Expanding on Creating Reusable Assets Follow Up From Episode 30

Host: Delores Naskrent

In this solo follow-up to one of our most popular episodes, Delores goes deeper into the world of reusable art assets — and how they can transform your creative business. Whether you're a surface designer, illustrator, or digital artist, this conversation will help you reframe how you create, reuse, and sell the tools you already use in your own workflow.

She covers:
 ✨ Why reusable assets (like brushes, clipart, templates, and motifs) are a game changer
 ✨ The mindset shift needed to move from “finished art” to flexible tools
 ✨ How to start small (with real examples from her shop and students)
 ✨ Tips for maintaining style consistency across your product line
 ✨ How these assets fuel your creativity and build passive income

With decades of teaching and selling experience behind her, Delores shares honest insights, real stories, and gentle encouragement for anyone looking to grow a more sustainable creative income stream.

Whether you’re brand new to digital products or ready to build out your shop, this episode will leave you inspired to get started — one asset at a time.

🔗 Mentioned: Episode 30 – Turning Art Assets Into Income

Don't miss an episode—subscribe to The Creative JuggleJoy Podcast! Follow us on social media and join our email lists for more tips, stories, and updates on new episodes.

Kaylie Edwards - Instagram - Website - Facebook - Threads

• 5 Day FREE Email List Kickstart Challenge
• New Handmade to Scalable Beta Course

Delores Naskrent - Website & Digital Art School - Instagram - Facebook - Pinterest - Youtube

• Procreate Foundations Course
• Affinity Foundations Course

Transcript

Delores Naskrent (00:05)

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Creative Juggle Joy podcast where we'll explore all the ways to balance creativity and entrepreneurship. I'm your host for today, Delores Naskrent and this episode is a follow-up to one of our most popular and exciting podcasts we've ever done, Turning Art Assets into Income. I apologize in advance if you can hear any outside noise. It's a long weekend holiday day and

And yeah, everybody's outside making all kinds of noise in their yard. So I'm hoping that we'll be able to edit most of the sound out.

Now, if you caught that episode about turning art assets into income, you'll remember we talked about what reusable art assets are, how they can save you loads of time, and the potential they have to generate passive income for artists and creators. It was such a hit and I got so many great questions and feedback.

from all of you that I knew I had to do a follow-up episode. So here we are. This time it's just me and we'll go even deeper into the why and the how of creating these reusable assets along with a little bit about why I personally create so many, how I sell them, why I strongly encourage my students, my clients and my listeners to consider doing the same and then just why I use them.

And I can tell you I have created two or three classes just recently that will be coming up this next few months. I always record months in advance. And these are topics that I'm addressing in those classes.

As always, I'm here to give you ideas. I want you to push your creativity and to help you think of how to diversify and grow your art business. So let's dive into part two of this topic and explore how reusable assets can be a real game changer in your art career.

To kick things off, I want to share a bit more about why reusable assets play a huge role in my business personally. If you have followed my journey, and you know it's been a very long one, you know that I wear many hats as an artist. I'm ⁓ an artist, licensing artist, teacher, and I'm a creative entrepreneur. Because of that, I'm always on the lookout for ways to streamline my workflow

to work smarter and also how I can create income sources that don't require much more of my time and energy. So that's where Reusable Assets came in. For me, I started making tools like Procreate brushes and patterns and things just to speed up my own creative process. At the time, I had no idea

they've become a big part of my own income. So fast forward a few years, I would say seven years or more. I have now created hundreds. mean, like it's likely thousands of reusable assets. So we're talking motif sets, digital patterns, design templates.

All kinds of different things. I'd have to look actually at my artist resource page on my website to think of all of the different things. I've created kits, all kinds. Like I do greeting card kits for Christmas and I think I've done Mother's Day and gosh, I wish I had more time because I would do so many more of those because those seem to be really popular. So here's the thing. I don't just sell them. I also use these constantly. That leaf.

motif I drew for a brush set. It's probably been used in like half a dozen of my product designs. A texture I created for a procreate bundle. I have probably used it on a background, on elements for illustrations or prints, or even mock-ups that I sell on my website. Reusable assets make my creative process not only faster

but also more fluid. They give me a head start on every new project while letting me maintain a really cohesive style. think because I've created so many of these things now, there is a certain style that has evolved. Not to say that I don't like trying new things. As you know, I am always experimenting and coming up with new ideas for assets and...

asset packs and things that I think you can use as much as I can.

And I talk about this a lot with my students because I believe that reusable assets are one of the easiest ways for artists to build both creative freedom and financial stability. Once you've made an asset pack, it can be sold again and again. And it's not about reinventing the wheel. It's about designing tools that solve creative hurdles for you. And if they solve them for you, they are also solving them for your buyers.

I have recently seen some procreate brushes that I created being used to make a laser pattern for cutting paper. So imagine that, you know, it was the furthest thing from my mind when I was creating those brushes and I loved seeing that it was being used in that way. It was really cool, kind of validating, I would say.

That means that there is so much cross-pollination that happens between all the softwares as well. just keep that in mind too. Now in our last episode, I know that we covered a lot of ground, both Kaylie and I, everything from reusable assets to how beginners can dip their toes into the world of assets and selling. And this time I wanted to zoom in on

some of the aspects that we didn't really explain fully. So today's episode to me feels like a natural expansion of the first. One of the things that I really didn't dive deeply into last time is the mindset shift that comes with creating reusable assets. When you're primarily an artist, it's easy to think every piece you create has to be

a finished and polished masterpiece. But with reusable assets, the goal is different. You're creating tools, not finished art, and that requires you to see your work as, I don't know, kind of modular or flexible. For example, let's say you're creating a set of floral motifs. Instead of focusing on putting together a complete illustration,

you're designing standalone pieces like individual flowers, leaves, maybe some vines that someone else can arrange and adapt for their own needs.

That flexibility is what makes digital assets so valuable. So your buyers can then use them to save time on their projects. And they're gonna come back for more because they trust the quality and usability of what you're offering. I just ran a sale this past month and one of the things that I was really touched by was

looking at the orders as they were coming into my Shopify store and seeing how many people were back, people who have been buying from me for years. And I was able to go deeply into my stats and I could see that some people have spent hundreds of dollars coming back for more assets. So

That is something that I never would have thought about when I was first setting out to sell these assets. So just think about that. I'm contributing to that person's success by offering things that will save them time and can give their work that they're doing a particular look. So I thought that was super rewarding.

Another thing I want to add is how important it is to reuse your own reusable assets. I know that sounds obvious, but it's something that's often overlooked. Just because you created a brush set or clip art pack, it doesn't mean it has to live in a shop and nowhere else. Personally, I keep just about all of my asset packs and brushes resident in my software, because I use my own tools constantly.

not just to save time, but to also kind of maintain, ⁓ I hate that word, but cohesion across my entire body of work. This is especially helpful if you're licensing designs or creating collections. So I have been for the last few months working on flower bouquets and I have been using assets over and over again and

If you were to look really closely at the set, at the bouquets I've created, you might be able to recognize some assets being used more than once. But honestly, the overall look of every bouquet is so very different. And now I have just recently been ⁓ playing around with creating PNG watercolor assets. So the clear background assets that I can.

import into any program so I could use them when I'm in Procreate or Affinity Designer and if you are using Illustrator you could use these and now I have these watercolor painted versions of a bunch of my flowers and it's like I've got a whole new lease on life. I'm trying all kinds of different things so my bouquets are even evolving so it's really cool.

Established brushes can provide a really consistent style while keeping things fresh with new arrangements or new layers.

Now, another question I get all the time is where do I even start with creating reusable assets for my business? And my answer to that question is always the same, start small. Like I mentioned in the last episode about assets, you don't need to have a massive bundle or a big complicated pack to enter this world. Some of the asset packs that I see that are selling

are really incredibly simple. Things like Procreate brushes or motif packs that have only 10 to 12 illustrations or brushes. That kind of stuff is accessible for beginners to create and really super useful for buyers, especially if they target something specific. So let's say, for example, lilies. What about producing a set of just a dozen lilies?

and have the lilies in different poses, but it's just so niche that somebody who gets onto Creative Market or Etsy to search for this product, they're going to be looking specifically for that lily. They don't want a set of 200 flowers. They want lilies. So if you create a set and you're selling it for $6 or $8, who knows what could happen? And you might

make somebody really happy just by having that one simple set.

Another example would be you're an illustrator and you like to draw whimsical animals. So pick one or two animals and clean up your sketches and digitize them into PNG files or vectors. From there, you can upload these files as a mini clipart pack on platforms like Etsy or, you know, sell them as a brush pack.

as a vector and add some additional textures, put them all together as a kit. Are you going to make thousands of dollars from one small pack? Well, probably not, but it's a foundational piece you can build on, refine, and then expand into larger collections over time. I did a whole

series of brush sets that were line art flowers that I traced from photographs of flowers that I had. I took, I'm always taking pictures of flowers and I painstakingly traced these flowers and then I created a positive and negative version of each of them. So there would be just the line drawing but then I would do the opposite where the flower was filled

with black and the lines were clear or white. And I made these into brush sets for Procreate and each of them had, I think, 20 brushes in it. And when I saw after creating two sets that I had people buying those sets, then I would make a third one. Then those people would come buy that set. Eventually I had done 11 sets and

there were people who bought every single one of those floral sets. And one of them I remember really distinctly contacting me and she creates, she lives in India and creates the fabric for saris. And I thought, wow, like, isn't that just the coolest thing? I had hoped that she would send me some pictures. I think I got one picture, but what a beautiful thing, you know? And the fact is,

It was that initial set that got her interested, but then because the style was there and was repeated in multiple sets, she was able to take these flowers and mix match for multiple sets to make multiple patterns. So think about that too, as the consumer buying these things, having them available as a series, that can be a way to get additional sets.

made and sold.

One of the most rewarding parts of creating reusable assets for me is seeing how those other artists and designers use them in their work. I love knowing that the tools I've created help someone else save time, overcome their creative hurdles, or bring their visions to life. That's why I am such a big advocate for selling your own assets, especially if you're looking to build a stable art business. Think of it this way.

Every time you sell an asset, you're growing a passive income stream. Unlike commission pieces or physical products which require constant input, a well-made digital product can live on a platform like Etsy or Creative Market or your own website like I have, and they can sell over and over without requiring additional time or effort.

What I always tell my students is this, you don't need to be a big name artist to sell reusable assets. Buyers are not looking for famous names. What they're looking for is usable, well-made and creative tools. If you can deliver that, you will be off to a great start.

So I think that's a wrap on today's episode. I hope this deeper dive into reusable assets has left you feeling inspired and confident and that you'll go and give it a try. Whether you're sketching your first motif or finally uploading that brush pack that you've been sitting on for months, remember that this project or this process is part of a marathon, not a sprint. So take your time.

Work on just one piece at a time or one brush set a month and trust that every step you take builds towards something bigger If you have questions or you want to share what you're working on feel free to reach out by the way I love hearing about your creative journeys and as always Keep creating keep juggling and most importantly keep finding joy in the process You've got this Until next time