I want community back- idk rant

[Brumoss]

Now im outing my age- but growing up there was like one art community.

It was deviantart and i could draw my charactering being dumb AF and the result would be bonding/meeting with people and laughing. Maybe even rping or a relationship of drawing our ocs together goofing off.

Its so weird to me that my art got better but now i post to a discord for art and finding community and it flat out gets ignored.

No problem right? I can react and talk to others ocs.
Then i get ignored. I mean it all seems to add up to its me. I just wish i knew what i was doing wrong.

End rant/ am i missing something? I just wanna chill and draw and have fun.

[Scarlet_Cryptid]

I have never been in a Discord that effectively fostered a sense of community. The only one where people actually seem to talk to each other is the one my gaming group runs-- and that's only because we all actually know each other IRL. And even THAT one is pretty quiet half the time.

And it's not just you. I've been on Deviantart for 16 years. It has definitely gotten quieter. My art is the best it's ever been, too, and I'm getting less reaction to it than I ever have. Even from people or groups who have historically been enthusiastic about characters or fandoms I'm making art of.

So yeah... speaking as someone else who has done enough character RP with people to fill whole book series... I get it. I've never felt more isolated and like no one wants what I'm offering.

[Fafnir]

threads like this always make me think i used deviant art wrong. I never had a sense of community there... What was the community? like, groups?
Maybe working in a job with other artist made me not crave it. but that was years ago, so i can now relate. the art culture online does seem to be pretty competative, instead of communit--ive?

[BlairFujin]

Yeah... deviantart is a ghost town (partially because of how many people left because of eclipse, partially because of eclipse ruining watch tab - as there's no indication that there's something new there I keep forgetting about it and even when I finally remember about it it's so full I don't even feel like checking what's there with how sluggish deleting stuff from there feels... at least that's how it feels to me) but I still get more reaction there than on twitter or instagram when your posts lifetime is a few minutes...
I never really bothered with using discord for sharing art, looking for bigger communities as it doesn't really work that well for that. It's a voice-chat app for playing with a few friends, not a forum replacement (whenever I join a bigger one for any reason I tend to just mute it because constant notifications keep on disctracting me and it's usually just stuff like people asking each other what they had for dinner and I'll be honest, in those bigger ones where you can't know everyone, I don't care about this and most people probably don't as well)
sigh This is why I haven't been posting that many solo illustrations recently - too tired of feeling like I'm just screeming into a void (luckily the void I throw my comics into tends to respond and thus stops me from loosing all motivation 'xD)

[Brumoss]

We need to make a group maybe lol

I live your art have you thought of going to paint berri??? I would live to draw a comment to your stuff lol esp some character reacting to Adi being all cool.

[Chocolate]

Sadly though indie webcomics aren’t that popular in comparison to Japanese manga. That’s my opinion as to why the community seems quiet.

[Brumoss]

You might be too young? When i was posting i could do a horrible drawing of one of my ocs goofing off. And like actually get comments or peopel would favorite it in a funny file.

Or we would talk about how their oc would react to seeing my oc. It was fun. Less pressure to care about views and followers cause it was just fun.

[Scarlet_Cryptid]

I..... don't actually know what Paint Berri is? I know there are other art sites out there, but I haven't heard of any of them getting a lot of traction, so I haven't really gone looking.

[igneriss]

I think a nice community can still be found/built, just maybe not on deviantArt. This website was great and I met some amazing people there, but nowadays it's seems to be very empty.

Instagram is quite an okay place to meet other artists (I say 'quite okay' because I tend to forget about this app so my activity there is not as should be to form valid opinions). I met some art friends there, we comment on each others arts and share them in stories. I've also seen people hosting events together, and even creating discord servers once they have a group of people they constantly talk with. Events like draw this in your style, artists support, or monthly challenges might be nice opportunities to make friends. And also, commenting on other people's arts ( :

As for discord, I can't really say anything about it, as while I have two small but super supportive discord groups, they are both formed with friends I met on deviantArt (and most of them left dA already).

[Brumoss]

Its like tegakie was. You can upload a draw and people can draw back instead of write back.

Heres a link-
https://paintberri.com/posts/browse

[Scarlet_Cryptid]

Its like tegakie was.

....
....
hides under desk because she has no idea what that is, either

I've been on Deviantart and Tumblr basically forever, but otherwise, my art's been on various forums for whatever I was interested in (if I was making art about a fandom, I usually had an art thread on a fandom forum), and I got on Instagram like 2 years ago?

I'm not on Twitter (technically...), or Reddit, I'm scared to death of Artstation -- those people are a level of good that I can't wrap my brain around, and I feel like a grubby urchin just visiting that site-- I won't do any platform that's video based (YouTube, Tik Tok, etc), and I will BITE you if you try to make me go back to Facebook. (hissssss)

But otherwise, I'm barely aware of other platforms. I think I know Pillowfort is a thing? Heard about it once? Never really checked it out.

[Brumoss]

Lol sorry! Try paintberri or just pop in and look around. :))))))

[Fafnir]

hahaha. no, i am not too young. I joined deviant art in.. 2007? before that i posted in elfwood, like, 1997. I guess I never got in to OC's. Mainly just random fan-art and comics. Anytime I posted some art of my own, it got 0 attention. Just like now on deviant art! hahaha.. So I guess No surprise I haven't noticed it changing.
It's nice you found that. it sounds like fun. Too bad you can't find something similar.

[Quinvert]

May I suggest trying out twitch? Streaming and hanging out in other artists streams have been a great way to chill and talk about art for me. You could try finding some smaller art streamers(can be hard to keep up in larger streams) and see if you like them and if they seem open to talk with you. You could also try streaming yourself and see if you like it! There are also some pure art dedicated stream sites like Picarto, which also could be an option to try out.

[Fafnir]

yeah. I leave artstation to the working illustrators and character designers... It feels more like a site where your art portfolio lives anyway.
I joined pillow fort last year. It was pretty dead. Honestly haven't tried much lately. Maybe its better now? i dunno. just reminds me of tumblr, but not as popular

[Legendofgenii]

I found all of those things you listed here. In the Sketch a day thread and the RP thread I'm currently a part of (especially the latter).

[Fafnir]

Twitter does seem a decent place for artists. If you leave you twitter here ill folow you.

[Brumoss]

Im working on a character sketch maybe ill post it and try that place out thanks

[Brumoss]

Lol twitter scares me but thanks. Wanna do an art trade or something?

[delladz]

@Brumoss @Scarlet_Cryptid
I sorta run a very small discord group, it's super lowkey and we all just kinda hang out or show off our stuff? If either of you (or anyone who manages to read this message lol) are interested in checking it out, feel free to DM me and I can send y'all links? And like no pressure to stick around either, it's not SUPER active but we all try our best to talk to each other when we can lol