Quick, I need alternatives to DeviantArt!

[DokiDokiTsuna]

Uuh, so...somebody started a topic about dA Eclipse before, I believe, and I replied that I didn't care, but now that I've heard about the experience of an artist who beta-tested it, I'm starting to get nervous...

I'd like to quote some appropriate passages:

"The new UI feels like a really amateur first draft. Notifications are now displayed in a drop-down menu instead of having their own page, and there's currently no option to remove messages in bulk, which means you have to go through and delete them one by one."

Um (my Notifications are already in the 1000s)

Simple actions like deletion require multiple clicks because everything is nested within unnecessary drop-down menus.

Ummm (I don't need any extra help in getting carpal tunnel syndrome, thanks)

"profile customization is removed. All that fancy CSS you wrote or purchased? Worthless. Those cute pagedolls you commissioned? Won't work anymore. Those pretty custom boxes that express your unique aesthetic? Gone. Everything looks the same."

UUuuuhhhmmm?! (UUuuuhhhmmm?!)

Long story short, WHAT ARE THEY DOING?!
I'd LOVE to believe that this is all just practice, and that Eclipse will get more polished before it rolls out...but I can't. If they're willing to let deviants actually USE it in this state, then they must think it's at least halfway decent...somehow...

I'd also LOVE to believe that they'll change it if the backlash is too strong. But seeing as the staff can't bring themselves to do anything about reasonable requests like "maybe get all the fetish art off the front page" and "maybe enforce actual consequences for art thieves", I don't have much hope for that either. I honestly think they'd sooner shut DeviantArt down than change it into something people will actually like.

...SO, it's really starting to look like all my random sketches will soon be needing a new home. But where will it be? I tried looking for alternatives just a few months ago, and what I found looked pretty lame, tbh.
But most people here seem to hate dA with a passion, and y'all must be putting your stuff somewhere. So what would you recommend?

[indigodrawing]

The problem is no matter where you go you'll not get as much traffic or notoriety as you would on DA. They're kind of the 500 kilo gorilla of the art world.

The first and most obvious place to try might be Tumblr, though they're designed more around blogging than art. Lots of artists use it for artblogs, webcomics, etc though.

UPDATE: Ignore the above! Tumblr have for all intents and purposes just shot itself in the head and are not a good choice anymore. If you're NSFW you'll be flagged and even if you're not the user base has just all jumped ship so you won't grow an audience there now.

Everything else I've seen has a) been a poor imitation of DA, b) been specialised to a specific type of art, c) sunk like a stone and no longer exists, or most commonly d) some combination of the above.

[OliviaMerteli]

It's just a beta-test. At this stade of developpement, a site/software is still a skeleton because it's mostly the code that is tested. Interface, little functionality are generally implemented on the next cycle.

As alternative, there's instagram, tumblr, pinteret... etc. Depending on what you want or need as features.

[shazzbaa]

I think at this point I might be the Local Fan Of Tumblr on this forum. xD I mostly use tumblr and twitter for sharing art. It's not really an alternative to dA, though, it's a completely different vibe; it's just also where people seem to be.

Ultimately I think that's the thing, you can find the best site in the world and it doesn't matter how good it is if nobody's using it; you can have the worst hellsite on the planet and if that's where the audience is, then that's where artists are going to trying to cram their art into.

Also, discord servers are a thing now....! Which is also very much not deviantart, but if you find a discord server for a thing you're interested in that has a space to share art, that can be a way to connect with a more immediate community rather than shouting your stuff into the void on social media.

[LordVincent]

I thought deviantART was pretty much dying? I haven't bothered much with it for years.

[Pandastrophic]

DA was dying way before the new site update. Everyone who used to use it when I did has moved to Tumblr, Instagram or Twitter. I'd suggest moving to one of those if you don't have your art up there already, I kinda like the art communities that formed on IG/Twitter even though they're not the most art-friendly platforms, its nice to share your art with users who aren't artists themselves.

[LordVincent]

Yep and moving away from artist-centric circles also opens your mind to 1. What the consumer really wants, and 2. The world outside of whatever nieche you are all up in.

There's a tendency among people who are either in art school or some online circle, regardless basically people who only speak to people within their artsy echo chamber... where they want to do art for a living but are so up in these ideals created within their friendgroup that they can't wrap their heads around the business or the things they need to do, sacrifice and change to make that dream come true. And so they end up either poor and depressed or burnt out, give up and get bitter. It's a very sad development to see and I have seen old dA friendgroups who consist mainly of the bitter kind that has given up

A more healthy approach is to keep a good balance of how much you communicate with creator types vs consumer types.

Also when a site is used primarily by creators who want to get their art out there and don't care much beyond that, the math is simple: everyone posts but barely anyone looks. Almost noone will get what they want out of the site.

[inkycharland]

ArtStation

[indigodrawing]

I only took a quick look at ArtStation bur from what I can see their target audience are people who are either professional artists or aspire to be professional artists. I don't think it's a good match for those of us who just treat drawing as a hobby.

[Eageali]

Speedy version:
Amino!
+ Quick feedback
+ Lots of chatrooms
+ Very active
+ Kid-friendly
- Obligatory followers (Amino tries to make you follow like 30 random people off the bat, so a lot of followers you get are just random people who log in for the first time and don't actually care about your art)
- Some aspects seem a little underhanded (misleading notifications like "[username] has sent you a message." but it's not a private message, it's just a group chat message
- Ruins the quality of pictures

Instagram!
+ Fun, easy way to share art
+ Pretty easy to gain followers provided you utilize the tags and reach out to other artists
- Ruins the quality of pictures

Tumblr!
+ Big platform, lots of people
+ make a cool looking blog
- really difficult to get any sort of traction unless you make FANART
- really NSFW and kinda crazy

Discord!
+ Servers, PM, voice chat, video chat, everything
+ There are so many art servers or you could even make your own server about your comic
- It's a social media designed for chatting, so you can't make any posts

Artfight!
+ Super super super active
- ONLY active during July
- not particularly comic-friendly as it's basically a secret santa website, but it's a fun event and you can get some traction from interacting with people on there

Twitter!
Idk man, I don't have a twitter lol I just know that lots of people share their art there. lol.

Hope this helps!

[DokiDokiTsuna]

Woah, that's actually...amazingly helpful. '_'
Thank you much~

[Luminosophy]

Personally felt the worst spaces are large discord groups. It ends up with the same issue Vincent mentioned, creator focus only group so people post and run, then complain when no one cares about their stuff. I've gotten snarky messages and even just kicked out of one because apparently suggesting you should learn to do lineart/ ink without a stabilizer makes you a bigot. Generally found them to be very toxic and run by mods with all kinds of crazy complexes.

DA is still alright in terms of finding some artist friends but the real issue DA has though is the loss of staff. I don't think people realize the drama that went down. I don't even really know the whole story but I do know a while back ex-employees were making some pretty scathing write ups about their experience working there and how essentially it /used/ to be a great place to work until very bad decisions started being made ending up with huge lay-offs. Last I heard the help desk/center was only staffed by 10 people so you can imagine the ridiculous slow down on dealing with offending artworks.

From a Glassdoor review:
"Later in my employment there were some really tragic management decisions that started a downward spiral for the company. Instead of reassessing company infrastructure or bringing in a consultant to address the issues and possible solutions, they flailed and laid off around 80% of the company, none of which were the upper management that had enabled the root issues. This tanked moral and many others jumped ship after that. The hardest thing to work around is the CEO, who is unfocused and prone to rash decisions, often demanding employees pursue poorly thought out pipe-dream projects that water down any viable products.

Advice to Management

Hire an assessment firm to look at the company infrastructure, do anonymous interviews with employees, and deliver an unbiased review of DeviantArt's internal weaknesses and possible solutions. Then read it with an open mind and take positive action, you are only ensuring your company's demise by leading in denial.

Trust your specialists and stop micromanaging when you are stressed, so much time was wasted on unknowledgeable demands and pointless "cool-factor" endeavors when the user experience and site infrastructure needed overhauling."

The site was apparently acquired by Wix, and it seems like this new Eclipse might actually address the sheer amount of issues people were experiencing for years. (It also comes across more like it's a graphic overhaul to achieve a modern look, not an actual.... fix the bugs overhaul.) But there's no guarantee and I feel like that trust has largely been broken for too long with the userbase. People have no real reason to stick around and see it through. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[Eageali]

Personally felt the worst spaces are large discord groups.

Oh man, I feel you there! I'm not currently a part of any large discord groups, but I have a lot of fun in smaller, tight-knit ones (albeit the occasional drama lol). The only problem with those is that some of them just die off ;-;

I personally am going to stick with dA through Eclipse because I feel like it, but yeah, I agree with you on a lot of points

[Zhengo]

Looking around alternatives I haven't found a site that offers features DA has like public chatrooms, groups, and forums. Sure those features have kinda fallen in the trash these past few years because of lack of updates and moderation but I still like the concept of them because it gives you more ways to meet new people and get others interested in your art. Sadly it seems like these features might also be gone in the new update.

I might try out Instagram and Twitter though I don't know how much better traction I could get from those if the system is anything like Tumblr's. I've been using tumblr for a little while but frankly I hate using the site to post my art because original art gets almost no attention there. There's so much reliance on the tagging system and the only way people will even look at your tags is if you whore yourself out to fanart, which I don't do as much.

[sprite_1ww]

I'm a bit surprised that nobody mentioned pixiv before