[x]

Frequently Asked QuestionsI get asked many questions and it can be hard for me to answer them all, so I have compiled a list of questions which I'm often asked in the hope it is of interest to some of you

--Making Art--

Where did you learn?
I've taught myself. My Secondary (High) School art teacher told me 'cartoon are not art' and so I had no interest in perusing 'art' classes any further. At about 13 I began to draw every day, less studying, more drawing what came to mind, creating characters and worlds and getting my thoughts and feeling onto paper.
I joined deviantART at 15, and the feedback and critique I've gained through sharing my art online has helped a lot in my improvement. I wasn't born with a 'gift', unless you count functioning hands, I learned through practice. I am nowhere near finished my learning (and never will be) though now I

A note to artists who want to offer commissions. I would like to address something I have been seeing as of late here and on other sites. Artists who are asking if someone would commission them if they were to offer commissions and if so, how much should they charge or how much are they willing to pay?
I say this with a real heart to all artists, but that is a foolish line of questions.
Really. I have been there. I even did those myself. But look at it from the side of a potential buyer.
1: Would you even commission me?
Can you imagine if a doctor were to say that? If I were to open an office would you even come to me? That makes the doctor feel like a failure. Like he has so little faith in his ability to do his job he is afraid to do it. So he has to ask a thousand people IF he were to open an office would ANYONE come? Would you? Or would you want a doctor who just opens it and does his job and believes in his ability to treat you?
Same with an artist. You s

Managing Your Inbox: Some Tips on StreamliningI'm not really an organized person. Yeah, sure, I like to TRY to be one, but most of my attempts to clean house don't stick. The one exception, however, is in my online life. I keep everything to do with the computer tabbed and organized and that includes my dA life.
I posted a poll asking visitors what their inbox looked like on a typical day. As of this writing, of the 52 responses, 35 have full inboxes – that is, somewhere between 200 and up to (or over) 1000 messages to sort through. So about 70% of the voters have quite a lot to page over.

I hear horror stories quite frequently from deviants who are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of things passing through their inbox. My personal inbox rarely reaches three digit numbers, and the few times it has, it's always been because something of mine has made the footer. While I can't promise that my personal methods will work for everyone, it n

Thoughts about communityCommunity is a word that is used on dA a lot. It's a huge part of the site and the main reason why I love this place so much and have stuck around for so many years, even when I haven't had time to indulge in my art or felt like sharing it for whatever reason. I've made true friends here who I care for deeply and can't imagine not using dA in some capacity to keep in touch with all of you wonderful people.
The thing with a community, in my opinion, is that it's kind of a by-product. I don't mean that in a bad or belittling way. What I mean is that you can't actually force a community to thrive, or even to exist. You can provide a context (like a website or a message board or a physical-world organisation) and tools (like comments or chat features online or a room to meet in for offline events). You can invite people to join in, encourage them to interact and even moderate destructive or negative behaviour but you can't make a community - it's something that happens by itself, th

La leyenda del hada y el magoCuenta la historia de un mago
que un día en su bosque encantado lloró.
porque a pesar de su magia
no había podido encontrar el amor.
La luna, su única amiga
le daba fuerzas para soportar
todo el dolor que sentía
por culpa de su tan larga soledad.
Es que él sabía muy bien que en su existir
nunca debía salir de su destino.
si alguien te tiene que amar, ya lo sabrás
sólo tendrás que saber reconocerlo.
Fue en una tarde que el mago
paseando en el bosque la vista cruzó
con la más dulce mirada
que en toda su vida jamás conoció.
Desde ese mismo momento
el hada y el mago quisieron estar
solos los dos en el bosque
amándose siempre y en todo lugar.
Y el mal que siempre existió, no soportó
ver tanta felicidad entre dos seres.
y con su odio atacó, hasta que el hada cayó
en ese sueño fatal de no sentir.
En su castillo pasaba
las noches el mago buscando el poder
que devolviera a su hada,
su amor, su mirada tan dulce de ayer.
Y no paró desde entonces
buscando la forma de recuperar
a la mujer que aquel

Why Wal-Mart should be broken up by the government1. Wal-Mart ran many small business owners out of business.
2. Most of the merchandise is manufactured overseas and is of poor quality.
3. Employees are receiving unethical treatment. They are underpaid, overworked, and forced to work off the clock.
4. What Standard Oil was from 1870 to 1911 is what Wal-Mart is from 1962 onwards.
5. When we think of McJobs we think of McDonalds. We must also associate McJobs with Wal-Mart.
6. The prefix Mc is a throwaway word.
7. Wal-Mart has too much power and too much money. They exploit not only employees at their stores but they also exploit third world nationals for cheap labour.
8. Wal-Mart has contributed to labour outsourcing and replacing many manual jobs with robots and technology.
9. Someone needs to put an end to Wal-Mart's monopoly. The next small business what Wal-Mart runs out of business will be the last.
10. Wal-Mart will have to appear in Federal Court for an anti-trust trial. If the jury rules in favour of the platiff then the little

in The SideWalks Uncertain of it's own actions
a society busy of it's own.
Products now produced,
all empty hands of bigger ones.
Minds made to consume,
lights, movements, vibrations.

Thoughtful desks,
all said actions untold.
What in the question,
click, a pulse from same machines.
Not the same to know,
questions the marks.

Tight in feeling,
shapes these perceptions.
Plugs and channels,
in remote sit, electricity.
Drive-thru by walk,
wheel of businesses.
BloodArt(literature) pinterest, facebook, skydrive

Podria importar del todoSi yo no estuviese aquí mañana, a alguien podría importarle?
Y si mi tiempo hubiera terminado, me gustaría saber si estabas feliz de que estará aquí.
Si yo no estuviese aquí mañana, podría alguien perder el sueño?
Si yo no fuera tan duro u hueco, entonces tal vez tu me extrañaras.
Yo se que soy un desastre, pero quiero ser alguien, alguien que me guste mas.
Nunca lo podre olvidar, así que no me lo recuerdes por siempre.
Y que si trato de olvida lo que soy, podría importar del todo?
Y que si yo solo trato de no recordar.
Todas las oportunidades que me han pasado, importaría si me dieran una oportunidad mas?
Podría importar del todo?
Si yo no estuviese aquí mañana, a alguien podría importarle?
Aun atascado dentro de este dolor, no tengo nada y voy a ningún lado.
Se que soy un desastre, pero quiero ser alguien, alguien que me guste mas.
Podrías ayúdame a olvidar, no quiero sentirme así por siempre.
Si me voy mañana, podría a alguien importarle?
Atascado en este dolor yendo a ningún la

#25. And the results of 24/24The results of 24 deviations in 24 hours, via the scheduled publishing, approximately are as follows: 1550 views, 240 faves, 20 comments. Is that good? I dunno, that's an average of 65 views, 10 faves and one comment each.
Here are the three most viewed:

And the three most faved:

So people like looking at the models most, but it's the landscapes that captivate them

Anyway, I like the scheduled publishing thing, and I'll use it to make sure something goes up every day, but I think I'll scale it back to two images per day. Enthrall people with quality, rather than a big slew of quantity.
What do you think?

Deguemer mat !welcome in Breton in dA !
I'm going to read regularly news about Brittany , or post some address of site about Brittany
bienvenus sur breton on dA!
seront régulièrement mise en ligne des infos sur la Bretagne et des adresse de site breton !

ReflectionI think one of the thing's we often forget to do is reflect on what has happened, in the past or present.
I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing but i can tell you know that over the past month or so i have been reflecting on my life, my home and what i do.
I think when it comes to reflecting back on thing's it can become an unhealthy obsession we look at what we did, and we obsess over every single little detail to the point where we can not better our selfs and to the point where reflection is a bad thing.
My Dad, told me a few thing's about how dad and mum got together and i was pissed off at myself for the way i treated my dad, and i was just angry, granted i was a highly strung emotional wreck that week, but still i was pissed off to the max.
Emma, who is my best friend, has the most amazing grandparents in the world, and affter the funral and after every thing that just happened last week, we got to sit down and reflect on the funeral and my thought process, wi

Release of Heraldic DocumentTO ALL AND SINGULAR:
To whom these Patents shall come ,Earl Christopher Cambell,Earl Marshall,sends greeting!
As instructed by the Court of Chivalry, we grant the following arms to SIR LARTENTER,KRC
Being:
http://vam.demo.lemberg.co.uk/sites/default/files/imagecache/vam_interactives_ugc_full_node/coa_submissions/picture_1368585900.jpg
PER CROSS AZUR AND VERT A CHEVRON OR THREE LIONS RAMPANT GULES
I, the said Earl Marshall,in witness by the President,grant these LETTERS PATENT on the Twenty-second day of May,MMIX.

Browse More Like This

more ▶

Featured in Groups:

Not currently featured in any groups.

Details

Submitted: May 19, 2010

Link

Thumb

Statistics

Comments: 57
Favourites: 17 [who?]
Views: 190 (0 today)

[x]

Review of Version 7 - Suggestions and Critiques

by `TimberClipse, May 19, 2010, 2:25:56 PM
Journals / Culture / Editorials

Review of deviantArt V7

Overview

Ok, so yesterday Version 7 was released to all of deviantArt.

Since then over 5000 people have "Faved" the news article, but almost another 3000 have rejected it!

So why is this? Because of change and because some things need to be different. $ewm has been working extremely hard with the dA staff to correct problems, but at this point I wanted to take some time and write a review of V7.

The Review

Score

Look - 9.5/10
Functionality - 9/10
Speed - 8/10
Agility - 9/10

Overall - 8.875/10 (Average of other scores)

OVERALL deviantArt Version 7 is extremely good. It is faster than V6, looks better, and is much more user friendly.
On the other hand it also has it's glitches, some of which were even present in the Beta Testing edition, and still are a problem.

DeviantArt V7 is a huge change from V6, the menus are moved, the whole set up is different! And as a beta tester I did not care for it much... at first. But after switching back to V6, I realized how much nicer it really was...

I literally went "OMG, it is so much easier to use" and went back.

Everything just looks clean and sleek, this is different from dA 6, which took some serious getting used to, links were hard to click on etc.

AGILITY is one functional part of any site that is very important, this is how easily you can get to functions on the site.

In dA 7 it is a lot easier to function on the site. For example, let's take a look at notes....


In dA 7, 1 click:

Scroll over your name, click notes.

in dA 6, 2 clicks: 

Click messages, wait for it to load - on slow connections this could be a while.
Click Notes tab - which is hard to find for new users.

So dA 7 speeds up notes, not only in speed to get there but number of clicks.

This can be seen in many areas where you save a little time here and there, but if you save lets say 60 seconds a day, that's 420 a week,

420 X 52 = 21,840 seconds a year
or
6 hours a year
or 60 hours every ten years!

Think about it, that's actually a lot of time!

SPEED is my largest problem. Loading deviations now takes even longer... Deviations will stay fuzzy for a long time and not load.

Other pages move no quicker than V6, so not really impressed here.

That said V6 was by no means slow, and I would have given V6 a 8.5/10, so this is worse here...

That said some changes could be made to increase speed and I hope they are!

FUNCTIONALITY I already went over a little. DA V7 is a lot easier to use, from clicks to accessing the news, and more the sticky bar and other such features make your life so much easier!

LOOK. Ok, stop complaining! This has really been everyone's complaint!

DeviantArt now features thousands if not millions of deviants. Why are there adds? Because at about 60 deviations every 15 seconds that ISN'T CHEAP!

Not to mention they have a staff, to keep this place going. They need some sort of way to make money.

If you don't like the ads, I am sorry but any large site/application/etc. needs them.

Fixes include ad blockers, go get one if you really care, or ask your friends for enough points for a subby!

Either way, this can be lived through.

dA V7 is new and therefore somewhat hard to navigate, I think everyone would agree with that. When I first got to it, it took me almost 5 minutes to find the basic options. But after I did it became second nature and a much easier to use and sleeker interface.

END RESULT. Overall I have to say awesome job dA! This is a solid product with many fewer bugs than it could potentially have, and a beautiful interface. That said there is still work to do, so after you get back from having a beer there's some work to be done!

Changes That are Needed

Ok, so one of the few bugs I reported was the friends tab bug, it won't show up around many parts of dA, and $pachunka is aware of it. We just really need a fix! This is my main problem... I hate it!

Buttons on the forums need to match the rest of the site

Users need to have an option to auto view comments (and this should be the default setting!

The words "Update Journal" need to be made into "New Journal Entry" it isn't an update

Under your name have an option for which clubs to be listed

Otherwise, keep it up!

Also

For those of you who dislike dA V7, post below with some problems (NICELY!) and I will see if I can help you out!

If you have any problems check out my Tutorial as well:

Thank you for reading!

`TimberClipse

57 Comments

Review of Version 7 - Suggestions and Critiquesby `TimberClipse

Journals / Culture / Editorials

~riskybiznez Jun 7, 2010 Hobbyist General Artist

Pretty much agree with all that you have said. I still sometimes have problems with transparency here and there, though I'm happy to see it's mostly fixed from the beta. I too miss having the search feature on pages. Would be nice to see one on the banner bar possibly, next to the shop button? A lot of my other problems I have finally found solutions for, such as how to search groups and how to view only deviations X3

`TimberClipse Jun 7, 2010 Professional Filmographer

If you turn on the sticky menu (Under the \/ by the side of the deviantART logo) it will give you a search bar everywhere

~riskybiznez Jun 7, 2010 Hobbyist General Artist

Awesome thanks!

~darklightningshadow Jun 7, 2010 Student Traditional Artist

I think it's a problem that certain sizes of art, when in fullview, the ad will cover part of the artwork (and here I thought the art was more important...). It's also nice when you're looking at deviations to see the title and the artist before the actual artwork.

*Destro2k May 23, 2010 Hobbyist Artisan Crafter

great review, it helped me out with the menu, cause i missed the search
but now i'm pleased

~Jewelweed May 21, 2010

I have a question, how do I set it so every time I view a picture it's automatically the large view? I can't seem to figure it out in v7.

~ashelynn Jun 7, 2010 Professional General Artist

It's a subby feature.

`TimberClipse May 21, 2010 Professional Filmographer

You can't I am sorry

TC

~notepadgirl Jun 3, 2010

I find that many people (including me) are bothered by this. It takes one more click to actually view one deviation. Maybe we save one click on notes, but we need to wait and click twice in every deviation, which adds up to more than one minute a day. I think this should be added to "Changes that are needed".

~Lightning-Powered May 20, 2010 General Artist

I think that score is too generous IMHO.

More from `TimberClipse in News

Featured in Groups:

Details

Statistics

Review of Version 7 - Suggestions and Critiques

Review of Version 7 - Suggestions and Critiquesby `TimberClipse

The Journal Portal

Polls

What is your preferred drawing software?

deviantART [dee·vee·un'nt·ART]

Keep in Touch!

Deviousness

Add Media

Style