fuya
patreon
Real Talk Blog 08 : Pixiv
🕑 Added 2017-10-18 11:38:01 +0000 UTCHi guys, how are ya'll doing?
Have been wanting to talk about this for a while and now it might be a good chance due to me still researching which poses I should do for the May batch's characters.
I want to talk about my sacred place, Pixiv.
As you know Pixiv has been doing me favor for years. It's the main reasons I'm here today. This site alone has been giving me 80% of my overall exposure and fame, and I want to talk about why is that.
When I started out Patreon, I thought I MUST hug on Deviantart as much as I could due to the majority of the popular artists on Patreon tend to do great on DA which wasn't a problem for me. I've been using DA just for fun for ages.
But things got me realized that the site was corrupted and falling apart. The community was super toxic, witch hunting left and right, staffs don't do work and let automatically bot system handle things, everything on the site is unorganized, tag cloud is a nightmare that doesn't function, and there's no way one could rise to fame on Deviantart without spending even more time to gain exposure on the site more than actually drawing by spamming groups submissions. The site was already dead. What's left was a ruin of once the best art site, now just a simply garbage disposal.
But Pixiv has been giving me love since the beginning. The site has been the perfect solution for artists from the start and everyone using could feel it. Here are reasons why;
- The community is rather quiet, but that's a good thing. Japanese people don't just throw random comments, they act. They appreciate works by spending time liking, giving score rating without getting anything in return. If they like your works, they promote them on their twitter without you even noticing.
- The tag cloud is great. Everything works well due to the strict manner of Japanese people's internet usage. You can expect actual Sword Art Online fanarts by looking up ソードアート・オンライン on Pixiv for example, unlike DA where you'd find random stuffs unrelated to the tags when you do the same thing. That means it already gives you the right exposure you want by just putting in the right tags, because people in the fandom looks up stuffs there every day.
- Ranking. BEST online ranking algorithm. Unlike other places, if you are good enough with just a decent fame, you will rise. You are guaranteed a rise on Pixiv some way or another. This part is what got me noticed and appreciated a lot. It helps artists so much and you wouldn't find this anywhere else. There is even a Rookie ranking to help new artists. Again, unlike DA where no matter how godlike of an artist you are, if you don't spend a good 2-3 hours looking for exposure after EVERY art you post, there's no way you would gain any unless you're already super huge on the site and the groups want your arts on their groups for the groups' exposure, which is completely another way around.
- There is wayyyy less gender preference clashing there. Lots of time you will see super erotic hentai artists being female, or straight out sweet and cute yaoi artists being male, and we both appreciate each others' works. There's no kink shaming on Pixiv. It doesn't exist.
- "Free requests" almost doesn't belong on Pixiv, too. I don't play DA anymore and haven't been posting for more than a year but every time I log in to check out something, I still get 10 or more free request notes sent to me... while I get that kind of thing rarely once a month on Pixiv, and most of the time it's not from Japanese users.
That sums up reasons why I like Pixiv and why I respect it so much as it respects me. Everything on the site respects me and you and everyone. It's great.
If you've noticed, I don't put Patreon logos on my Pixiv posts like the others. I've been doing it that way since the beginning. It's not like it's a bad thing, but I just respect Pixiv so much that I don't want to throw ads and tell other users to go to somewhere else that could potentially give me money. If they want to support, they will see it themselves the little text I put on the description. I don't want Patreon logos to ruin the images I post there. I love Pixiv that much.
Hope this was good enough written and well put together. If you are a striving new artist that feel like your works are decent and deserve more appreciation, go there. It's the best art site on the world with its system at the moment. You just have to do a little adaptation; getting tags put right in Japanese, a little setup, and you're good to go.
That's it for today. Ya'll have a great one.
And no, this is not sponsored lol. Pixiv never contacts me for anything besides the ranking notification.
Comments
Kira20
Thanks to Pixiv too is how I found you Fuya-san! Your works are really good and I am happy to see you are still doing your best. And yes, I agree with how Pixiv is better than DA. Pixiv helped me with some stuffs too :D
Mars in the Sky
Honestly I was never into DA. I visit the site occasionally whenever some artists would link their arts there. Until this day I have yet to bypass that age-restricted content block in DA because I can't be arsed to make an account, along with the stories I've heard about the weird shit that pops up beyond that NSFW wall. Pixiv however is a different story. Pixiv is definitely a great place for a lot of artists to show their stuff. I could be biased if I say that there are a lot of great artists in Pixiv but seriously a lot of the artworks, whether they're character portraits or background drawings, are pleasing both on the eyes and down there.
Tsukichan
前はFuyaさんがピクシブをやめるかと思いましたが、まさかそんなにすきだったとは… モザイクを強要するのがさえなければ私もFuyaの絵をピクシブで見るかもしれません。
Fuya
I recalled that. Some initial supports came from DA because I was promoting my hardest on DA for the first half year on Patreon campaign. Not anymore tho. There are some good supportive people like you on DA, but it requires like 10 times the effort to reach them compared to any other places.
Fuya
Thank you!!
Fuya
Could be exactly what you said. Foreigners coming to play on Pixiv shy away Japanese artists a lot, plus the invasion of Chinese spam bots and art thieves are not helping. I feel like the Japaneses feel the safest on twitter. I don't see many of them going for personal websites tho unless they're oldschool.
Frank Leo
I use deviantART mainly, and that was how I found your Patreon
I think it's an interesting contrast to hear since I am pretty sure there was a fairly large exodus of JP artists away from pixiv a while ago. I dunno where they all went, I think most of them went to their own webpages or Twitter, but I wonder if there's some dislike of pixiv among the general JP populace...? Or is it just that there's now a lot more talented international artists being featured? Maybe a bit of both?
Fuya
I've been on DA for 13-14 years so I believe I could say a lot about it. Oh yeah you're totally right! Pixiv supports posting multiple images and that makes posting mangas and stuffs possible.
I totally agree with you, although dA was where I started but over the past 4 years I realize it isn't the same anymore...（´ ＿｀） Pixiv is the way to go!~(*≧▽≦) Another amazing thing about pixiv you didn't mention, is that you can upload multiple picture as 1 submission!~
Arthur
Like Pixiv,like you! ⸜(´ ˘ `∗)⸝
