Disclaimer: This is a personal observation. Any discrepancies, please let me know. This guide is only meant for newbies, wanabes, and amateur professionals. This article is made in association with Project: EDUCATE.

Previous Articles:
The ABCs of PORTRAIT Photography
The ABCs of STREET Photography
The ABCs of PHOTOJOURNALISM

For those of us who've been here long enough, let's all walk through memory lane a l'il, shall we? If you see new deviants, show this up if they're having a hard time even understanding the FAQ. Do note however that this article contains numerous links. Windows users, Ctrl - Click; Mac users, Cmd - Click.

A - ART

Chant this mantra [everytime] you log on to deviantArt.com: This is DeviantART! This is NOT DeviantSPACE! Do it over and over and over.

What makes deviantArt differ compared to other community sites such as MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal, BlogSpot, etc. is how this community focus primarily on the advancements and learning skills of ART. Be it traditional art, to literature, to photography, and even film-making, we have it all here. What we don't have (or frown upon) are stuffs like personal shots of you making a "V" sign, porn (no, artistic nudes are still Art if done tastefully), and other derogatory and sensitive materials that could demean certain culture, race, religion, or even political standings.

B - Browsing

When you reach the main index page of DeviantArt.com, you'll see what you're seeing now. If you're already a logged in member, you'll see your nickname, your subscription status, how many deviations and comments, favs, devwatch, news, journal, notes in your inbox, and some banner ads plus settings you can toggle around to make your own nickname.deviantart.com page look presentable. In the middle of all things, you'll see posted artworks, some fantastic, others maybe an amateur try of doing what they can in the name of Art.

Yes, there's over 45 million artworks in this portal, so you can imagine who you're going up against. This is not a competition, unless you decide to join one. You can also search for Art of a specific theme, but like searching on Google or Yahoo, keep the search short and simple. For instance if you're looking for a photograph of a dog, just type "dog" and click Search Art. No need to do a lengthy "where can I find a dog picture?"

The layout is practically straightforward. On the right you can chose to submit an artwork, herein called "Deviation", or Print, Journal, etc. Read more: Frontpage Customization

C- Comments

Everybody loves it. 99% loves getting it. 1% hides them (yes, that can be enabled). But to depend on getting comments to your works, you either must have an exceptional art in your gallery to start generating views and critiques, else you can't just sit back and wait. In deviantArt, it's more like "ask and it shall be given unto you..." or rather "give comments, and you'll get some back." A community is not a one-way street, so do your best to send out your views of other's artworks and bare in mind about the ethics of doing so. Going "You suck!" when your own works even a dog won't sniff in the trash would not only be hurtful, you're on the verge of being banned from the site.

Be creative when you pass judgement. Here's a good read: How To Give Better Comment by `leodadominico. A mere "Thank you very much love you long time bye bye" isn't just sad, it's... it's... gee...

D - DeviantART, Inc.

Yes, deviantArt (herein henceforth as dA) has to be managed. The core staffs are both behind and in front of the scenes ensuring your browsing around dA is smooth and bug-free. You can also interact with them, but I can assure you they too are getting many many notes and emails on a daily basis from the millions of deviants, so you'll get heard, but maybe you'll need to wait a little.

Staffs of DeviantArt
Gallery Directors of DeviantArt

FAQ #106: What are the symbols in front of each deviants nickname?
FAQ #29: How do I become a Senior Member?

E - Emotes

Those are a few emoticons (emotive icons) you can use here in dA. You can use it to spice up a chat, a shoutbox, journal, your deviation comments, or comments to others. However, as much as you love the emotes here, it's only for dA's use and should not be saved to your blog outside the deviantArt.com domain. And please, for the love of my bandwidth, don't spam up your page with thousands of them up just because you think they're pretty.

Click here for the list of emotes: [link]

F - Forums & News

There are two ways of finding out what's the latest that's going on in your community: Forums, or News. Browsing through the Forums page is quite straightforward and works like any other forums online. It's the News page that tends to be quite tricky. What are your kinks? Let's try Photography for instance. When you load up the News section, it shows All Topics, listing everything from literature to JK Rowling's outing of Dumbledore. So click on Art News, then in the subcategory, click Photography. Also quite straightforward from this point on.

Participating in Forums and News helps you to learn more about your respective Art (if you notice I capitalized the word Art alot, it's coz I treat it like a religion here).

G - Gallery

Managing your own gallery is easy. Submitting to a correct category isn't. For instance, particularly photography, watch out for the subcategories when you submit. If it's a picture of a person selling hot dog on the streets, it's not a Portrait, it's Street. That shows one example of how you need to keep tab of what you're submitting so when others were to search for Street Art, they may even stumble on yours. When you click on Submit Art, below the Title, you can see the Category. Click on "Choose" and you'll see all the different Art your work can fall under. Again, let's go back to the hot dog picture. Click on Photography > Street. You'll also see a small button on the lower left of the pop-up called "Gallery Info." Now this is where you MUST read if you're not sure where to go to. Each subcategory contains its own description so you'll know exactly what you're doing/uploading.

Now try this... In the Search Art bar up top of your page, search for "Street." You'll see quite a number of stuffs there, but we're looking for photographs. Look for a thumbnail with the word "Street" below it and click. The entire page is now customized to only show Street photographs.

To further manage your own gallery, click here for the how-to: [link]

H - Help & FAQ

Before moving on, click here: [link]

On the left of the page you'll see the list of things you can get help with. Can't find something you're looking for? In the Search Keywords, type the keyword only, for instance "Gift", and the search will auto-generate a list of stuffs that may help you. Once you find the item, click on it.

Give up finding it? Contact a Help Desk Support Staff. You may have to wait as well because chances are, you're not the only one submitting a Help Desk ticket.

Can't wait? Log on to dAmn #HELP chatroom. Someone's there to help you out 24/7.

I - International

You are amongst the largest group of Artists from AROUND the WORLD. Just because you opened your account in the USA, and that dA's server is based in the USA, does not mean you're gonna be in the eyes of USA-ians. You have deviants from as far as Antarctica, Poland, China, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Columbia, Chille.. the list goes on. There's also clubs made from each country to give that nationalism sense of pride and belonging. A few etiquette reminder tho: different countries take different words differently. Be mindful of what you're saying. Disambiguation of similar words can cause an uproar, either of laughter, or anger. So watch out.

J - Journal

Important: FAQ #34: Are there any rules for the journals?
Others: Go to help.deviantart.com, type Journal under Search Keyword.

Basically you can treat the journal like your own little LiveJournal or BlogSpot. You have more capabilities as a subscribed member with CSS features and thumbing. But again, to plaster us with all your 500 friend's avatars, and another thousand of emotes is not only unethical, it's bound to crash slower systems with out of date browsers. Be mindful of your viewers. You want people to read about your week, and you don't wanna scare them off by making them force-quit their browsers everytime they log on to your page.

K - KISS

No, not swapping fluids or giving tongue sitting under a tree! KISS = Keep It Smart & Simple! Don't flood us with stories of how you get to finishing your artwork. Let your work tell the story as much as you can. Provide smart captions. Subscribed users, keep your CSS clean and tidy. Even your signature. Even if you wish to spam, make it look less desperate.

L - Look & Feel

Speaking of CSS-ing in your journal, I tend to like ones that show clean cut layouts that doesn't smash everything into a squeezed lemon particularly on smaller resolution browsers. Not everyone uses anything over 1024 X 768 hi-res.

Subscribed users, for the love of [insert deity here], if you're gonna make full use of EVERY little feature in dA, from your devInfo to webcam to polls, shoutbox, etc etc, think of your Artworks at the end of the day... We may be interested in the mundane same o'l same o'l one awhile, but after some time, it'll bore us.

Non-subbed users, remember: this is NOT myspace.

M - Message Center

You decided to watch a few people. Now you decide to devote 3/4 of your life on dA. You can sit down at your Message Center hoping someone would pop in a fav or comment on your works by religiously clicking on the Update Message Centre button every now and then, or you can decide to start get out of there and browse around your friend's Artworks to get inspirations or learn new tricks.

Due to the many settings that can be toggled on dA, some of you may not realize that on the middle right of the page contains Management Tools (My Account) for your friends and gallery. Check those out to see what other nifty trickeries you can use to fumble about with your Friends list, or do some bits of spring-cleaning over your less-loved deviations.

N - Nearby Deviants

Think you're alone out there? Finding friends within a 100 mile radius? Go to your Settings page and fill out your Regional Settings, particularly the Latitude and Longitude. Click the sublink "How do I find my location's latitude and longitude?" to find out how to fill up this section. Once you're done and clicked OK, you'll be brought to the main page of deviantArt.com, so log back in to yourname.deviantart.com. Top right of the frame where you see all the links to Submit Deviation etc, you'll see the Nearby Deviants link. Now, not everyone on dA has placed their longitude/latitude up so my guess is only 60% or less of the local deviants in your area would've turned that on. Anyhow, it's a start if you wanna find more local dA friends to chill with or go out on a devMeet.

O - Opinions

Free speech is one thing. But to hide behind an alias and making up cow poo is another. Your opinions on one's Art can be good, constructive, but somehow do remember to put yourselves in the Artist's shoe too. Even on dAmn Chatrooms, be mindful about what you say.

dA is filled with many features that can confuse or bemuse. Every now and then, a new feature turns up. You can chose to send some technical opinions on how to improve the site, but bear in mind you should either have been a subbed and non-sub member for awhile, or even become a Beta-Tester, to decide on what kind of ideas you can throw in to make this portal more interesting for not only you, but also to all other deviants. The staffs behind the scenes are constantly thriving to make your stay more memorable and enjoyable.

P - Pageviews

New members love them. Senior members sometimes stopped bothering about them. But I can tell you, over 80% of deviants find Pageviews as a form of popularity contest. We loath the fact that we're embraced in the community with thousands to even millions of pageviews... and when we get less than 10 pv a day, we get depressed. That's not the way to fully enjoy dA. Besides, there's no such thing as a popularity contest here. You wanna be noticed, you have to be more active in giving out comments. Mass Faving and DevWatching won't get you anywhere much. We'd like to read from you. And as heartfelt as Faving without commenting is, it's often a ploy used by some to get you to click on their nicks and send a Thank You message to their inbox. So, play nice.

Q - Quantity vs Quality

So you have 20 Artworks you wanna submit to dA. If you chose to publish them all in one go, the chances of people liking each of the 20 works go down to probably two or three. You may even wonder why some love works that you find crappy, and vice versa. Spamming your watchers can often lead to people just not planning on bothering with your works in the long run. So upload only when you feel necessary. Keep your pageviews going daily by submitting one once a day, or have a system so others can look forward to your next shot, for instance submitting every Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, for example. I tend to pity dA's bandwidth if I see people mass-submits.

R - Respect

Important: DeviantArt's Etiquette Policy

Now, as far as I'm concerned looking at some comments given out, I do tend to find it amusing somewhat when an Artwork was heavily criticized for it's technicality more than it's composition, which is highly evident in the Photography genre. Once you talk technicalities such as bracketing, cropping, burning, dodging, etc, you've gotta remember, you're commenting on someone else's Artwork, not yours. Why not see the Art from the originating Artist's point of view?

S - Subscriptions

Banner ads serve a purpose: It lets you decide whether or not to click on it. If you wish to not have them up your page or on every single one of your deviations, get a subscription. It's not that expensive anyway... Besides, try out for 3 months, then decide on going the entire year with a new * or = hat. You can chose to pay on an auto-billing basis, or prepaid too! What's different as a subscribed member? Check this out: [link]

Planning on a Christmas or birthday gift? Click on the "Subscribe a Friend" link.

T - Terms of Use

Important: DeviantArt's Terms of Service

With all the legal jargons there, you're assured of how serious the development teams of dA are in making sure you and your works are not mis-used. Art theft happens alot, so copyrighting your works is essential. Clause #4 there states it quite clearly on what you can and cannot do with your works, and/or works of others. But if you're still unsure about your Artwork's safety here in dA, put a watermark on it. If you're lazy to do so or don't know how, there's a small checkbox you can use when you submit an Artwork; "Add watermark to the fullview image."

Basically whatever that you submit to dA is yours. Whatever's in dA are all copyrighted in one way or another. You cannot use whatever's already inside dA for other uses such as blogs or personals outside the domains of deviantArt.com unless it's your own. Similarly vice versa, particularly quotable quotes. Cite your sources.

U - Upgrades & Maintenance

We tend to scream [everytime] we see dA goes to Read-Only mode... When it gets back on, we see a new Hot Topic in our Inbox by the staffs... Then we scream back at the staffs blaming them for wasting our time. If we're subscribed, we even demand that we get a refund, or even an extension to our subscription everytime that happens to us! Newsflash: Me, me, me attitude isn't only childish, it's even dumb.

Wanna know why this happens? Read: FAQ #684: I have heard a rumor that deviantART goes in to read-only mode for Hot Topics. Is this true?

V - Visitors

This is a Subscribed Members feature. On the lowest left side of every subscribed member's page you can see one section called Recent Visitors. It can be turned on or off. When it's turned on, you can see for yourself who your fans are. You can chose to return the favor by visiting theirs if you're both not acquainted yet. However, sometimes there are "invisible" deviants, aka those wishing to keep their activities secret. When these visitors land on your page, you wouldn't know unless you constantly monitor your pageviews. Mind you though that sometimes pageviews can also increase when someone visits your gallery, journal, poll, or forum, and whoever doing so will not be shown on your Recent Visitors list. (Deviation views does not effect your main pageviews).

W - Whoring

dA isn't some kinda nightmarket where you can scream and shout at people to "come view my gallery!" or "check out my pictures!" or "gimme comments comments comments!" That happens on a daily basis and most of us just ignore it. What's interesting to find sometimes is in one's signature. For instance I kept coming across "FAQ #101: How to get more pageviews" with a link on it. Intrigued, I hovered my mouse over the link only to see in my status bar that it's pointing to the deviant's own page... Quirky. In fact, quite a genius.

If you plan on self-marketing, you can do so in many creative ways... It's up to you what you wanna do to get those pageviews going. Yes yes, I made it sound so much thus far like this is a bunch of popularity thing... but isn't it not? We're filled with pride and ego hoping for more more more, be it pageviews, devwatch, favs, or comments, even ultimately a Daily Deviation. But if you plan on doing it a-la Chinatown, you're just showing people what a sad case you are. Be patient. Be proactive in community relations. Then people will start noticing you. Just refrain from spamming.

Here's one option (at a cost): AdCast Service. According to dA adCast, "adCast clicks/pageviews are guaranteed. We will run your ad until you have received every click that you've paid for."

X - X-Factor

The idea that you think your works are "good" means others will feel the same should be left for your viewers to decide. Oftentimes you may even notice some of the more horrid works in your gallery receive more comments than those you think is supposedly good. Then you wonder why and get all emo.

With dA getting more and more packed with Artworks by the day, seeing something cliche works in either of two ways: It's refreshing... or it's just something I'd see then move on to the next at a mouse-click away. Getting back to typing "Dog" and click on Seach Art, see which stands out to you. Are you telling me that you're gonna submit yet another picture of your "Chapstick" or "Poochie" drooling into your camera? Yes, we go "aaaawww..." at them... but like a nice Baskin-Robbin's ice cream, it melts us, then lose its flavor when we're done with it.

You can make do with being different by finding your niche. Once you decide on one, do some research over what's being overdone. When your niche finds your work different compared to others, expect your fan-base to start piling.

Y - Yours

Important: DeviantArt Copyright Policy

Whatever you submit is yours, but when you submit someone else's Art, you're dooming yourself so start digging your grave if you're planning on doing the latter. Even if you're not American, you're sitting in front of your computer in the far ends of the earth in Siberia or in the coldest regions of Russia, you just have to remember where dA's server is hosted on: The United States of America. Staffers can even log on to your IP should a case be brought up against you, and a formal report to your embassy may even be made.

If you keep your works in your gallery well preserved as originally yours, and you cannot afford your own .com to showcase your artwork, with the advancement of features in dA, you can now treat your entire yourname.deviantart.com as your little portfolio! Just a few months ago we couldn't make folders in our gallery to portion our works accordingly. Now, we've got Gallery V2! It makes you excited when you start thinking what V3 would look like!

Z - z0mg!

[thanks =IaiaRose ]
omfg wtf!! z0mgz i got pwned w/ 1337!! it so roXor my box0rz! lolz!!!!! ima sucha n00b!

Yes yes yes... we get that alot in chatrooms or commonly seen in the anime kingdom. It's cute sometimes. It's annoying to many. Primarily since English is the main language used in the entirety of dA, and the average age group is probably over 20 years old. We may love animes and manga once awhile, but when we're over 25 years old, it's overkill. Oh, for the love of bandwidth again, don't spam us with ASCII arts as well! What's that? This:

dP
88
88 .d8888b. dP .dP .d8888b.
88 88' `88 88 d8' 88ooood8
88 88. .88 88 .88' 88. ...
dP `88888P' 8888P' `88888P'




Good luck, and have fun!!