With this work I also got closer to Blender and explored new technical possibilities and fell in lovewith Blender. So I could model with full motivation and later also do some programming! Duringcertain tasks I noticed certain workflow improvements and so I started to deal with how to write ownscripts in Blender and also later addons. 

Now Slawa's flagship addon, Simply Cloth Pro just released a v.3 update and has 11400+ sales and a lot of love from it users.

His library of addons also includes Simply Micro Mesh, Simply Wrap Pro, Simply Concept, Asset and Preset Clothingpack, Simply Material, Render Flow

What inspired you to create these products? What problems were you trying to solve?

The inspiration came from the fact that a company asked me to create beds and blankets for 3D visualizations and to create them exclusively in Blender. I got a great result after about 2 hours, but I was dissatisfied with the fact that I had to adjust the values back and forth like 100 times until I got a result that was "satisfactory for me".

So, the first idea came up to combine these many parameters in Blender and make it easier and that's how the idea for Simply Cloth came about.  Bartosz Styperek (Hair Tool, Garment Tool and more…), who had over 10 years of experience in Blender, gave me the motivating start and advised me to start developing addons, so I just gave it a try! Big and Special Thanks to him!

How long did the initial development take and how many people were involved? Did you hit any snags? Feel like giving up? Find any exciting enhancements along the way?

After two months of practice and a few questions to experienced people who knew about programming, I had my first addon: Simply Cloth Helper.  Here are some old screenshots during development:

.   

I didn't have any problems with the development, but I was told by some people, "It's not worth it because the niche is too small and you won't be successful with it..." I didn’t let that discourage me and just uploaded it to the Blender Market and thought what do I have to lose? ;). While sales were slowly increasing and the users were very satisfied, I was all the more motivated to continue working on the project and new features for Simply Cloth and learned a lot about Blende and Python and am very happy and thankful for this experience!

How much time do you spend on support and updates on average each day now that the product is available on Blender Market?

I spend roughly 1 hour per day on support and am slowly working on new ideas, features and improvements. This varies depending on the complexity of what I'm working on. Roughly speaking, it's 1 to a maximum of 4 hours a day if I do a lot.

Do you have another job/responsibilities outside of your work on Blender Market? How do you balance supporting and updating your product as part of your daily life?

Besides my work at Blender Market I produce music.  You can hear some of my productions on my Blender videos.  I also spend a lot of time with my family 🙂  I always do exactly this work in between or at night when everyone is sleeping.  🙂  (You won't be disturbed that often hehe).

What is your favorite response you've gotten from a customer who used your product?

What I love to read from my clients is:

The gratitude of customers who see value in my products and appreciate my technical support. I liketo take the time to record a video or to respond individually to the customer's project.

What's next for you? Any exciting projects on the horizon?

In addition, I am always working on new ideas and testing a lot in Blender until I achieve the desired results. My goals are to bring Simply Cloth Pro closer to people through courses and more explanatory videos. In addition, I help Kagi Vision 3D (Daniel Meier) with programming and consulting on his addons. Everything else is not yet mature enough to mention it.

Special Thanks to Blendermarket, especially Amber Kelly & Matthew Muldoon.  Also Alberto Gonzalez, Bartosz Styperek, Daniel Meier, Dennis & Lukas Giesler and Wolfgang Tell!

In Honor

Slawa

(by Vjaceslav Tissen)