Making a Mock up!

Kind of following on from the last blog post I thought I’d add a bit more about Mock ups and making them.

For those who didn’t read the last post, a mock up is an image used by designers to show the potential of a design.

I mentioned them in the last blog when I was talking about them being used by print to order companies, but I wanted to also show how you can use them on your own websites and shops.

The first time I used a mock up was when I made my first card design. I created the image on an ipad all called Procreate, then I did further work to the image on Photoshop. This is the final image

If I’m selling the image on my Etsy shop I need photos to show how the card would look, but I wanted a professional looking photo.

I used a free image site, Unsplash, one of many sites that offer free stock images and using layers in Procreate I removed the original card and replaced it with an image of my card.

It’s not too bad for my first one, but if you look too closely you notice a lack of shadow under the thumb and first finger of the right hand and a few other little signs that make you feel the card just isn’t really there. But it does the job.

But if you don’t want to make your own Mockups (because they do take some skill to get right) there are other options.

Mock Up editor (www.mockupeditor.com) is great if you want to sell art online and need to show how the art would look on a wall.

It costs $5 per image for unlimited use or $7 a month for unlimited images with use as long as you subscribe.

Starting with a wall and desk, you can add photo frames, chairs, plants and a large variety of desk items to create your own scene. Change the wall colour, add more images, and when you’ve got the scene you want choose to buy the single image or subscribe to create more.

The image above was done on Mock Up Editor. I chose the wall colour, frame and size, added toys, was able to stack the bricks and even change the colour of the giraffe. It’s actually a lot of fun playing around with the display.

Even better, Mock Up Editor links up with your Etsy shop and downloads the images straight to your store. It’s a great way to get a cohesive look to your art shop and saves a lot of time saving and reloading images.

I ended my subscription recently (saving money at the start of lockdown) and thought I’d lose my images from the subscription, but Nope! They’re still there making my little crazy shop look like I’ve got some ace designer skills.

If you use one of the print on demand sites I mentioned in the last blog post you could try and use their image but make sure you have permission to use the image and the image might not be the quality you need for other websites.

Another option, if you use photoshop, is to buy a ready made mock up. This is a mock up you own and can be used as many times as you like.

I buy mock ups from Creative Market (www.creativemarket.com)

It’s an amazing place to buy tools to help you create digital art – I’ve just gone to the site to find the image I wanted and spent an hour browsing!

Prices start at $2 for a basic Iphone mock up to $800 cardboard box mock ups but somewhere in between you’ll find the images you want.

A lot of the designs come as a pack, so you get more than one mock up image and instructions on using the mockup. The more basic mock ups, flat objects like cards are easier than 3D models like cushions, but mostly it’s finding the layer in photoshop and placing your own image in there.

I bought a set of 7 card images for $10, this is one of them

It has the ability of showing both sides of the card and apart from a fine white line on the edge of the card it looks pretty good.

I also got some free mock up templates from my Skillshare subscription and designer Cat Coquillette (www.catcoq.com) through her design top-selling products video. Here’s one of my designs on a more complicated 3D pillow mock up.

Finally, you can have more than one design per mockup, as seen in this mock up of three rolls of fabric.

It’s worth purchasing a professionally made mock up like the one above because everything can be changed from wall colour, to the material the wall is made from.

Most importantly it allows you to see how best to use your designs without spending money on actual products.