Is the average Weasyl user LESS tolerant to fetish-driven art?

[Metsys]

CGSociety and DeviantArt mainly. DeviantArt because that's where everyone asks, and CGSociety because that's my main online community. (It's not just 3D stuff. they have a thriving vis dev community, and it's a more mature audience than ConceptArt.org).

As for a clean animal/anthropomorphic focused gallery, I have not been able to find one. I don't think it exist, a fact that to this day blows my mind, and regrettably reinforces the furry stereotype way too effectively, especially in our industry.

[kynliod]

CGSociety and DeviantArt mainly. DeviantArt because that's where everyone asks, and CGSociety because that's my main online community. (It's not just 3D stuff. they have a thriving vis dev community, and it's a more mature audience than ConceptArt.org).

As for a clean animal/anthropomorphic focused gallery, I have not been able to find one. I don't think it exist, a fact that to this day blows my mind, and regrettably reinforces the furry stereotype way too effectively, especially in our industry.

I'll check it out! I am on DA as well, obviously, but I feel way out of place here most of the time, because I don't really do furry art or fit into that fandom. I enjoy the work of others, though, and that's where I got my start (anyone remember SCFA?), but it's not really an interest for me in general.

BTW, were you on Artspots way back? I seem to remember your username, but it's been so long now, LOL!

[Metsys]

CGTalk (as the forums are called) is an industry forum so it can be pretty daunting. There's a lot of very technical discussions, and a lot of art being posted with the bar set pretty high. If you push yourself and post original work (i.e. not fan art), I think you'll fit in. A lot of artists avoid CGTalk because of the average quality of the artwork being posted there, which is why they'll usually go to places like ConceptArt.org, which is still very learning and critique focused, so that's good. It's been a while since I've been on CA. In the past it was so busy and the server was responding so slowly that I just couldn't keep up with everything that was going on. So. Many. Sketchbook. Threads. The whole site underwent a huge redesign and refocus, so I don't have any experience with the modern CA.org.

If you choose to interact with communities like CGTalk, don't let the quality of the art deter you. If you want to soar with the eagles, don't fly with the turkeys. You'll naturally become like the people you surround yourself with. CA.org is still pretty good though.

Yes, I was on Artspots. I gave a lot of critiques and feedback on the forums while it was still running. It became so close to being an anthropomorphic-themed gallery site that professional character designers would have actively participated in. Which is a bummer because there's so much well-designed animal character design being done in the entertainment industry but there's no niche gallery or community for it. Which I guess is okay (or rather makes sense) because I only know of two people that specialize in animal design in the industry. Everyone else that can do it are very well-rounded artists, so I think the availability of a general audience gallery site for animal characters reflects that.

[kynliod]

You aren't kidding, wow, some incredible work there! I might have to lurk for a while and see what I think after a while. I want to go more pro in a couple of years when the kids are older, but I'm still not sure what direction I want to go. I've been binging on fan art lately, but it is good practice if nothing else. BTW, I tried to look you up on there, but the search wasn't working.

I loved the Artspots forum! I learned so much there, and I kept a sketchbook there for a long time. When everything disbanded, nothing really came along to take its place, which was really too bad. I do remember you posting there from time to time on my critique threads!

[Aurin]

It became so close to being an anthropomorphic-themed gallery site that professional character designers would have actively participated in. Which is a bummer because there's so much well-designed animal character design being done in the entertainment industry but there's no niche gallery or community for it.

I was always wondering that was the issue with ArtSpots and Yerf. Communities that wanted to reach out and be helpful with all the how-to information, yet were relatively hard to get involved with. (I've always felt I receive more insight from communities with a "free for all" philosophy.) It's almost kind of comforting to realize it was all just for eventually creating a haven for technique-oriented professionals and semi-professionals who are into the niche.

Thus it doesn't surprise me at all to learn such a community still doesn't exist. I still fail to see what good could be achieved with such a construction when especially networking and keeping in touch is made quite easy with web 3.0.

[lorenith]

I don't think Weasyl users are less tolerant of Fetish-Driven art, I think it just seems that way because Weasyl has more tools in place to help someone avoid it if they don't want to see it, and then they find out that the tools are useless cause many users who produce smut like to deliberately misrate and mistag their work for whatever reason. Frustrated people of course are good at being louder than normal too so that probably draws more attention to them.

I was always wondering that was the issue with ArtSpots and Yerf. Communities that wanted to reach out and be helpful with all the how-to information, yet were relatively hard to get involved with. (I've always felt I receive more insight from communities with a "free for all" philosophy.) It's almost kind of comforting to realize it was all just for eventually creating a haven for technique-oriented professionals and semi-professionals who are into the niche.

I dunno about Artspots, but I thought Yerf was really nice before it suffered the catastrophic failure, at which point things happened and the community kind of collapsed/dispersed and has never been all in one place since then. I remember trying to get in once and I think I got a -3 (possibly worse) with a lot of good feedback and suggestions to try again some day. The general and critique board was quite active, and it also had a lot of good art driven forum games and events. I wish Yerf hadn't died, I've never been able to find a community as friendly and helpful as Yerf was, and that makes me rather sad.

[kynliod]

Lorenith, sounds like Yerf was to you what Artspots was to me. And I have yet to find anything like that since. I was on Yerf a little bit, but if I remember right, that was around the same time I was using Artspots, so I didn't really click with them because I already had a place like that established. I do remember being frustrated that you couldn't comment unless you had some critique to give. I'm not a big comment person in general, but I do like to just give props sometimes without picking things apart. If I remember right, though, there were quite a large number of folks from SCFA there, and I have no idea what happened to any of them (unless they're on FA, which is definitely not a site I will be using).

[Metsys]

It's almost kind of comforting to realize it was all just for eventually creating a haven for technique-oriented professionals and semi-professionals who are into the niche.

No, just to clarify what I said. The purpose of the site was not to be a place for professional artists only.

I took interest in the site because they joined JaxPad (the free-for-all gallery) and ArtSpots (the applicant-only gallery). (That and it was the only site I could do secondary research for a project involving animal characters.) ArtSpots and JaxPad were two sister gallery sites but with a combined forum so amateurs and more experienced artists could gather and mingle together. The gesture of moving both amateurs and pros under the ArtSpots banner was something I approved of. It would help give budding artists more exposure under the ArtSpots brand. The artists who had previously passed the application process were given a special status so people could still view just the art of those users, duplicating the original ArtSpots gallery experience. However, I recall that feature taking a while to implement, pissing off a lot of users who really, REALLY liked the curated ArtSpots applicant-only gallery.

ArtSpots was a free-for-all site. The community was very inclusive and there was no gatekeeper to upload art or participate in the forums. But submitting a portfolio and being accepted into the applicant-only gallery provided a goal for artists. It gave them a clear path for improvement in a fandom that appears to be devoid of that. Sure, the wasn't for everybody; the site was geared towards artistic improvement and for artists wanting to grow. That was the whole point of the site, and it was awesome.

Keep in mind that I'm stating this from the perspective of a non-furry talking about a furry art gallery site. Among all the concept art, computer graphics, and animation community forums I participated in, even though it was small, ArtSpots had the best community I had ever participated in. I'm not kidding. The people there were stellar. And honestly, I think it's why I have empathy for you guys. Thanks to the availability heuristic and a wicked selection bias, I have a really rosy view of the type of people in your community.

What I said was specifically my wish that ArtSpots would have turned into a site that professional character designers would have actively participated in. I can't speak for the people who ran the site. Publicly the main goal for the site was for it to be about artist improvement for artists of all levels. Any other goals besides that, long term or otherwise, I can't speak for the staff. But the direction of the site made it accessible to the type of artists many look up to.

It would have been nice to have a community where professional artists, vis dev artists, character designers, animators, and other professionals in the industry would feel comfortable coming to a animal-centric site, creating forum threads, chatting with artists (people like you), discussing character design theory, writing how-tos, red-lining and critiquing your work, and in general just being able to have access to people in the industry who design animal characters for feature films and TV shows. If there was ever going to be a community that would have bridged that gap, it would have been ArtSpots. But for now to have access to those kinds of people you have to go into their realm, and scrub anything that resembles furry art from your portfolio and your identity to be taken seriously, because people in the industry know that the only furry art sites are those kinds of art sites, sites that a working professional would never dare set foot in. An honestly, I think it's unfair to you guys that despite the mountains of anthropomorphic character design being done in the industry, that there isn't any overlap between your community and theirs (speaking in a collective sense, not an individual sense; furries do work in feature and TV). I'm curious if this is why many artists who "made it" ended up renouncing any affiliation with the furry fandom. I won't name who, but there's a number of them.

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I'm curious about how people outside ArtSpots thought about it. It seemed to be divisive in certain circles and a number of artists created some drama over it.

[Sassafras]

No, sorry, but anything taking baby/children related topics and sexualizing them is not cool. There are certainly issues of "taste", but you have to draw the line somewhere. Not everything is okay. I realize this might draw negative response in some circles, but I stand by my statement.

You're not standing by your statement though. Your original statement slammed violence/rape fetishes, and agreed with another poster's words who slammed scat. On what grounds are you slamming violence/rape and scat fetishes? Other than your own personal tastes?

[kynliod]

Actually, I am standing by my statement. I'm not about to get into an internet debate on this issue, but I didn't say anything about scat fetishes (however, I have no problem going on the record as saying that's gross, and I'm fairly certain I'm not alone on that issue). I really don't even see the need to defend myself on the violence/rape fetish issue. And honestly, for the most part, I don't really care if people give me the side eye for that. I think it's dangerous, reckless, and in poor taste to create sexual fantasies that are based on harming and violating other people. If you really think about what rape is, and how many lives have been destroyed by it, I hope that would give you pause. Just because it's pretend doesn't mean it's okay, and it's a dangerous beast to feed. Two consenting adults can do that if they want, I'm not arguing that they be legally banned from it, but I don't think it's right. Feel free to quote me on that.