How long have you been on Deviantart? 5 days, 3 months, 6 years? In that time you’ve probably uploaded quite a few drawings, photography, or pieces of literature, but you’ve come up short on favorites and comments on your work. Let’s face it, we all want to be popular or at least have some feeling of recognition, no matter how hard we try to deny it. You wouldn’t be uploading your work so no one can see it, right? Deviantart is truly a remarkable place filled with millions of pieces of art, some of which, beyond our own level of skill. We watch, comment, and fav the many different types of work we see and we aspire to become a well known artist on this online community. Many artists have strived to achieve this, spending hours, even days on their art pieces, and yet it comes to no avail. Soon after, they quit Deviantart and quit doing art entirely (I’ve seen this happen to a few of my favorite artists). So the question is, how does an artist become well recognized on Deviantart? Here’s a few easy steps to accomplish this:
GET MOTIVATEDYou can’t be successful if you don’t have motivation! As an artist, you constantly need to have some sort of inspiration to do your artwork. Whether it’s through a current event, an object, a place, individual, television show, game, or whatever it is, take that and start imagining how that makes you feel. Sounds cheesy huh? Emotions play a large role in art and can determine your piece will turn out. If something you saw made you feel happy, sad, or angry, it’s going to motivate you to draw (or write) something that reflects that. So go out there and go find something inspires you!
BE DIVERSEThis has been something I found to be a problem on quite a few galleries. For example, let’s say when you first joined DA, all you drew was Super Mario Bros. cause you just love the game so freakin’ much! You constantly do fan art of it for about 8-12 months and you gain tons of favs and watchers from it. Then suddenly you get bored of drawing Mario and you start drawing Star Wars because now you’re into that. So where’s the issue?
The many watchers that you had that were in love with your Mario artwork may not be huge fans of your Star Wars artwork, not because they don’t like your art style, it’s just that they don’t like Star Wars. There might be some who’ll still watch you (for various reasons) but for the most part, you’ll have to build a new audience all over again and perhaps later, you’ll stop doing Star Wars and move onto something else and start the process again. Sounds a bit annoying right? Basically what I’m saying is, don’t stick to one certain subject for long periods of time, as people will know you for that one particular subject you draw. It’s like watching a show about cooking for months and one day it randomly turns into a show about traveling. It would throw off the viewers.
I made that mistake on my first account,
SuperStar2012, only drawing
Metroid and
Pokémon as that’s all people knew me for. I couldn't really expand all too well with other shows or games I liked. On my new account,
TheXHunter08, I’m trying to get into drawing different stuff (as well as uploading some photography) so people can know I do a variety of things other than those two games. In summary, it’s okay to draw that one subject you love a lot, but add a few sprinkles of other things you like here and there, that way you’ll gain a wider audience.
JOIN GROUPSSo let’s say you followed up on getting motivated and having a diverse amount of subjects for your gallery, but you’re still not getting noticed. This is where groups come in! There are hundreds— perhaps thousands of groups available for artists to join and by getting into a few, it will increase the amount of favs, comments, and watchers you get tenfold
(***all depending on your level of skill, style, creativity, and technique as well as the audience you’re reaching). It’s an easy way for people to notice your art and of course the more groups you join and be active in, the better your chances of you getting noticed.
Now here’s the trick, don’t just join any random group as there may be some problems with them or features you won’t like. For example, if a group is telling you that you have to submit a written application or find the secret message within their new member journal before you join (and yes there are groups out there like that), I really wouldn’t suggest going in there, it’s a bunch nonsense work you have to do and these people are taking it way too seriously (in my opinion). The best kind of groups are the general ones which everyone can join such as our group here,
United Nation of Art or another example being
Art Everything. These types of groups allow you to be able to submit anything that’s in your gallery, whether it’s literature, movies, games, anime, or still life. But don’t just stop at the general ones, go find others such as Star Wars groups, Adventure Time groups, lineart groups, traditional art groups, Photoshop groups, etc. There are many to use at your disposal, so use them and see your messages blossom.
And one more tip about joining groups,
DO NOT SPAM YOUR ARTWORK!!! Can’t stress this enough! Submitting 4 or more pictures in one day isn’t going to make people want to look at your art no matter how good it is. It makes you look a bit unprofessional. Space out the time you submit your works, one a day or one every two days is fine enough.
Since we're on the subject,
click here and find some groups to join, if you haven't already!
BE A PART OF THE DA COMMUNITYDeviantart is not just a site to upload your art, it’s also a site to see other works too. So go out and support other artists out there with a fav, comment, note, or a watch. By doing so you’re being part of the community and supporting others that may be lacking well deserved attention. Whenever you fav and comment on artwork or watch an artist, you’re also advertising yourself in a sense. The more you do so, the more the artist might take a liking to you and might possibly support you back as well, helping both of you to become better artists and possibly become online friends.
Now there’s a very fine line in what I mean by this. What I don’t mean is what I see on Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook where people do a “watch for a watch” or “fav for a fav”. That is immature, unprofessional, and downright desperate and there are a quite a few deviants I know that do this kind of thing. Watch, fav, and comment cause you really want to, not to get something out of it. Receiving fake attention doesn’t mean much, but receiving true and honest support means a lot.
USE OTHER SOCIAL SITESIf you use Tumblr, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, or any other social site, use them to your advantage and advertise your artwork. I’ve done it myself both on Instagram and Facebook, and its been helping me out quite a bit. Don’t be scared on how other people are going to react to it or comment on your art, just do it for yourself. The more you put yourself out there, the better your chances of receiving some attention. And considering how much recycled memes are posted up on social sites, it’d be nice for people to see some originality, right?
So there you have it folks, that’s my little piece of advice on how to become well-known around here. I honestly mean this in the best of ways and not as a means to be popular out of desperation. There are many great artists that I have seen on DA that don’t get recognized enough and I feel that people need to be aware of how to gain some attention on their works. Hopefully you’ll take some of these into consideration!
If you have any comments, questions, or concerns, feel free to message or note me on my profile—
TheXHunter08!
As for now, take care and stay frosty!
-Hunter