Asking Advice: Online Gallery Social Networking sites (DA,FA etc)

[furry1337otaku.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry if this isn't the right place for this, and I'm cross posting (spamming) to a few communities to see what the general consensus is, especially for those lucky few whom are considered successful.

Now, I'm sure we're all familiar with and many of us do business using at least a couple of these websites. Deviantart, Furaffinity, Inkbunny, Sheezyart, Concept Art, and Nabyn to name a few examples. The latter is why I decided to ask advice as I already have an account on most of the others. While some make sense as many of them specialize to certain interests or offer different types of feedback, I'm beginning to realize that it is becoming overwhelming for me to keep up with them all (for awhile now I've been in a constant state of reorganizing watchees deciding what notifications I want to keep, and who I need to ditch, which is rough when you have a good friend but they aren't what you're looking for in artistic inspiration or a fabulous artist who won't stop babbling about memes). Obviously, I should probably cut down to just a few, or so I think.

So this is my real question, is it better to specialize in one or two of these sites, or is it advisable to join near all of them for further promotion to a wider audience? Also, curious what sites people have used and how they find them compared with other sites.

Here's my experience with them.

Deviantart. I've been with Deviant Art the longest. It is not necessarily my favorite, although I enjoy many of their features (it has been very pleasing watching various premium features become standard over time). Some report serious issues with this site, including but not limited to malicious ads and plagerism (art theft for the layman). I feel like this site is most popular with those whom have an Anime type style or very strong photorealism. It is probably the largest of all the sites and offers the most opportunities, especially if you don't mind paying for a premium account. However, it is also hard to make a real following or get very big on your art alone, like most of these sites, it requires a lot of hard work, networking, self promoting and pandering to popular media. As is often bemused, a five minute fanart will get several times more views than the masterpiece you bled your soul out producing. The Job Offers and other forums are pretty diverse and the competition is terse. There are real job offers, but mostly is a matter of one party or another looking for an artist and mostly artists looking for work.

FurAffinity. My current favorite despite the overall poor site integration, lack of features and questionable content. Not surprisingly, this art website is mostly home to furries; artists and fans of all sorts. While the furry fandom is many things and often undeserving of the less than favorable reputation it has earned, there is no denying the expansive collection of erotica and outright explicit fetishes that are present on FA. That being said, there is a very open and friendly community, for all that there is a bit of drama to be found. Its smaller size means it is easier to stand out, but even still it is fairly crowded and networking is important. Toony and expressive styles seem to be more popular here, although there is a strong body of psuedorealistic styles. The forums are fairly reliable for work, and especially for basic feedback and critique. It can be a little rough though if you are sensitive to critique.

Concept Art. Generally regarded as the place you go when you need real critique and seek to vastly improve your art. This is a place where professionals work on self-improvement and occassionally help out freelancers looking to transition to full time jobs. This is not a place for those who are dependent upon their personalized style and require positive feedback. This is a place where all or at least most have been professionally schooled and survived the harsh critiques of professors. If you have ever been hurt or offended by an honest critique I would not suggest this place. And this is considering that you are even noted. A lot of people join Concept Art thinking they can just pop in for a quick critique, but Networking is even more important than in larger communities. Until you have gained a name for yourself, most people will not bother to look. The site itself consists only of a forum and it is generally considered that you should start a single thread to update your work as you produce it.

Inkbunny is very similar to a hybrid between the ease of use and clean site design of Deviantart paired with the material of Fur Affinity. If your sensibilities are offended by the likes of FA, IB is worse. While the filters and tag systems offer more browsing freedom, I feel that the sheer volume and proportion of pornography deters from the otherwise pleasant browsing experience. I have not used it very long, and I'm not certain I will use it for more than updating information or using its broadcast on twitter feature for streaming and announcing new art. I have not used its forums, if it has them. There seems to be a stronger preference towards cartoony styles.

Comments

[serious-mccoy.livejournal.com]

I don't do commissions anymore, but when I did, I got the most with FA. People make the mistake of thinking it's just for furry art, but it's not. It's also fairly easy to avoid the soul-shattering porn, which is good, since I can be sensitive to that. More than that, though, people are just so damn nice there most of the time- I regularly got people giving me extra money for the commissions I did for them, which was mindblowing to me. I never had a rude or overly difficult customer (though I didn't do it for long, and I wasn't taking porn commissions- my friends who do porn seem to have more issues with the customers). Hell, several clients ended up becoming good friends of mine. It does require you to be social, though. If you just post art but don't comment around or make friends, it's not going to work (but I think that's true for art networking in general). In general, I'm continuously surprised by how willing the people on that site are to throw their money at artists. I know the all-furries-are-broke joke, and while you're not going to get paid well individually (usually), I think the volume could make up for it.

DA is so flooded that if you haven't already been established there for a few years, it's just... dead. Maybe I only feel that way because I don't draw Naruto fanart or anime tits or something, though. It's a great place to go to watch oh-my-god-AMAZINGly good artists, since so many big names in professional illustration are there, but it's not where I'd go seeking business unless I was an anime artist or fanartist. Basically, it's eye candy for me.

I've never used CA for anything but lurking, because I am a coward and I'm scared of associating with so many art idols of mine. It's a really good place to learn, though- I picked up a lot by lurking and seeing what was said to other people.

And I will not touch IB with a ten-foot pole. My delicate sensibilities would be shattered in an instant, I'm sure.

In my opinion, you should specialize where the audience is biggest for your kind of art. No point in wasting time with a site where you'll never get traffic, when you could have been focusing more attention on to one where your type's popular. But I never was big about doing commission art- was never a business for me and I never intended on it being that- so more experienced people may think differently.

[dinogrrl.livejournal.com]

In my opinion, you should specialize where the audience is biggest for your kind of art. No point in wasting time with a site where you'll never get traffic, when you could have been focusing more attention on to one where your type's popular.

This is pretty much my stance on it. If you really want to get your name out everywhere, then sure, go ahead and get yourself set up on every site. It's a lot of work to maintain multiple galleries though and some of them always end up lost in the shuffle.

[kayla-la.livejournal.com]

With Deviantart, after I quit the site, I left up a single piece of artwork with a link to my active furaffinity gallery. This is an option as well, registering with various sites, putting possibly a collage or what have you and linking to your active gallery/galleries. I have gotten some business/watchers that way.

[dinogrrl.livejournal.com]

See, to me, I would automatically think someone's account-hopping and I doubt I'd follow a link like that, especially seeing how account-hopping is such a common fallback for artists with poor business practices.

Man, this place has me so jaded now XD.

[kayla-la.livejournal.com]

Not something I'd thought of, but also not something I could really help if someone wanted to assume that. I left DA because of their staff, nothing to do with drama with myself.

[dinogrrl.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know most people probably wouldn't think of it as account-hopping, and there's plenty of legitimate reasons to leave a site and link forward to your new place (like what I"m doing on LJ now, heh). But yeah, my immediate thought would be that there's some sort of drama involved and it'd definitely take me a while before I'd work up the courage to follow the link :p.

[serious-mccoy.livejournal.com]

Is that violating any rules or anything? I would have figured it would be for some reason, I dunno. (since maybe it could count as advertising competitors or something?)

[kayla-la.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't think so.. I've never seen anyone get in trouble for that, and I've never seen a rule to that affect.

[growly.livejournal.com]

Ooh, nice idea, I'll have to steal it. ;)

[mariechan.livejournal.com]

I thought IB was cool at first but my time there was VERY lonely. I don't draw any porn and I only posted one nude, and I think if you do that unless you make everything cutesy or cub-like it's not going to get any attention.

[serious-mccoy.livejournal.com]

I've never even been on the site. I heard "It's like FA, but with underage porn," so I was like YEP, NEVERMIIIND... so I have no idea what to say the place is like, haha. And since I hate saccharine cutesy-ness, will likely never draw explicit porn, and can be sent in to a panic attack over several popular fetishes, I ... think I'll just continue to steer clear. It's one of the few places where the reputation seems pretty accurate, from what I've heard from people.

[taasla.livejournal.com]

Stay away. The tag blocking system is nice if people actually use it. Underage porn is probably the only type of art that very much upsets me. I set it to be blocked on IB and to my horror, a number of people didn't tag their underage porn at all, so it was still visible to me.

[kayla-la.livejournal.com]

This is why I've kind of been avoiding IB. I like the features, how quick they respond to feedback, and love being able to block tags.. but I have lots of things blocked and still SEE these things anytime I go to the site.

It's a shame.

[squirrelly-kaku.livejournal.com]

This. I love the features, but I hate how lots of people don't bother tagging things properly. They'll throw up a thumbnail warning it (most of the time), but I still don't want to see it popping up on the front page! DX

IB staff really needs to enforce their tagging. :c I'd like it a lot more if they did.

[mariechan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I did tag blocking and it wouldn't block most things for me either. I actually did complain about how some of the porn was horrible but apparently it's against their ToS to not be open-minded about everyone's fetish. They were actually really vicious when I ranted about a certain fetish in my journal despite it being misogynistic.