Art sites for inspiration, portfolio and community?
2yr
Dan B
Hey all, just wondering what others' thoughts are if anyone is similar to me in not using Instagram (Facebook) on principle...
TL:DR: I hope Proko becomes the top place for this, but what are the options...
As a base I'm looking at sites to both host/publish my artwork with good security/rights ownership, etc. I use Proko for this mainly, but there's no real public interaction for it (browse/search/comment/reactions, etc).
Instagram is the obvious answer, but as mentioned I will never use it while it is a Facebook entity.
The other main ones I'm aware of are Artstation and DeviantArt.
- Artstation seems more 'pro' focused, but for some reason I'm always finding it quite uninspiring for the most part, it's very generic and similar in 'feel' of the content. Anyone else feel like this?
- I find much more interesting and unique art on DeviantArt, but I keep reading the site is trash because a) there's way too much inappropriate content (i.e. fetishes, nsfw etc) and there have been problems with art being plagierised and poor moderation related to the above topics. Is this a feed algorithm thing because I don't see all the unsavoury stuff, but I'm also not interested in looking for it?
- both don't have a community side really as far as I can see (maybe DeviantArt, but seems a lot of bots are there?), ArtStation is full of "Great Work!!!" and no real useful feedback.
Others seem to be Pixiv (Anime focused - also a lot of disturbing content imo), Behance (more product than art focused?), Dribbble (like Etsy?), other?
I don't see these sites being strong in terms of community and proper critique, like say WetCanvas or the old ConceptArt.org was, and also haven't found anything strong in that space (is everyone just on Discord now?)?
I'd also like to see some sculpture/3D focused sites, but can't see anything in particular aside BlenderArtists.org and I have no idea where to look...
To sum up, I hope Proko ends up being the perfect place for all this, with the key focus on community and learning with a side order of portfolio!
Thanks if you read all the way down :)
2yr
Hi @Dan B We really hope to become the perfect place for this and check all the boxes you described. We have lots of great website features coming your way in the future.
Dan B
2yr
That sounds great Katey. One thing I have realised is that I now hope Proko never does the ‘discovery/gallery wall’ thing like ArtStation/DefiantArt/Behance, etc, at least not as the main page. It seems that always turns the focus of the sites to advertising and self-promotion rather than thorough community engagement and real critique. Just being able to search users (and maybe add tags) and comment directly on album images would be enough I think, so that people can find your portfolio and comment on it, but it doesn’t introduce the wrong incentives.
