Hi there! It's welcome to meet you and it's certainly wonderful that you decided to join the forums!
I think the best way to get involved and make new friends is to just post (whether that's making your own topics or responding to others). Just engage with the conversations, offer any advice you have from your own experiences and check out people's work (and vice versa~)
It's also good to mention that you are highly encouraged to post some sneak peeks, WIPS, sketches, recent pages here.
Just gotta go so in the right topics and not in a spamming way.
We've had some people who'd spam their comics over and over and not really engage in the conversations? Like, every other thing they'd say would lead back to their comic. Which is nice! It's awesome to be excited for your work, but also be excited for other people's work as well~ 
But that's mostly it. A lot of the people here are real nice, and I think you'll like it here! Glad to have you on board~ 