I have been thinking about this lately, mostly that following a DDoS attack on FurAffinity someone suggested we make a DeviantArt account and move there.

My question is, is DeviantArt still relevant? I barely touched it in 4 of 5 years after moving to other sites FurAffinity, Twitter, and Tumblr. And I think other people moved on to sites like Instagram, Tumblr, and Amino.

I have recently uploaded my recent artworks there as suggested, but they have barely any views. Then again, much of my older cringey art have views that barely go to 3 or 4 digits. And I'm not sure why some people fave my older art.

To repeat the question, is DeviantArt still relevant, and is there still anyone who uses DeviantArt as their main hub?

I use it to follow SFW (or mostly SFW) artists, but it isn't as popular at it could be. The recent update gave me a headache, but beyond that it's still somewhat viable.

I'd say no, and even argue it was never worth it.

Because DA is so much larger, you're going to have a harder time getting your work out there. The site has a bigger minor userbase so gaining business isn't easy, on top of the no-porn policy (though you'll still find it in droves anyway). Staff is basically nonexistent to the point of not even replying to the reports you file to tell you if the case has been handled or not. It's not worth it and it never really has been, unless you manage to do a lot of weebshit and/or you've been there forever-- I've been on DA for 9 years and have only gotten 4 commissions in that entire time, the grand majority of my business coming from FA. Artists typically stay where their business is, and for the gist of furry artists that's FA, whether we like it or not. This is much of why FA still exists.

Twitter is far better for exposure, even though it sucks for actually finding art since it's not a gallery. I don't have many uploads and i'm just a commissioner, but I do have a few people every now and then on DeviantArt ask if i'm open for commissions, even though my front page says I don't make art and just commission it. You should make sure your other sites all have a link to each other, especially to your twitter to maximize potential views.

I would say no for the same reasons Ratte explained.
But if you want to use it, and you want to get views, you have to join to shit tons of groups and add your submission there.

Also, I would recommend to add a discord server on the description of your submissions no matter the site, people interested in your art may join.

If you use some sort of software to mass post your stuff on many places and have your other websites and stuff linked in descriptions, I don't see too much harm of posting all of the places you can.

But if you are manually posting everywhere, it can become timesink.

Moving to Deviantart from FA? You couldn't pay me to go back to Deviantart, I left long before Eclipse was released. That's trading like one dumpster for the entire landfill. Even if I needed a sfw, professional account, I wouldn't go to DA.

As a user Eclipse was the last straw. They joined with tumblr in making it difficult to get full resolution images- while framing it as "protecting artists work" and such. If it's not being sold it's not okay to lossy resize and compress by default.

Arrow189 said:
As a user Eclipse was the last straw. They joined with tumblr in making it difficult to get full resolution images- while framing it as "protecting artists work" and such. If it's not being sold it's not okay to lossy resize and compress by default.

Pretty sure that was part of the Wix aquisition as their Wix system is the one handling images completely now and their systems are... eeeeh...

That's also why it was possible to get full quality copies of everything in deviantart (and still is for most older stuff now) as you can simply manipulate the URL to alter image processing.

I feel like Weasyl is a better option. It's got a better search system than both FA and DA.

In all honesty, I’d say no. Unless you’ve been there for a long time, and posted regularly, plus some good luck on your side, your stuff will get passed by too quickly.
I also remember hearing something about them stealing artwork and selling it a while back. So take that with a grain of salt as I don’t know how accurate that was or is now.

It figures. Even the OP addresing that considers it a crap idea.

What I just commented there right now, I'm going to repeat some of it here.

It takes an unexpected miracle to revive DA and it's community much like Newgrounds.

Leotheairwolf said:
I feel like Weasyl is a better option. It's got a better search system than both FA and DA.

And FA's (tagging) system is the worst, which is why it's the least popular furry website ev-
wait.

(To be serious, the tagging system of a website doesn't seem to mean much for it's popularity.)

DA is too huge and varied. Some users overcustomize their pages. DA loads much more slowly. And there seems to be more anti-furry trolls there too.

mynameisover20charac said:
FA's (tagging) system is the worst

That and a whole host of other concerns and objections plague that site. But yeah, FA's system is terrible for discovery of content, though this is also in part due to a lack of good tagging etiquette on the behalf of creators too.

There's plenty of content there that I don't know if it even exists anymore just because of forgettable handles and poor or no tagging on submissions.

Newgrounds can be difficult to break into the art gallery, as it only shows 'recruited' artists and finished works. In which case, people who only post sketchwork won't be seen... even if their sketches are visually interesting or hold artistic merit outside the sense of it being a "complete" work.

dogenzaka said:
Twitter is far better for exposure, even though it sucks for actually finding art since it's not a gallery.

It can be better, though the culture of the site can tend to be a cesspool of angry thoughts. Another option can be discord communities that allow artist advertisements and linking to work.

One could also hedge their bets by posting on other fledgling social media sites that have the target demographic present.

I wonder if that thing with only 4 commissions is because people go off DA to the porn sites, and then out of habit contact people there, or if DA just has that many lurkers like me that only visit it to check updates/messages about twice a year. Also, yeah, recent update to Wix system broke many things like URLs being too long for IRC so now #agnph uses a URL shortener. Also, it was hard to get the original URLs from the site in a useful way.