While NFTs have been around for almost a decade now, it wasn’t until the NFT craze in 2021 that most people took notice of them. Nowadays, they leave no one indifferent, and everyone’s got an opinion on NFTs, even though most people don’t fully understand them.
If you have a pragmatic view on NFTs and want to jump on the bandwagon to try your luck at creating non-fungible tokens but don’t know where to start, this article has the answers. This guide will show you how you can turn any drawing into an NFT, upload it to an NFT marketplace and try to sell it for profit. Without further ado, let’s dive right into it.
Step by Step Instructions on How to Make an NFT
Hate them or love them, there is a lot of money revolving around NFTs, and the opportunity they provide is very real. The best part is there are no special requirements for you to be an NFT artist, and literally everyone can partake. All that is required for creating NFT art is a basic understanding of blockchain technology and a small investment to cover the gas fees.
Getting Started – Decide What You Want to Create
NFTs come in all kinds of shapes and forms, including PFPs, avatars, artworks, videos, GIFs, music, virtual items, trading cards, collectibles, etc. This is why before you even start to create your own NFT, you should already have a clear picture of the end result in mind.
Let’s say you want to create a digital art piece. While art is liberating and allows artists to express themselves creatively, you should know what qualities your NFT should possess to attract potential buyers.
The three main characteristics that investors are looking for in an NFT are authenticity, scarcity, and permanence. In other words, making NFT artwork that is unique, hard to replace, and offers a permanent value of some sort is the way to go. This may constrain your creative freedom a bit, but it is the price for reaching mainstream success.
Now is also the time to think about whether you are going to create a one-off or a series of NFTs. Creating an NFT collection could require you to plan more intensively and decide on theme aesthetics that will connect all of your art pieces together. While creating an NFT collection certainly requires more effort, it is easier to build a community around an NFT collection than a single NFT, which in turn can allow you to make more profit.
Creating an NFT game is a significantly more complex process that requires advanced knowledge of blockchain technologies, so it is recommended you get started with creating a single NFT or NFT collections if you are truly ambitious.
Choose the Right Blockchain for Your NFT
Once you are done planning and have your art piece already drawn, you need to publish it on a blockchain. This process of making NFT out of regular computer files is called minting. Once your drawing is minted, it will get its own unique metadata codes which will ensure its authenticity and protect it from being altered or modified in any way.
Most blockchains will require you to pay a gas fee to get your NFT minted, though some platforms allow you to make an NFT for free through a procedure known as lazy minting. When you lazy mint an NFT, you won’t pay any gas fees or get your NFT minted until a buyer for it is found. Once someone decides to buy your NFT, they take responsibility for the gas fees and pay for them in addition to the price you set for it.
Lazy minting is a great option when it comes to creating NFTs for beginners. Polygon is one of the most popular blockchains that allows lazy minting through OpenSea, one of the world’s most popular NFT marketplaces. You will initially pay nothing to get your NFT validated, and once a buyer has been found, you will pay 2.5% of the selling price as a service fee.
Solana is another good option for creating NFTs. It is the second most popular blockchain for NFTs, topped only by Ethereum. However, the gas fees for NFT minting on Solana are substantially lower than Ethereum’s gas fees. The average total price for creating and selling an NFT on Solana is about $0.0486.
In contrast, the price for creating an NFT on Ethereum can sometimes be as high as $150. Depending on the current price of Ether, the activity on the blockchain, your listing price, and other factors, gas fees on Ethereum vary considerably. Though, what you get in return is listing your NFT on the world’s most popular NFT blockchain, with incomparably higher trade volumes, which means higher chances of selling your NFT.
As we previously mentioned, creating and selling NFTs takes dedication, so make sure you do your research regarding gas fees and prices before you decide. Prices on the blockchain change from one day to the next, so don’t rely on guides regarding this information and always keep up to date.
Choose the Right NFT Platform for Your NFT
The next step in making NFT would be choosing the ideal NFT platform and NFT marketplace for you to list it for sale. Just like when you are selecting a blockchain, research thoroughly for the right platform that will give you the terms that are the most suitable for you.
If your goal is to create NFTs with a minimum to no financial investment, OpenSea, Mintable, and Rarible are very popular choices. Alternatively, you can check out Nifty Gateway if you don’t mind paying a fixed price for minting an unlimited number of NFTs. Lastly, quite a few crypto exchanges, like Binance, also support the sales of NFTs, so you can check those out too.
If you are making an NFT to sell, you should know that some NFT marketplaces charge a one-time account fee, listing fee, and possibly some other charges besides a gas fee. However, there are differences in the ways you can earn in different NFT marketplaces as well. For example, only a few of them allow renting of NFTs, some offer better royalty rates, etc. Be sure to consider everything before you make your decision.
Create a Crypto Wallet
Even if you decide to make an NFT for free, you will still need a crypto wallet to connect with the platform where you want to list your NFT for sale. Additionally, if you decide you are ready to pay minimum charges for minting, be sure you have enough Ether in your digital wallet.
We won’t recommend any particular wallets for making NFT artwork. We will, however, remind you to ensure that the digital wallet you are creating is supported by the platform where your NFT will be listed.
The crypto wallet creation process is pretty straightforward, and so is the process of purchasing Ether from a crypto exchange, so we will let you figure this out for yourself.
Mint an NFT and List It for Sale
At last, you are at the final step of our creating NFTs for beginners guide. You made all the decisions, created your art, and have enough Ether in your wallet, so you can go to the website where you want to list your NFT. The minting and listing process is very similar across the NFT marketplace but may not be 100% the same.
In our example, we are creating non-fungible tokens on OpenSea, and the instructions are the following:
Connect your crypto wallet to the platform.
Click on Create.
Upload your art and fill in the rest of the details.
Select the blockchain where you want your NFT to reside.
Click on Create.
Congratulations, you have created your first NFT!
Now that you know how to create NFTs, all that is left is to list it for sale. Simply minting the NFT and having it in your wallet doesn’t mean it is already listed. Click on the Sell button on the platform and fill in the details. Here is where you can choose the price, royalty options, how long you want your NFT listed, etc.
The Bottom Line
Recently, many people got the impression that NFTs are slowly dying out. This is understandable as, in 2021, they reached an incredible level of popularity. While the NFT market today may not be booming as it did then, you can rest assured that it is still stable.
It is never too late to learn anything, not even how to create an NFT. It may not seem like it right now, but NFTs have already reserved their place in our future. They have a major role to play in the metaverse, which is unavoidable with the further development of Web 3.0 technologies.
NFTs may change their shapes and forms over time, but as long as you adapt, creating NFT art will never be a waste of time.
