Director of Artist Relations


Hello!

The purpose of Artist Relations is to strengthen the community spirit as well as network with fellow artists so that we may bring outside opportunities to you, and help you to hone your skills. The Gallery Directors are the first people you should go to regarding your galleries. They are the people you need to make gallery suggestions to, and ask questions about your specific genre, or seek knowledge from. They also act as your lifeline to the administration. They are here to support and listen, and I can tell you we've got incredibly talented, devoted and passionate people on this team, so get to know them!





We bid a fond farewell to `dholms , `neoikeia and `rocksicle and wish them well in their future endeavors, as well as thank them for their contributions to the AR team.

Please join us in welcoming ^livius to the volunteer team as the gallery director for Icons

I will be filling the position of Anthro gallery director shortly.

I have spent an obscene amount of hours over the last week hunting down artists for the BT/Dolby tour stops. If this is someting you're interested in being a part of then help me out Either set your coordinates under 'settings' or put your location in your deviantART profile. If that's just too much for you and you want me to look at your stuff and consider you, feel free to note me. However, understand that I will likely not be able to respond to everyone who notes me for this reason, but it's certainly an avenue you can take.

$Moonbeam13 will be on vacation from November 13th until the 20th and in her absence the splendiforous $chix0r will be manning the AR team

Our own Traditional Art gallery director ^alchemism will be included in 'The Doll Show' at The Hive Gallery in Los Angeles for the month of December - 2 of his small Anonymous paintings will be hanging with many artists' work.

I would like to personally bring your attention to the news article Help Wanted! Apply Within!. This is one of those examples of humanity that make me proud to be a part of such an awesome community.

Another one of those examples is the Holiday Card Project! So get involved

When deviations get moved you get an automated relocation note issued by the system. This note will now point to a new FAQ FAQ #634: Why was my deviation relocated or moved?

Any issues, concerns, complaints, suggestions, accolades etc. about contests should be directed to me. You can note me or email me at moonbeam13@deviantart.com

Do not scream and yell all over a news article about a contest, it’s getting quite tiring only to clarify a situation and have a person feel silly for having made the comment in the first place. I’ve given you your contact information and I implore you to use it. I would like to bring new and interesting contests to deviantART with fun and exciting prizes, so please, work with me.


There was a dataloss a few years ago that caused deviations to go missing. I am working on getting these recovered and my team is helping to compile a list of missing deviations. If yours was one of the deviations missing, please note your gallery director or myself and we will add it to the list.


Want to see previous AR newsletters? Go to my journal and check the journal module to the left.

Looking for contests? Find a list of all AR sponsored contests here




The Key System
As you can see at the very bottom there is now a Key System. The way this will work is simple. If you have a specific inquiry or suggestion for a specific department, begin your comment with the appropriate Key Code, that way we can search the page and compile them and address them. Neat, huh?



Fetish Photography

Nudity in Fetish, Glamour & Pinup

Up until now the submission descriptions have read that nudity only belongs in Artistic Nudes. I found this ridiculous as clearly nudity comes into the Fetish and Glamour themes quite often. This is no longer the case and I’m pleased to announce that we now welcome appropriate nudes into Fetish, Glamour and Pinup. Please read the revised descriptions carefully and make sure that the images do belong in those galleries, or as usual, they will be moved for you. While nudity is now allowed in these galleries, please double check that your mature content flag is raised. This is very important if we want to continue being allowed to display our nude images here then we need to flag them mature content so the kiddies can’t see.

Photojournalism in Fetish and Glamour

I understand that when you attend a Fetish, Burlesque or any other kind of event of this nature, and take photos of it, you want to share them. However, Fetish and Glamour Portraits is not the place to put them, especially if the quality is low, and you’ve used your ugly on-camera flash. These galleries are for ARTISTIC portraits, with care taken to the lighting, the space around the person, the expression on their face etc... These are not the galleries for images taken on a street corner with 50 random people walking in the background in fluro yellow tshirts. These kind of images are taken as snapshots, as a reminder for yourself of the day, and therefore belong in your scraps gallery, or if it is an exceptional journalistic shot, it belongs in photojournalism.

Feet

These are still the bane of my existence. People please! For crying out loud! I understand that a lot of people out there have foot fetishes, and I’ve seen some fantastic foot fetish shots in my time, but please please please put a little thought and care into your images when uploading them to Fetish. I’m sick of seeing the same friggen snapshots of feet over and over again. Same angles. Same overexposure due to on camera flash. Please. Please. Aaahhh. Don’t be surprised when I continue moving these shots to scraps. If an alien landed on earth and looked through our DA fetish gallery they’d swear we all had a penchant for stinky feet in trainers. Fetish Portraits is not a dumping ground for random close ups you don’t know what to do with.

Good Girls Contest

Check out the journal here which explains the requirements and submission rules. This is a positive idea for a contest and I think you should all put your support behind it. The idea is “The picture must portray "real women". For a lot of you in the size acceptance community this will be big beautiful or plus size women. "Real women" could also describe other types of women struggling to be seen or heard as the "real women" that they are. Use your imagination.” Check out the journal for more information or contact *jenthestrawberry directly.

News Articles

An interview with Godsgirls photographer and recent Deviantart addict Matthewcooke can be found here [link]

And just look what exciting new additions can be found on DA in any one week. A rundown of some sexy shots can be found here [link]

Photojournalism

I'd like to start off by congratulating *RevolverPhotography on her win for the Be Afraid 2006 Photography Contest with :"Cleanliness is next to..."
So everyone give a big round of applause to *RevolverPhotography, all the other winners, contestants and judges for a great contest, we'll be back next year and look out for Winter Dream 2007 coming soon.

Next up, I've started my cleaning of the Photojournalism gallery, and boy it's a task. People please remember to carefully read what category your are submitting to, please, pretty please with ice cream and a cherry etc etc etc? This saves me a great deal of time and you a great deal of frustration as to why your image was moved. Second issue, Quality is also a HUGE issue in Photojournalism at the moment, small tip, if your camera has a date and time setting that it imprints onto the picture, for the love of all things holy, please turn it off. Any image that I find that has a date stamp on it, I will not hesitate to relocate. Lastly, should you feel that your image was moved unjustly, or you simply had a question as to it's relocation please send a Help Desk ticket and do not note me personally, I will not respond via a note to questions of this nature.. but if you have a question as to where to submit your image and if it fits in Photojournalism, please don't hesitate to note me.. upload your image to scraps or off site, send me a note (with a subject line please.. even "hello" works..) and I'll help out as best as I can. Lastly I've listed my Daily Deviation suggestion guidelines here please take a moment to read them before sending me a suggestion.

Cheers!


Stock Photography

What makes a good Stock Art Picture ?

1.) High Resolution and Sharp Focus – That’s pretty much true with any piece posted in any gallery – but especially with Stock because people who use stock need higher resolution in order to use it in their art – It’s required the image be at least 600 x 600 if not bigger to be useable.

2.) Reduced Background Clutter It helps to have a well defined image with reduced clutter or just a plain background. Sure a good photomanip artist can pick a fly off a horse’s posterior without problem but it helps if the image stands out. (This would not apply to background or scenery stock)


3.) Usable Image You can meet the above two suggestions and still not be considered ‘good’ stock art. Your image has to be of interest – something that someone might want to use, be it an interesting pose or a unique object –

And for the record - Stock Art is not a dumping ground for your 1,200 photos of yourself taken with your camera phone as you make silly faces in your bathroom mirror. Please be advised that the use of the Stock Art Gallery for that type of photo is an insult to many great High Quality Stock Artist found in the Stock Art Gallery

Grin – did I use the word Stock Art too much.

Thanks to Sandi :devOilbyrd: there have been some great DD’s from Stock Art being posted .. Please check them and her out and show your love.

On a more important note please join *tExTuReMaTtIc quest to assist Nadia ^bleedsopretty and Nick ^thespook See here ( -: [link] :- )

You can make a real difference in someone’s life and proving the power of love for community and art.


Photomanipulations

I have launched a new series of news articles called "Manip Tips & Tricks". In these articles, each issue will feature one deviant who is going to give you some insights into his or her workflow. What tools do they use? Which features do they prefer (in Photoshop for example)? How do they go about composing their images? Those and many other questions like them are addressed in the article. The first issue has been published already: Manip Tips & Tricks #1: Aegis-Strife If you have any suggestions for whom you'd like to see sharing their tips, please send me a note - just keep in mind that this article's main focus is photomanipulation.

Going through the photomanipulation gallery, I've noticed once more how many people don't seem to read descriptions. There's a huge amount of pictures in the gallery that would be better suited for photography>darkroom or digital art>Miscellaneous. Photomanipulation is more than making level/color adjustments (these types of images should go in darkroom), adding a border (these can actually go into one of the photography galleries) or adding vectors/painted elements/renders (these should go into digital>misc because you used more than one technique to achieve your result). I try to judge miscategorisations on a case by case basis and try to put them where they belong. But more often than not, I simply don't have the time to do so and in that case, I will relocate your deviation to scraps. And from there on it's your responsibility to put your deviations into the right category.

And last but not least: if you are running a manip-related contest, feel free to tell me about it so I can add your contest to my links.


Flash

Hey people!

I hope you all had a great Halloween this year, I know I did.

Now just a few things to cover on this update, firstly I require a favour. Many of you may have noticed that some older Flash animations on dA no longer load up which is a real shame because some of those missing Flashs are truely great. What I would like you to do is if you know of a Flash animation that's missing or if you spot one on your many travels please post the link in this journal.

Once we've got a list of them we should be able to get them back through the power of the great IT dept.


Guess what! The Flash Gallery is going be getting a reshuffle soon enough if all goes to plan. I'm really excited about this development because the Flash Gallery will be more defined, more organised and bigger. It won't be perfect, well not at first but it will be close enough I feel. You shall have to wait til I can comfirm a few things first though.

This infact would be a perfect opportunity to send me some feedback via a note or two with your ideas, thoughts and opinions. I'm all ears.


Oh and rumour there's a competition on it's way.

Until next time. <3


Anime

We just have a couple things to mention this time. One, the Manga/Anime>Digital art>3D Category got a lot of major work put into it clearing up all the policy violations and 2D art out of it. Please keep in mind where you are submitting your work when you post it. Putting in the right category will help you get the exposure you want! We will touch more on that in our monthly newsletter.

Secondly, The gallery is a ghastly mess. Its a huge undertaking to clear it out. Please keep in mind what a deviation is! Its a refined piece of work. that does not mean, sketches on lined paper, with scanner shadows,
un cropped and huge files, and sketchbook spiral bindings. Take some pride in your work and please keep those in your scrapbook. We will continue to move them there. Deviations are for complete work. You can download a ton of art programs for free to edit your work, and there are countless tutorials on this. Please try to use your scrapbooks

The final thing we want to mention, when you suggest DD’s to us, please pay attention to the category the deviation you are suggesting is in. we can only feature art in Manga/Anime. Anything in any other category (regardless of the style its in) cannot be featured by us. Having said that, please post all your Manga/Anime themed work in the Manga/Anime category! So then we can actually give you DD’s and you can get featured all over, like you deserve to be

Our first monthly newsletter was posted Feel free to submit news content to us.



Comics and Cartoons

Hi guys! Hooboy! Who had a great Halloween?! I know I did. The Hunt was fantastic and my son and I got to go trick-or-treating as a pirate strumpet and Charlie Brown. I'll let you figure out who was what.

Things are moving along great in Comics and Cartoons! I've started my first official contest, "Day in the Life of a Deviant". Read allll about it here: [link] It's a great idea, if
I do say so myself and I'm very excited about the outcome. You've got just over a month to get your entries in. Please remember to read the rules and guidelines in the contest article and use those imaginations!

While scootin' around dA, I've noticed quite a few people upset because some of their deviations were moved to Scraps. Please don't take offense to this, guys. In my case, if it's a bad scan (as in the viewer can not
tell what the image is) or if it's done on linepaper I'll move your comics and cartoons to scraps. That said, don't draw on linepaper! If it's just a sketch then put it in Scraps! Draw on something else... like printer
paper! It's cheap and flat white. Anyway, it's not an issue in regards to your skill level or style. So don't be offended if your piece gets moved to Scraps. If you've got questions about it and would like an official answer just write the :devehelp:desk and the lovely Helpdesk gals will forward the inquiry to the appropriate gallery director. Don't jump to conclusions! And check out this new FAQ: FAQ #634: Why was my deviation relocated or moved?

Now, despite my best efforts, my kitchen is a mess again and growing things, that I'm sure will eat me while I sleep, out of the fridge. So, in closing, I will say join the contest, win loot and have fun! Oh, and give ^delya wet willies.


Wallpaper

Wallpaper Gallery

Competitions

Halloween Wallpaper Competition

Congratulations to *Kay-Z who won the wallpaper contest, and to the runners up: =orangestuff =ikaa and =shadukha - well done to you!

Also well done to everyone who took part in this, there were some great entries to this and it was difficult choosing the winners

I have received several requests to run the Multimonitor Contest again and as I'm never one to turn down requests such as this I will be considering running this very soon. If you would like to see this contest run again, then please note me.


Copyright Issues

Ugh, you have no idea how much I hate this part of my role. Again it is with extreme discomfort that I have to remind everyone about the copyright regulations when submitting to the Wallpaper Gallery.

It is NOT acceptable to post ANYTHING which uses artwork or images which are not intended for reuse. This basically is everything other than stock art or royalty free images.

There has been a huge rise recently in the number of copyright violations that are being removed from the gallery and in particular the Games section.

To clarify: it is not acceptable to post images made with any screenshots, images, game sprites or copyrighted material from games. Unfortunately DeviantART does not allow this type of material to be used and submitted here.

Also, again I have to remind you that you cannot use images of your favourite movie, movie star, TV show, anime character, musician, band or cartoon. If you have to put 'I found this image on google' or 'this image
is copyright someone else' in the description then you should think twice about posting it because it will be removed if it contains a copyright violation.

The removal of large quantities of copyright violations recently has resulting in the reputation of deviantART for not liking fanart. This is not, nor has ever been the case. What we cannot allow on this site are images which contain copyright infringements and unfortunately by its very nature Fanart contains a much higher percentage of this type of violation.

If you require further clarification please read the submission agreement and use the FAQ. For more specific queries, please refer to the HelpDesk.

Come on guys, I'm starting to sound like a broken record here. I hate writing this everytime and I'm sure you hate having to read it everytime. Please let's try to solve this so I can write more positive things next
time!




Resources

I would like to address the issue we are having with the resources > miscellaneous category. I get so many random things uploaded in there everyday. Please please please!!!!!!! If your resource already has a category [example-Photoshop Brushes] upload it to it's correct category! If you just upload things to the misc section because you are unsure of which category it belongs in either note ^bleedsopretty or ^thespook with your questions.

Another issue we continue to have is deviations containing copyrighted materials. This includes random googled images//celebrity photos//game renders//etc. Signatures//Signature tutorials are the most common example of this type of violation. I've mentioned this a few times already but I shall repeat myself in case you've forgotten. Anything that contains such materials will be given a copyright violation the second it comes to our attention. Yes, some violations of the same type may still be in the gallery but that is only due to us not finding it yet.

If you ever come across anything that is a violation, or anything you suspect might be. . . either note...... ^bleedsopretty ...or ^thespook heh !



Thanks for reading this update. We look forward to reading your feedback and to answering your comments and suggestions in our next update.



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To direct your comments towards the right gallery director, optionally prefix your comments with the following acronyms:

PREFIX LEGEND

AR: for Artist Relations
PH: for Photography
AN: for Artistic Nude Photography
FP: for Fetish Photography
PJ: for Photojournalism
SP: for Stock Photography
DA: for Digital Art
3D: for 3-Dimensional Art
AA: for Anthro Art
PM: for Photomanipulation
PA: for Pixel Art
ANI: for Anime
AC: for Artisan Crafts
COM: for Comics and Cartooons
CON: for Contests
DI: for Designs & Interfaces
FL: for Flash
ICN: for Icons
LIT: for Literature
POE: for Poetry
PRO: for Prose
ST: for Skins & Themes
TA: for Traditional Art
VP: for Visualization Presets
WP: for Wallpaper
RES: for Resources
FR: for Fractal Art