What methods that artists upload their art before DeviantArt?

[amymadison182]

an immense amount of non-professional internet artists used a variety of methods to upload their on the internet and professional artists also used methods to upload their art on the internet, what are some methods that artists upload their art on the internet before DeviantArt?

[Legendofgenii]

@amymadison182 You could try - your own website, Artstation, Instagram, Behance, Artfol, Pinterest, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Art Discord servers, Toyhouse, Fur Affinity.

I'm sure there are a lot more.

[amymadison182]

YouTube is for speedpaints and drawing tutorials, I was saying what did internet artists upload before DeviantArt. Also I can't create my website since I don't have any web developing skills yet.

[BlairFujin]

Before I found out about deviantart I'd share my art on my blog and forum I was a member of.

[Legendofgenii]

Pre-2000's... hm... MSN Groups maybe? Or My Space?

This might be helpful to read

The Rise and Fall of Internet Art Communities, from DeviantArt to Tumblr | Artsy

It's important to note that search engines were only just kicking off before DeviantArt launched (2000). Yahoo launched in 1994, and Google only launched in 1998, so searching for art was a pain (and slow, 'cause dial-up).

Artists would add links/banners to other artists websites, at the bottom of their own websites.

I think we called it a link exchange, or something like that? Instead of 'Like for Like' it was 'Link for Link' back in ye olden times.

[amymadison182]

People upload art on MSN Groups in the 2000s and MySpace in the mid-2000s, countless of non-professional artists made their website back in the 1990s and 2000s, people also upload art on email and mailing list, people posted a variety of art on Yahoo Groups.

[Legendofgenii]

Yep.

[amymadison182]

Speaking of people uploading art on email, they usually upload their art on email in small attachment files, the same thing with mailing lists.

[Legendofgenii]

Can't say I ever did that myself, as those kind of emails were seen as annoying - and as you mentioned above, upload and attachment limits were tiny back then - kilobytes.

[GothickangelStudios]

I had it on my own studio site in 2002. Last year was my studios 20th anniversary, but Ive had my own domain for years and recently rebranded the domain link this past year.

I used a goth site, being a goth, called Darksites. So they let you make a sub domain. So mine was "gothickangel.darksites.com"
But you had to make your own site from scratch. Mostly HTML some CSS back then. FTP was used. So backdoor website kinda stuff. "FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a standard network protocol used for the transfer of files from one host to another."

I took website design in high school in the 90s so used that.
And with the internet still young compared to what it is today. Darksites was part of a catergorized internal search forum, one could post their independant sites from AngelFire, Geocities, etc. And place them into the corresponding categories. Reminds me how Yahoo started out.
I did link exchanges too with banners and buttons.
Darksites went offline many years later.

I also used online Forums and Bulletin Boards.

(wont post link here in the post, due to it having some 14+ manga illustrations in one part of my porfolio)

[GothickangelStudios]

I remember being at the library learning how to use Yahoos internal categorized internet kinda database. People plopped their sites into specific categories and others could search it.

[NickRowler]

Before I used DeviantArt, Tokyopop used to host images. Despite being a company that sold mostly manga, they wanted to become a social media platform in the mid 2000s but in the long run it did not work out and they ended up removing it. That was where I posted stuff when I was in middle school and early high school.

I also remember that people would create personal blogs and sites to host online portfolios.

Edit, more info about the Tokyopop thing because it is hard to find info about it

This was what it looked like (from the Wayback Machine).

I remember it being very poorly managed. People would upload whatever with a lot of the image in the Photo section not being photos but just image people found on Google.
I also remember it not being well moderated and that there was a section for IM icons which was 99% NSFW images.

[amymadison182]

those kind of email weren't that annoying, Artists send people their art on email usually in small attachment files and various email users send fan art to other users and email users send fan art to webmasters and webmasters can put fan art that the users send on email to their websites, various fan sites did this.

[DarkSena]

Uh-oh, I've been a member of DeviantART to this day, it's been 16 years Still active there.
Before dA I posted in some manga websites and a few forums sharing my art, most of them are long gone.

[thepenmonster]

The old man sits back and takes a long drag on his pipe. The smoke swirls around his head. His eyes visit a distant place before snapping their attention back to the children seated around him.

"Have yee ever heard a Geocities?"

[angie_draws_things]

Pre-DA, I simply had my own domain name and passed out business cards at anime conventions, or posted on webcomic lists online.

Granted, that worked until I had a SNAFU when changing my domain over to a new host, lost the domain to an opportunist who tried to sell it back to me for $2000, which I definitely did not have at the time, so I then had to purchase a similar domain name and try to direct all of my traffic to it.

The joke is on the cash-grabbing opportunist, I kept tabs on the domain until they finally let it go, then I bought it back and sat on it for a few years out of spite, despite never getting back to that webcomic because I had outgrown it during a long art rut.

It makes me sad because that old webcomic is still searchable via a few sites that did articles on it, or a few readers who kept bits of it. I felt really bad about never getting back to it, but after a decade of being on hiatus, it was pointless to get back to.

[amymadison182]

The website isn't spelled ''DeviantART'' anymore, it's now ''DeviantArt''.