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ArtFight isn't dead, and neither is FurAffinity!
General | Posted a year agoBoth sites are up and running again, and that's a good thing!
The ArtFight situation was only minor, but I did have to think about moving on from FA, of this site did actually die at the hands of a hacker, to the point I actually considered giving Newgrounds another go. I have an account on NG, but it's inactive.
Anyway, I'm happy to be back on FurAffinity, since there are a few people I know on here that aren't on Bluesky or Cara.8 years of FangRat
General | Posted a year agoOn this day in 2016, I started my second DeviantArt account which became known as FangRat.
Around 2-3 weeks earlier, I left DeviantArt as anthromutants, but I would revive that first DA account which would become one dedicated to photography, known as FangRatPhotos.
Just over a month later I would get myself a drawing tablet, and my digital drawings greatly improved. I would also change my Twitter handle from anthromutants to FangRatToons.
Things ran smoothly from there, despite my anxiety problems, and 6 days in hospital during December 2016.
In December 2016, I would create a Telegram account; one which, unlike everything else, still exists today!
In February 2017, I ended up going on hiatus from social media for 48 days, putting an end to my first Twitter account. I would then have no internet at all during April and May 2017.
Things started to run smoothly again, but only after my laptop got a virus, most likely as a result of using Furry Network.
I would start my second Twitter account (FangRat_) in late June 2017, and I would start using FurAffinity as FangRat in December, after leaving DeviantArt as FangRatPhotos.
I would leave Twitter again in April 2018, but would continue to use DeviantArt until the end of November, when I left due to art theft and burnout.
I would continue to use FurAffinity as FangRat until March 2019, when the account was disabled, then deactivated for good.
The FangRat name would still be used until October 2019, and the email address that bears the said name still exists today.Is ArtFight dead?
General | Posted a year agoApparently, the ArtFight website has been down for a number of days, and this has now got me thinking whether or not ArtFight itself has bitten the dust. If so, then I'm glad I did ArtFight this year.Incoming fan art!
General | Posted a year agoIn the next few hours, I will be posting a select number of arts featuring my OCs, made by others, going as far back as 2018!
For now, I'm heading back to work after lunch.Seb, Morpho and Jay are being retired
General | Posted a year agoI first thought about this yesterday, but if I really wanted to pursue myself as a furry and a freelance artist without anything getting in my way, then ToonThick would need a restructure. This is become more necessary given FurAffinity's uncertain future, and the fact that Telegram is most likely run by far-right extremists. Not to mention my existing personal circumstances and work-life balance.
I thought about this yesterday, but I've actually had this idea for a while, and so at the half-way mark between my last birthday and my next birthday, I'm going to do a restructure of ToonThick. In fact, I've already started this restructure.
Here on FA (while it still exists), I've made a new folder dedicated to old OCs I don't draw anymore. I've also moved a whole lot of submissions to Scraps. The main reason for this journal however is to announce that at the conclusion of the Olympics, Seb (the existing mascot of ToonThick), Morpho (the blue furball) and Pineapple Jay will be retired. These three critters which have served me well since 2022, 2015 and 2021 respectively, are no longer desired or appealing to yours truly. Seb may seem original enough, but there is ultimately another well known character with a straw on top, in fact there's multiple such characters! I can keep the ToonThick device as my signature, but it's time for me to let Seb go into the clouds, and so Seb, Morpho and Jay are now in the "OCs - Former" folder on here.
This restructure will allow me to have an official fursona again; potentially Stacks the Cat, Chisel Tanuki or even Clunk The Skunk (my last fursona) or, a whole new character. I have not had a fursona since I started calling myself ToonThick in October 2022. I can also replace the three retiring critters with a new single critter, who is an anthro pineapple just like Jay, but more refined.
This restructure is also future-proofing ToonThick, and will allow for me to use Ko-fi again and offer commissions through both PayPal and Ko-fi, without compromise. Over the past five years, my attempts at offering commissions have all failed, with no one being interested. My last commissioned artwork dates back to 2018, and that was when I decided to fatally devalue my art, by offering pay-what-you-want commissions. I don't want to make that same mistake again. I could also seek professional advice when it comes to commissions, because I really want to know what I'm doing. More importantly, I can be more motivated to draw; something that has been a problem for me over the last few months. I mentioned this in the journal I posted on here that ended up being overshadowed by the death of Dragoneer.
As for my presence across multiple platforms: I'm happily active here on FurAffinity, while it still exists. I'm also on Bluesky, Cara and Telegram. I can't guarantee my future on Telegram though, given its right-leaning owner-operator. Chances are that Telegram (along with Twitter) could influence the US election, and I would need to ask myself whether or not to keep using Telegram for my own good. It's also been about a year now since I disabled my Discord. I have no plans to come back since Discord has its own problems. If all else fails, I do have a Signal, which I set up the same day I joined Cara.
Anyway, I am restructuring ToonThick, and retiring my mascot Seb along with Morpho and Pineapple Jay. I hope to see brighter days ahead for ToonThick, and for yours truly. I want to do more things in my life, and that includes the opportunity to finally move away from my mother, and this anti-furry town.
Thank you for reading.FurAffinity has lost its founder and owner
General | Posted a year agoI never knew Dragoneer that much at all, but a memory refresh has given me the idea of how much of a significance that Dragoneer was and is to FurAffinity, since the said person founded the site in 2005.
I've had an on-and-off relationship with FA in the past, but I eventually found this site to be more appealing to me as time went on. FA was also where I first met @Cartooner, and where HedgehoVid established himself as a furry, taking inspiration from yours truly (HedgehoVid actually knew me beforehand on DeviantArt, where he was known by a different name).
I've come and gone from many other sites, but FurAffinity is one of the few that I am happily committed to continue using, and I can thank Dragoneer for that!
May you rest in peace.ToonThick should not belong on social media
General | Posted a year ago3 months ago, I wrote that I, ToonThick, should not exist based on events that occurred in 2014.
While ToonThick does exist today, my presence on social media should not.
A person like me doesn't really belong on any social media platform, including this one.
When it comes to my social media history, it is anything but smooth sailing. The first social media platform I ever used was Piczo, in late 2005. This was then followed by YouTube in 2006.
In May 2007, I started using MySpace. This was my first ever personal social media account. In early 2008, I had the bright idea to randomly add people on MySpace. While it went well at first, I had to stop when someone I tried to add cracked a tantrum at me, and told me to stop randomly adding people. I would continue to use MySpace until the end of August 2008, when I went on hiatus. On 27th September 2008, after Hawthorn won the 2008 AFL (Australian Football League) premiership, I deleted my MySpace account and left for good.
At the same time I left MySpace, was when I created my first YouTube account. This account would last until around mid-2009. During this time, I briefly had a secondary YouTube account.
On 1st June 2011, being motivated by a sports entertainment program, I joined Facebook. I would be active on there for only 1 month until I deactivated my account, returning in October that year. Whilst I was able to catch up with friends from high school and even beforehand, as well as establish a good relationship with Rovio (the makers of Angry Birds), Facebook was never really any good to me, especially given my circumstances at the time. The person that you can call ToonThick today, was a very different person back in the late-2000s and early-2010s.
My father was most likely a vile racist, a heavy drinker, would often get into trouble, and often cut corners in his trade. During the time I was on Facebook, he tried to cheat his way through a work injury. At one point, our entire family ended up being spied on as a result. I mentioned this in my April Fools' joke from 2021. My life was politically influenced, and I had no real idea what I wanted to do to make money. I did work in hospitality during this time, but that was it. Forget for a moment that I did a few other things that were related to TV, including an appearance as an extra in the soap opera Neighbours. And whilst I am the only person in my family to actually finish high school, because of my circumstances back then, I never really did anything else, or waste time on things that would ultimately be pointless. In short, I never went to college. I mentioned this in Thick and Free before I left Instagram for good back in February.
All of this, and my experiences with Facebook and MySpace, resulted in my anxiety problems, and this all occurred before my parents divorced and the events of 2014 that I wrote about 3 months ago. I would continue to use Facebook throughout 2013 and 2014, before scaling down my presence and ultimately deleting my account. September 4 will mark 10 years since I left Facebook for good, and I ended my personal social media career.
In December 2014, I joined DeviantArt, the wider art community and ultimately the furry community. While this new experience was much better than anything else I tried before, I still had those social media jitters. In fact, I would still have these nerves up until the end of 2019. My presence on Tumblr lasted only 6 months, and Twitter treated me like crap the whole time I was on there (4 accounts over 7 years). DeviantArt served me well (though I did have a few tantrums on there), but I left that site for good in November 2018 as a result of art theft. My first 2 FurAffinity accounts weren't really good enough for me to continue using. This was a time when FA was corporate-owned, and even before I created my first account on there, the site nearly died altogether thanks to multiple hacking attacks. Instagram served me well for the time I was on there, but I didn't want to stay on that site (or Threads) knowing it was part of Meta (Facebook) and the company's ultimate AI direction.
You can see that I have a troubled history when it comes to social media, and why I shouldn't really be near any platform (or any device). Ever since I started calling myself ToonThick, I've been trying to right all the wrongs in my life, inside and out. Nearly 20 years on the internet has gotten me to this point; a point where I can belong on social media.
Where does my art and OCs come into this? I created my first OCs in 2003, but it wasn't until 2013 when I started sharing them online. Even then and beforehand, I wasn't drawing OCs that often at all; it was mainly fan art for me. Then, in April-May 2015, after I moved away from Angry Birds, I started to draw OCs more and more often. At the same time I learned more about the furry fandom. The rest is history.
My presence in the art and furry community helped me out a lot, to the point that I can say it is keeping me alive. I'm a self-taught artist from day 1. 15 years ago, I would never have thought of creating a character like Thickshake Tanuki at all! My life and interests were certainly different back then, as was my attitude towards the internet. One thing has stayed the same after all these years though: I am proudly Australian and independent.
I've been on rough seas with social media, but I have learned from my past bad experiences with the internet to ensure that my presence today on the internet, and in the art and furry community, is a better one. One thing that helps is that I don't directly refer to myself by my actual name; Martin Lees. That name itself is probably cursed. I can call myself ToonThick on the internet and happily do so! My presence here today is established on my past experiences I've learned from, and so ToonThick has found itself a presence on social media and the art/furry community. I have the ability to grow ToonThick to new heights, even under my existing personal circumstances (especially my far-right mother).
Martin Lees never belonged on the internet, but ToonThick does belong in the art and furry community.
Thank you for reading.ArtFight 2024 Recap
General | Posted a year agoI was certainly going into uncharted territory when I decided to do ArtFight for the first time this year, unsure about how active I would be doing such a thing.
But despite a slow start at my end, I can say that my first participation in ArtFight was a success, and I hope to do it again next year.
My number of attacks totalled 15 (includes all attacks, revenges, friendly fire and mass attacks). I was going to add a 16th attack on this year's ArtFight, but lack of motivation (and the Olympic men's cycling road race) had other plans!
Either way, ArtFight was a good experience. Now, I just hope I was on the winning team (Stardust)!Manque de motivation
General | Posted a year agoI'll be honest: I haven't been up to doing much lately. I haven't been motivated to do anything, especially art.
There are a number of reasons: last week my mother was involved in a car accident. There were no serious injuries thankfully, but her car was totalled, and now she's driving my car indefinitely. The trouble is that the accident involving 3 cars was entirely her fault. Not only could it lead to no insurance money being paid out, but also legal proceedings which I could be unnecessarily dragged into. The end result could be loss of license.
Secondly, my routine is trashed. I can't work out a good balance, and I can be completely demotivated simply by what I end up eating every day. I'm also not getting enough sleep, but this is because for the last 3 weeks, I've been watching the Tour de France cycling event on TV. Given that there's an 8 hour difference between here and France, I could stay up until 2am. On some nights though, I did decide to go to sleep earlier. Watching the Tour de France has been something that I started doing in 2005 (that was probably the first year that all 21 stages were broadcast live into Australia). During the 2020 edition though, I lost interest, however this year I started watching it again. Today (or tonight) is the final stage of the 2024 edition.
Since the Tour finishes tonight, I would be able to make art again, with a belated birthday gift for Brandon Zalar, a late Atomic Puppet anniversary pic, plus a whole wave of ArtFight attacks.
I've also taken the time to mute a whole number of words and tags on Bluesky, in addition to all the AI-related tags I already muted; most are political-related. This is a measure I needed to take, to ensure I maintain my motivation to use Bluesky.
Lastly, I really need to go to the dentist and sort out all the tooth decay I've got, as well as my remaining wisdom teeth.
And that is everything I've got to say in this journal. Thank you for reading.ToonThick is doing ArtFight!
General | Posted a year agoI'm happy to announce that after years of straight up refusing to do it, I, ToonThick, will be doing ArtFight for the first time!
At this point I will only have 2 characters (unless I need more), and my presence may be very brief (or not).
Anyway, here's my ArtFight: https://artfight.net/~ToonThick50 followers on Cara!
General | Posted a year agoThank you all for 50 followers on Cara!
https://cara.app/toonthickMy presence on Twitter; nothing more than a page in histo...
General | Posted a year agoToday marks 8 years since I first joined Twitter, a site that in all honesty, only ever treated me like 💩!
I had 4 accounts over a period of 7 years (though the real number of accounts is 6). I deleted my Twitter account for the last time nearly 11 months ago, a week after the site rebranded to "X".
My first Twitter account was originally called anthromutants upon its creation on 27th June 2016. It was renamed FangRatToons on 1st October 2016. It would be abandoned in February 2017, then deleted a few months later.
My 2nd Twitter account FangRat_ was created on 27th June 2017, exactly a year after my first. That was ultimately deleted in April 2018.
My 3rd Twitter account TropicalMuskrat, created on 20th May 2019, would be my longest lasting Twitter account. After being compromised by the site's algorithms, it was locked & abandoned in August 2021.
My 4th Twitter account ClunkTheSkunk was created in October 2021, & became active on 1st December 2021. It was renamed ToonThick on 1st October 2022. My 4th presence on Twitter lasted as long as it did, despite Elon Musk ruling the site with an iron fist. After Twitter itself rebranded to "X" however, I finally decided to leave for the last time.
I deleted both ToonThick & TropicalMuskrat on 31st July 2023.I'm now on Cara!
General | Posted a year agoThought I'd try it out!
https://cara.app/toonthickTropicalMuskrat's 5th anniversary
General | Posted a year agoCopied from Bluesky and Telegram.
5 years ago today, I started Tropical Muskrat.
TropicalMuskrat came along around 2 months after I left FurAffinity as FangRat. TropicalMuskrat would consist of a new FA account (my second), and a new Twitter account (my third); both created on 20th May 2019.
I returned to Twitter as TropicalMuskrat after 13 months away from that platform, and vowing never to use that site again.
The previous 2 times I used Twitter, my nerves got the better of me. I still had a few nerves when I returned as TropicalMuskrat, but they were eventually defeated.
A year after I started TropicalMuskrat, I made a number of changes to my fursona Al. These changes would continue right up until the character's retirement in June 2021.
Months before I made all those changes to Al, I had other problems; my characters' heads were getting too big. I eventually corrected this issue from late 2019 to early 2020.
By Februrary 2021, I decided to just call my fursona Albert.
As well as reviving a furball character previously known as Pomorpho but now called Morpho, I also introduced a goat character named Packba (now Chaz). Packba was previously a demon-rat hybrid and a human dating back to 2005.
The existing version of Albert did last a good while, but Albert would be retired in June 2021 and replaced by another character.
In June 2021, I introduced a new fursona for TropicalMuskrat; Clyde the muskrat.
Things went well at first, then it didn't. I figured out that my Twitter account was being compromised by the site's algorithms (my handle containing the word "musk").
The end result was Clyde only lasting 2 months, and my departure from Twitter as TropicalMuskrat in August 2021.Thickshake and Chisel's anniversaries is this Saturday!
General | Posted a year agoThat's right, Thickshake Tanuki's third anniversary along with the existing Chisel Tanuki's first anniversary is this Saturday, May 18!
And so, both characters are being updated for the occasion. Along with that, I've updated the ToonThick wordmark. The device remains unchanged.
All will be revealed this Saturday!ToonThick should not exist!
General | Posted a year agoThickshake Tanuki should not exist. Neither should Seb or any of my characters I've created.
Clunk The Skunk should not exist. Tropical Muskrat should never have existed, and neither should have FangRat or anthromutants. Not even Emperor Skunkbag!
I, Martin Lees, should not exist today. In other words: I shouldn't be alive today. I would've been dead 10 years ago.
Back in 2014, I was experiencing twisting, discomfort, severe pain and vomiting. This started happening on-and-off in December 2013 and continued throughout the first few months of 2014, until it became part of my daily life. In May that year, things took a turn for the worse. The pain and discomfort was so severe that it was affecting my ability to do anything. After multiple doctor's visits, I had an x-ray done on my stomach. The date was May 19, if I remember.
The x-ray revealed that I had an enlarged colon, and so I was sent straight to hospital. I would remain there for the next 2 1/2 weeks. After the first few days in hospital, having a gastric tube inserted and not eating or drinking anything at all, that pain and discomfort stopped. Around that same time, I found out on Facebook that my grandad passed away, aged 92. The day his funeral was held, was the same day I had an operation; to remove a section of my bowel. During my first days in hospital, I had been diagnosed with a genetic inflammatory bowel condition which caused an obstruction in my small bowel, resulting in all the twisting, discomfort and pain.
On June 6 2014, I finally left hospital, able to enjoy a normal life again, albeit with daily medications and the occasional flare-up.
This all occurred back in 2014, while I was still using Facebook; before I first joined the art community, and before I ever heard of the furry fandom.
If I hadn't ended up in hospital back in May 2014, all the twisting, discomfort and pain would've become too much, and I would've most likely kicked the bucket through starvation.
I would not exist today. ToonThick would never have existed at all.
But I do exist today, and I am grateful for that. And I still exist today thanks largely to the art and furry community. Again, if it wasn't for the said communities, I would probably not be around today.
ToonThick exists today thanks to you, and it is keeping me alive!
Thank you for reading.On hiatus for ANZAC Day
General | Posted a year agoI will be absent from all platforms (including Telegram) tomorrow (April 25), since it will be ANZAC Day over here.
Being such a significant day in both Australia and New Zealand, I think it would be appropriate for me to take a day off social media, and honour the fallen. I would actually encourage everyone in AU and NZ to do the same; just take a break from social media for this one day.
On a side note, today marks 9 years since I officially moved away from being an Angry Birds fan artist, and focus solely on drawing my OCs which at the time, were mostly unknown. I therefore took a break from DeviantArt for a period of time, unsure if I wanted to come back, but I eventually did return in May.
Anyway, I will return on Friday with a 5,000 pageview pic here on FurAffinity.
Lest We Forget.ToonThick's "abandoned" social media presences
General | Posted a year agoI have well documented all or most of the sites I once had a presence on, but are now nothing more than a page in history; in other words, these accounts are completely deleted or at least indefinitely disabled/deactivated.
But there are other sites I've tried then simply abandoned. These are my social media presences that are basically frozen in time (just like ArtDexo2000's Instagram account that I don't really care about anymore since I left Instagram nearly 2 months ago). This of course included my 2 DeviantArt accounts, until I decided to delete them both recently.
As well as here on FurAffinity, Bluesky and Telegram, I also have an account on: Newgrounds, SoFurry, Itaku and Mastodon.
The 4 accounts I mentioned are simply abandoned. I also had a presence on InkBlot back in 2022, but then abandoned it because I thought the site was going to die. InkBlot may somehow still be alive today, but I've come to believe my account on there may have been deleted by default. Either that or I've been locked out of InkBlot, and/or the site itself still has a lot of problems. I also tried Hive around the same time as InkBlot, but that site is long dead.
And then of course, there's YouTube! My YouTube channel has a variety of videos, with the most popular being one related to Pirate Express. I wish I could use YouTube now, but I can't. This is because of the company itself being pure evil. My YouTube channel is abandoned until further notice.
One more platform I will mention is Discord. My Discord account has been disabled since August last year, with no intention of returning.
Of all the sites I highlighted in bold, the only one I could return to is Newgrounds. But there's mostly no point in doing so, because I would need to rely on a high profile person on Newgrounds to notice me in order to gain a presence on there. The first time I tried Newgrounds (back in 2019 when I was TropicalMuskrat), I left after just 1 day!
There is something I have done however, and that is temporarily abandon my Ko-fi. I really want to renovate and enhance my presence on that platform, so I could actually make money on there in the future! Any announcement related to Ko-fi and the like would have their own journal.
And so, I've mentioned all the sites that I once used, but still have a presence on in some way.Today is an historic day in my social media history
General | Posted a year agoFangRat
FangRatPhotos
As of today, 16th April 2024, both the above DeviantArt accounts have been erased from existence!
I made the decision last month to log back in to, and then delete, my two DeviantArt accounts that had previously been preserved for more than half a decade. Before I did so, I salvaged more than 2,000 images from both accounts combined.
After both DeviantArt accounts were initially deactivated, there was a 3 week grace period (before Eclipse, the grace period was 30 days). That grace period ended last night (Australian Eastern Standard Time) for my first DA account (FangRatPhotos), and this afternoon for my second DA account (FangRat), thus ending nearly 10 years of yours truly existing on DeviantArt in one way or another (although I did create a DA account in late 2012, but then deleted it a few months later with no content posted on there).
I deleted both DeviantArt accounts as a result of the actions made by DA and its parent company, Wix (dot) com. DeviantArt and Wix are focusing their promotions and advertising almost entirely on AI art; something they, along with most DA users (blindly), are fully endorsing to the point of no return.
DeviantArt is on borrowed time, if not already dead! There have been no less than 4 occasions over the past decade where the site killed itself:
Their corporate rebranding in December 2014, where they discarded their iconic logo and "deviantART" stylisation.
This occurred only 2-3 days after I created my first DeviantArt account! I made a Bluesky post in relation to this;
Their abrupt change and rebranding of "premium memberships" to "core memberships" without notice in August 2015.
This resulted in me leaving DeviantArt temporarily, and almost resulted in my motivation to draw being lost forever. DeviantArt later admitted they should've made an announcement beforehand and apologised to all users;
The mandate of the "Eclipse" UI in May 2020, effectively replacing the DeviantArt of old.
A prime example on how to deliberately make a site "unfriendly". I already left DeviantArt in November 2018;
and finally, the biggest FU of all...
The "DreamUp" AI art generator and initial forced consent to AI art, in November 2022.
This is being aggressively promoted by DeviantArt to the point that one day, they could actually change their name to DreamUp, ending around a quarter-century of the name "DeviantArt" being in use.
Many people have left DA, but there are still many people that remain loyal to the site. If you're one of those loyal users, then do yourself a favour and get off the site, now!
Delete your DeviantArt account, because your loyalty doesn't mean that much anymore! Of course, you may say otherwise, and of course, I would say the same thing when it comes to Twitter/X, a site I left for good at the end of July last year.
Every day you remain active on DeviantArt, you are blindly backstabbing human artists and supporting AI, as well as potentially funnelling conflict (again, the same goes with Twitter).
Believe me, you'll have a much better experience in the art/furry community if you left DeviantArt and Twitter behind, and came to Bluesky and FurAffinity.
Either way, this is something I can now say in public...
ToonThick, now 100% dA-free!
I can at least breathe easy now! Thank you for reading.Invitation to unwatch/block me!
General | Posted a year agoIf you think that I, ToonThick, am no good to you and/or the art/furry community and social media in general, and also think that I shouldn't exist at all, then here is your invitation to give me the middle finger and unwatch/block me!
I do after all have an early edgy history when it comes to social media (MySpace/Facebook/DeviantArt).What if furries were illegal where I lived?
General | Posted 2 years agoFor an April Fools' joke in 2021, I thought I'd explore the idea of yours truly being an outlaw.
I announced on Twitter (as TropicalMuskrat) that furries were illegal where I lived, and I was being targeted by the local council because I was a furry.
This would be followed by the perfect tie-in, with yours truly sort of escaping from where I live!
On the afternoon, evening and night of April 1 that year, I drove from where I live, to Bruntons Bridge along the Thomson River in Gippsland.
The next day, I revealed it was all a joke and I had only gone away for Easter. I then continued east towards the south coast of New South Wales (forget the fact that my car broke down and I returned home on public transport).
3 years later, and coincidentally I end up at the same place I went to on the night of April 1, 2021; Bruntons Bridge.
Just like 3 years ago I was away for Easter, but at the tail end of my trip. I'm back home now!
You can see what I originally posted 3 years ago here.APRIL FOOLS! I'm not really leaving Bluesky!
General | Posted 2 years agoI mean, why would anyone want to delete their Bsky account?
Anyway, happy Easter Fools (for Easter Monday)!I'm leaving Bluesky!
General | Posted 2 years agoI regret to inform you that I've made the decision to delete my Bluesky account in a few hours.
It had been a breath of fresh air, and it served me well for 6 months, but once again I'm being let down by exactly where I live!
You can find me here on FurAffinity, on Telegram and on Ko-fi.
Thank you for understanding.deleteART: A journal about DeviantArt
General | Posted 2 years agoMy MySpace account is long gone; my Facebook account is long gone; my Tumblr account is long gone; my 4 Twitter accounts are long gone (though I actually had 6 accounts on there, either way they're all gone); my previous 3 FurAffinity accounts are either disabled or completely deleted, and; my Instagram account (and probably Threads) will be gone for good just over 3 days from now.
When it came to DeviantArt however, my 2 accounts on there were preserved the way they are since there was a whole lot of stuff that had been posted on there; about 1.5k "deviations" on my first DA account (EmperorSkunkbag/anthromutants/FangRatPhotos) and 600 on my second account (FangRat).
These two DeviantArt accounts had been remained logged out of, since December 2017 and November 2018 respectively, with no intention of ever logging back in. Until now.
With DeviantArt being nothing more than a corporate-owned cesspool of serial pests, art theft, impersonating, request-begging, plain rubbish, AI and more, I have gone out of my way to log back in to my two DA accounts, so I could delete both accounts completely!
This has now become necessary, given that DeviantArt and its parent company are now focusing its promotions and advertising almost entirely on AI art. It would be no surprise if DeviantArt changed its name to DreamUp in the near future.
Logging back in to both my DeviantArt accounts, I found out for myself how "unfriendly" the platform had become. "Eclipse" really was a kick in the face for all loyal users of DeviantArt. And just like the last time I used the site, it is broken! If DeviantArt is to ever be restored to its former glory (when it was sponsoring SXSW and Comic Con), the site needs to be put back in artists' hands.
MORE "deviantART"
LESS "DeviantArt"
FurAffinity used to be in the same position as DeviantArt is now; buried under corporate ownership with the end result almost being the site's death. FA is now artist-owned and the experience is much better than the previous times I've used this site. Even better: AI art is completely banned from here!
FurAffinity is artist-focused. DeviantArt is not! There is no "art" in DeviantArt; it's all "DeadArt".
With that said, I wish that more and more loyal people would take a good hard look at DeviantArt (as well as Twitter, Instagram and TikTok) and maybe come and try FurAffinity and Bluesky (of course, the latter currently doesn't allow the posting of videos and gifs, but one day it will). In particular, a certain art deco enthusiast who also has an interest in weasels!
Back to why I started this journal in the first place: After deleting Instagram and Threads last month, and deleting Twitter last July, I have now deleted both my DeviantArt accounts that were previously preserved for more than 6 and 5 years respectively, for my own good! I am after all, a human artist; not an idiot!
Prior to deleting both DA accounts, I was able to salvage everything from there (more than 2k images + gifs from both accounts combined) that I could one day share on other platforms I'm on!
Both FangRat and FangRatPhotos will be gone for good 3 weeks from now.
Thank you for reading, and support human artists and independent studios!
ToonThick, proudly Australian and independent.I now have one less tooth
General | Posted 2 years agoI haven't been doing much art lately since yesterday, I had one of my wisdom teeth taken out. Over the past week, it had been causing a lot of severe pain, so much that I couldn't sleep at night.
I plan on getting all the other wisdom teeth out among other things, later this year.