Some of you may have noticed some of the work I have done for and to promote a site called Lush Artists. Some of you may have been curious enough to check it out, and some of you may have ignored it altogether. But for those of you curious about it who didn't have reason to click through to it or run a search, I'm going to talk a little about it here. The reason for this isn't to strictly promote the site, but because I've done a little looking around to see some of the discontent with this site's merging with another site called Furocity.

I gotta say I think most people are whiners and that there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with FA's merger in this respect, but whatever.

While there are plenty of users here on FA that use the site as a anthro/furry community, there are many more who are actually using it for it's adult user base. I am one of the latter. There was once a site call hArtists that functioned as a community centric adult art site that was such a breath of fresh air after dealing with sites like HentaiFoundry. Many of you here are familiar with that site as well, and may have noticed it too has gone through a merger and don't like what it represented...some may be connecting that with the merger here, I don't think that's the case but I'm getting off track. hArtists was a great site to be a part of but eventually it was shut down because the sole admin was having some in life conflicts that simply didn't permit the site to continue existing. The community wanted a new place to go and the now Admin of Lush Artists stepped up with an idea, his name is DTenshi.

I will now break down some quick stats for the site for your consideration:

- The site is still technically in beta, and many of it's projected features have not yet been implemented. Input from all users is welcome.
- Every user has a default status that may then be upgraded to an artists status after an approval process. This process is decidedly less douchey than HentaiFoundry's and mods and the community alike are always happy to provide constructive feedback to you and help workshop any issues you might have!
- Lush values original characters but does not discriminate against fanart.
- While the site may appear to be "human centric" right now, it is merely due to not having attracted much furry talent as of yet. We're all appreciators of adult oriented work there and would love to see more furry artists join our ranks.
- A monthly jam is introduced every month for artists to get involved in, with the turnout being put in to a central gallery when the jam reaches its conclusion. These Jams are drawn from community suggestions rather than dictated by one guy every month.
- A front page oneliner combined with the forums helps to create a more real time community environment for people to share ideas and just get to know one another.
- The site is located outside of the united states and as such follows a slightly different set of laws. What this means immediately for the site is that there is no loli (or underage erotic work in general), bestiality, or guro work. Bestiality is defined as work involving a depiction of a real animal that actually exists. Anthropomorphic animals of any kind are not real and thus do not fall in to bestiality. Some people who have checked that site already may have shied away when they saw this policy, but Anthro work is NOT banned on the site.


Why am I discussing the site here? Shameless self promotion? A pride in what we have been working on there? Well in part, but also because THIS community at FurAffinity has done an immense amount to accomodate the former hArtists community when it imploded. Many of us were faced with some grim options on where to post our work, and many of us found that once we dove in to this community we found a pretty friendly accepting place even if we were not strictly furry artists. I am one of these people, I found an amazingly warm reception here and even after the opening and ongoing growth of Lush-Artists.com, have chosen to keep my gallery here indefinitely. I see some of the things that happens in this community, both good and bad. I would love to see some of those good things brought to our community, I'd love to make people doing erotic art that they do have other community options and aren't stuck with this or the HF machine. I would like to give something back to the lot of you for having been so supportive of not just me, but the other people that were in need of a place like I was. This is my primary motivation for this post, and I hope that it is seen as such.

With that the sites address is simply www.lush-artists.com and you are free to swing by there, make an account, and apply for artists status. We are still growing but would love to have more along for the process.

If you have any other questions on this site that I have not addressed in this journal, please leave a comment here rather than note me. I would like that any responses that provide info be seen by a multitude of people so I don't answer the same question eight million times.

Thanks for reading and happy arting!