Welcome to Gaia! :: Picture Post Rules, Guidelines, and Etiquette

Ready to post your artwork? Before you can show off your art to the other forum visitors, you have to make sure that it is hosted online. There are a number of sites that will do this for you for free, such as:

• PhotoBucket
  
• ImageShack
• TinyPic

Follow the instructions of your image host of choice to upload your artwork.

Once you have gotten your art hosted, you can display it in your post by using the BBCode IMG tags - just click on the little IMG button in the row of buttons that appear right above the window where you type your post. Enter the link to your picture when prompted. The final code for displaying your picture should look something like this:



You can also use gallery sites like DeviantArt, but keep in mind that these usually do not allow direct-linking, so if you use one of these you will have to post the link to your work rather than putting the actual image in a post.

exclaim Make sure that your picture is in a web-friendly format. Due to the relatively small file-size that results from saving images in these formats, the most commonly used formats for posting images are .JPG , .GIF, and .PNG. Keep the images that you post in one of these formats to prevent people who try to look at your artwork from having to wait to download gigantic image files.

exclaim Make sure that your picture is a reasonable size. Large pictures not only take needlessly long to load, but are also difficult to take in at once and cause horizontal forum scrolling. Please try to keep the width of the picture you are embedding in your post at around 500 pixels or less, and if you absolutely must post a large version, add a separate link to it.

The ideal format for a Picture Post art topic is one picture per topic, with a description/comments that you may have on it/list of picture elements that you especially want critiqued. It's not a hard-and-fast, set in stone rule, but it is the most convenient way to display your work.



exclaim Post things that you actually want serious feedback on. Because (ideally) the most basic purpose of Picture Post is to be a place for members to be able to get serious comments and critiques on their artwork, you shouldn't waste other members' commenting/critiquing time by posting art that you don't actually care about. This is not fair to both the users who actually do want help with their art and the users who are providing critique. On a similar note, please only post artwork that you have put effort into. A ten second MSPaint stick-person doodle is not considered acceptable to be posted in Picture Post. For those of you who are doing it to be funny - yes, we know you are trying to ridicule members with less than stellar art skill. It was funny when the first person or two did it, oh, 2 YEARS AGO. But now, this sort of thing is as outdated as the chicken-who-crossed-the-road joke, and about as amusing.

exclaim Do not make excessive amounts of art topics. This is unfair to other forum members, because it needlessly pushes their threads off the front page. The maximum number of topics that is considered acceptable to be posted in a day is 2, with different artwork in each.

exclaim Do not post excessive amounts of artwork in your topics. The Picture Post is not the place for you to set up a gallery for your art. If you really want to show off all the fruits of your artistic labor, post a link to your site in the Promotions sub-forum of Art Discussion. Any personal threads that are found to have excessive amounts of images will be moved to Promotions.

exclaim Do not post your art in other people's art topics. This is called "thread hijacking" and is rude to the thread creator, because it detracts attention from the thread's subject, the picture that they are trying to get feedback on. If you want to show your art off, please make your own topic for it.

exclaim Unlike in the Art Arena, posting artistic nudity is allowed in Picture Post. However, if you would like to post such art, please include a nudity warning in the topic title and make sure to give a link to the image rather than embedding it directly in your post.

exclaim Do not post intentionally misleading thread titles in order to get more pageviews. In other words, do not post "Naruto pic!" if there is no picture of Naruto in your thread. Or "18+ Mature! NUDITY!" if the character you've drawn is fully clothed.

exclaim Please keep your art posts current. What we mean is that you should make new threads when posting new artwork, rather than recycling the same thread over and over for weeks or months. This allows old art to move off the board and makes room for new work to be posted. If you post art very frequently, try keeping one thread updated for a few days and then making a new one so that your art posts remain fresh and representative of your current work. In the same vein, please do not revive your old art topics by posting a reply to an old comment to bump it back up to the top. Once a thread stops receiving replies and slips into the bowels of the forum, it's best to leave it there and start a new thread. If you really want to thank people for commenting in a dead thread, PM them and let them know you appreciate their words.