#we share. that is what we do in fandom. theres an infinite amount of ways to interpret dirkhal

[lovelyrotter]

can we all remember to just say 'oh no thank you, i dont like that kind of food' but apply that logic and rules to shipping and letting other people ship again

[werewolf-girlfriend]

ive been enabled so let me share some of my thoughts on how to get ur art noticed online

if u want Engagement on ur posts then i believe that its critical to make people care about ur art. the easiest way to do this is to appeal to something they already care about, like fandom, aesthetics/subculture, current events, having fun (people love humor!). a harder but perhaps more fulfilling route is to talk about ur own ocs and projects enough until people start caring about them too

theres an infinite amount of topics people care about out there so id suggest picking something u already care about urself and channel ur art energy there. trying to make art for the most popular things out there regardless own interests is an exercise in misery, id advise against it..! if im allowed to get superstitious for a moment, i do believe that even untrained eyes can tell whether a piece of art was fun to work on or a chore. and besides! if ur having fun then its easier to create more, and the more u create the more chances ull have at getting lucky and having a post seen :)

on a very related note, art is a way to communicate ideas so the quality of the idea being presented in a piece of art is paramount to how popular a post will be. what i mean by this is that technical skill isnt the primary determinant of a posts popularity. if all your posts are portraits of original characters then people will have a hard time connecting with your posts and theyll keep scrolling, even if those portraits are masterpieces! the major exception to this is probably other artists, who ive found usually have a greater appreciation for the technical side of art (we can only speculate as to why..!)

lemme finish by saying that making popular posts and being good at art are two entirely different skillsets, ive seen many incredibly skilled artists with jack shit for notes because they dont give people a reason to care about their stuff NOT TO MENTION its a huge game of luck whether a post will get seen. so dont go insane in pursuit of recognition!

(i dont want to make this post too long so ive included examples from my own art and their note counts with my analysis after the break)

hello and welcome to the extracurricular segment to this post :) i bring yall two pieces from my art blog @werewolf-artfriend:

here we have a portrait of my fursona that im still proud of and a sketch suggesting "what if sniffers (from minecraft) were the size of mountains?" (let it be noted that the sniffer sketch was posted right during the minecraft mob vote = peak interest in the subject of sniffers).

the portrait at the time of writing has a crisp 30 notes, whilst the sniffer sketch has over 2000 notes. from the same artist, on the same blog, posted only a few months apart. i believe this is a good example both of the power of a piece of art having an interesting idea at its core AND of a piece appealing to the interests of the masses

this is of course just two convenient example posts, but i have experienced fan art of popular topics getting thousands of notes a couple of times now, amidst my other furry shit that these days get around 200-300 notes in comparison

this may sound like a really long winded way of saying "fan art make the world go round" but i just want to point out the nuances that

1) it matters what u make fan art of: if a fandom is small or dormant (waiting on new canon content for example) then clearly less people will be excited about the fan art you make. dont expect 10k notes on ur post if the average recent post in the fandom gets around 200 etc etc

2) it doesnt have to be fan art! ive also had some of my bird art get thousands of notes because people simply like birds :) and this applies to ANY topic people care about! the world rly is your oyster on this one

anyway i think ive started rambling dhgdjhgd thanks if u read this far! i hope i got my point across! and if ur feeling down about ur art not being seen then just keep at it okay! keep creating and keep having fun! keep sharing ur ideas and perspectives with the world and ur audience will eventually find u! i love you!