Leaving deviantart

Hi, my name is Margaret. My friends call me Mags or sometimes Maggles. This will be where I'll talk about life, topics of my interest and maybe rant about a few things for kicks. If you like that sort of thing, then welcome! So what site did I emigrate from to get to here? A site most of you should know or might of heard of. An art website called Deviantart.

I've been there for about seven years. I've made some good friends there, but sadly I have learnt very little art wise. Constructive criticism was hard to come by and you only got it if you were popular or in some cases of a certain status (admin or REAL celebrity). And of course, I'm none of those. What I got instead was the same old comments or in most cases none at all. I tried drawing new things to grab some sort of attention, but nothing good came of it. I avoided the trends (or memes if you prefer) because I wanted to be known for drawing what I wanted not what other people want. Artists draw to express themselves but these days that seems to have been forgotten. I'm all for drawing to show emotions on behalf of other people (the poor, the suffering, etc) but these days, people don't seem to like artists having freedom to draw what they want. And some people think they have the right to rush you or treat you like some sort of slave. Talk about treating people like tools eh?

But there are other things I've noticed about DA. I rarely see anyone over the age of thirty on the site. When I first signed up on DA years ago, there were artists from all walks of life around. Now it is full of teenagers drawing their sad anime fantasies of Naruto (or whatever is popular right now) or so called photographers posting pictures of random meaningless things. Ooooh a photo of your hand. Nice one. And don't get me started on nudity. I'm all for it, don't get me wrong... but very few nude shots are artistic and even the admins seem unsure of what should be deleted. It's not that hard.

A nude shot of somebody posed to express frustration while their surroundings is a thrashed room that mirrors their feelings. Uh-oh, porn! DELETED.

A close-up shot of a woman's vagina. ART!

So in short, the site has gone downhill and the community as pretty must gone to pot. After seven years of being on the site I've decided to leave before I lose any more of my sanity. I did have plans to leave two years ago, but various things made me change my mind. Main thing was feeling guilty of leaving friends behind. But after almost hitting rock bottom I've decided to look after my own interests a bit better. And I can still keep in contact with certain people through email, or heck even better, here.

So there we have it. Deviantart is well behind me. I'm determined to keep it that way. I'm focusing more on what I want to draw. I will do commissions to make a living, but apart from that, I'm not letting anybody push e around or try to bully me to draw what they want.

Any fellow ex-DA members here? If so, what's your story? Why did you leave? I'd love to hear from you.

Maggles signing out.