It was 2009 and I was at a crossroad in life. I had already been in China living as an expat for almost 10 years, but I had yet to fully learn the language and really understand Chinese culture. That’s when I decided to kill two birds with one stone, it’s also the same time that I developed a hobby that I practice yet today.
So what I decided to so was to enroll in a Chinese university; China academy of art, which is located in Hangzhou. I chose to study industrial design and it would be 4 years of study. It was scary because on my first day in class I realized I was the only foreigner in class, and my language skills at the time was not good enough to allow me to follow what the teacher was saying. But I’m kind of a stubborn person and when I made a goal I really go for it.
I made two good friends in class right away, one of which also became my language tutor. By spending a lot of time with them outside of class I was able to catch up with the content I was being taught, but then another big challenge came. I needed to learn to use 3D software to be able to make the product drawings and renderings. It was really hard for me and once again the language didn’t make it easier. So I found a guy that was doing his final year and that I heard was good at using the 3D programs. I asked him to tutor me and I would spend hours everyday absorbing and learning everything, and I soon found that I really loved the process of using this programs ! It was instant gratification, being able to turn a drawing into a 3D render to make it come to life.
So besides doing the normal assignments for classes I would often find myself just playing around with the program and doing different designs, perhaps nothing I would actually make into a real life object, but nonetheless it was very satisfying, and I kind of felt limitless with the possibilities of what I could make using the program.
It didn’t take long until I met a class mate that told me that I could actually sell the renderings I made and that’s when I was introduced to microstocks. Microstocks allows you to sell royalty free images or renderings online, and the sweet thing about it is that once the rendering was uploaded to a site it will be there forever, and further more it can be sold an infinite number of times.
Mostly you get quite a low sum for each sale, but it adds up. On top of that you can upload it to as many different microstocks site as you want. So here I want to show some designs and what the added profit is as of today.
The above design I got when I was watching some movie about surfing, and I thought it would be cool to integrate the shape of a wave into a furniture, in this case a sofa made of acrylic board.
Here is another design with the same material, where I thought it would be cool to make a share that would essentially feel like you were floating if you were to sit on it.
What I learned pretty quick is that it’s not commonly the concept designs that sell the best, but just simple designs that can then be used for a wider area and that is essentially more commercial.
This design I made by accident when playing around with a certain shape. I think originally I was aiming to make some kind of furniture but in the end it looked more and more like a shark fin so I went with it and it has still sold quite well.
I have also done some photography, and I never thought I would end up being the guy who takes photos of his dog. But oh well she is a good model and she made me some nice money too on her pictures. I pay her with bones and she is quite ok with that.
The above renderings and photos are all from on microstock site which is called shutterstock. But as I said earlier I also sell it on other sites, such as Adobe, and dreamstime etc. it’s not a big passive income but it’s a nice extra buffer and even if I stop making work for a while it continues ticking.
I’m glad to share this hobby of mine and if you like photography or rendering microstocks is a great way to make it into an extra income stream !
Hope you’re having a great weekend and thanks for 
