To join or not to join DevianArt?

[yondoloki]

I wouldn't recommend anyone to start on dA anymore, unless they want to put in the hours of work it takes to get any sort of traction there.

I have been on dA for almost ten years and have just above 200 followers. It's first the past two years that I've actively started to persue followers though, hence the extremely low number. They are very active on my comic though, almost more than here on Tapas (also in Denmark, where I'm from, people don't really know about Webtoons or Tapas and still primary know about dA for the place to go for art).

I also adhere to some very strict guidelines for myself to keep out of drama:
1. Avoid the Forums, except thumb share where I have gained some followers from
2. Just in general avoid interaction unless they come to you
3. Groups are your friend, post to favorites, contribute to galleries, it gives a lot of (relatively) views and followers.

I have never had trouble with trolls, but remember: Your site is your little kingdom. It's not a democracy. You don't have to leave bad comments up, just delete them.

[AmysGames]

Just to throw my own two cents into the topic, I've been on dA for 12 years and I've never had any issues with trolls or the like. That said, most of my followers/the people I follow are my friends, and I never venture into the forums or anything, so I can't speak much to the community at large.

So basically, if you want a place to post art and keep up with friends' art, I say go for it. If you want a place to gain more followers, I'd say probably not.

[AdrenalineShots]

I’ve always found it useful to make contacts with other creators... if you decide not to use it you may lose out on some great friendships and connections

[Kittosaurus]

Wow did deviant art really go so far downhill - admittedly I haven't been on it since High School - but now I have some morbid curiosity and might just check out one of my old accounts - if it's still there!

[Mari]

If you wanna draw fetish porn or take grainy pictures of your genitalia it's the place for you

Otherwise no point.

[Wumbl]

It's a pretty decent place for fan communities. I make lots of fanart so it's great for me. I also find almost all my clients for commissions on there (all my other clients come from either furaffinity or tumblr)

If you only make original content, it's harder to make traction there.

[MK_Wizard]

Argh... it seems there's no simple answer for this kind of thing.

[lartianmartian1]

Maybe a simple answer could be; DeviantArt can't hurt you. I won't break your bank. It won't make you less of an artist or storyteller to post your stuff there, and there's always other sites to compare and contrast. And you can always, always opt out if you wish. You have the freedom to do so. That's the good thing about the internet, even if the perfect site to share creative works has yet to exist

[gurugeorge1111]

To be popular on DA you have to cater to a selected group of people or category and be highly active and post every other day. If your a really good artist it would only add to what I said above.

Here's a list of popular DA things I've came up with over the years.

Top DA fandoms
Anthro
Anime
Sonic
Pony
FNAF
Undertale
Lion King
Pokemon
Nintendo
Steven Universe
Wolves
Cats
WOW - World of Warcraft

key subcultures
brony
furries
goth
vampire
emo

DA community contributor - featured collections on front page, featured artists, daily deviations, art contest, role play, community projects, active in the forums, art raffles, contest prize giver.

Active Weekly

Anti or Hate page of fandom's - trolling, drama

YouTube famous or famous on other websites

Dedicated llama trader

Being really Good + Fan art and/or anything on this list, furries goes double

Being really Good + Specializing, robots, women, muscle men, muscle women, spooky art, feral animals

Arts & crafts – knitting, stuffed animals, Paper craft

Cute art style's like anime chibi

Mature Content

Fetish

DA designer - making buttons, animated gifs, backgrounds, banners

Fanart Comics, SFW, NSFW

Hard Core Fan - with tons of fav's and MS paint artwork

You could become popular on DA by just flooding your gallery with 10 minutes colored fanart using MS paint.

[Jevlin]

Very nice list and great tips, @gurugeorge1111, the only thing I'm not sure about though is furries - I would say anthros because that's how everyone calls them who wants to separate themselves from the furry community but in reality, most feral animals are also anthropomorphic when they're having the human ability of speaking and expressing human emotions with gestures and mimicry.

Anyway, that's not important now, what matters is that I'm seeing the growing tendency of artists who are not exlusively furry artists moving their furry art out to other platforms because even though it's a popular topic it also generates a huge amount of hate from "regular" users. I've never seen it happen though, I've only read a few journals from my favorite artists doing it and telling where to find their furry stuff.

[AniStaciaArt]

I keep forgetting that I have a deviant art account. As far as I can tell, you can't get a huge following unless you make fanart. I've heard of some people being able to flip fans of their fanart to fans of their OCs, but those people must also be bigfoot and the loch ness monster because I've never seen it happen.

Also it's insane to me that any art community wouldn't adore the furry community! I have never seen any other community pay for commissions the way the furry community does! Most people try to nickle-and-dime their artists but I have actually seen furries tell artists they aren't charging enough and leave big tips! Bless those anthropomorphic angels!

[Jevlin]

Ah, yeah, that's what I'm thinking too. Maybe the best thing to do is not being a 100% fanartists but having a nice balance between fanart and OCs and keep it up for a long while, so people can get to know your characters. The big flip from fanart to OCs and keep being popular is something I've seen happening only once (but keep hearing it too). There's this girl, SleepySundae who used to be very involved in the Miraculous Ladybug community and worked on a very popular fancomic but one day she stopped doing anything ML-related and launched a webcomic about deers. It got a positive response and she was able to keep her fans.

About the furries, yeah, it's pretty insane how much hate you can get for it at some places on the internet. And the funny thing is when they say they hate furries but they love the furry movie Zootropolis. (It didn't happen on DA, I've never had a problem with this myself there since I'm not a furry artists myself). I also had similar experience like the one you mentioned, when the commissioner (furry) said I'm not charging enough and gave me a tip. Such nice people!

[charliesackett]

Honestly, as far as I can tell it's not a place for community or building anymore. I've been on it since 2006 and I used to have a modest following of people that would engage and interact with me. That's gone now.
And the layout isn't conducive to reading comics. It's tough to navigate and discourages new interest. People likely won't bother to go back and forth through folders and galleries unless they already know and like the comic.
The best way to use it is put up standalone art, strips, and supporting material and if you manage to gather an audience then direct them to a place where they can read the comic in a more streamlined format.

[ble]

This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.

[OttoGruenwald]

I've personally never gotten much out of it.

[MichaelFIGComix]

This is just my thoughts. I really like Deviant Art! There are a lot of amazing artist on that platform! However It can be a real struggle to get a following using your own original characters. At least for me. I do notice I happened to get more likes on fan art instead. But hey at least that works! But it would be nice for others to appreciate us artists original work a bit more. But maybe some day!

[gurugeorge1111]

Deviantart was not always loaded with haters. If I can remember way back in 2001 I was introduce to DA by a furry who does fan art. DA was a close community where you new all the mods by name and they would post updates almost every month. Life has taught me that when things grow and expand they become less like a community and more like a machine.

I don't jump on the furry hate wagon, the furries have there own problems to deal with.