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art website big long rambling by roboLobo
Let's be real random people who clicked on this random journal, what's the future when it comes to "art websites"?
Now, can be furry based or not. I think here Weasyl screams hello I am a furry- no nothing wrong with that, but because it has its name "weasel"- you know what you're looking for but maybe a bit alienating to a larger audience) it's just furry websites and art somehow a very oversaturated but constantly failing subgenre of websites to me.
The (I assume) the most popular is Furaffinity which I think a lot of people are dying to use anything that isn't FA (I don't use FA, never have, never will). If you know FA, you know FA, you don't have to use it to know, just google it. But let's take into account the friends we lost along the way: like 'sofurry', or ... whatever site exists people try to use.... reading on.
Now, we must say goodbye good ol' DeviantART. I met some really nice people and seen some amazing artists, but all of them have disappeared from the internet or gone inactive, so it's sad to think about (though I admit I'm not really different)
Twitter is just the worst imo. I wish it wasn't a replacement for art sites. I want to archive art, make multi-page comics, and post animated videos. Endless scrolling is bad, and not just because it's slow it sometimes just breaks, or requires you to login which isn't good for lurkers or someone who would like to see an artist before they join. It's just.. come on. Twitter isn't an art website. People use it like it is one, but even apps like Instagram are based around photo sharing which gives it a lot of a boost.
Tumblr... exists. I know some people who will still keep tumblr around just to follow those hidden artists that post there and ONLY there. Tumblr is good though, it's got lots of tags and somewhat of a cohesive archive, with a large grid view.
I tried Instagram- which seems to be the most popular among people I sort of knew at one point to share art, but I dislike it destroys quality, though its best at archiving. Adjacent is Facebook, they are both "Meta" (eyerolling...) owned, but do furries really use Facebook? Old furries? People who aren't ashamed their families know they wear fursuits, well I guess you could always use a different name idk lol. Sorry if you use Facebook, I do know it has an okay 'group' function. Not very popular of a choice.
Amino maybe, but it seems very... like a juvenile app, I know almost nothing about it except sponsors Youtubers get sometimes and word of mouth, very fandom involved too which I do not do fandoms.
Patreon, but that sounds more like an addition to when you're already well known.
I remember months back there was a phone app called 'Artfol', I think that is dead.
Now we have "Buzzly" which seems like dA but I don't know if that's actually going to catch on.
Oh, Discord I guess? I loathe Discord with the exception of messaging people one-on-one. The rest is a huge mess, too many things happen at once, I am in no servers ORZ. I miss forums and blogs so much. Livechats like that are just.. nuh-uh. The future of 'forum' sites is another journal though.
What kills most sites seems to be amateur website creators falling to either bad tagging/content systems (do not know what to do with NSFW content or to what is too much) or horrible UI and not very accessible. Or straight up zero audience... I think that's Weasyl's issue. Nobody uses Weasyl because nobody uses Weasyl. Get it? Or if they do they automate it with a program like Postybirb for maybe the 1% of audience- which is me. I am that audience. Yay.
So with that left:
I guess you can always post art to Reddit but I don't know who or how a person gets a fanbase on reddit? I guess upvotes yay.
... buuuut at the end of the day this is silly to me. I barely post, I don't actually know if I want to most days- I left deviantART so long ago for those reasons, and it already felt like a dead site before Eclipse. I kind of feel this way with modding websites for video games- like how all of Sims content is on Tumblr or virus-y sites yet nearly every other game is huge on Nexusmods. Things get split up so weirdly, it makes it hard for a creator, and hard for a follower.
I'm tired. This is a long journal. This is why I'm not an active artist, I'm just a guy and make art when I feel in good spirits. It's a hobby forget like guitar or writing.
Oh well, I guess WebToon is alright for comics. Youtube is youtube, atleast I can upload high quality video.
Enough rambling- I figure somebody out there could relate.
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Ohhh, I totally forgot about ArtStation. That feels very professional, seems it is meant for aperson posting portfolio work for employeers in video game, film, TV, etc... I think it scares away a lot of casual hobby artists like me or younger/less experienced artists, it simply isn't meant for them.
NSFW is also an issue. If you have NSFW and SFW art, it becomes a nightmare of people not liking the NSFW art, it goes unmoderated, it looks very unprofessional and unwelcoming (this is was DeviantART for years and years, and I think still is). On that too, NSFW content is a hard thing to make sense of sometime: what even counts as NSFW and what is just unacceptable for posting on any website, but that's a different can of worms... oh I am not getting into that.
Totally agree with you here though, it is good to know I'm not alone in this.
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Mhm. Been feeling very alienated from art sites for similar reasons. It's hard to find a true art home anymore, especially with new sites popping up, it just kinda feels like too much.
The influx of internet users is a blessing and a curse. It's great that more people are finding accessible tools and resources to create art, but it does cause congestion online and makes it harder to recognize people who aren't already popular. And the fact that many people do rely on art as income, there is a(n understandable) amount of competition and pandering to get customers, which is awkward and stressful to see.
Sure do miss the old days of DeviantArt where we didn't really have to worry about that stuff. The remake of Sheezy looked and felt really promising and I was really excited to see things develop, but then they had to suddenly pull the plug which really sucked. I tried to sign up for Buzzly when their registration was open earlier, but I never got my confirmation email. Stars just not aligning, ugh
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Yep yep. Even if you do somehow manage to post to every site, you always run the risk of not being able to engage and create a cohesive community because well, everyone's split up over 8 bajillion different platforms- so unless you have your own discord server, good luck trying to get everything out to everyone and having a real sort of fanbase if that's your wish.
Oh yeah, I totally agree. it's really hectic- trying to get your stuff seen out there is so hard, I struggled with that forever, still do. To my conclusion it's a huge game of luck. Likewise, even trying to find artists I'd like to follow is totally random what I find on tags, other people's favorites, etc... Sort of related but I think I just found your art because it was some other artist's favorites on here. I get kind of sad thinking about how many artists I'd probably love but I haven't found their stuff yet- and I think a lot of other artists feel frustrated and discouraged that there's a huge audience for them out there- but they can't yet reach them, and then start to give up. As you said, add in that this is people's jobs in some cases, it just becomes really complicated.
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PieLawd
I have had trouble finding an art website that can feel like a home too but I ran into too many art sites trying to be like art station and look "professional" at the expense of socialising. The socialising aspect I think is one of art and an artists biggest tool for networking, getting their work seen and finding people who want to trade/sell/buy art but many sites seem to just go with 'you're either already well known and beyond socialising or you post art here and socialise elsewhere'.
Another issue I have found is that the sites are very quickly overtaken by NSFW art and it pushes out a lot of SFW artists and even NSFW artists who don't always make NSFW art. No hate on NSFW, just something I have noticed.
I have been enjoying my time here on Weasyl but like you said, nobody is on weasyl because nobody is on weasyl and with many people on here being furries how would one market weasyl to non furries?
Sorry if my comment got a bit rambly there, I hope you can find the right site for your comics, good luck!