How to Create NFT Art
Written by  Daisie Team
Published on 9 min read

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Over the past 12 months, the NFT marketplace has exploded in popularity. In fact, there has been a 700% increase in NFT sales in the last year alone. That means there is a huge opportunity for artists to create art that can be seen, appreciated, and purchased.

So how do you start creating NFT art? The answer is that it is actually easier than you think. You don't need any extensive artistic, coding, or marketing experience to get started. Here's a step-by-step look at how to create NFT art.

Please note: this guide has been written to explain the basics of creating NFTs. We will suggest multiple shortcuts that simplify the process and make it easier for you to get started. These shortcuts should be referenced on an educational basis and should not be used when building a public project from scratch.

Creating an NFT: Concepting Your Big Idea

The first thing you will need to do is create a concept for your artwork. This could be a person, animal, or even an inanimate object. For instance, Bored Ape Yacht Club designed Apes, Cryptopunks made people, and Loopy Donuts used Donuts. Once you have decided on the subject matter, you can begin creating your NFT art.

Let's suppose you don't know where to start. Don't worry. You can use a site called Rarity.tools. This site tracks all the top NFT projects that are live on secondary markets. Here, you can get a good idea of what type of NFT collections are popular.

Do more than pay attention to the art itself. Consider how the work makes you feel. Does the artwork make you laugh? Are you blown away by the quality of some of the artwork? Do some of the artwork repel you? Your NFT art is going to be judged on an initial gut reaction. Consider that when devising the theme of your own collection.

Create the Artwork

The next thing you will need to do is gather the artwork to create the NFT. Don't worry if you're not a trained artist. You don't have to be a Michaelangelo or Da Vinci in order to create an NFT project.

However, you will need to determine the style of your artwork. Some of your options can include the following:

  • Pixel art
  • Cartoon illustration
  • Fine art
  • Paintings
  • Line drawings
  • 3D

You may want to consider researching existing NFT pieces to see which type of design is for you.

If you really feel that you can not create the work on your own, you can learn in art classes on learning platforms like Daisie. Here, you can attend art classes and connect with other artists. Even if you are an established artist, Daisie is a great place to collaborate with other creators who you may be able to collaborate with.

If you hire someone to create the artwork for the NFT, be sure to communicate what you want clearly. You’d likely need to show the artist samples of the type of artwork you would like them to emulate.

How to Create an NFT Collection: From 1 to 10,000 NFTs

At this point, you will want to determine if you want to create a 1of1 NFT or an entire collection. If you wish to create an entire NFT collection, then you may need to create what are known as attributes, or traits. These are design properties that will allow you to create diversity within your collection.

Some example attributes:

  • Hair
  • Facial expression
  • Clothing
  • Accessories
  • Background
  • DNA
  • Eyes

If you are looking to create an NFT collection, then you will need to provide the art pieces for the coding algorithm to do its work. The coding algorithm will be able to create a series of NFTs that will make up your collection.

Store Your Artwork

Contrary to popular belief, your artwork will not exist on the blockchain. Therefore, you will need a place to store your artwork once it has been created. NFT creators use what is known as a decentralized storage system. You could store your artwork on your computer, but you don't want to lose all your hard work if your computer crashes.

One of the best-decentralized storage file services available is Fleek. This service allows you to bulk upload your artwork and have it ready when it comes to the creation of your NFTs.

Creating an NFT Smart Contract

Okay, now that you have created and stored your artwork, it is time to create your smart contract. For this part of the project, you will need to utilize some coding. Don't worry. You'll learn how to get this done without writing one line of code.

To create a smart contract for your NFT art, you will need to use a program called Solidity. Solidity is an object-oriented programming language for writing smart contracts.

You can grab a piece of already existing code and simply plug in the specific information about your NFT project, such as the number of NFTs in your collection, the mint price, the royalty price, and so on.

So, where do you grab this code? Simply go to Github and search the marketplace for an NFT code. Afterward, download the code as a zip file. After you have downloaded the code, go to Visual Studio Code and customize the code that you have gotten from GitHub.

Once you have opened Visual Studio Code, open the file that you downloaded from GitHub. Once you have opened the file, you will be able to import your artwork layers and make any alterations you need.

Now you have the code almost ready to go for your NFT art. However, there are a few adjustments that you will want to make.

One of the most important adjustments is setting the rarity of certain attributes. On the code, there is going to be an input known as the weight. If you want the attribute to be really common, you will set the weight closer to 100. If you want the attribute to be really rare, then you will set the weight closer to 0.

Smart contracts handle lots of important functions for your NFT project:

  • They will control who owns your NFT and how the NFT minting will be managed.
  • The smart contract will manage the random distribution of the NFT collection and the minting process.
  • Finally, the smart contract is going to handle how you receive your ETH each time one of your NFTs is traded.

When creating your smart contract, you will have to decide which blockchain you are going to use. One of the most popular blockchains is Ethereum. You can also use Solana if you prefer.

Here's a look at the advantages & disadvantages of the top blockchains for NFT projects:

  • Ethereum - The most popular blockchain is home to top NFT projects. If your NFT project is on Ethereum, you will have access to most of the NFT buyer market. The downside is that Ethereum NFT projects are expensive to mint.
  • Solana - Solana is an up-and-coming blockchain where lots of newer NFT projects are being created. The one advantage is that it is relatively inexpensive to mint.

Building Your Website

Once you have created the smart contract, you will need to create the website, and you'll want to add information to introduce, market, and narrate the story of your NFT collection/project.. Your website is alo where the minting of your NFTs will take place.

You don't need to make the website complicated. Ideally, your website will serve two functions:

  • Promote buy-in & support for the project
  • Enable people to connect their wallets and mint

If you aren't website-savvy, the good news is you don't need to create your website completely from scratch; there are a number of NFT website templates out there where you can simply plug in your project's information and launch pretty quickly.

Here is what a basic NFT project website needs:

  • Introduction - This provides an overview of your NFT project.
  • Roadmap - A roadmap explains upcoming events associated with your NFT project. This could include future mintings, airdrops, or other releases.
  • Minting information - Here, you will let people know when they can mint your NFTs, how much the minting costs, and where the minting will take place.
  • White paper - A white paper is a summary of all the information on your NFT project. This can be on your side and available as a downloadable PDF document.
  • Social media links - You will want to provide links to your Twitter and Discord accounts that are associated with the NFT project.

Finally, you can host the website on the same service where you will be storing your NFT artwork. As an example, lots of NFT creators host their websites on Fleek.

How To Create NFT Art: Marketing Stage

People think that creating the NFT collection is the hard part. That's the easy part. The marketing part is going to be where you are going to be spending most of your time and effort.

NFT marketing boils down to one word: community. It's vital to establish a community of supporters for your project. Typically, NFT collectors spend most of their time on social media platforms such as Twitter and Discord. Now, if you already have a strong brand, then you already have a community. However, if you are just starting out with no brand, you have some work to do.

In order to create a community around your NFT project, you will need to make use of social media. The most popular place to build your NFT community is Twitter. This is where many NFT projects start their marketing.

After you have attracted an audience on Twitter, you can invite them to the Discord survey for the project. There you can provide more detailed information on the project.

Getting Your NFTs to the Secondary Market

Once your NFTs collection has been created and you have set up the mint process, you don't have to do much to get them onto the secondary market. The people who have purchased your NFTs will eventually put them on marketplaces such as OpenSea, Rarible, SuperRare, and Nifty Gateway. Because of this, you don't have to worry about getting your NFT collection indexed on these sites.

Summing It All Up

Now let’s take a look at the steps required to create your own NFT artwork:

  1. Come up with a concept for your artwork
  2. Create a design or hire a professional artist
  3. Determine if you would like to create a single NFT or an NFT collection
  4. If you would like to create an NFT collection, design and create the attributes for the collection.
  5. Go to the GitHub marketplace and find the code to create the smart contract
  6. Use Virtual Code Studio to modify the code
  7. Determine which smart contract you want to use
  8. Create a website for your NFT
  9. Determine the roadmap for your NFT collection rollout
  10. Write a whitepaper
  11. Create a Twitter and Discord account
  12. Market your NFT or NFT collection
  13. After the mint date, make your NFTs available on secondary markets

Creating Your NFT Art

As you can see, you don't need any extensive artistic, coding, or marketing experience to create your own NFT. You simply need to create a concept, make the art pieces, create the smart contract, have an algorithm create the NFT collection, set up the website, and connect the website to your smart contract.If you want to learn more, check out NFT classes on Daisie. It's the best place for artists and creatives to learn more as they develop their following projects. Here you will find everything you need to know about NFT art from start to finish. Good luck!