What I'm dreaming of, is an archive in which I can place both my writing AND my artworks, so that people who go looking for me can find both, OR EITHER. I want to be able to receive comments and feedback for my artwork similar to what shows up on my fanfic in its various archives. I want e mail notifications, and a certain amount of download protection (i.e. watermarking ability, either standard, or as an option.) I want thumbnail browsing for the images rather than title based browsing, possibly with a couple different viewing sizes, a la Deviant Art. Actually taking some cues from the archiving/organizing model of Deviant Art might not be a bad thing, since it definitely makes it easier to navigate the art by category that way. (Digital, real media, comic style, manga style, photomanip, and so on. Not only does it help the artist with sorting, but it also makes browsing by style and type of image easier. Sometimes viewers don't want to browse by artist, but rather to find something cool and new. Category browsing allows for that.)
I also want the ability to link artworks together with stories in cases where one is a direct illustration of the other. If possible, to actually embed said illustrations into their stories would be top-optimal for me.
Above all though, and this is a HUGE thing for me -- to the point of being a deal-killer, -- I have to have a way to keep spam bots out of the comments. I have to be able to delete, and to either ban, or at least to report bots. This is particularly important with visual arts, because spammers tend to target art sites at like ten times the density of word sites -- says something about their opinions on the intelligence of their target audience that they only think they want to look at pictures instead of actually read, but there you have it. Spam control is CRITICAL to me, and it has to be something that is simple enough that I can do it myself, without having to go hunting for an admin who might be too busy with a dozen other things to help me sort it out.
The link artwork to fanfic thing if it's an illustration - that was my thought too. Maybe we could go even one step further and add a little thingy that allows a fanfic writer to add a pic to their fanfic if it has been specifically created for them, and the artist who drew/painted/sculpted/sneezed the work is OK with that.
Other than that, a checkbox for constructive criticism (want/don't want) would be nice too.
I really enjoy the constructive criticism idea. I think it would prevent a whole lot of hurt feelings and mangled toes. There are those people that just can't seem to handle constructive criticism.
Comment on Calling fanartists! Tell us about your ideal archive!
Cluegirl (Guest) Tue 06 Apr 2010 10:38PM UTC
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sleepyowlet Sat 09 Jul 2011 06:14PM UTC
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godtiermeme Thu 30 Aug 2012 09:07PM UTC
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