Work... and work... and work again until you get a decent skill in the whole pipeline. It's getting even uglier if you tackle organic modeling, and rigging...
I have been modeling hard surface for years, and texturing was a very weak point, so I focused all my efforts on this over the last five years. Now, I'm tackling organic modeling and rigging to widen my portfolio and models library. Of course, I won't release my first tries for sale, I'll wait until I get a decent result, not to hamper my credibility.
But if you are just good in modeling and not texturing, or in texturing but not modeling, there are only two options : getting an association with someone who has the completing skills, or just work to get at the right level. It takes, literally, years, especially if you have a real job besides and learn in your spare time. As for promotional renders, there are just a few simple techniques to master, it's not that complicated.
What should artists who aren't good at all stages of 3D modeling do when they are not able to create models good enough to sell at 100 dollars?
What if your specialty is texturing and you make really poor quality triangle models but you also struggle with rendering and you are not able to create the top quality models? What then?
You most definitely can't sell models at 100 bucks because that would be ridiculous right?
What should those 3D modelers do?
Answers
My strongest skills are in rigging, UV mapping and modeling and I love creating really nice topology that is super easy for good texture artists to paint and render.
I find that I struggle with rendering only because setting up the appropriate shaders takes forever and I have a cheap laptop. I am also far better at painting textures with a wacom tablet which I don't have.
Maybe your idea of partnering with a texture artist would be the best solution. I would have no problem changing all of my prices based on someone else's advice as well as sharing my profits especially since I really have no idea what I am doing in that regard and I really want to start making some decent sales.
That's too bad but it makes sense because it would be complicated to execute unless two people actually shared an account and were in agreement to share everything 50 percent each.
The other way it could work would be if the website was able to somehow develop a system where two accounts were linked and then the two or more artists got paid based on their contribution but again that is probably really complicated to code into such a complex website framework...
I believe it can be done, however it would indeed take time and carful thought.
For example, if I would like to work with you, then momentarily see now other way as to give you an assignment and let you make an invoice. You would have to be a freelancer just like me, and capable of making invoices. I would be full owner of the product in this case (which is not what I really want). So I don't see this as an option, I would also have to pay your ours spend (wish is going to be way to mush money for me). The other option (currently also a problem) is that I would pay you royalty's for every copy sold (you would also need to be a freelancer). This would al make administration and tracking many objects very difficult for me, so I don't see how I can make this work. Also you cannot track how many copy's I would have sold, so that is also a problem.
The way I see it, is that this special extended framework for collaborative works would automatically track all these things for everyone involved. So when we have made a collaborative product the money would get automatically split on every copy sold over all stakeholders. Unified income would come from this and that is manageable in my administration. Managing costs of software and hardware is enough for me, managing dozens of royalty's and invoices from assignments is not something I aspire.
There are allot of difficulties to overcome until a collaborative framework could work. For example some tasks would have to be standardized and translate to a % of profit margin/ownership rights. Maybe something like 20% for design ownership, 20% on 3D modeling ownership, 20% on texturing and rendering (10% for texturing and 10% for rendering if separate). So when one designs + models + renders, he would have 50% ownership/profit margin, the more task you do on your own the more ownership, the less you do (for example only make texture cords) the less ownership/profit margin. Only doing texture cords would correspond roughly to something like 5% ownership (just an example).
These things would all need to be figured out carefully and made into a standard working profile for collaborative 3D modeling projects. Custom profiles would also have to be an option if some people decide to split margins differently or ad extra margins for other types of projects.
There also need to be build in failsafe options.
Take for example someone designs + models and a separate UV man does a lousy job and the separate texture painter cannot perform a good job because of it, hoe would lose his margin here? Hoe would have the last say in a possible conflict? (the one with the largest ownership/profit margin or some third party?)
And so one and so forts......
However I see great potential in a collaborative platform, there are allot of human resources not being used to its fullest potential (lots of unemployed artist and talents). The working conditions in large facilities are also sometimes very hard and there are limited spots available. Being able to work from the comfort of the home and self regulating would make allot of sense for allot of artist out there.
Also there are allot of artist in search for likeminded people looking for artistic freedom and expression and in the light of a coming age of massive digital consumption (VR worlds and accompanying virtual items). There will be lots of potential/opportunities to create vast open worlds where one can express all sorts of artistic creation and visionary things.
I believe web services like this one will play an important role in that story, the foundations are here. The framework only needs to be extended to incorporate collaborative project capabilities and crowd funding so that projects can be managed by groups of artist themselves and not some institutional things messing up the place, and sow allowing for concept artist, art directors, 3D modelers, story tellers, music composers, programmers, 3D scanners, motion capturers, game engine developers, basically all creative minds involved, to join in on the projects they want to make.
Sooner or later this sort of platform will immerge, because there is demand for it and it would streamline the use of available human resources (now being untapped or dormant).
Does anyone know how this artist was able to integrate a youtube video with his 3D renders and screen shots? It would be really be awesome to do that! https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/animals/dinosaur/dinosaur-triceratops-robot
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