make light boxes of bodies of similar images.  People often want a bunch of similar looking images for a campaign and will download a whole light box of images.

6.  Try different things

I will often try different styles just to experiment and to get some practice.  Sometimes they go down well and sometimes they don't, but it helps you stand out if you are trying new things.  You may come across something that turns out to be really popular.

7.  Take your time

If an image takes you minutes to make, then it will probable be easy for any graphic designer to make.  If someone can copy something and save the money then they probably will.  If you've made a detailed, precise illustration, then people will download it because it's too much of a hassle to do it themselves.  This circuit board illustration has made a nice profit, it was easy to do but it took a while.

8.  If it's no good, don't upload it

If you've taken your time making an illustration and it just isn't working out, just delete it.  There's no point putting it on and getting rejected, it brings down your approval rate (which you will been to become an exclusive contributor).  Just start a new image and learn from your mistakes.

9.  Be thick skinned

You will get plenty of rejections.  Don't worry about it.  It doesn't mean that your work isn't good, it means that it isn't suitable for stock.  Illustrations for clients and illustrations for stock are very different.

10.  Keep at it

Unless you get lucky, it takes a long time to build a portfolio that earns a decent income.  Then just when you are getting somewhere, your downloads will drop from 10 a day to 1 every 2 weeks and you won't have a clue why.  The earnings from stock illustration are very temperamental.

PSD Website design assembled in Photoshop

Here's a PSD frontend design for a website I've just finished.  I currently have a great deal on website design on my site.  I offer a simple 3 page website (like my own graphic design website) for just £149.  Bargain!  Get in touch if you want one :)

Digital portrait painting

Here's a digital portrait I did in artrage.  I like the randomness of the strokes in artrage, the pictures I make never come out quite like I expected, and I often need to do some finishing up in photoshop.

Book Layout Design

Here's a layout design for a book about Istanbul.  I also did the illustration of the maiden's tower lighthouse.  This work was done in illustrator with the intention of taking it into indesign to put the book together.

Parrot Character design

Here's a character I designed for some religious thingumabob in Brazil.  The brief requested an indigenous animal and the logo of the event.

Medical product flyer design

Here's a flyer I designed for a medical product.  For the sake of the squeamish, I won't describe what the product does...

Visit my site for flyer design and a range of graphic design services.

Baby Illustration

Here's a little illustration I made about fetuses and babies.  It was for a promotional book mark.  I started with the line work and added a layer of digital watercolor underneath.  It makes a change for me to do some children's book illustration.  I liked it though.

Book cover illustration contest

Here's my entry for a book cover design contest on deviant art.  I won a prize for it, which I am quite pleased about.

Comic cover art

Here's a piece I've been working on.  It started as a bit of a self portrait for practice and I decided to make it into a comic book cover.  I made it in photoshop.

Girl with tortoise cartoon

Here's a cartoon I made recently.  I started off by doodling in photoshop and this is what came out of it.  I did the line work in illustrator then coloured it in photoshop.