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.
Getting a model printed is pretty straightforward. There are many online services where you can send a 3D model file and they mail you a print of it. The bigger challenge is the design. Paying a professional to design something for you is going to be very expensive. However, many 3D printing enthusiasts design their own models as a hobby and make them available for free. I would suggest looking on sites like printables and thingiverse for something that suits your needs. If you can find it there, then you can just send the file to a printing service and have it made. Other options would be spend time to learn modeling/design yourself, or find a kind person to do you a favor and design something custom for much less money than a professional would charge.
Thank you! I found pretty much exactly what I’m looking for on printables, so at least I have a starting point.