web gallery thoughts again

[egypturnash]

Doing that new piece of art created some conundrums: where would I upload it?

VCL: It's got no furries in it.
Yerf: It's still got no furries in it. At least she's not naked.
Epilogue: It's got no fantasy or sf in it. (Plus Epilogue is down right now anyway.)
Illustratorworld: Is going AI-only, and this was done in Expression.
GfxArtist: Okay.
DeviantArt: Okay.

I ended up putting it on Illustratorworld anyway, without noting that it was done in something else. And on Gfx and DA.

Why is there not a genre- and media-agnostic gallery out there with a minimum level of quality? Or have I just not run across it yet?

---

What would I want to see in such a gallery if I was insane enough to try to start such a thing?

• Image viewing statistics (only visible to the artist)
  
• Comments on images and the artist in general
  
• Watchlists
  
• Low-key layout
  
• Quality control - I think Yerf's juried public applications are better than the one random editor system of Elfwood, Epilogue, and IW.
  
• Plain English terms of service (see the recent 'OMG DA OWNZ ALL YOR ART & THEY SOLD IT TO A TSHIRT SHOPPE' flap)
  
• DA's 'Favorite Image' is a good idea, but again, public exposure of the statistics are bad
  
• GFXArtist has a nice approach to 'adult' material: when you upload an image you can flag it as that, and viewers are warned of its possibly-offensive nature when they click on the thumbnail. It assumes the artist has enough sense to be able to know what qualifies as 'adult'.
  
  
  
  Things seen in other galleries that do not work for me:
  
• Public exposure of stats. Number of views, number of people who have marked it as a favorite, public enshrining of the 'daily top favorite'.
  
• Image Of The Day. Since it'd have a not-insignificant minimal skill level, how about a randomly-chosen 'Image of the Minute'? *grin*
  
• Subject restrictions. Fantasy. Furry. Sci-fi. Goth. Clean. Dirty. The only restriction I want to see is "made by someone can draw".
  
• Complicated layout. I'm looking at you, DA. So much extra useless clutter to distract from the art.
  
• Making your own thumbnails. This is why GfxArtist is annoying. Well, that and the doesn't-actually-host-images thing.
  
• Rigid image size restrictions, enforced mostly because the site's designer is in love with their layout. Some images have to be weird sizes.
  


Feel free to discuss the good and bad parts of the galleries you're aware of, as viewer or artist. I'm curious what other people would like to see. Not that I'm about to try and code one up.

Comments

[kamenkyote.livejournal.com]

One quick question; do you have your own website?

-T'

[jiveturkeyblues.livejournal.com]

Could you find anyone who WOULD be willing to start one up? I've been wishing for a gallery like this for a long time now.

[eselgeist.livejournal.com]

uh, yeah.. your own site.. ? or is this a want-to-be-among-peers thing?
in which case, sssstart your own? how hard can it be ;^)

[martes.livejournal.com]

Althought starting her own gallery sounds okay on the surface, it's not quite that easy. Even if you ignore the time and money commitment, there's the nasty fan politics to consider. As I learned from 10 years of running Huzzah. While it's nice to think that everyone could be an adult and play nice... they don't. As soon as you run a gallery or 'zine based on quailty, you have to deal with hurt feelings of your friends who arn't skilled enough to get in, or people getting angry because you let so-and-so in, and they hate so-and-so, and will drop out if so-and-so remains in. It ain't pretty.

Very true, unfortunately.

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

The best 'admins' for sites with quality-controls, honestly, are those that are... well... assholes. Someone complains, they get booted out and can apply again if they feel like it, as a simple example I've seen work, albeit annoying some people along the way. Eventually, they either stop re-applying, or get their temper and manners under control. Either that, or everyone stops applying and updating, but anything other than those two extremes, sadly, is incredibly difficult for even a saint to juggle for any length of time. =-.-=

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

• Complicated layout. I'm looking at you, DA. So much extra useless clutter to distract from the art.

This is, single-handedly, the largest reason why I can't stand trying to navigate DA. It's completely unintuitive compared to things like VCL, Yerf, or Elfwood, due to the visual complexity. It's the visual equivilant of white noise to my eyes, and I get bogged down with all the little natty bits all over the place, when all I want to do is browse art at pseudorandom and at my own pace. =-.-=

Totally agreeing with you, but especially on this point. KISS is a very important concept for any sort of gallery or art archive or similair. Sure, make it pretty, but keep it simple still.

[strredwolf.livejournal.com]

Seconded.

Copyright..

[defenbaugh.livejournal.com]

Other problem with Deviant Art. If you upload if there they tie you to a mass of legal mumbo jumbo which allowes them to do anything they like with your art, including and not limited to selling it to anyone they want.

Imagine the suprise youd get showing up in say.. McDonalds with Peggy on the cup finding out you didnt own your own creation/identity anymore and someoen else was making a mint off it.

UGLY.

Re: Copyright..

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

That agreement is intended to be lawyerese for "we can show this stuff on this very website, and we can make thumbnails of it". It is, however, scarily vague.

[mandrill.livejournal.com]

Only archive requirement: art "made by someone can draw". HAR! :=D But I do agree!

[supersocks.livejournal.com]

Sppeeeeeeed!
I'd put up with DA's layout if I could actually -see- the pictures.

[draca-serpens.livejournal.com]

I must say I agree completely.

[sebkha.livejournal.com]

Subject restrictions. Fantasy. Furry. Sci-fi. Goth. Clean. Dirty. The only restriction I want to see is "made by someone can draw".

This probably isn't practical for the audience. Choosing gallery sites with a given theme is how people narrow down the vastness of the internet to the images they want to see. Unless that theme is fairly tightly defined -- images by Ken Macklin, images of animal-head people, images rendered using vector tools -- it's not really helping people zero in on stuff they're after. I'm not sure "artistic excellence" is a tightly-enough defined concept that it's a useful search criterion. Would it make sense to have a Top 10 for all music rather than individual hit charts for each genre, for instance?