Anyone here from conceptart.org?

[Olooriel]

I had lurked for a long time before I joined because I found the place intimidating, but that was the case with all art spaces. Had my longest online sketchbook there, really sad that it's gone :( I had just gotten more active again after a longer break, too, when the site went down :/

[Zorrentos]

I found this thread by chance and felt a bit "nostalgic" while reading it. Maybe someone else will also find it interesting:

https://opengameart.org/forumtopic/does-...ceptartorg

[Pubic Enemy]

I found this thread by chance and felt a bit "nostalgic" while reading it. Maybe someone else will also find it interesting:

https://opengameart.org/forumtopic/does-...ceptartorg

I saw that thread also. It was very nice to read; and quite illuminating, since I wasn't using conceptart when most of the drama and financial issues occurred.

[Zorrentos]

The drama with The Art Department school, the scandals with the owner, and the financial issues were bad enough, but there was also the fact that fewer and fewer people are using forums that put the final nail in the coffin for Ca.org. I don't think we will ever see anything like that forum in it's prime ever again!

[Black Spot]

Yeah, I’m still alive. I should come here more often as I miss chatting to artists and having my butt kicked, but I find the contrast of text hard to read. Last signed on in 2013, but I have read a few threads every so often while lurking.


I’m still friends with a load of the old members on FB from all sides. One day I’ll write the backstory of the demise, as I kept all the emails, chat logs etc. I’m also quite happy that I’m not spending all my time banning spammers, nagging Jason, while trying to help the remaining members as much as I could. Happy, because I can spend more time now actually painting.


If it’s of any interest, I managed to save nearly all of Art Discussion (albeit with some images missing), a load of tutorials (mainly those I was interested in), my sketchbook, a couple of my friend’s sketchbooks, but I ran out of time. I did try to rope a few people in to save as many pages as possible, as I knew the forum would be lost, but sadly, they didn’t.


There was a backup done before the last upgrade, which came in handed when the forum got deleted by a rogue programmer after being sacked, chased by the FBI etc. Did I mention that the backstory was fascinating?

[Pubic Enemy]

Hey Black Spot, I remember you. Glad to hear that you're still painting and having more time for it. Wait... rogue programmer? Chased by the FBI? Sounds very fascinating indeed!

[JosephCow]

Whoa, you have to give us the details! I think we all want to hear that story

[Black Spot]

Lol! I will when I get around to collating it all together. I have about 70 - 100k of words in stuff. Might want to stick it somewhere private though. I'll have a lot of free time next year to get this done, it's on my bucket list.

The redirect of the forum is due to the final programmer being paid by being given 49% of the company, and then the rest in lieu of something else. He'd love to bring it back, but as he never was actually paid, I say good luck to him using the domain like that. At least it's not as bad as cg hub's domain.

[Damien Levs]

Whoa, Black Spot! I remember you! This thread has given me much nostalgia. CA.org was an absolute beast in its prime. So many people grew into exceptional artists there.

[Jephyr]

Good to see other CA peeps here (although I've seen several post about CA here through the years since I've been here)

I lurked on CA for a LONG time before I felt confident enough to sign up and start posting. After my CA SB grew to a dozen pages or so — someone there took one of my images and altered it and posted it in their SB. They let me know it was a 'tribute' and I said ok just post a link back to my SB and credit me and they never did.

For several years I stopped posting there because of that but in the year before it shut down I created a new SB because all the links in my old one were broken by then and all that was left on most pages was the text — AND it was starting to be hit or miss finding it up or down, and sometimes it would take a week for it to reappear.

I remember a guy from Poland with a SB that was well over 100 pages and who was always there commenting in other SBs had a massive freak out and began cursing a moderator out because most of the images they had posted in it were gone.

It wasn't long after that that it closed for good. Later, Jason M posted an appeal for money ($8,000 as I recall) and said the demise was because of personal issues he'd gone though.

But I'd be very interested to hear Black Spot's back story about CA's long slow death.

Like others have said I grew a lot there and was sad to see it go and now CD scratches that itch for me.

[PaulGanguly]

Woah… I now have so many questions!

I can certainly understand the sale of the domain. I think I even remember a thread in which various members offered to pool money to buy it? Like, it certainly can’t cost more than like $20/month (back then) to keep the forum up.