deviantART

At deviantART, almost anyone* can get an account to submit his/her own art for others to view and comment on, track favorite artists, and "collect" favorite works. The project began in 2007 and now boasts an impressively large staff, both paid and volunteer. The art ranges from anime to photography, with a rather heavy emphasis on the former. People can even submit animated images, literature, and film (although this is chosen on a selective basis; according to the FAQ, it is "to maintain a certain level of production values in the films that our community of artists can post and appreciate"...it is also probably because film takes up a lot of space and is time-consuming to view for appropriateness).

The images are viewable in three different sizes: as thumbnails, when the image isselected, and when "full view" is chosen. What is particularly impressive with deviantART is that users can download the full-sized images and, when the artist enables it, buy the images as a matte or glossy print in "the Shop". Works are categorized and are searchable by artist, genre, most popular, when it was submitted, etc.


The metadata is quite extensive and includes the artist's profile and gallery, media categories (e.g., digital media, anthropomorphic, manga, tv/movies), copyright year, number of views, number of downloads, date submitted, file size, number of comments, number of times made a "favorite", embedded HTML, and a unique thumbnail ID. Some of the metadata, such as file size and date submitted, appear to be automatically generated, while other like the media categories, are submitted by the artists.


deviantART is meant for all amateur artists, art fans, and anyone appreciative of community art forums. The openness of the site is a fantastic way for artists to get feedback on their work and to share their work with the public. That said, I couldn't imagine a very serious artists putting work up on deviantART as anyone can download fairly high quality versions of their work. Furthermore, as there are no criteria regarding print art or literature, the quality of work varies greatly.

* Account holders at deviantART must be older than 13 in order to comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. This restriction holds true even when parental permission is granted.