I like DA, but it's so crowded that even good artists can post there and just get lost in the sea. =/ Plus, to really use the site where it doesn't annoy you you have to pay.

The payment part I don't mind, really. I often think FA should have some sort of premium tier. Even if it didn't offer much in the way of benefits beyond what SA does, for example. I know there are tricky legal issues when you start charging for things, but paying for some superficial gain like a 'premium account' still feels better to my hedonistic brain that simply 'donating' which feels more like throwing money into a hole

I do agree that good artists seem to get lost. However, there are a lot of professional artists that maintain accounts there, which really speaks a lot about a level playing field; if that makes any sense

I don't mind payments to support a site, but they restrict so much unless you do pay.

And we've been considering a premium service with bonuses for a while.

I'd totally be in for a premium service for FA. Well, as long as it was in my price range, of course, but if I could afford it (less than $100 a year) i'd jump on the bandwagon the second it started.

Well, we've been plotting some things out, but we have a creedo that if we ever go that route NO basic service or site usage will be restricted.

Yes I imagine everyone would be up in arms if that were to be the case

awesome. I don't know what kind of perks it would entail, but I adore this site and am willing to pay for some kind of membership.

I think it would be awesome (although maybe too much of a hassle) if it included the ability to customize your profile page. I.E. create your own header and stuff, but then again, that would take out the beauty of looking at the monthly banners. Maybe that's a bad idea. Hm.

By the way, I've been meaning to ask, how DO you submit banners? I'd like to try to submit a banner one of these days, knowing full well there's no guarantee it would be used, but at least like to try. :3

I support extra penis mode!

That's good to hear!

I don't care for artificial restrictions either. The only one I've noticed so far is the amount of search results I'm limited to, but then again I haven't really delved into the features yet. There are great scripts that completely magic away the interstitial ads, too; which have been useful

Contininuing your statement on that professional artists maintain accounts here, I think it'd be fun to inform you that the creator of Lilo and Stitch and the Night Fury of HTTYD is there. http://alohalilo.deviantart.com/

Yes haha I've known that for a long while now, but thank you!

I've been banned from DA like 4 times :I I dont think they want me there..!

Same here yo XD

Well, here's the thing. Deviantart, to me, is extremely nonsensical anymore. There's more drama on there than on here, and your artwork tends to get lost amidst the thousands posting all of the time.

Secondly, your chances of your art being stolen is much higher. That may be attributed to the fact there are more people on dA, but in all honestly dA also seems less friendly.

I have a dA account, but I don't really update it as much. I don't look forward to going to my message box to see what people say, or post on there, because the site lost my interest. A lot of times (and this is just my opinion), it seems more like a popularity contest of who can get more watches and whatnot than it is a site to post, critique, and learn about art and creative exploration.

And DA doesn't stop traces, etc. Art theft is not a huge priority for them.

Hah people are telling me I will be accused of art theft the moment I start uploading stuff

Potentially. It happens. Just stand your ground.

Actually no, there's a 'Fanart' category too, what you will have restrictions is on +18 content, you better leave the naughty pics around here.

Also, it make is a big deal with any copyright material you upload, specially songs.

exactly, and they're AWFULLY slow when you report anything. It drives me crazy knowing art theft isn't a big deal to them whatsoever. Well, maybe not "not a big deal," but they come across as not caring about it often enough.

On FA, art theft and harassment are generally two of our bigger issues.

Most definitely noted. It's one of the reasons I love this site so much.
User friendly.
Friendly in general.
Respect towards art ownership.
Great administrative service.
Organizationally woooonderful.

They own a site, they're not part of the community.
Oh you're using my site you follow my rules regardless of they make sense.

Uhm, for the same copyright violation case I’ve had on both dA and FA about one of my photos, dA took two days to take down the picture, while my ticket on FA has never been answered. I will not comment about FA (because there might be a reason why tickets aren’t answered), but I experimented the dA report system and it seems art theft is a priority for them.

I understand that. In our defense, we're all volunteer, they're paid to do what they do. We're re-focusing on ticketing and support right now behind the scenes.

This isn't true; a while ago it was, but they are cracking down on traces now, one of the most notorious tracers left because they started trying to tackle this giant mess and she was the first to be targeted

Ahh, did not know that! Thanks for the update. =D About a year ago, I had a guy trace stuff I did, use my character... even my real name, and I was denied because it wasn't a problem, got upset. =/

Yeah, they've even reformatted their system for filing a report to make it easier to report traces and outright theft. I've reported a ton of pictures of people stealing and/or tracing my Pokemon art (which is really stupid because you can usually find the art they traced as the first or second result of searching for it on dA)- and it's always been resolved within a day or two, thankfully

Sadly never banned though. Tracers learned a work around, wait a week or 2 reupload works.
One user who's stolen countless times and has never been banned even with providing repeated Evidence of reuploads.

Well, I don't really think that a misguided person should be banned instantly, but something should probably be done about repeat offenders. However, on a site so large, it gets really hard to maintain many thousands of users, so I can't really fault them completely.

Miguided I don't worry about, but only the ones who do it on purpose for money.
They should have a system of keeping tabs on repeat offenders though.
Though good aspects in community wise. Its the bad side that soured
my years there. Hopefully in time it'll be improving.

I have no idea what's it like for an artist. But I've been using DA longer then FA and as a watcher I think its a decent enough site. But I know a lot of furs don't care much for it. It would increase your public though, that's for sure.

Just do a big dump of your clean stuff on a week you don't plan to do anlot of stuff because you're going to get a shitton of messages.

I really think you should... Undeserving httyd stuffs is too high on the favorites listing

I had a dA before an FA. I much prefer FA, it just seems like a much more personable experience. Probably bias viewpoint comming froma furry. XD

It does have it's pluses of course. But I just use it from time to time to keep tabs on a few artists. And to stalk, I mean keep an eye on Chris Sanders' account. :v

LOL. I DO THIS TOO!

Well, like someone already mentioned, the risk of your art getting stolen increases exponentially, but then again, you'll be getting more popularity, even if just a little bit. I'd use it as more of a professional account thingy. Wouldn't recommend trying to make friends or there or keep a 'personal' account or something like that. Of course, there's 'bad' people everywhere, but DA just seems to have an awful big percentage of those. And like many people said, yeah, it does feel like a popularity contest.

So my advice would be to keep it as a portfolio gallery, something like that. Don't try to socialize much and keep it as professional as possible. If you gain success from it, great! If you gain drama, just ignore it. A LOT of people there are just trying to get attention. It kinda feels like an Orkut (if you guys ever heard of that) with some presence of art.

That's probably good advice; just dumping my clean art on it and using it as a portfolio

I don't really get mad when people run around 'stealing' art, they invariably get caught anyway

I have a DA and I kind of update that lot more than my FA. The only reason why I use it is because all my art friend's irl are on there and I love to see their stuff and they love to see mine. The other reason is because of some art I can't upload here as much

What art can't you upload here? I'm aware of the restrictions dA has, but what can you upload there that you cannot here, artwise?

well it's not that I cannot it's just that I don't k=think anyone would really want me to especially since it isn't furry

DA is a good portfolio-space, specially when you can create 'folders' and sort your art. It's very handy in that sense. If you have a paid account, it is an even better portfolio-keeper.

But as everyone else is saying, it's poor for social networking or real interaction. I've been on DA for years, and only joined FA about a year or so ago-- I love this place SO much better. It's much easier to find artists, get watches, make friends and communicate with the userbase. Hell, I feel like I'm actually HEARD by mods and maintainers.

DA is just such a giant, humongous pool of people, that it's hard to move. On one hand, it's good for publicity (if you can manage to gather it, which fanart will certainly do), but it's bad if you want to interact and play around.

Coming from the advertisement branch, splitting up your whereabouts will make it a lot more complicated to keep track of you.

You will end up doing different things on all sites you join, pretty natural.
Depending on what kind of art you want to upload there, if you split it up like FA - stuff and DA - stuff you would gain two different userbases, even ppl not liking the other side.

To find a new userbase would be a good idea i guess.

It will eventually get pretty frustrating on there because so much art is posted ppl maybe don't recognize you at all.
Maybe time wasting ~

What do you want to gain from it?

my 0,02$

iv been there for 6 years. Just took all my personal art off it because of the amount of constant drama, thieving and shitty rude admins. It has really gone downhill to say the least. I find it almost like youtube now.

Sadly went to complete crap after fark left and policy reform :/ I'm not angry but disappointed.

*Jark I think you mean and yes now that you mention it thats when shit started happening!

I wouldn't do it, currently been reporting a single user lots of times for tracing and downright theft.
I lost respect on their new policy, user hasn't been banned. Admins don't care.
Even an account stealing pixv works and selling. Needing constant of original artist to complain...
DA has slowly turned to trace an thief heaven.
Only use account to browse for checking if you've been traced. This is the first place it'll be lol
So avoid artwise.

a surprising amount of people i know refuse to have anything to do with FA due to how everyone on it are "batshit insane beastiality supporting freaks"... so i use dA for most people i know.

Although I would agree the site is a lot less friendly..

About the art stealing ive submitted a couple of tickets on obviously stolen art and they were taken care of

FA is better because most furries are bros
When you go to DA you get all the trolls that stir up shit for no reason
Not that there are none of those here but they get dealt with pretty quick

Deviant art is a lot larger of a site than FA, but I don't think this is a bad thing. Since you already have a large amount of watchers on FA, you wouldn't have trouble getting "noticed" on DA. The only really talented artists I see that DON'T get as much recognition are those who never comment or respond to anything at all. Also, while I feel FA is a great art site, DA does beat it with some of its features, things tend to be a lot easier to manage and such.

Also having a deviant art would be beneficial to expanding your opportunities for income- (As in more potential commissioners)

It is also a great opportunity for inspiration and learning new things and finding artists you like that you would have otherwise never heard of or seen before. A lot of what I've learned over the years art wise was from following other artists on DA and reading up the tutorials. While your skill is among the highest compared to the average Deviant- or even the average popular deviant- we are all capable of learning new things! C:

Of course there are downsides, some of the administrators have been known to abuse their power and not do their job properly.
And yes there are some failtrolls and retards that might end up trying to start trouble with you- but you seem like the type of person who can handle themselves pretty well against such things. I mean you have an ED, and are fine with it. I don't think anyone would be able to get under your skin. To be honest the most drama I see are from actual friends fighting rather than trolls. Ive been on DA with my current account for 2 years and have never had a negative issue with a troll. Just a few with friends.

but I feel that every major site has some sort of issue. Despite the negative sides I feel the good outweighs the bad and it couldn't hurt to give it a shot- since you already previously stated you aren't worried about art theft (Because it is true, as long as you report it and link to the originals, it WILL be taken down. Though its usually quicker when the original artist does the reporting)

To put this shortly: Your art is great, and you don't have to be a "furry" to love it- and there are many people on DA who I think would appreciate your work, and that you could gain a lot from it with minimal to no issues from others. I'd say definitely go for it ^^

I have an acct in both places, I like 'em both for different reasons. :)

hey go for it man, wont take much more than a couple minutes to manage it along with FA, besides the pros outweigh the cons, i.e. what if you get discovered in all your awesomeness?

I think you should upload some of your work to DA, its not too bad of a place, yeah some of its interfaces are annoyingly convoluted but its never been anything particularly necessary anyway IMO. whats your DA i wanna keep my eye on it.

Might as well upload some artwork. Could be a good way to attract potential commissioners.

In addition to all of the things mentioned above, incase no one else mentioned this, it's turning into more of LiveJournal than anything. Full of BAWW and lifestory when half of us just want art. *shrugs* It's very meh.

I had one, but I basically only watch one person now so I don't go on it at all. It's very over rated.

I guess you need to ask yourself why you would bother when you already have a huge following here. Are you looking to sell prints and get more commissions? If so it's not a bad place, but as others have said the community is not what it used to be. And your work will get stolen - I'm a crappy artist and even my stuff was stolen.

I've been on dA longer than FA to begin with but I have to say that FA is a little better than dA in comparison. dA has many and I really mean, MANY good arts over there. I'm not kidding and I know a few over on that site.

it's a little different here on FA compared to dA in terms of explicit stuff. However, you can post photos there. Again, I would like to say that the people around dA seem to be treating dA like a facebook account or some sort. I mean, what is the point of putting up your blasted photos of you and your friends around the whole web. That's for Facebook and those kind of crap; never took interest in those stuff.

I read that many others are talking about how rude or unfriendly people are on dA but I would give a 50/50 percent say in it. When I first started dA, I wasn't able to cope around till I commented on a few stuff. You could say, I got lucky to be friend with friendly people there. occasionally, there are some people that made it into a drama or some sort and it can blow out of proportion for no apparent reason.

If you're thinking of having a dA account, just think to yourself, do you really need a dA account? If yes, what's the purpose? For publicity? or to find new friends? or to just get critisicm on your art?

there are whole lot of questions to be answered first for opening a dA account because of
a) Art Theft
b) Unfriendly people
c) STupid and fucking drama
d) people treating it like a facebook account
e) Some may even flame and it happens a few on dA.

Alot of people aren't happy with dA.

I, on the other hand, am.

I understand the issues they have, but if FA was as large as dA, they'd have the exact same issues.

People cite drama. Well, I don't know about them, but drama really only happens if a hornet's nest gets stirred. So it's really usually the fault of the people who cite it that they see drama. xD I mean, I've had an account there for five years and barely ever see it.

dA is actually a very good website for artists. It has portfolios, good artists tend to connect alot quicker there than they would on most sites, and the whole feel of the site is much faster. Moreover, it's something you could generally show your boss without him going "WTF, you're fired."

Alot of the issues...like I said before, most of them are the fault of the individual users, and not the site itself.

As far as art theft goes, the DA staff generally have a 24 to 36 hour response time. It's not fast, but it is fairly efficient given the number of tickets they have to sort through daily. Think of it like the USPostal Service. It's a little slow, but it's brutally efficient given it's size.

As far as 'community' goes, dA has alot of really nice, friendly people. It's a 50/50 mix of 'Nice and caring' to 'Uncaring or downright mean', but once you find them, it's a very reliable source of fun and new friends.

Also, dA has regular major art contests, usually sponsored by an upcoming movie. Those are fun.

duiker as in dutch for diver? or is that just a strange coincidence =0

I thought it was stuff infected with antiviruses