Just testing the waters of this community

[Lunatique]

I found out about this forum a while back but never took the plunge, because I wasn't sure if I should--and I still don't. The reason is because my situation is a bit different from most here. Allow me to explain.

I was one of the early digital artists during the first wave that congregated in online digital art forums in the late 90s and aughts--namely, the OG, Sijun, and then the spinoff, eatpoo (yes, it's a juvenile name, and the name reflected the younger, more rebellious crowd), then later conceptart.org, and CGTalk/CGSociety which also includes 3D and VFX. For those of you who weren't part of that first wave, let me tell ya--it was glorious. Artists of all levels--from the greenest noob to the most advanced masters and superstars working on AAA games, Hollywood blockbusters, book covers for famous authors, teaching at prestigious art schools, etc. We all hung out and talked like equals in general discussions, and in art-related threads, the advanced artists shared their valuable insights, gave critiques, and taught lessons, and the less experienced artists soaked all of it up like sponges. Even just the discussions among the advanced artists were incredibly valuable because when you witness masters talk among themselves, they will talk about things that less experienced artists have never even thought about, and it was profoundly illuminating what masters actually struggle with and are concerned about compared to those who have not reached their level.

And then it all slowly crumbled when giant hub sites like CGHUB (and later Artstation) came along, and social media also took over. Slowly artists left the art forums and just posted on their social media or art hub page for their followers (or in hopes of gaining followers), where there was basically zero engagement because no discussions happened in the comment section of those posts--people just clicked on like or typed out a short effusive praise (or sometimes a snarky comment), and that was it. Places like subreddits while had some interaction, it's a horrible platform for anything visual because it doesn't function like a normal forum in its structure or features, and most I've seen were run by people who act more like tyrants than trying to create and maintain a community that truly helps artists grow, with unreasonable and oddball rules they enforce with inexplicable rigor. Discord is the latest in the evolution of social interaction online, and it has also not been ideal, because when people post their work, very little engagement happens based on discussions of the work, and any experienced artist will either get swarmed by beginners hungry for answers, or get ignored because no one feels like they have enough knowledge or experience to comment on the work of someone who's far more advanced. So it's just people posting emoji reactions and that's it. Whatever exceptions there might be, are too few and too infrequent to even come close to the kind of community digital artists had back in the day. 

From the oldest posts here, it appears the person who created this forum felt the same way and wanted to create a place where digital artists can once again have the kind of community that once existed back then. However, from how things look, it is just limping along, with very little traffic and activity, and there is almost no presence of veteran advanced artists to shepherd the next generation of aspiring artists, or even just talking among themselves about the advanced issues they struggle with as experienced artists, and the less experienced artists can listen in and learn from their hard-won insights. In some ways, this is understandable, because once online paid education for digital art became a thing, anyone with enough experience would rather earn an additional income stream with that hard-won knowledge and experience, because god knows we don't get paid enough for the amount of love we pour into what we do, not to mention how stressful working as professional artist can be, especially in the entertainment industry. So advanced artists prefer to stay out of places where they'll just get swarmed by less experienced artists with endless questions, and that means they only post to their social media and art hub portfolio page, and whatever interaction they crave with other advanced artists, will have to be in private, at the studios they work at, or private small groups they have formed with colleagues and friends. 

Although I can logically explain why things are the way they are, I still lament the loss of what we had back then. Maybe this post is just me mourning what we lost, and what the younger generation will never get to experience. Part of me wanted to start posting here just to see if doing so will eventually lead to changes that will turn this place into what we had back then. But of course this is just wishful thinking, because when all those old art forums eventually died, they all struggled for years to keep things going but finally had to call it quits. 

Anyway, I guess I'm posting this to gauge what the response will be like, and then go from there.

[Eidothea]

Hey there, just came across your post.
I'm sort of having a similar situation like yours. I was searching for art communities to join in, like discord servers, websites like deviantart and art station, instagram,... but you know, the atmosphere is not so engaging as i expected. In my early days of posting art online, i was fascinated with the forums that people just come around, chat and interact with one another. But i was too young at the time, so i never have the gall to create an account to talk in those fourms. Time went by, i'm old enough for it (haha), the vibes just died off. So yeah, I kinda missed of what it could have been for interacting with people via forums like this.
I am new here too, i signed up like a few minutes ago, i'm also testing the waters here.
Hopefully, we'll able to have fun in this quiet corner of the internet hehe.

[darktiste]

I think it just a matter of how the internet as evolve and how e-learning as evolve it not some kind of magic moment you can capture and bottle and resell to yourself .The state of forum is a matter of how people wish to interact and this age where thing become blurry by the day for human to human interaction it hard to make connection in space where bot might create a false sense of engagement so for us a certain generation of us we seek to get back to were root seeing what was lost.We don't want to get the repost or the like we want something that more meainingful more authentic more community base .But community are flawed and relation prove to be hard to maintain again an age were where relation are more superficial then they are meaningful.Relation take time and people might take them for granted so people might quit because they don't feel that they get back what they put in...

[JosephCow]

Yeah sad. :( Would love to have you posting, not sure what to say beyond that. Like you said, the more experience you have the less likely you are to be hanging around on internet forums? Hence the current situation. I don't know if it's really helpful to keep lamenting the loss of those old communities though. Things just are what they are, they change and evolve. I wish this forum were more vibrant, or that there was another one somewhere that was. But I'm grateful for y'all that are here. Today's a new day. It's not 2002. I'm just trying to keep pushing forward and make connections where I can.

[Lunatique]

Sorry for my first post here being such a downer. I'll post some stuff, and even if nothing changes and this forum stays low-traffic and there isn't much activity, it's probably still better than the alternatives out there I've seen.

[Leo Ki]

Welcome here, Lunatique and Eidothea :)

I was part of the last years of the golden age of art forums and although everything was already starting to crumble apart it was still an adrenaline rush learning experience. The internet was like the invention of the printing press centuries ago, but a million times more impactful. And chaotic.

Crimson Daggers' monthly challenges still have some of that spirit where people exchange a lot. The sketchbook section feels more like Tumblr except for the occasional fits of engagement, maybe because there are not enough people to constitute solid groups that share similar interests.

I'll resume updating my sketchbook thread in the hope I can help make the place more active and reach the critical mass.

[FallowGround]

This is mainly why I found myself here too, to be honest. I really want a more slow-paced, archived community that favours longer discussion and more in-depth replies. Folks knowing each other, a sense of community etc. And obviously a place to learn and be able to share knowledge in return. This is a hard sector we're working in, one where the learning never ends and an industry that currently feels more volatile than ever. We need spaces to talk and support each other that are not just social media spaces that favour the quick, controversial or quippy. I suspect I'm quite a bit younger than you but managed to catch the tail end of forum-based online culture and really hope we manage to retain it or keep it alive somehow.

I think the spirit of what you're talking about definitely still exists. I snooped through your profile out of curiosity and it seems like you're based in Cali, there's a bunch of really active and vibrant art groups close to you. Warrior Painters is one, both their discord group and their irl painting meet-ups seem really amazing. My own country has essentially no art scene though, so my views might be skewed. A lot of this experience intermingling seems to have moved largely onto Discord now. There's a couple of great places for resources and learning with plenty of fellow professionals, but some of the best are either invite only or very hard to find. There's definitely more of a transactional feel to a lot of these places too, with many of them starting off as an artist's personal server (usually someone offering classes etc) which is a pity, but I'll take it over having no spaces at all. I definitely envy your experience. I never embraced the jump to social media, and really wish I had been able to experience this sense of a collective journey or community forums like CA provided.

Thanks a lot for writing up this retrospective of your experience with the online art communities back in the day. I've been lucky enough to attend a few workshops by folks like Mike Azevedo, or Ian McQue and they mentioned similar things too. The rest of us get to vicariously have a small taste of the excitement of those days through you.

Maybe one day we'll see a similar resurgence, who knows.

[Lunatique]

This is mainly why I found myself here too, to be honest. I really want a more slow-paced, archived community that favours longer discussion and more in-depth replies. Folks knowing each other, a sense of community etc. And obviously a place to learn and be able to share knowledge in return. This is a hard sector we're working in, one where the learning never ends and an industry that currently feels more volatile than ever. We need spaces to talk and support each other that are not just social media spaces that favour the quick, controversial or quippy. I suspect I'm quite a bit younger than you but managed to catch the tail end of forum-based online culture and really hope we manage to retain it or keep it alive somehow.

I think the spirit of what you're talking about definitely still exists. I snooped through your profile out of curiosity and it seems like you're based in Cali, there's a bunch of really active and vibrant art groups close to you. Warrior Painters is one, both their discord group and their irl painting meet-ups seem really amazing. My own country has essentially no art scene though, so my views might be skewed. A lot of this experience intermingling seems to have moved largely onto Discord now. There's a couple of great places for resources and learning with plenty of fellow professionals, but some of the best are either invite only or very hard to find. There's definitely more of a transactional feel to a lot of these places too, with many of them starting off as an artist's personal server (usually someone offering classes etc) which is a pity, but I'll take it over having no spaces at all. I definitely envy your experience. I never embraced the jump to social media, and really wish I had been able to experience this sense of a collective journey or community forums like CA provided.

Thanks a lot for writing up this retrospective of your experience with the online art communities back in the day. I've been lucky enough to attend a few workshops by folks like Mike Azevedo, or Ian McQue and they mentioned similar things too. The rest of us get to vicariously have a small taste of the excitement of those days through you.

Maybe one day we'll see a similar resurgence, who knows.

I think all the old-timers feel it, and if they're doing something about it, it's all in private with private groups that aren't open to the public. 

The problem with Discord is they are designed for relatively real-time interaction, and once a post has scrolled up far enough, it's very hard to find unless you remember the exact key words to search for, the person who made the post. And replying to an older post would be kinda weird, unlike in forums where revival of zombie threads is very common and that conversation would take off again easily when there are new input from members. Some Discord servers have tried to create structures similar to forums, but that doesn't fix the transient feeling of older posts scrolling away further and further. 

I checked out Warrior Painters' website, and it seems nice, but very specific with a focus on plein air painting meetups. 

Now that I'm here, I'm doing what I have always done in forums back in the day, and I don't know how much that contributes to this community, but at least it's something.

[Pubic Enemy]

The early days of art forums, and of the Internet in general were indeed a unique thing that we probably won't see again. Now I try my best not to be sad that it's over, but rather smile because it happened. At the very least, niche forums do still exist and still provide the opportunity for more substantial and satisfying communication than you will get on Discord or on any social media site where fast-moving and low-quality interaction is the norm.

I'm glad to see you posting, Lunatique, and to hear that you're still drawing. Your latest portrait studies are really impressive. You have a distinct style, and it looks like you take your time with your pieces and genuinely enjoy making them. I don't get that impression so much when I see stuff with 30k+ likes on twitter. (Confirmation bias? I dunno.)

I remember seeing your posts and artwork somewhere 10+ years ago and I thought they were beautiful. I remember a piece that I think was called "Melancholic Princess" in particular. Anything that you feel like posting is a perfectly fine contribution.

[Lunatique]

The early days of art forums, and of the Internet in general were indeed a unique thing that we probably won't see again. Now I try my best not to be sad that it's over, but rather smile because it happened. At the very least, niche forums do still exist and still provide the opportunity for more substantial and satisfying communication than you will get on Discord or on any social media site where fast-moving and low-quality interaction is the norm.

I'm glad to see you posting, Lunatique, and to hear that you're still drawing. Your latest portrait studies are really impressive. You have a distinct style, and it looks like you take your time with your pieces and genuinely enjoy making them. I don't get that impression so much when I see stuff with 30k+ likes on twitter. (Confirmation bias? I dunno.)

I remember seeing your posts and artwork somewhere 10+ years ago and I thought they were beautiful. I remember a piece that I think was called "Melancholic Princess" in particular. Anything that you feel like posting is a perfectly fine contribution.

Thank you for the kind words. I've had a few artists on Artstation message me and tell me they don't understand why I have so few followers when I should have far more, especially when I was one of the well-known digital artists back in the day. It can be disheartening if you dwell on it or if it's directly tied to your livelihood. 

I think partly it's because I took a break from doing art seriously for about ten years to focus on music and writing, and in that time so many upcoming artists established themselves, and just like in all other forms of art, the available of information on the Internet, in books, and in classrooms have grown exponentially, allowing the younger artists to learn and grow very effectively and surpass many of the artists of the previous generation. Also, trends change and I don't work in the trendy styles popular now--I just do what I'm interested in, which is kind of niche. But even within that narrow scope, there are artists who are much more well-known with impressive number of followers. I guess that's just how life is. The world is full of creatives who once led their field, then became obscure. I'm glad I at least had my day in the sun back then, and the truth is, I never really cared that much, not even back then, because how I feel about my own work was the most important thing, and I was never satisfied with my own work. Some people were vocal back then about how among the well-known digital artists,Ｉwas one of the least talented/proficient, and maybe they were right. Ultimately how we feel about our own work is what matters the most, and I continue to work to fulfill my aspirations

It's funny you mentioned Melancholic Princess. It's so silly that my work became a famous Internet urban myth/meme with over a million views, and it had nothing to do with me really. (For those who don't know about it, check out this link: The Melancholic Princess / Sonee | Know Your Meme) I never benefited from it in any way--all I got was people contacting me every once a while telling me my artwork had been used in that way or asking if I had ever finished writing Tellurian Sky or had it been published or released to the public in some form.

Being here has been pretty nice so far. It's very slow compared to how art forums were like back then, but it's the only forum of its kind still going, so this is it--it's all we have, and we just have to make the most of it. I dropped by the Discord server the other day to say hi and to tell the folks there that I'm here. The interaction there is pretty much the same as any other Discord artist servers, and I guess there are those who prefer the immediacy of Discord, and the transient nature of it doesn't bother them.

[Pubic Enemy]

Thank you for the kind words. I've had a few artists on Artstation message me and tell me they don't understand why I have so few followers when I should have far more, especially when I was one of the well-known digital artists back in the day. It can be disheartening if you dwell on it or if it's directly tied to your livelihood. 

I think partly it's because I took a break from doing art seriously for about ten years to focus on music and writing, and in that time so many upcoming artists established themselves, and just like in all other forms of art, the available of information on the Internet, in books, and in classrooms have grown exponentially, allowing the younger artists to learn and grow very effectively and surpass many of the artists of the previous generation. Also, trends change and I don't work in the trendy styles popular now--I just do what I'm interested in, which is kind of niche. But even within that narrow scope, there are artists who are much more well-known with impressive number of followers. I guess that's just how life is. The world is full of creatives who once led their field, then became obscure. I'm glad I at least had my day in the sun back then, and the truth is, I never really cared that much, not even back then, because how I feel about my own work was the most important thing, and I was never satisfied with my own work. Some people were vocal back then about how among the well-known digital artists,Ｉwas one of the least talented/proficient, and maybe they were right. Ultimately how we feel about our own work is what matters the most, and I continue to work to fulfill my aspirations

That's a very good attitude to have; the only one to have, really.

The whole gettin' popular thing is an odd subject now because it's a lot less meritocratic than you would think. A lot of artists that are massively popular right now (e.g. Loish, Artgerm) are so partially because they've been posting constantly since the days when there were a lot less people on the Internet and the average level of engagement was higher. You really only needed to be better than the bottom 50% of deviantart to start building a following. Now Caravaggio could make a post and it would just be another drop in the ocean that might be seen by 1 person.

I agree that the average level of skill among younger artists seems to be higher than it used to be thanks to the great availability of learning materials, but their works mostly have a derivative look that makes it seem like they all watched the same tutorials. I remember the art that I saw 10+ years ago as being mostly crappier but more memorable, and the ones who were good had much more distinctive styles and techniques on average. But maybe making derivative work is part of being young and I'm just being an asshole.

I'm guessing your 10 year break happened right when the transition to a mostly social media focused Internet was just about complete. From what other artists say, getting popular now seems to be a matter of either getting lucky and/or slowly building a following by doing commissions and/or being highly active on social media. I applaud people who can do that and still enjoy drawing; I couldn't.

Also, I completely forgot about that princess meme. No wonder that painting stuck out in my memory so much, LOL.

Yeah, this forum is all we've got. There aren't any other options I know of for people who prefer the older style of forums. One of the main things about Discord that bothers me is the fact that it's supplanted forums on all kinds of niche topics. When everyone was posting on forums, there was a lot more interesting information that could be publicly searched and read. You're not gonna easily find an enlightening Discord discussion thread on some obscure topic, even if the chatroom is public. Reddit serves this purpose somewhat, but it's just not as pleasant or as readable as the old forum format, and professionals (in art, at least) seem to prefer having private discord chatrooms. Professionals and noobs on the same website really seems to have been a one-off thing of the early-late 2000s.

At least one can still read parts of old forums on the wayback machine.

[RottenPocket]

I am not as active as I should be. Nowhere near. And there are a lot of affecting components that I could blame, but by now I think I've almost made it my reputation to crawl out from the depths every so often.. Like an Oar-fish.... or Squid.

Like a bottom feeder I do find my connection to the art space in the dark, adrift, scraping off the most recent whale-fall. Always the optimist however, I will lurk until the day I die. Things are looking up with the encroach of AI prompting the creation of more secure and nurturing online environment for Artists. Places that will allow for the same presence and discourse as the dA chatrooms, forums, CA.org and others.

So I guess Hi, hang out in the discord some time.

[Farvus]

I used to be regular poster at CA.org though less known one. Eventually I ended up getting job in games industry (I mostly worked on mobile games). I come back to this forum once every few months and even post something recently but sadly I started to question the idea of having something like public sketchbook thread in the age of AI scraping. Maybe AI just changed my views on sharing images on the internet in general.

I was curious of the origins of this forum and I came across this post on Dave Rapoza blog from 2014:

http://daverapoza.blogspot.com/2014/10/g...arren.html

It started as tight community of around 10 highly motivated people that learned and pushed each other together to do better work. They ended up being successful enough that their careers took off and they focused in the end on their jobs. They left off forum and this initial energy was lost. Where I am going with this?
I think in terms of art communities focused on learning there is some life cycle and also there need to be small amount of right people with common goal. Maybe forum formula is good but nowdays it would work better as something more private, small and while ability to archive is good in the end all that information is just used for the time of learning. After that people move on.

PS. To be honest I am thinking once in a while about starting my own forum style community but it's easier said than done. Maybe some day...

[Lunatique]

I used to be regular poster at CA.org though less known one. Eventually I ended up getting job in games industry (I mostly worked on mobile games). I come back to this forum once every few months and even post something recently but sadly I started to question the idea of having something like public sketchbook thread in the age of AI scraping. Maybe AI just changed my views on sharing images on the internet in general.

I was curious of the origins of this forum and I came across this post on Dave Rapoza blog from 2014:

http://daverapoza.blogspot.com/2014/10/g...arren.html

It started as tight community of around 10 highly motivated people that learned and pushed each other together to do better work. They ended up being successful enough that their careers took off and they focused in the end on their jobs. They left off forum and this initial energy was lost. Where I am going with this?
I think in terms of art communities focused on learning there is some life cycle and also there need to be small amount of right people with common goal. Maybe forum formula is good but nowdays it would work better as something more private, small and while ability to archive is good in the end all that information is just used for the time of learning. After that people move on.

PS. To be honest I am thinking once in a while about starting my own forum style community but it's easier said than done. Maybe some day...

I wouldn't let AI alter how you choose to interact with the world as an artist. It's going to scrape what it can find no matter what, and it's already got more than enough resources to do whatever it wants--the rest is just how the developers improve the machine learning capabilities so the AI can use the resources it already has even better. Even if every person on the planet stopped posting stuff on the web for AI to steal, it's already far too late and the AI already has more than enough of what it needs. 

The fact all the original members who started this forum moved on after they went pro is interesting. For some folks, once they start working in the industry, they start to rely on co-workers and friends in the industry instead of forums. Also, those intense few years before becoming good enough to go pro required all of their time and energy, and once they start to make a living at it, some would begin to feel like they want to spend their time off-work on other things like hobbies and other creative passions, instead of continuing to put all their time and energy into art. 

I remember in the last couple of years of my time in the game industry as art director, I pretty much spent all my off-work time moonlighting as a composer for film/games, since music is actually a bigger passion of mine compared to art. I did a little bit of volunteer work as concept artist on Black Mesa only because I loved the idea the team wanted to remake Half-Life with updated graphics and tech, and that was the only art I did in those two years outside of work. If I was still working in game or animation or film, I'm pretty sure outside of work, I would not be doing any art at all, save a portrait or two here and there, and the rest of my free time will be spent on writing novels and making music, as compared to them, doing art is more like just a job--at least the kind of work entertainment industries require. 

Even now, I find myself wanting to take some time to work on the portraits I haven't finished, but my novels and music takes up all of my free time so the unfinished work just sits on my hard drive.

[Farvus]

While I agree that AI companies scraped enough to achieve capable models that can generate most of the things you ask for, I think one of the limitation of AI is that it's fixed in time. It can create only from what has been done before. For now they pobably focused on optimizing what they got and try to put things under control but I think in few years it will start to look outdated because tastes change and it will be tempting to get more fresh data. Hopefully by that time it will be regulated and there will be some protections in place. Maybe Glaze and Nightshade protection will become also more mainstream among digital artists.
For me personally I work in multiple styles and I experiment a lot so it would probably be hard to train a model on my work that would give consistent results :).

As for going pro and then loosing time and energy to share with communities. In studio I am working in, I already have community of fellow co-worker artists and we share our personal work in one of the Slack channels related to art. We also have our Miro board where we gather knowledge and all sorts of image tutorials. I could totally skip forums and other communities if I wanted to.
I guess there is just nostalgia element to forums that haven't left me. Also I find that only doing art for work makes person not experiment as much. I experienced many projects where I put a lot of work into them and the project ended up canceled and together with that I lost opportunity to put that work in my portfolio. This is sad for me but unfortonately to develop I need to put extra hours after work for drawing. For sure it's not as much time when I was beginning to learn and I have other hobbies as well.