# Don't you hate it when you work on an art piece and Only 2 people see it?



## RoqsWolf (Jul 9, 2009)

Well I've gotten this problem alot and I'm sure alot of people have had this problem. So this is why I made this thread in which we all share some art and we all look at each others art. Well to prevent spamming Only post a link to your artwork no more then one every 2 days. Hope this is a good idea. Heres my link http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2494130


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## El Furicuazo (Jul 10, 2009)

Well, it's kinda dissapointing when it happens, but there are solutions to it.  Try the following

- Become an expert tagger: think about all the appropiate tags related to your works.  More tags means that the artwork would be found by more people, hopefully increasing the chances of critique, comments, faving...

- Try to promote lightly your work: if you don't make others aware of it, you will have less viewers; but if you overpromote it or promote it on enforcing ways, you may cause a bad impression on potential viewers.

- Try to appreciate the works of other people: you can do this by searching on artwork of your interest, commenting on the works in meaningful ways (not just a "nice! "), & sometimes inviting other artists to view your pieces.

- Seek critique: you may get useful info. on improving your works if you ask some experts to evaluate your works.  Note that you're not warranted to hear/read exactly what you want, but you'll at least get some views.

-Try to befriend people who may have interest in your works: the interpersonal relationship developed by the friendship may get the potential viewer to gain more interest on your works.

- Offer your talent: this would be comissioning, fullfilling requests & art trading.  Try to have something original to offer, & make sure each of the involved parts is interested enough in this kind of art sharing.


For my part, I use several of these strategies to some extent with positive results.  Even so, I do have a fairly small established viewerbase, maybe because I still make my works in small quantities & I still haven't offered my talent.

I'll post a link to some of my next works, once I'm done with them, but for anybody curious to see mine, there's always a nice black paw icon below my avatar & user details you can click.


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## picky (Jul 10, 2009)

it's frustrating, but if you're new to a site it can take years to get the recognition you deserve. simply be active on the art sites, and you may get more watches, comments, and views.


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## ElizabethAlexandraMary (Jul 10, 2009)

Yeah, as they said, do crap, get known.
If you are active on the forum (and well-liked, too) you could link to specific work in your signature. (For fiction, try to catch the reader's attention, instead of just going "Here's mah storey [link]". Include a paragraph, an interesting quote, or something.)

I am not sure about this, but I'd like to think posting your work on multiple websites, then trying to concentrate feedback to a single location might help. (Notice how the same games end up on Kongregate and Newgrounds?)


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## ThisisGabe (Jul 10, 2009)

add cock= 200 views.


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## krisCrash (Jul 10, 2009)

RoqsWolf said:


> Well I've gotten this problem alot and I'm sure alot of people have had this problem. So this is why I made this thread in which we all share some art and we all look at each others art. Well to prevent spamming Only post a link to your artwork no more then one every 2 days. Hope this is a good idea. Heres my link http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2494130


Just a tip here
uploading a badly cropped or oversized, grainy, dark photograph of your sketch is not going to impress people. Who wants to click a grey rectangle? Shine up that stuff, scan it well and work the presentation. There is no reason to make your art worse than it is by not caring for its presentation.

The same goes for anyone posting wrinkled or lined paper. Today someone uploaded a drawing (to another site) where he had photographed it in 2 parts without pasting them together. Who wants to look at a photo of half a catgirl? Think about presentation. Care for your audience, serve art so it can do its best, don't pour mud over it. It may look good to you because you remember the real thing, but your viewers are NOT able to fill in the blanks.


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## cheeriocheetah (Jul 16, 2009)

ThisisGabe said:


> add cock= 200 views.



Yup.  Alas.  *dramatic sigh*


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## Asswings (Jul 16, 2009)

ThisisGabe said:


> add cock= 200 views.



This was my first thought when I saw this thread. X3

On a more serious note: 
Doing requests is a good way to get better known, IMO.
When people see your picture in a gallery of someone's fursona art, there's a chance they might go look at the rest of your art.

Also, it's a really good way to make new friends. And practice your drawing skills. I know I wouldn't draw dragons unless I was doing a request from someone.


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## RailRide (Jul 16, 2009)

krisCrash said:


> Just a tip here
> uploading a badly cropped or oversized, grainy, dark photograph of your sketch is not going to impress people. Who wants to click a grey rectangle? Shine up that stuff, scan it well and work the presentation. There is no reason to make your art worse than it is by not caring for its presentation.
> 
> The same goes for anyone posting wrinkled or lined paper. Today someone uploaded a drawing (to another site) where he had photographed it in 2 parts without pasting them together. Who wants to look at a photo of half a catgirl? Think about presentation. Care for your audience, serve art so it can do its best, don't pour mud over it. It may look good to you because you remember the real thing, but your viewers are NOT able to fill in the blanks.



This. Many times over.

It's the main reason VCL enacted minimum quality standards for new members--the sheer number of poorly-presented artworks--just like the examples described above, were causing the folks who _did_ care about presentation and produced the better-looking artwork, to stop posting there.

---PCJ


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## Kawaburd (Jul 16, 2009)

It's also part of what makes it tough to get recognized here, methinks.

No quality control, not worth it to go through the main gallery looking for shinies (due to the sheer bulk of mediocre stuff, photos of members, etc.)   So you end up having to look for a fanbase instead of vice-versa.  Then again, a lot of things help.  Even posting a rant about it in this here (hey, it got our attention at least. ;p )


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## NerdyMunk (Jul 16, 2009)

RoqsWolf said:


> Well I've gotten this problem alot and I'm sure alot of people have had this problem. So this is why I made this thread in which we all share some art and we all look at each others art. Well to prevent spamming Only post a link to your artwork no more then one every 2 days. Hope this is a good idea. Heres my link http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2494130



One reason I left the site. Too many people who care about other "stuff".


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## Ratte (Jul 16, 2009)

Color.  It catches the eye.


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## Arshes Nei (Jul 16, 2009)

Practice. It works wonders. Much more than bellyaching over watches and views. so you want 200 views because of mediocrity, or do you want a lot of views because you did a damn good job actually getting your foundations down?


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## Centradragon (Jul 17, 2009)

I agree with pretty much everything that's been said.  Practice and participate in the community more.  Learn to present your art in a better format-- scan things straight, resize them (800-900 pixels tall should be plenty unless it's really detailed), clean them up in Photoshop by adjusting contrast, add a bit of color with color/screen layers).

Presentation is everything.  You can sell a $10 print for $100 if you choose the right frame and present it correctly.  <3


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## Gnome (Jul 18, 2009)

*yeeesss*
i do, i hates it


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## BlackDragonAlpha (Jul 18, 2009)

Yeah, it's quite heartbreaking when that happens. But it really depends on how much you work on your drawing. I noticed that the drawings that I did a little effort only got 1 or 2 comments and a few favs.


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## KashakuTatsu (Jul 19, 2009)

http://KashakuTatsu.daportfolio.com

Guess I'll chime in a link lol


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## Coug (Jul 19, 2009)

yes,it's quite sad when you worked hard on it.

tips:
make your picture somewhat reasonable size.
my monitor res. is 1024x768 and your picture is so big I can't see it easily.
usually the max size I uproad is about 700 or so.

and I see that your picture is poorly scanned.
try to make the contrast higher so your picture can be seen clearly.
for example,your picture http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2525112/
this one is quite well scanned.

also,in this picture I don't think the nagative space is important,so it'd be better to crop out the blank part on the left.



Try to be active on the site.comment on other people's work,say thanks to the people if they faved your pictures or watched you.(unless the person specifically mentioned not to thank them for it)

and of course,getting better at drawing will increase the chance of your art get viewed,so practice.

Use references to get the correct anatomy.let's say you're drawing a wolf.if you're not quite experienced with drawing wolves,then it's pretty much no use drawing the thing you don't really know.be sure to have the photographer(or anyone who has the permission to the reference you've used)'s permission,if you're going to make your practice public.

Observe what's going around you.that's going to help,really.

also try to look at other people's work minutely.what attraction their picture have so they pulled you? their color uses? anatomy? expression? observe them.


I hope this is helpful,mate.


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## Maje (Jul 19, 2009)

ThisisGabe said:


> add cock= 200 views.



QFT

Seriously. You could post a scrap piece that you spent 5 minutes on and odds are it'll get more views then a full color piece you spent 5 hours on just because of that god damn red boarder.


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## RailRide (Jul 19, 2009)

Maje said:


> QFT
> 
> Seriously. You could post a scrap piece that you spent 5 minutes on and odds are it'll get more views then a full color piece you spent 5 hours on just because of that god damn red boarder.



Lots of folks are aware of this. I know more than a few artists who slap an adult rating on a pic that may only rate a Mature at best. They know what they are doing 9_9.

Size matters too. I keep my pics at a maximum of 750 pixels wide, and one other thing I've noticed...

I keep my color pics below 140K, and my B/W ones between 40-70K. I know it's blasphemy to suggest some folks are still on dialup, but quite a few _are_ still stuck with it. I have DSL (albeit not the fastest flavor of it), and started wondering why some folks' pictures were taking 15-20 seconds to load. Images that should really be no more than 200K are clocking in at 700k to over a megabyte in size. There really should be a filesize indication on submission thumbnails so people could deny pageviews to artists who routinely post "bloat-o-rific" images.

---PCJ


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## Asswings (Jul 19, 2009)

Maje said:


> QFT
> 
> Seriously. You could post a scrap piece that you spent 5 minutes on and odds are it'll get more views then a full color piece you spent 5 hours on just because of that god damn red boarder.



....this is actually literally true. I posted a scrap example pornorific sketch that was still covered in lines and had fingerprints and bad scanning and the whole 9 yards as a quick example to a commissioner, and I got more views and favorites than my clean art gets. >.>


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## Fluory (Jul 22, 2009)

I did until I started drawing for myself instead of for recognition.


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## Feeka-chan (Jul 22, 2009)

it's quite hard if you're new on an Art Community and you must be patient to get much viewers from the beginning. First of all... well, the most things were already posted here, so the only thing I could do, is to repeat the things already written. But I dont want to do that. So I also say, just work on the presentation of your artworks (good outlines, color, size, quality...). And if you want a lot of views on FA, do art that needs a red framing ;D
Adult arts - and artists - are somehow the most popular here on FA (my opinion).


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## Torrent (Jul 22, 2009)

I know how you feel :I.  Just draw, have fun with it.  Gradually you'll get more views/watchers.


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## NekoYoukaii (Jul 27, 2009)

I think I have the same problem as you.


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## Arshes Nei (Jul 27, 2009)

I guess I'm one of the few that doesn't care all that much. I guess it's because while the gallery thing made things convenient, getting into the statistics really didn't help me improve. Sure I made fun of the popularity game but it's time wasted I could have spent drawing to improve myself.


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## Neoh (Jul 29, 2009)

I think for me, it's less about views and more about comments. I love criticism, but when nobody is looking and telling me what I need to fix (besides anatomy, which I'm just now getting to practicing) I feel like I'm sort of feeling around in the dark to find what's wrong, probably leading to me overly nit-picking my own work.

Personally, I believe views will come with time, first just focus on improving your work to being the best it can be. When you've reached that point, keep trying to improve and popularity will come with it.

(That sounded way less cheesy in my head, I swear)


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## SailorYue (Jul 29, 2009)

i feel like this with my fanfics. its also really anoying that you can get thosands of hits but absolutly no reviews. reviews feed the ever hunger ego. and ego goes dead without some positive or even constructive criticusm


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## Kushaba (Jul 30, 2009)

El Furicua said:


> Well, it's kinda dissapointing when it happens, but there are solutions to it.  Try the following
> 
> - Become an expert tagger: think about all the appropiate tags related to your works.  More tags means that the artwork would be found by more people, hopefully increasing the chances of critique, comments, faving...
> 
> ...



im glad you didn't say "start drawing porn"
to me it seems anytime i post clean art, i get nothing but when i post something scandely clad i get a sh&* load of Comments. *shakes head* that makes me rage.

Its enough to make me post on da only.


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## sakket (Aug 7, 2009)

Kawaburd said:


> It's also part of what makes it tough to get recognized here, methinks.
> 
> No quality control, not worth it to go through the main gallery looking for shinies (due to the sheer bulk of mediocre stuff, photos of members, etc.)   So you end up having to look for a fanbase instead of vice-versa.  Then again, a lot of things help.  Even posting a rant about it in this here (hey, it got our attention at least. ;p )



hey now, some people actually enjoy browsing around, finding the most awful things they can. that's my favorite thing to do on this site..


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## Jiyiki (Aug 7, 2009)

Dont you hate it when you draw art so you can become popular and not because you enjoy drawing art?  So do i.


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## Runefox (Aug 8, 2009)

Well, I guess I'm a little shallow in a way in that I'd like more people to at least see what I draw, but I don't normally go out of my way to make it happen. I've been thinking about it lately and wondering if I had some extra pressure to draw that maybe I'd be able to motivate myself do it more often (art blocks for me can last a long time, and I'm starting to drop into one again after a couple months of activity), or even just get a few new sets of eyes to look it over.

Still, how effective _is_ the tag system, anyway? I've pretty much been ignoring it altogether as of late, though I fill in all the important information (submission type, content, etc). I just don't tag. Frankly, there doesn't seem to be any reason to - None of the browse or search options on the main page actually include tags.


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## El Furicuazo (Aug 8, 2009)

Runefox said:


> Well, I guess I'm a little shallow in a way in that I'd like more people to at least see what I draw, but I don't normally go out of my way to make it happen. I've been thinking about it lately and wondering if I had some extra pressure to draw that maybe I'd be able to motivate myself do it more often (art blocks for me can last a long time, and I'm starting to drop into one again after a couple months of activity), or even just get a few new sets of eyes to look it over.
> 
> Still, how effective _is_ the tag system, anyway? I've pretty much been ignoring it altogether as of late, though I fill in all the important information (submission type, content, etc). I just don't tag. Frankly, there doesn't seem to be any reason to - None of the browse or search options on the main page actually include tags.


When I search for artwork in FurAffinity, I only get the tagged work in the search results, so I find tags to be useful.  Try the following: get to the search page in FurAffinity, set it to "Search with all the words", type *Dragonxander Esmeralda* & click 'Search'.  You'll only find stuff I posted, since I'm the only one who posted using those tags.


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## Runefox (Aug 8, 2009)

El Furicua said:


> When I search for artwork in FurAffinity, I only get the tagged work in the search results, so I find tags to be useful.  Try the following: get to the search page in FurAffinity, set it to "Search with all the words", type *Dragonxander Esmeralda* & click 'Search'.  You'll only find stuff I posted, since I'm the only one who posted using those tags.



That would be because each of those things have either "Dragonxander" or "Esmeralda" in the title and/or description; Searching "Kitsune" brings up only things with "Kitsune" in the title or description. It _seems_ to have no bearing on the tags.

Looking at it, in order to search for tags, you need to type @keywords before the search (there are no cues to tell you this is so unless you click a tag, and no facilities to search by tags otherwise), which is a little silly. I wonder how many people actually know about that?


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## El Furicuazo (Aug 8, 2009)

Runefox said:


> That would be because each of those things have either "Dragonxander" or "Esmeralda" in the title and/or description; Searching "Kitsune" brings up only things with "Kitsune" in the title or description. It _seems_ to have no bearing on the tags.


We can make an experiment.  One can post a submission with its usual description, & tag it with totally unrelated words.  THEN we can search using the tag words only, & see what comes up in the search results page.


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## Aurali (Aug 8, 2009)

El Furicua said:


> We can make an experiment.  One can post a submission with its usual description, & tag it with totally unrelated words.  THEN we can search using the tag words only, & see what comes up in the search results page.



Don't abuse the tags please :/ No one ever uses the tag system correctly


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## El Furicuazo (Aug 8, 2009)

Eli said:


> Don't abuse the tags please :/ No one ever uses the tag system correctly


Please explain why don't you want people to use the tag system.  Maybe that's why many of them don't get the desired views of their works.


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## Aurali (Aug 8, 2009)

El Furicua said:


> Please explain why don't you want people to use the tag system.  Maybe that's why many of them don't get the desired views of their works.



I said abuse hun >.> and yeah. when you get tags like http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2521196 ... it doesn't really help the system


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## Runefox (Aug 8, 2009)

Eli said:


> Don't abuse the tags please :/ No one ever uses the tag system correctly



I think part of the reason is that there isn't any obvious use for them since there's no obvious way to search by tag. I'm sure others know about the @keywords business, but it's not obvious unless you either click a tag, or click "Help", which doesn't really describe what "keywords" means in relation to tags.


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## Deleted member 3615 (Aug 12, 2009)

around 3 out of over 100 watchers view my works. The only submission that gets views is my old "Shamwow Right Round Remix"


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## Arshes Nei (Aug 12, 2009)

Neoh said:


> I think for me, it's less about views and more about comments. I love criticism, but when nobody is looking and telling me what I need to fix (besides anatomy, which I'm just now getting to practicing) I feel like I'm sort of feeling around in the dark to find what's wrong, probably leading to me overly nit-picking my own work.
> 
> Personally, I believe views will come with time, first just focus on improving your work to being the best it can be. When you've reached that point, keep trying to improve and popularity will come with it.
> 
> (That sounded way less cheesy in my head, I swear)



Unfortunately given the nature of people these days it seems they like to create drama by going to those who don't want critiques and utterly ignoring those who do, like yourself.

However, saying that...there's also the problem where if a piece of artwork has too many things wrong you either go into generalities (like study anatomy and color theory) or you feel exhausted wasting your time on an essay that may make the creator feel like EVERYTHING is wrong. Yes, it's good information but still feelings involved even if you try to "Sandwich" critiques like fluff crap "it's great you're drawing" Yes...it is good but if there is no uniqueness (which artists tend to thrive upon) it feels empty after a while and they can detect filler "pick-me-ups"

Usually if some things are glaringly wrong people will critique that, if the piece is mediocre in general you'll get less specifics and help because you need to work on more than one particular item.


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## El Furicuazo (Aug 14, 2009)

El Furicuazo said:


> Well, it's kinda dissapointing when it happens, but there are solutions to it.  Try the following
> 
> - Become an expert tagger: think about all the appropiate tags related to your works.  More tags means that the artwork would be found by more people, hopefully increasing the chances of critique, comments, faving...
> 
> ...



I have to add a supereffective method to increase user views, a REALLY effective one:

- Make a thrilling surprise presentation for an unexpected image: try using a thrilling description & a vague thumbnail requesting viewers to find out about the work.  For my example, I use the following:

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2657730/#cid:19569411

Go check it out, you'll see what I mean.  For all of you to know, I got 90 views during the first 15 minutes, & 7 comments + 2 favings in the 1st 10 minutes.


So, this will compute to something like:

add [insert what I showed you a moment ago] = 100 views


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## RoqsWolf (Aug 15, 2009)

El Furicuazo said:


> I have to add a supereffective method to increase user views, a REALLY effective one:
> 
> - Make a thrilling surprise presentation for an unexpected image: try using a thrilling description & a vague thumbnail requesting viewers to find out about the work.  For my example, I use the following:
> 
> ...


Lol i noticed, but it can piss people off sometimes lol. Plus,sometimes people won't want to check it out cause of the poor thumbnail


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## sakket (Aug 15, 2009)

i personally am feeling the urge to avoid your work due to such tactics, El Furicuazo, but it's an interesting tactic nonetheless.


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## El Furicuazo (Aug 15, 2009)

sakket said:


> i personally am feeling the urge to avoid your work due to such tactics, El Furicuazo, but it's an interesting tactic nonetheless.


Well, almost none of works use blatantly cheaty tactics (only that last submission did so far), & I'll use it in only a few ocassions in the future.  You may want to check out my other works, & find out that they stand out by their own merits.


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## Coug (Aug 16, 2009)

El Furicuazo said:


> I have to add a supereffective method to increase user views, a REALLY effective one:
> 
> - Make a thrilling surprise presentation for an unexpected image: try using a thrilling description & a vague thumbnail requesting viewers to find out about the work.  For my example, I use the following:
> 
> ...


your other suggestions were good,but that's...silly.lol.
For me,Seeing a person doing such a thing for once would be enough to lose interest in his gallery.


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## El Furicuazo (Aug 16, 2009)

Ische said:


> your other suggestions were good,but that's...silly.lol.
> For me,Seeing a person doing such a thing for once would be enough to lose interest in his gallery.



Then you'll miss out on the works I submitted that stand up by their own merits, IF the situation you just described turned out to be true for my gallery.  I do know it's cheaty, but I consider it appropiate for that one submission.  You may see me in the future using that technique, but only in REALLY rare ocassions.

Just so that you all know, this submission gave me the idea (check the thumbnail for it):
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1342777/


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## Nightweaver (Aug 16, 2009)

I have to admit that I more than occasionally feel that my work is underrated for the amount of time I spend on it, and feel some of my pieces deserve about 5x to 10x the faves/comments they get. I'm the kind of artist who really is caught between wanting to draw for himself, and wanting to draw for others. I draw lots of fanart, and that tends to get more responses, which I like. It feels good that people get in a good mood or perk up at my art, if even briefly. I'm just sketching like mad lately and uploading a few of my better sketches, which lately has been Extinctioners stuff.

I try to be above it all, I really do. I try hard to prepare myself if I just upload a quick sketch and it doesn't get many hits, and justify it with "well, it only took me an hour anyway." But when I upload color work that took me hours, yeah it does kind of hurt when nobody at least comments on it. I know other artists can take 40+ hours for some pieces, and I wish I could spend that much time. For me, about 10 hours is my max. Anything more and I get really antsy and want it to just be done and uploaded already. If some of my stuff looks rushed, that's why.

With me, more views, faves and comments especially encourage me to get better, because then I know people are actually paying attention. And then I want to please them more. It's not an ego thing... I really want to produce quality furry art you just can't see anywhere else, whether it be of rare characters, or a style they're just not going to see anywhere else.

I'm still a humble student. Maybe one day I can be a teacher.


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## El Furicuazo (Aug 17, 2009)

Nightweaver said:


> With me, more views, faves and comments especially encourage me to get better, because then I know people are actually paying attention. And then I want to please them more. It's not an ego thing... I really want to produce quality furry art you just can't see anywhere else, whether it be of rare characters, or a style they're just not going to see anywhere else.
> 
> I'm still a humble student. Maybe one day I can be a teacher.


Maybe we could use this thread like the OP wanted it to, to actually ease what you & many here want.


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## Lazydabear (Aug 18, 2009)

Well aleast take a crack at my Art and give it a Shot.


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