He made it to the main draw of a ranking event for the first time in 2012, by beating Mike Dunn 5–3 in the wildcard round for the German Masters. He played Matthew Stevens in the first round, but was comfortably beaten 5–1. Despite not being on the main snooker tour Steadman played in all 12 of the minor-ranking Players Tour Championship events throughout the season, reaching the last 32 on four occasions. These performances were enough to see him earn a place back on the tour for the 2012–13 season. Steadman decided to accept the invitation back on to the main tour only at the last minute, as he felt snooker was distracting him from his main career as a professional artist.