We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Paul Roustan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Paul thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

I’ve been a body painter for 18 years now. I’m always motivated by curiosity and driven to push the boundaries of the art form and less about financial gain. I tend to obsess and dive in regardless of the thoughts of people around me. That is to say, most people weren’t very encouraging regarding my path. But I carried on blazing a trail of my own.

Over the years, many opportunities presented themselves; sponsorships, commissions, viral exposure. These were all simply bonus benefits for my hard headed pursuit to explore my creativity. And I’m grateful for each and every one of them.

I believe if you actively engage and learn on a pursuit for many many years, you will naturally develop a level of mastery. Some say it takes 10,000 hours. I can say after all these years, all the trials and tribulations, I’m still at it with the same child like curiosity I had in the very beginning. But, now I have a wealth of images, videos, and content. And I’m able to capitalize on it all especially with the amazing opportunities that sites like youtube, patreon, and now web3 offer individuals.

I do not believe in shortcuts. I find the pitfalls you discover are part of the journey to help you better understand your path. One thing I do know is people tend to quit far too soon. Set a goal, maybe a hard one, and achieve it. Don’t quit until you do. And when you do, set another goal.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a body painter. I paint on people and then I photograph them. I’ve been doing this since 2005 and have shown my work in galleries and been hired by individuals and businesses for various commissions like tradeshows, movies/music videos, advertising. At the end of 2021, I abandoned most of these traditional means of showcasing and selling my art. I instead dove head first into web3, NFTs and the metaverse. This combined with producing content on youtube and patreon regularly enabled me to support myself financially. I found a way to become my own boss.

Web3 offered me the ability to cut out all the middlemen increasing my profits. I no longer need to pay to frame my photographs, store them, or ship them. I no longer need to pay a 50% commission to the gallery who sells my work. Instead, I display and sell them via virtual galleries in the metaverse. I’ve also been able to create and sell virtual body paintings that users can wear on their avatars. This is incredibly exciting because people around the world can now “wear” my paint, regardless of their insecurities, or for whatever reason that prohibits that from happening in real life.

Because my entire motivation was and still is producing something original and at the highest quality, I’ve conditioned myself to offer something exceptionally unique. Now, I continue to explore how I can exist in this constantly evolving future of metaverse and ai and the new platforms we come across. It’s certainly a world more conducive to my type of art.

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

NFTs are highly efficient and convenient. They have opened a HUGE door for my work. Previously, I was limited to selling my creative work as photographs. But now, NFTs have enabled the opportunity for me to sell as video, 3D assets, digital wearables, and more. The current platforms enabled the opportunity to connect with collectors and nurture strong communities fostered around my work. In my first year exploring NFTs, I developed more reach as an artist than I had in the previous 16 years combined.

From a display stand point, people get stuck on the fact that these are not physical items. But if you can imagine a screen replacing the photographic frame on a wall, you can now display your collection on an always easily changeable loop. You get bored of it , you instantly change the artwork using your phone app.

I offer the metaphor of Compact Discs. We used to buy and collect CDs. But now, most people stream their music from the cloud. Digital is far more convenient than physical. There will always be that niche, but I believe in a short future, mainstream people will start collecting digital assets over physical items because convenience ALWAYS wins.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

For me, I never looked at it as a goal to build an audience. I treated each platform simply as a place to post my content regardless of who saw. By doing this, I inadvertently avoided the common potential of burnout and lost expectation. I created my content, and then just posted, and I never stopped. I just made it a goal to try and post something on youtube, for example, at least once a week. I think most people fail because they have this expectation of quick success. But I think it’s much better to create a goal, let’s say one video per week for two years. that’s 104 videos. You just need one video to take off with the algorithm to get the ball rolling. You’re less likely to do that if you quit 10 videos in because they didn’t have the likes, views, or subscribers you were expecting. Just force yourself to make the content despite the results. And then, don’t quit. Ultimately, you will be rewarded with the gained knowledge of how absolutely awful your first videos actually were. And you’ll be more seasoned to produce content that actually connects.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.bodypainter.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roustan/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulroustan/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/RoustanNFT
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/roustan
• Other: NFTs: https://linktr.ee/roustan Metaverse Builds: https://linktr.ee/rouverse

Image Credits
1st photo by Hunter burke 2nd photo by Rob Shum