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A snack of deep thoughts. by keirajo

It's been awhile since I've done a thinking question...where we can talk like rational human beings about things and maybe see the different opinions of other people. chuckle So how about this question...

What made you choose to come to an online gallery site?

To me...I had pen-pals who often told me horror stories of their time on Deviant Art. And it made me very scared of online gallery sites. But I liked sharing my art with my friends and my pen-pals. The first time I went to Further Confusion in 2010, the people I met and talked to seemed very surprised I didn't have a Deviant Art or Fur Affinity account. Over the next two years of my trips to FurCon, eventually the artist Diana Harlan-Stein told me that there are just people who enjoy being jerks on the internet, but having an online gallery site could be fun. She encouraged me to get a Fur Affinity account and my friend/pen-pal Vani-chan also helped encourage me to get an FA account. So...in March of 2012 I eventually made an account at that site.

I made some friends. I had lots of fun sharing my art with people...and as someone who just LOVES art, I was happy to discover so many artists to look at their art as well! I liked drawing for people too...and artists whom I'd met at FurCon, I managed to find at FA--like Terrie Smith. I've been a fan of hers for a long time, even before I began going to FurCon...and she is one of the few professional artists over at FA who takes the time to actually respond to all the comments left on her work (and she gets LOTS of them).

But by the end of 2012 I started seeing the bad side of the gallery site. Things I'd heard about from my friends using Deviant Art started happening to me at FA. 2013 brought trolls and haters out to look at my stuff and leave awful comments. It made me start to hurt a lot about having an online gallery site. I don't have a thick skin and I'm a very empathic person...so...I began to start disliking FA more and more. At the start of 2014, I joined Weasyl...in part to follow artists who left FA and in part to get away from all the trolls and haters that began plaguing me and my gallery.

Throughout 2014, my disillusionment with FA and the users who chose to be jerks drove me to change my focus to be far more active here. At the end of 2014, I made the final decision to no longer post art at my Fur Affinity account. Posting art gets you attention...the good and the bad, and that's the truth.

While I still treasure the friends I have made at FA and the wonderful artists I follow...it is the sole reason I remain with any presence over on that site. All I ever wanted to do was share my art and make friends, really. But FA is pretty much for two sets of users anymore--the ones who do business by getting commissions and the ones who hate everyone because they can't commission people or get free art from people. Those who want to share art and be friends have began vanishing like an endangered species there. For now...at least...I have Weasyl. I can still share my art and talk about art with people. I really hope that this site never acquires the dark side that FA has...because I'd like to be able to remain online with a gallery site.

In short...I came to an online gallery site by being encouraged and in the hope that I could make friends and share art with people.

A snack of deep thoughts.

keirajo

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  • Link

    Zaezar

    I joined Da and Fa at the same time, to post the images for my art challenge. everything else that had happened from it has been secondary from that XD

    I don't remember why FA and DA. I believe I had been browsing the sites for art before then. I know I made my username because of Livestream (before I started streaming). So maybe I joined to keep track of people when they post up stream adverts? I dunno anymore. I'm here now, and I enjoy it =)

    • Link

      keirajo

      That's cool! The best part really is when you can enjoy it! :)

  • Link

    Happysorry

    I first came onto deviantart cause well i saw it was an art website. I knew i liked to do artwork. I drew mainly monsters and pokemon but as time went on i tried humans. I wasn't too good as some of the friends i made who were pretty top notch with thier anime stuff. Later someone told me of FA, where people would like my monsters. So I began to post there. I put on the sfw button and took the plunge. It worked out pretty nice but the rep of the whole website made me kinda happy i moved here. (though with other recent events here too it's been rather awkward i think furry websites are all the same in risk of being.. kind of .. on the red light side of the drama scale.)

    I love doing art, I like learning, i dont use weasyl or deviantart to learn though. Its mostly just for hanging out with buddies and peeps. The one i really do go to enjoy artwork and learn is from drawcrowd.com

    • Link

      keirajo

      Cool! I've loved art for as long as I know (despite the incident in high school, where I stopped drawing for nearly 10 years afterwards)!

      I hear you on the drama side though. It seems a lot like...everyone wants the drama anymore and people like causing it on purpose. Even though people who call themselves "furries" complain at how the public views them in a negative light...it feels like they go out of their way to support that negative stereotype. Weird.

      But it's nice to be able to see so many different styles of art...and get to know the nice people! :)

  • Link

    TheNextGenHero

    I joined DA because because most of my friends offline decided to drop off the face of the planet and I got lonely...that, and I like looking at people's different style of artwork, getting tips and ideas from them, etc.

    I was also part of Sheezyart for a while, but I can't remember why I joined or left.

    Years later, I joined FA and Weasyl because why not lol

    • Link

      keirajo

      Why not? grin

      I lost a lot of my pen-pals ages back when Livejournal came out. I was pretty much told by many pen-pals they didn't want to spend money on stamps anymore and if I wanted to know what they were doing, I had to join Livejournal. Of course, with no access to internet at that time (it was before the Library even had many public internet machines)...this pretty much meant I lost a lot of pen-pals who decided to give up snail mail.

      • Link

        TheNextGenHero

        I guess I joined the other sites for the same reason I joined FA lol

        That's a shame. It sucks that if you you can't (or won't) use any new media to keep in contact with pals, they just give up on you :C

        • Link

          keirajo

          I know. People can be selfish over the weirdest things. But...what can you do? chuckle

  • Link

    Cyph3r

    Oh dear, this question is a doozy... More for the fact of my reasons for joining my first art site, DeviantArt, wasn't as noble as... Other artists... And plus wasn't even an online artist at the time, which kinda makes it worse, but also makes it ironic in the fact I joined DevArt for... "naughty things" and ended up staying to become a spriter and artist and it becoming one of my most used sites to this day.

    • Link

      keirajo

      And as I understand it...DA really doesn't support adult art anymore, do they? I know many of my friends (the same ones who told me the horror stories of DA) joined DA to see fan-art of their favorite anime pairings and stuff. chuckle

      You joined for one reason, but stayed for another...that is pretty cool in its own way, too!

      • Link

        Cyph3r

        Yeah, dA's more against adult content nowadays... Yet nude pics and nude photography are still widely accepted as well as the countless... Erotica fictions ( Although I don't read them because most times, it's atrocious grammar and spelling )... But otherwise all of the adult content has been regulated. After some time I tried FA, but I had instant panic attacks when I wanted to start submitting art as my art kinda... Sucked ass when I first got my Wacom Intuos Pen Small at Christmas '13. ^^; It took me from 2008 to 2014 start.. to have enough confidence to post art online... When I found this current site, I was... Pleasantly happy because it's a small community that I can GROW with instead of joining a user-base of hundred-thousands if not millions of established artists... So yeah, with dA not accepting adult art so much anymore and FA scaring the shiz out of me with its convoluted systems, Weasyl may very well become my main art site.

        • Link

          keirajo

          I really like Weasyl for many reasons...and one being that people can be so hateful over at FA! I'm just a bit exhausted from the toxic environment there and I think this is a nice site to discover new artists and to evolve yourself! :)

  • Link

    NemoTheGoblin

    I joined because I knew I'd have to start getting my art out there if I wanted to make a living as an artist but also because I LOVE looking at others art and talking with other artists.

    • Link

      keirajo

      That's a really good reason! :)

      You didn't go in strictly for the business angle, just with a hope of getting there!

      • Link

        NemoTheGoblin

        I've seen a lot of young/new artists join just because they want to sell (and they are no where near ready) get discouraged and give up on art. Which really unfortunate. :/

        I wanted to be part of the community rather than just a vendor.

        • Link

          keirajo

          Yeah...it's an overwhelming feeling I get over at FA anymore...that most people are there to sell art. And those that can't complain loudly about it.

          I think even as an artist who wants to sell...participate in the environment. See what people want...look at what other artists do right (and wrong). And most importantly--love drawing things. The moment you treat it as work and get tired of it...your art will suffer and customers will be unhappy.

          • Link

            NemoTheGoblin

            Yup, you can tell when an artist doesn't like their work. It has an off look to it. :/

            • Link

              keirajo

              Yeah. It looks different than many in their gallery. I think even artists who rely on their commissions get burned out and you can see when they struggle through a piece.