The Artist Relations Team were set-up with a little challenge – “trading” galleries with someone else for a week and learning all about that gallery. $FallenRox paired me up with ^LawrenceDeDark to learn about stock.

So, what did I learn?

The main thing to me that I discovered is that pretty much anything can be stock. From 3D backgrounds to models to wax crayons, if you want to share it and allow others to use it in their artwork, then you’re pretty much free to do so, as long as it is in keeping with all of dA’s policies (for example, no sexually explicit material)

Of course, as with all galleries, there are some rules that apply here, such as the minimum size for any stock image is 600x600 pixels so it’s big enough to use. I’ve discovered when browsing though that people tend to upload images that are much larger.

However, what’s the point of having this nice big image to use if the quality is pretty shoddy? Well, there’s another thing about the stock gallery – the images have got to be good quality.

Q: What makes something good quality?
A: Clean and crisp pictures.

Anything that is overly distorted in some way (too grainy, too blurry, etc) does not make a good stock image, so phone-camera and webcam pics aren’t a good choice to try submitting as stock. Why? They aren’t really useable and since that’s the main point for the stock gallery, it makes sense to disallow them, right?

Sooo… all of that is great to know, I’m sure, but what is the actual purpose of stock?

On deviantART, most people see stock as something to use within digital art such as photomanipulation and digital paintings, and although I haven’t done any sort of research on this at all (so may be wrong), I’d guess that it’s also the most popular use of the stock that is provided on this site.

Photomanipulation

Digital Painting

However, there are plenty of other ways to use the stock that’s provided here. A few examples include:

Traditional Paintings

Website Interfaces

Journal Designs

Advertising

Visual Poetry or Literary Tags

Restricted & Unrestricted Stock

There are two main types of stock, as named above. So, what are they?

Well, restricted stock means that the stock artist only allows certain things to be done with their stock – for example, you may have to ask the stock artist before you can submit a print of your artwork, or you aren’t permitted to use the stock outside of deviantART or for commercial purposes – things like that. Every stock artist has their own set of rules, so when you’re planning on using their stock, it’s best to check their rules first as you may not be permitted to use that particular artist’s stock for what you had in mind.

Unrestricted stock on the other hand means that you can use it for a wide variety of things and generally you do not have to ask permission to use the stock in prints or for commercial purposes. However, it still stands with unrestricted stock that each artist will have their own rules – so be sure to read them first!

For a directory of unrestricted stock, click here.

Well, that’s all from me here! I hope you learned something from this too