armaina

I've been on the internet for about 22 years, and in that time I've used an absurd amount of art galleries. In light of this, I thought it might be of interest to myself and also others, that I list all these services I've used and write up a little blurb about the service and/or my experiences with it. It won't be any kind of structured review just blurbs, a little bit history, a little bit opinion piece. The sites are listed in (mostly) chronological order, ones that are still around will be linked and all sites with a ø symbol are dead. I'll be updating this page over time as I use more sites so that I can have a quick reference to everything I've used at any time.

øElfwood: The first ever art gallery I ever had and very likely the first gallery for others, I'd go as far as to say it is what made the concept of the social online art gallery a thing at all. It was a form of Juried site though, at the time it was the first and only of it's kind. All submissions had to be reviewed by a person, and while that meant it was easier to prevent stealing, it also made keeping a gallery up to date, very frustrating and it also prevented several subjects from appearing on the site at all. I uploaded fantasy art and started my presence as an online illustrator, sharing with other artists. While the site managed to last long past its relevance, the interface hardly changed and its attempts to make a new layout came far too late in its life cycle and the much complained about art screening never really got addressed making it slowly more irrelevant as more options started to appear. I tried to stay with this site for as long as it persisted until it's final days if nothing else because it was the one that started it all.

VCL: It's amazing that this site still persists, to this day. The site is simple, offers no engagement features at all. It looks like a lot of the users that haven't used the site in some time have been purged, but you could still use it if you really wanted. Illustrative works only, no photography, though I think you can upload text files.

øMediaMiner: The first real 'general art site' I encountered in late 1999. I used this pretty extensively at the time, as it was easier to use than both Elfwood and VCL, and also didn't have restrictions on the subject matter I could have.

DeviantArt: Joined in 2002, it's continued to be a mainstay in my work. Like media-miner, it aimed to be a big catch-all art website, not only that it also permitted written works, design, skins, crafts, just about any kind of art and design that had been neglected by anything available (and is often still neglected in many as you'll see). Due to its ability to house all many different types of creative works, easy to use interface, the ability to discover and engage in ways no other place I had used at the time, it grew very quickly. It set the standard for what was expected from art gallery options from then on out and continues to do so. RSS feeds for all galleries and favorites, the ability to watch favorites, drag and drop organization, folders and nested folders for organization, comment management, dedicated critique commenting, groups, easy thumbnail use in comments, this is just a fraction of the type of features DeviantArt has pioneered and influenced other art sites after it. It is the largest gallery archive of mine apart from my personal archive and will remain to be one of my first choices in what I decide to keep up to date and I'll probably keep it going until it no longer exists. About the only type of file it doesn't out-right support is audio, it remains one of the only sites to cover the most bases.

øSheezyArt: DA made some change and people were upset so they made Sheezy Art. It had this reputation for being the more.. drama filled version of deviant art. It permitted mature content in the beginning but then banned it 2 years later (this lead to the creation of FurAffinity) It had all the features DeviantArt did due to it being pretty much a code fork of DA's old code base, and its only real selling point was that you could customize all the colors on your page. But it's lack of management, updates and features just made people go back to DeviantArt and it eventually folded after empty promises of a rebuild.

Newgrounds: Most people had known this place for its flash games, as did I, but I discovered it had a very nice and genuinely helpful artist community on the forums. Only recently has the site expanded to permit more than 4 tags an image, but the upload system, in general, is awkward. It also has a rating system if that's something someone might be interested in. Illustrative works only, no photography, no literary works. Porn allowed.

øStorm-Artists: Also started as a sort of DeviantArt alternative, I honestly don't even know their angle or what made them feel like they could have their own place on the internet and others I think felt the same as it languished with no real updates and eventually died.

FurAffinity: So I've effectively used this site, twice. The first time in its first iteration before it had a huge major security issue that brought it down, making the original owner give it up. And then again years later I tried it one more time only for another security problem to happen. The site is old and archaic, lacking in features and its only benefit is that it's consistently trafficked. I'll never touch the site again until certain key players in FA are replaced. Many forms of Photography are restricted, not really a good place for design work, no video support. Porn allowed.

øFurry Art Pile: Genuinely liked this site, A lot of people did. In 2006 was the first tag heavy oriented art gallery of it's kind and not only did it use tags it was the first one I remember that had tag filtering. It was easy to upload and manage, so between those features, it became incredibly popular and still gets regarded as a site people wish had stuck around, even now. It's sad to say that it took about 10 years for the concept of tag filtering at all to catch on just about anywhere. To this day only Weasyl and a paid Pixiv account have functional, multi-tag filtering.

øJaxPad/ArtSpots: Started out as 2 sites, merged into one. One site was supposed to be one anyone could use, while the other was intended to be Juried like the old Yerf gallery. They had even imported all the old Yerf art with the original creators blessing. But volunteer support faded and it died due to being unable to not having the people to keep up with adding features and changes to the site.

øArt Piles: A revival of the Furry Art Pile code, it had the features people wanted but also ultimately tanked due to just the singular coder.

øPortalGraphics Network: This was a fairly niche gallery, as it was intended for users to post their openCanvas proprietary event files. The cool thing about it was that it would convert the files into a video format that would allow users to see the full progress of the work being done. You could even download those event files yourself to see them within openCanvas for personal study.

øFurocity: Another one of those 'more social media site than art gallery' sites. I used it for a time, gave a lot of direct feedback to the owner, but the site eventually was closed and merged with FurAffinity.

Paper Demon: Most people haven't heard of this site before, and for good reason - it's pretty unremarkable. One of the interesting features is that it has a strong distinction between its adult and clean sections of the site but otherwise there isn't much more going for it. It still exists and I've hardly touched it. Illustration and Literary focused, no photography, no audio or video support. Porn allowed.

Weasyl: It's actual inception came about by a person that was just looking to get rich off of providing 'a better FurAffinity'. Later on, the person who started the site left, and the administration staff that did any of the real work, remained. It had a strong few years where it kept on top of its updates and features but it has since languished, with hardly any real updates at all and no new features and a lead developer that doesn't seem to trust the artist base, it's difficult to say how long the site will last. It's the only other site apart from Nabyn at this time with a Character Profile feature and the only other site apart from Pixiv to have tag filtering. Restrictions on photography, no video support. Porn allowed.

øNabyn: Nabyn's effect and impact felt very similar to Furry Art Pile and it exploded in popularity quite quickly despite requiring a key to make an account. It had a robust character system that seemed to be the inspiration for many others after it. It also boasted a weird separate scrapbook feature that functioned more like blog/forum posts than an individual gallery. The site barely lasted a year before the owner shut it down due to being unable to keep up with the development of the site.

Wysp: An extremely easy-to-use site, doesn't require much for a new submission and has a Kudos feature that is a separate feature from likes, similar to AO3's Kudos feature. Its aim is to try to drive people to be motivated to draw and gives daily challenges and encouragement along with a critique feature. It also has the ability to thank people for comments, a sort of 'hey I read this' recognition which is nice for those short comments you don't know what to do about. However, it's only geared toward illustrative types of art. Illustrative works only, no photography, no audio, no video no literary works.

Pixel Joint: It does one thing and does it very well - host pixel art. It also provides a lot of resources and tools on techniques for making pixel art. However the community itself is not kind, it's elitist and gate-keeping. Which is a shame because it's platform allows you to zoom in on pixel art without requiring the artist to upload pre-upscaled images. It's the best site there is for showcasing pixel art, and that's about it.

Furry Network: I made an account, saw it was owned by Bad-Dragon, then simply filled in a few info bits in my profile and haven't touched it since, don't plan to. Whatever features it has I don't know, because I have no desire to use it.

ArtStation: the answer to the loss of CGHub, except it's better managed than CG hub and has a better interface. It features image stacks - multiple images posted in a single page, and a huge amount of resources and tools for employers to find work and artists to look for work themselves. Though it reads like a site that's only for 'professionals' the truth is, it has no restrictions on the skill level of a person to participate on the site. I think more people should use it, and just get over the fear that it's a 'professional' site. They offer a lot of good resources and the image stacks feature is so dang nice. Visual art and design only, restrictions of photography, no audio, no video, no literary works.

Pixiv: A completely viable gallery, I simply have not used it for myself. It has an English interface but most of its users do not speak English and it is a Japanese run website. Its organization is largely tag focused and it boasts an incredibly robust tag explanation and directory and is a feature I hope some English site adopts one day as this helps keeps tags organized and accurate. It also has an image stack upload feature, and as I'm aware was the first site to implement such a feature, it also now has manga submission support for an e-reader like features on the site. Other fun features are Image Responses, where you can make a submission a direct response to another submission, and reaction images you can use similar to emotes. You can follow people privately and it keeps likes and bookmarks separate from each other, rather than the same thing. Illustrative works only, no photography, no audio, no video no literary works. Porn allowed.

New Sites:

Furrylife Online: This is only just barely starting out, I don't have a lot of feelings on it yet but I'm talking to some of the people involved in its creation. It's a sort of Social Network Art Gallery hybrid much like Furry Network, except run by better people and already has a nicer interface. Also added a new character feature, making it the second only existing art community to have a dedicated character feature section apart from Weasyl. While it does not have tag filtering at this time, there are plans to add it. Only types of formats not supported at this time seem to be possibly photography, unsure about design work. Porn allowed.

ArtRise: The site isn't even completed yet, not even in beta.

Honorable Mentions:

øHumbleVoice: It was kinda like a social networking art site? I used it for a time, it was kinda mellow and nice. Kinda miss the chill introspective feel.

øzeros2heroes: This started as some strange social media promotion to promote the comic and eventual reboot of Reboot. It tried to find talent for the new works on the site and ultimately flopped. It now remains as a front end site for a production team.

I do not include sites like Instagram and Tumblr in my assessment as they are not dedicated art galleries.