Figure selling
in The Commons
Hi,
I am thinking of creating a figure to sell. Base should be Victoria 7. It looks like the common way is to creat a figure in ZBrush and make a full figur morph. I will not buy ZBrush. I creat my own morphs and than make a new figur with this morphs. This method I learn in a few videos (for example dreamlights making money...). I read a lot about selling figures. There are two different typs for selling figures. First the full morph figur, second the shaping preset figur.
Which one of this two figurtyps are the more beloved, the better selling, and the one with a higher price?
I only want to know worth of the morphs. Not influenced by texture or poromotion.

Comments
To clarify a couple of terms here.
A 'figure" is a custom made and rigged mesh. Genesis 3 Female is a figure, all the other "Victoria 7, Eva, Bethany, etc. are characters for that mesh.
A "Character" is a morph and texture set that build a specific look to the base figure.
"Custom Morphs" are morphs that are independantly made by the creator of the character and do not use any preset morph dials within the figure.
A "Shaping preset" uses morph dials within the figure to create a specific shape.
If all you are planning to make is a "Shaping preset", then you will not likely find a huge market for it, as people can spin their own dials and create their own shaping presets easy enough. That is the type of thing that would generally be given away as a freebie.
What you do see a lot of is half and half items... a few parts with custom morphs to make it unique and the rest just dialed. A dialed body is fine if it's part of a full charcter set with textures, but as a standalone... well, you could give it away at someplace like ShareCG but very few people would ever buy it.
Remember that morphs, you make in a 3D program or through the use of DFormers in Studio, that reshape the base or any base character (the major ones brought out by DAZ like Victoria 7, Bethany 7 etc.) must use reverse deformation in order to be sold and/or distributed as a freebie. In this way, in order to use the new morph, the user must own what was used to make the morph (the g3 base figure, or Victoria 7, or other base character, which in turn uses the g3 base figure). There are specific things you must do to preserve DAZ's copyrighted works when doing anything for redistribution, so as not to violate the EULA.
I wasn't clear if you only wanted to use morphs that have been supplied as dials. If this is the case, what morphs? Those that come with the base figure, a charater or an extended morph set you have purchased?
If they are your own morphs, that would make the final result a custom character, which you could sell as a morph preset. If you develop a texture for it, then you would be able to sell it as a character set.
You really cannot guage the market for such a thing as it all depends on your skills and how the final character looks. Even then it is never a guarentee for sales. I have been making these things for over a decade and think I know the market pretty well...but I have had a number of releases this year that I thought would sell big, but didnt (poor cobra queen).
Bad release timing, RA. I got broke right before she turned up. I'll get her when I get the dosh together.
Ok. I think I have to tell you the full story and my thoughts.
I saw the dreamlight video "Female Character Creation Tutorial - Turn Your V6 Characters Into Cash". In this videos and text files you will learn how to create a character (shaping preset) with morphs. The used morphs and textures are merchant resources from different DAZ Shops. I thought that is a good way to make money but not with shaping presets. As mentioned above shaping presets are not very good to sell. But what I saw in bought figures are one morph for the face, one morph for the body and a set of textures. Sometimes there are a few shaping presets of basic morphs or V6 is set as a preset.
I think to my self;
Result: I create MY OWN morphs, with D-Formers and Send to Hexagon. When the character is ok for me after morphing the Basefigure than create a new fullfacemorph, as I saw in the character content, and sell it with one bodymorph and a texturepack.
I make morphs for the Genesis 3 Female Base figure. I will not sell them or give them away. They are not available so the shaping preset with my morphs will not work. The only way I can see is the method I descript above (fullfacemorph+fbm+textures).
So now the questions again:
Thank you for your answers
From a pure consumer's POV, I can say that I prefer separate Head- and Body dial-ins. But there also should be a full preset of the character.
Here's why:
I want the most flexibility from the product. If I just have the "complete" dial in or character, I can not use some traits I like (the body of character A, the head of characters B and C), or use Character B as base, and dial in some of A&C, and some B out. Then I can apply the skin I like.
I also can, if I want a quick render with a certain character, just click on the full preset Character Icon.
As a friendly heads up, I feel like the figure market is pretty saturated. You can make another skinny white woman or you could do something different, maybe ethnic or overweight, but then you're targeting a niche market.
You don't have to use z-brush to make morphs - any tool you have, even if it's just d-formers is great if the morph looks good in the end. The means do not justify the end, it's all about the end in this case.
Edit: the character in my avatar is Shadowkin for Genesis 1 male.. He is a combo charater (custom head with dial spin body) I made his head morph completely in Hexagon.
I suspect she would have done a lot better if she'd been made for G2F, as most of us would want to be able to mix her with other creature morphs. And on the subject of CQ, she looks great, but there's something just weird about there being a green G3F character at DAZ before any black or asian ones. ;P
Check the rigging too if/when making drastic morphs ;-)
The real secret to making easy money is to sell tutorials about making easy money.
It's not a printing press?
Thank you for your answers. It is really helpful for me.
To RawArt: I like the cobra queen. I did not buy it till now. But it is a very cool character.
there are a few non daz characters that I have bought to compare such as Heroine for Genesis 2 Female she has a unique look, Domina is pretty and like Heronine has a bundle too which got both as, then there is Greta the Old Hag for Genesis 2 Female she has a different look all right there's another character I've seen don't have and don't know if she is a fully custom made character or if she uses genesis, v4, v3 is a character called Little One created by 3Dream think it maybe a totally origional character as they made custom content for her just like 3d universe with some of their creations. I really depends how unique a looking character your creation is and what content can be used with it and good promo renders help a lot too that will spark ideas in potential buyers
Shadowkin!! Thank you, I always wondered, now I can pick that bad boy up!!
And today it's a Fast Grab Sale item, so ..go! :)
This brings up a question I've been wondering lately, and it reallly doesn't apply to Cobra Queen which is still a New flagged item...but why don't vendors discount their products as they age? I don't mean "It's on sale now!" type stuff..
There's 8-10 year old v4 and even V3 stuff in the store that's priced the same as when they were brand new. Real world stores don't work that way...Imagine buying a 8 year old (but new) iPod for the same price as when they were new in stores? (and it's close to apples comparison, since the 8 year old ipod is depreciated technology but stills performs just as well as it would have then).
I can't imagine there's a constant flow of buyers at the original prices for these things, or really even wishlist to wait for a super sale ones.. Is it Daz Policy that things don't go into markdown after a couple of years? Is it just not something vendors think about...put it in the store and forget about it?
(I'm mainly asking here since it's an "about selling" thread, one of the big time vendors is here, and they said something that sparked a thing I've been wondering).
Scavenger: Agreed. Some stuff DOES get discounted, I think, but... man, there's some stuff I bought cheap that wasn't even worth that, after all the somersaults I had to do to fit it properly or whatever. And the textures are all low quality (compared to current tech).