Art sites! That’s what you’re here for right, you wanted to broaden your horizons at finding friends and gazing upon the talents of even more people. Because of the social media fight scene that constantly pushes sites into dust, I will make this easy for everyone and only list ONE site that has been strong and continues to be strong. In fact, you may already know it. I will then state a cultural aspect of it that ties into how to make friends there and such.

Pixiv.net
Heard of it? Probably already a member of it.
The great thing about this place is that it is international, their language patches are progressively getting better over time, and just about all nationalities can be found there in throngs. Though it allows all types of art, fanwork, and original alike, there aren’t just Furries there, but Furries do make up a large portion of Pixiv.net and are not hard to find, they usually appear on the front page just as much as any other art too.

The only problem is finding friends and artists you like. I’ll explain how to do this further down, but first here’s some cultural info about Pixiv.net:
Let’s say you’re browsing art or something and you see all this almost ridiculously beautiful fantasmical orgasmic artwork from Pixiv.net.. Did you notice how mostly “polished” pictures might have come from Pixiv.net? And you start to wonder “Why are they always so good at art? Where are their scribbles and WIPs, those are cute too dangit.” Here's why:

Pixiv.net is a hive of extremely fierce competition. You’re either the best or you’re nobody. I’m not sure this is what Pixiv.net intended its community to be, but currently with the way it is/was set up that’s how it turned out. Because of this the artists there do their best for recognition even if it's just to make friends. “Groups” have at last been added, so connection between artists interested in the same subject no matter their skill level have at last been fixed to a certain degree.

If you are popular enough and your art is incredible, the staff of Pixiv are very nice in terms of promoting you to the rest of Pixiv and beyond. And that means lots of money for you, and more recognition means steady commissions and prints bought from you and it’s great. So putting forth your best is just a “must” there, if everyone’s doing it there’s pressure to do it too and eventually it became a cultural thing. Hardly anyone does not put forth their best and it all possibly boils down to extreme peer pressure.

That doesn’t mean you won’t find your fair share of cute doodles and WIPs either, when they submit these they tend to upload them all an accumulative submission so as to not “clutter” their gallery.

How to find friends:
Because you are either seen, or not seen at all. Almost no one grows a following just by joining the Pixiv community alone. Even if your art is fantasmical orgasmic you may miss out being on the front pages “new uploads.” Many resort (even subconsciously) to the Homesick Method and everyone can learn from this method.

• The Homesick Method is where one starts out on Pixiv, doesn't get recognized, and becomes lonely.
• Saddened by loneliness they venture to different social media art site(s), typically one that is not of their primary language (namely English, because those stick around longer).
• Let’s say there is a very good Japanese Kemono kemono artist with little to no competition on an English based site, ergo they grow a MASSIVE foreign following.
• Then they think, “Hmm, I’m pretty loved here and I love them too, but I’d like to find people who speak my first language, or find people I can actually meet in real life even.” So they then return to Pixiv, but not alone!
• A large portion of their foreign speaking family might also join Pixiv and follow them. This giant influx of new joinups (and thereafter steady influx of newly joined followers) suddenly following one person shoots recognition this Japanese Kemono kemono artist’s way.

If you are going to join Pixiv, I suggest you copy this and pull whatever following you already have on other social media sites with you. The more followers you start out with, the easier it is to find more friends and artists you’re interested in.

I wish I could say this was all mute due to the new addition of Groups to Pixiv.net. But their Group functions are still… in their primitive stage. Groups DO help, just not much. I hope this will change and progress over time.

Why not list other sites?:
Now I know you are probably disappointed because you wanted MORE sites for say, Chinese, and Korean Furries (just as examples), but I did not list popular sites for them because there is a big difference between international sites and local sites (let alone Asian sites that stick around).
If you do speak the language of the local site, then that’s a different story, but let’s say you don’t speak/know Korean but want to join the Korean Furry Alliance (just as example). I mean, that’s nice, but unless you know the Korean language you are out of luck. I chose Pixiv.net because people are used to and expect artists of different nationalities and will do their best to talk to you in the languages you know if they want to badly enough (even if it’s just to compliment your work).

If you are going to throw yourself in a local based site, where everyone speaks a language you do not and they do not expect a foreign language speaking person there. It’s futile. You can join to favorite their art, but don’t expect to make any deep friendships where you understand each other. I’m not saying that such a miracle won’t happen, but personally I have NEVER seen it happen. What I’ve seen are foreign people just being ignored into being ostracized because no one understands them and no one cares to. It’s their local turf, and it’s not that they don’t want or dislike you, they just didn’t EXPECT you.

With bridging the gap between China and English speaking sites being my forte, I can confidently say that even using translators to cheat your way into being an active and social member on a local site (particularly China) is a BAD idea. Why this is will be explained in the next BTG! Involving Cultural Language Barriers and getting around them.

I hope this was helpful to you! The next journal will be about Language/Language Cultural Barriers and working around them effectively.