Who will buy my designs?

Do people buy and sell stock 3D designs for print?

• I saw there are a couple of sites offering stock designs for sale, e.g. http://cubify.com/, http://www.turbosquid.com/, http://ponoko.com/, etc. Do people frequently sell and buy stock designs on these platforms? If not, why not?

• Answer:

  According to the new book http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B1UKZC6 While the sites mentioned above are more geared to the sharing of content, there are many more well-established 3D repositories where designers can sell their designs.   http://www.turbosquid.com/Search/Index.cfm? The largest of these, TurboSquid, has more than two million members and well over two hundred thousand 3D models available for download, the most popular categories being weapons and vehicles. There are some free models here, and when comparing these different CAD sites, I searched for sword designs. Tubosquid came up tops with over three hundred free designs to choose from. Most of the graphics available here are the kind that are used in computer games, architecture, and interactive training rather than 3D printing. It does have a very useful CheckMate Certification program, which checks models against a unified 3D modelling standard developed by TurboSquid, and passing models are marked as certified in their catalogue. Downsides to the site include a poor reputation for customer service, and the fact that they only pay a measly 40 percent of sales to the actual artists. In comparison, The3dStudio.com pays 70 percent. Both sites offer affiliate programs for referrals of new buyers or sellers.