I have been very active on GraphicRiver for the past months and I’m thinking about new and unique items each day to create for the amazing Marketplace. So far I have quite some items which are unique on GraphicRiver only and I’m getting a lot of ‘fan’-mail on how I create those items and how I got the idea to create them. Well, I’m about to post my top5 selling items on the marketplace with some info on how I got the idea to create a certain item. So… read on!

1. 3D That! – Get into three dimensions

This is my current best-selling item so far. A simple action that will allow you to turn your 2d graphics inside Photoshop to great looking 3D graphics! The action will only generate one perspective of your file, but of course in a high quality! The idea behind this item was to create a 3D action that used the colors of the source layer/image to generate the 3D effect with.

So if you use a blue-colored image, the 3D perspective would also be in a darker blue. I made this because there wasn’t any 3D action yet available that did this on GraphicRiver.  There were some 3D actions available, but they all had the same problem. They could generate only 1 or 2 colors and altered the source image/layer that way.

2. Character & Monster Creation Kit – Create us

In my eyes, this item was the most fun item to create so far on GraphicRiver. Why? Simply because I love funny characters and weird looking creatures. And this had all those things together. And to make it even more unique and appealing, I implemented the ‘creation kit’ term so that everyone can create and alter all characters and parts included in the pack.

The item was based on 2 other Creation Kit’s before mine, and I combined those best selling-points merged with my own look and feel in this one item. I never knew it would do this great on the marketplace, but I’m glad I made this and I hope I made a lot of people happy with it!

3. Tee Mockup – Your clothing

T-Shirts, don’t we just love them? At least I do! I’m a real t-shirt guy and I just love designing them. Anyways, I had a feeling there were a lot more designing wanting to create them their selfs but had no way of printing them. That is why I designed this realistic t-shirt mock-up file. The greatest selling point is that the models used in the file are me and my girlfriend Tashina van Zwam, so it’s as unique as can be.

With this designers have a chance to create their own t-shirts and see how they would look before they’re even printed yet. Also a  great way to use as a clothign store for presentations.

4. Hello There Business Card – Creation Kit

Thanks to the Character & Monster Creation Kit I realised people love designing their own items, even if they don’t have the skill to create their own eye-appealing graphics. So I combined that thought together with the fact that everyone with a company or something else needs a business card to present theirself.

So I created a business card where you can change the character on it to match yourself and create your own unique and personal business card. Everyone is customizable and will most likely cause everyone to remember your name.

5. Doodly TrueType – Awesome doodle font

This item was a great one for me. Why? Simply because I never made my own font and I just wanted to try that sometime. So that is why I created Doodly TrueType, uniquely on GraphicRiver. It’s my sketch style combined into a font. I didn’t think it would sell that great, but I actually made it based on that single fact that I never did it, and wanted to have tried it once.

There wasn’t any other idea behind it, but still I had a nice amount of sales and it even got featured on GraphicRiver! Thanks to this file I was really motivated to create more and more. So remember to have fun while creating items. Since buyers will be able to see that on the quality of the item.

After getting a lot of mail about me starting on GraphicRiver, one of Envato’s Marketplaces I got the idea to post some info about this on my blog. And well, look at that, here is that post! So, how did I start? What did I do to get started? And also.. what keeps me on there for several months now? I will try to answer all of those questions in this post, if I miss anything you would like to know, just reply on this post and I’ll get back to you. Anyways, have fun reading my Envato story so far…

The Beginning

Before GraphicRiver I had heard of sites like that, where you could earn some nice amount of cash in micro-payments. Sadly, I never knew there was some big business there, so once I saw a site where you could register to sell digital goods for a small fee, I clicked it away. Stupid me… I know better now, and I regret doing that for years. But thank god my girlfriend Tashina van Zwam was here and showed me the ‘power’ of GraphicRiver. She mentioned what I could do over there and how I could make some money doing what I love.. making art!

After years of time thinking it would be a waste spending time in something that wouldn’t really help me to achieve what I want, I realized that this platform was bigger than I imagined. After I registered there I was just looking around to see what everyone was creating and selling, and of course, what was selling good. I saw some awesome graphics which pulled my attention and I wanted to start creating right away!

Learning & making Money while having Fun!

My first item was the Twitter Bird which I created in a style I’m using for years for small freelance jobs here in the Netherlands. It’s a style that got me more and more freelance jobs in the last few years and I’m grateful for that. So I wanted to see how well it went on GraphicRiver. After some time it sold one time, sadly to my girlfriend, since she wanted to be my first sale on GraphicRiver, haha. Anyways, after that I created some other items in styles I could do and they sold better and better. But afterwards I realized that a good looking profile, name and presentation meant more then just the item it self. Also, a nice eBook about selling from Patrik Larsson helped me out. So I decided to do something about my look in my profile for example.

I noticed quite a boost in sales, and I wanted to mean more then I could at that moment. So I started learning new things within Photoshop. And trust me, my motivation for making unique items on GraphicRiver skyrocketed and I wanted to learn more and more. This way I could try my best in combining my fantasy with (hopefully) another level of quality for the Envato Marketplace customers. All of this combined caused me to learn more about creating digital goods, selling myself (not literally) and turning my hobby into work and work into a hobby.

The Present & the Future

For now I am still loving Envato for creating the marketplaces and I will definitely make more items that I currently have. I am still learning new techniques as we speak, so I can variate more with my items in style and quality. Also, thanks to my submitted items which are for sale and my profile on there caused me to get a lot of new clients for new and exciting freelance jobs. This is one of the main reasons why I will stay there and try to create items which are needed and can cause a smile on someone’s face as well. Also I could create some kind of ‘wall’ where everyone could see the latest and newest items on each of the Envato marketplaces together with my personal items on one and the same place. And that place is called: eeyecandy.

Let’s just say Envato created a way where I can do two things. I can develop myself further as a graphic artist/illustrator and while doing that earn some cash with it. What else does a guy which loves art need more?

Hello everyone, this will be my first on-blog freebie, and also my first-ever video with footage of me digitally drawing and talking, etc. So, don’t expect to much of it (yet). This is first of a new series that I want to put on my blog to share with all of you. It will contain different kinds of tutorials in video-form. Think about illustration design, sketching, digital techniques, modeling and more!

I like doing this, and I hope you guys & girls can appreciate thee videos. I will try to work on my accent a bit, and also get rid of  ‘wierd noises’ like the ones in this video when I bump my toe against my desk. But anyhow, here’s my first video of a little speed-sketch of a head in Photoshop. Enjoy.

Hello everyone! I just want to thank all great submissions within the Dribbble invite contest again, I really liked what I saw and I had a great time selecting the winners. Anyways, this time I have something else to give away. You want to know what? Well, I have 4 Forrst invites to give away! What is Forrst? It’s just like Dribbble, a online showcase where you can post artwork you made, or even complete scripts in order to get some ‘love’ and as a tool to help you get your awesome work online. I am also on Forrst! Interested what I posted there? Check out my profile on Forrst!

What do I have to do?

All you need to do is place a comment on this blogpost with a link to your portfolio/website/piece of work and I will select the 4 best portfolio’s to give the one of the 4 Forrst invites to! I will select the 4 winners within 2-3 days!

Who won?

And the winners are:

• Tyler Reckart
• Tashina van Zwam
• Bec Bookwalter

And yes, sorry that I didn’t gave away the ‘promised’ 4th invite, but I’m giving that one away on Twitter soon. Congratulations winners and have fun on Forrst!

First of all, thanks everyone for all your amazing submissions and artworks. I loved watching all new pieces of art coming into the comments on my Dribbble Invite Contest. I had a difficult time choosing the two winners, since there were really some great logo’s within all graphics, but sadly I only had two invites to give away. So, the two winners are…

Mladen Zivanovic

Micke Gustafsson

Congratulations! You two really deserved the invites and I hope to see a LOT of great work getting shot by you on Dribbble. Don’t make me regret picking you two out of all those submissions.

And to make this post even more ‘cool’ and ‘interesting’, I’ll post all submissions in this small gallery within this post. Thanks everyone, and I’m sure everyone of you will get his/her Dribbble invite sooner or later!

Thanks all, and have a wonderfull day!

I got a lot of requests from people to see some of the sketches I make before I create anything. I wanted to scan my Moleskine, but since I don’t have my scanner attached at the moment, you all have to do it with my dgital sketches. I promise I’ll post some Moleskine scans/shots soon, but enjoy these in the meantime!

I have promised it a few times on Twitter, Facebook and some other places, but finally it happened. Thanks to 365psd.com I was able to share a completely new illustration I have made with all of you! I have put some nice amount of effort in this illustration so all of you could use this cute turtle for whatever you want to use it to. But remember that it’s not for resale or anything else in a commercial way! So start up your Photoshop, go to the download page, download it, and enjoy!

You all probably have heard of Dribbble, a site where designers and illustrators can show off their work in the shape of a ´shot´. These shots are 400×300 pixels and are enough to show the quality of the work they´re creating. You can see all sorts of designs, and tell if you like the work they created and/or respond to a specific item.

The most fun (and sometimes annoying) part of Dribbble is that you can only get into the website if someone who’s already a member invites you. These invites are very rare and are only given out to a specific amount of members in order to keep the site ´fresh´.  I also had a period where I REALLY wanted to get in Dribbble, and start posting shots on their website to show off some work, and it was a hard time getting one.

I have tried begging, shouting on Facebook and Twitter and even more. But finally I got invite by my site I have mentioned in a earlier blog/post here. The site was called Dribbbleinvitemeplease.com and was a success. Sooo, now I´m in Dribbble and I recently got  2 invites to give away!

What do you have to do?

Since we´re all designers trying to get in, I would like to see what YOU would create as the logo for RZDESIGN. As you´ve mentioned, the RZDESIGN logo is a R eating the Z. This is because my name is Ricardo de Zoete and Zoete means something sweet. That is why the R is eating it. (you probably didn’t knew that yet, did you?).  So.. create your take on the RZDESIGN logo, post it in the comments, and within a week I will post the winner, and send him/her a Dribbble invite.

When do you have to do it?

The deadline is the 8th of October. Ill announce the winner the day after.

PRIZE: ONE out of TWO DRIBBBLE INVITES!

Good luck!

Don”t worry that your submission will be used as new RZDESIGN logo.. It won’t. Its just for fun and see what your ‘Art Skills’ are.

Thanks everyone for all the retweets on Twitter. I had many people retweeting, more then I actually expected. But the winner is bcpurleigh on twitter. I will send you a Direct Message on Twitter with more info. And of course, when the illustration is completed, I’ll share the final work with everyone. Thanks all, and hopefully till next time!

The illustration he wanted was some sort of futuristic spaceman. And here’s the result!

Want a free (small) #illustration? Just RT this tweet! Winner will be announced within a week! Check out my work at – http://www.rzdesign.nl

I will select a winner within a week, and I will of course feature the illustration I will make for the winner! Of course he/she will receive the source file(s) of the prize!

Good luck!