Anyone here from conceptart.org?

[Fozzybar]

Hey, guys!

I just found this page and it was somehow suggested as the "new" conceptart.org forums.

Is anyone here who was a member on that old forum, which was actually starting the whole conceptart community thingy on the net? I was there from the beginning and also a long-year admin (e.g. started and managed the Creature of the Week contest).

So I would like to know if there are any members from that time?

Cheers!

[Pubic Enemy]

A few members here have mentioned that they had sketchbooks on conceptart.org, and many used to lurk there. I made an account in the mid noughties but mainly lurked (my sketchbook was too terrible to get any engagement). I think you're the first former admin, though. Your username definitely sounds familiar to me.

Also, welcome aboard, it's always nice to see someone from CA. This forum usually gets suggested as the "new" CA because it's the least dead of the traditional art forums right now.

[Fozzybar]

My profile picture on conceptart.org was a red fozzy bear.
Maybe this makes the bell ringing more for some :)

But nice to see at least one, who knows what I am talking about :D

[Zorrentos]

Hey. I used to be a member of Conceptart.org from about 2011. I was very noobish and untrained back in those days, but it definitely made me work harder and produce a lot of artworks! I still remember listening to old Dave Rapoza and Dan Warren streams while trying to draw character concepts.

I actually used to have sketchbooks on pretty much all art forums, but all of those websites have since been shut down due to lack of interest. I'm hoping that we can keep this one going for a long time! :)

[Bark]

I have a lot of nice memories from CA, truly a unique atmosphere that I don't think could exist today.

[Farvus]

Yeah. I was member on conceptart I think since 2006 and I remember Fozzybar :P.

[dimensional-knight]

I lurked more than posted and definitively wasn't there since from the beginning. Having all these awesome and knowledgeable artists around was intimidating for the shy kid in me.

I've been craving for this exact art forum experience lately though, someplace chronological and content-centric instead of focused on users and their interactions.

[Farvus]

I lurked more than posted and definitively wasn't there since from the beginning. Having all these awesome and knowledgeable artists around was intimidating for the shy kid in me.

I've been craving for this exact art forum experience lately though, someplace chronological and content-centric instead of focused on users and their interactions.

Haha. After looking at your work I would say right now you could take position of those knowledgeable artists that were intimidating you back then :).

And yeah. On forum I like that you can check some archive content with discussions and take time to contribute to some threads. It never gets lost.

[Redfang]

I used to lurk the old conceptart.org forums in their heyday but never had the courage to join. The jobs section was really deep back then. I only joined about a year before it went defunct. It would be down for a few days about once a month until Jason paid the rent. I saw he had a gofundme set up to restart CA but I don't know if he's gotten anywhere with it.

Even if it was pretty dead I still enjoyed it and was sad when it seemed to have disappeared for good. I went over to Wet Canvas but when it was sold the new owners went with new forum software (Wordpress). It was a real mess and I kept getting logged out so I gave up on that one.

[Pubic Enemy]

Sorry to hear that about WetCanvas. I used to check it for information on specific topics and always thought it was a wonderfully functional and simple site. Now it has been modernized in the worst way.

[Redfang]

I have no idea why the new owners of WetCanvas felt they had to use something as ill-suited as Wordpress for the forum. The users complained, rightly so, about how bad it looked and how difficult it was to use. Alienating your user base is not how you have a successful forum. But I have to wonder if they just wanted it to die anyway, since they probably saw it as a money pit.

It used to be a good forum and I was just getting into all the things going on. *sigh*

[JosephCow]

Eh, I don't know. I used to go on wetcanvas when I started oil painting, to look for answers about different materials, safety hazards, techniques etc. There would always be like a hundred conflicting answers about what to do. At the end of the day i don't think anyone on there knew much about anything. Course you could say the same thing about any forum.... or just the internet.

[ZaultaX]

I was really active and posted daily on CA on its last dying years (2017-2019) when I started doing art. My user there was XzaultaX I think? Anyways, still learned a ton from the people that lingered there. Miss the old site, the new one, Massive Black, is really weird, specially the formatting.

[Redfang]

It always seems to take me a while to find my feet in a new forum, but I didn't find CA to be as unfriendly as was rumored. I was "xtal" on there. Barely got my sketchbook started though, drat the luck. The chat feature was nice, I was on there a lot.

I was "redfang" on WC. As a rule I only offered advice about things I'd tried myself. The challenges (is that what they were called?) in the different subforums were kind of fun. It was really interesting to see all the different interpretations of the source images.

[dimensional-knight]

I... haven't heard about WC before visiting this thread. Whew, been out of touch with art communities for a long time indeed.

In any case I'm glad y'all found your ways to here! While I didn't find CA.org to be unfriendly I'm finding the atmosphere here slightly different. People seem pretty thoughtful and aren't deliberately abrasive which is on part with my limited experience on CA, but they also seem somewhat warmer? I don't know how to describe it. It must be the wisdom that comes with aging weighting on our wizened hearts. 


@Farvus Give me enough time to change your mind, heh.

[Redfang]

I think my impression of Massive Black (although I never visited there) was that it catered more to digital artists. I'm still in the "pen and paper" age.

CA wasn't a bad fit for me, but I wasn't that active so I didn't run into a lot of the drama. I just watched from the sidelines. There was one artist who would kick up a lot of drama and get banned for a couple of weeks (it was a bit of a routine for him) but that was the worst I saw.

[Who]

I think I joined up with CA in the mid 2000s, but I was very much just a hobbyist and barely participated. Later I used to do the odd Eow but remember how bad my first two entries were compared to the winners. I do remember Fozzybear for sure :)

Didn't have a sketchbook but I do remember that when I won an Eow a couple of years after getting a bit more serious it felt like a minor milestone. Lmao at my past self.

Glad everyone who is coming in of late is here and injecting some other perspectives and energy and knowledge. 

@interdimensional knight, I definitely liked the CD vibe here when I was modding. Rarely saw it get ugly and people were very supportive, and was a bit sad to see everyone migrate to worser lands of social media eventually (even me... Booo)

@redfang. Hope to see some lovely watercolours and pencil stuff from you soon ;}

WetCanvas I usually used by searching Google for something specific for trad and It would invariably take me to wc and find every approach and opinion under the sun. Hard to parse perhaps, but my brain works like a net at first gathering as much info and then sifting to what I think are the relevant nuggets, so it suited me at the time. I didn't really have an account there.

Anyway glad people are coming in and sticking around. Makes me want to stick around

[Farvus]

CA had this thing where there were complaints about too many people staying and discussing things in the Lounge instead of working on their art...like there was some pressure to join this race of who will progress more.
I mean it was admirable that owners of the site felt they have a mission to create new generation of amazing artists but at the same time sections like Lounge and Art discussion were places that built some sort of community. And also if the will to learn is self motivated you'll keep going and enjoy it but if someone is trying to forced in on you (like some lectures in school) it might become a chore. But I loved the forum anyway.

CD has similar vibe with sharing knowledge but it's more relaxed to me. I wish more artists joined.

[Redfang]

I think I found Black Spot in the member list here (also on WC) but hasn't been active I guess. No idea if there are others out there, could be since there are very few actual forums out there.

I'm going to sound hopelessly old fashioned for saying this, but most sites don't offer much that's useful for improving your art. You'll be lucky to get drive-by comments or likes but nothing in-depth. I think WC came across as a bit too kind in that department. Positivity is nice, but if the eyes are crooked I wish they'd say so. But it's also useful to know what is right with a piece, too. Sometimes you try something and don't know if it works or not.

[PINExizi]

I actually found this place searching for old CA.org advice that may have been archived somewhere. This thread showed up and so now I'm here. I was a nobody on CA and went through multiple names. But, I was obsessed with the site for the longest time, and until now decided to start actually work on having a career in Concept Art. I'm pretty much starting from the beginning. A lot of the lessons I did learn on the site are stuck in my head though... Miss that place. (2003-to its dying days)