How To Make NFT Art
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How To Make NFT Art

NFT Art has enabled online communities to grow and the creator economy to generate billions of dollars a month in revenue. 

If you are an artist, computer programmer or community builder wanting to know how to make NFT art, this article will give you the big picture overview and then point you in the right direction to get started with the art. It will also help you with generating and uploading that collection. There will be references to NFT coding solutions and No Code NFT Generators.  

The Basics of Making NFT art

NFTS are like online clubs where everyone is part of the same identifiable tribe. However, each person has their own unique identity within that tribe. 

One of the most notable NFT collections is the Bored Ape Yacht Club. When analyzing the art of the Bored Apes, you’ll notice that each ape is made out of the same base elements. For instance, look at the outline of the apes body. All of them have the exact same ear shapes, tufts of hair on the right side of their chin and top left of their head. 

How To Make NFT Art

It’s the same drawing just re colored and with elements added onto it. This is important to note and understand when learning how to make NFT art. 

Now that we understand that, let’s go over the basic idea of creating NFT art. It’s good to know what you need to keep in mind in order to start planning and creating your NFT collection correctly.  From there, you can generate your NFT collection via a python script or upload each trait layer to a no code nft software. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves… back tot he basic concepts.

How To Make NFT Art - Categories and Traits

Categories

As we noted all NFT outlines and “basic shape concepts” are the same. I consider the top level properties  – categories. 

For Apes, we have 7 categories: Background, Clothes, Earrings, Eyes, Fur, Hat, Mouth

Traits

When making NFT art you create various traits inside of the categories

Apes have 8 different background traits (colors inside the background category). 43 different styles of clothes (44 if you include “none” as a style) etc. 

In a collection of 10,000 nfts, it is customary to have roughly 100 total traits across 5 to 10 categories. 

Opensea BAYC Trait & Category example

Generating NFT Art By Layering Traits from Categories

If you are creating a large collection of NFTs, you don’t draw each one individually. First, make a list of your categories and then the traits within those categories. 

Use an illustration program like Procreate or Adobe Illustrator and draw each trait on its own layer. 

Export each trait as an image file with an alpha layer. Make sure you keep each layer the same size (usually square like 1080 x 1080).

Also, don’t move the traits around when you hide the other layers to export. Keep the trait in the same position it would be if the entire drawing was in place. That way they will snap together in an aligned manner.

Once you have all the traits exported on their own layer, you can upload those trait layers into their set categories and have them snap together and give them rarities using a no code nft software like The-NFT-generator.com. Alternatively, you can write your own python script (more on that later).

Stacking NFT Art Layers

You need to order the categories correctly – so the code knows which to stack on bottom and top. For Bored Apes it would be (back to front): Background, Fur, then likely eyes, earring mouth, hat, clothes.

If for instance you put, hat behind background, the hat would be in the art but wouldn’t show. It owuld be blocked by the background.

For the traits you can put a rarity % within the code or the software that will give that trait the % probability of being selected in the generated final collection.

We will touch more on the code and no code solutions to create this mash up later in the article. 

For now, we just wanted to display the concept on how to make nft art by combining traits into one cohesive image. 

Can I Create My Own NFT art?

You can certainly create your own NFT art if you have artistic skill/desire. All you need to know is how to use the basics of a layered illustration program. Popular illustration programs for NFTs are procreate, adobe illustrator or photoshop. 

If you personally don’t want to draw and would rather focus on the concept, NFT marketing, coding or community building, Fiverr is an excellent resource for finding NFT artists. 

Often these artists will draw and generate the images for you for an affordable price. 

Fiverr: How To Contract an NFT artist

If you go the fiverr route, be very specific about what you want. First convey the main concept (for instance pigs). Then make a spreadsheet that has a list of categories, and then the list of trait ideas within those categories. 

You can browse artist profiles that have a style you prefer. You may also want to send them some example styles as inspiration.

These artists may be able to generate all the images for you. If they don’t do the generation (not all have coding ability) ask them to send you a .zip of all of the traits named and separated into category folders. 

Now, we can move into NFT Art generation and uploading to IPFS or Arweave. 

Looking for unlimited graphic design services? Check out our Flocksy Review

NFT Generator Github

You can take the art files and generate the NFT images yourself. You just need to know a bit of python.

While the actually coding is a bit too much to go into in this blog post, the basic idea is creating a python script that orders the categories and then gives rarity weights to each of the traits. From there you run the python script, which outputs your finished collection of NFT images. 

For the technically inclined, here is an excellent open source NFT generator repository on Github: Scrappy Squirrels Tutorial

No Code NFT Art Generator
Don’t want to code? Generate the collection AND deploy the contract with the-nft-generator

Uploading To IPFS & Adding MetaData

Once your images are generated you need to store them in a decentralized manner so that your smart contract and NFT marketplaces link to those images and can display the rarity information for buyers. 

Most collections use IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) to immortalize their NFT images. 

To get into doing this manually is a bit too much for this article. However, you can again use a no code NFT software to take care of this solution.

They also have some great resources for developers to get started.

How to Create NFT art without coding?

If you created your NFT art, but you don’t have the technical knowledge to generate the images, create the smart contract and upload everything to IPFS there are online softwares that can help with that process. 

Software to Create NFT art

The two main online software I have come across to create NFT art are Onemint and NFT Generator

Essentially, these programs provide a drag and drop system to organize your NFT categories and traits. They then generate your full collection. From there you have the option to launch a smart contract on many of the most popular blockchains. They’ll also help you upload and store the images on IPFS and create the metadata. 

No Code NFT Generator

Best NFT Generator Online

The-NFT-generator.com seems to be the best no code NFT generator online. It allows you to organize your categories and traits to compile final NFT images in a no code manner. You can then launch an optimized NFT smart contract on Ethereum, and soon other popular blockchains. All without the need to code.

The service has generated more than 3 million NFT images and deployed more than 8,000 smart contracts. 

Pricing is a straight forward $99 a month for unlimited collection generation. If you are done generating and have uploaded your collection, there’s no need to keep the subscription.

If you want to launch your smart contract, they can help with that as well charging 4.9% of initial sales. (Email me for a discount: mark@peerthrough.com)

How To Make NFT Art Conclusion

This article hopefully gave you a good understanding of how to make NFT art. There are a number of tools and services that make the process simple. You don’t have to be an artist or coder to launch an NFT. You just need an idea, a marketing strategy, and a strong community.

We’re excited to see what you create and wish you success in your NFT mint.

If you do earn a lot of crypto, BE SAFE and don’t just store it in your metamask or on an exchange. Check out some Hardware wallets and treat your crypto like a pro. After all, you are a crypto pro now 🙂

Thanks for reading!

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