What is the differences and significance of the 3D art websites out there?

manilamerc

What the title says...

theres cghub, cgsociety, gameartistians, pixologic, and probably more...

From what you guys know, what is the pro's and con's of these sites when compared to one another. If there is any experience you had with them or have with them please let me know. There is quite a few of those 3d art sites and deciding which one to choose or avoid is tricky. I want to be a character modeler (preferably gaming), so if there is anything you guys recommend for that, that would be great.

I choose Polycount because a guest speaker was talking about how he landed a job there. But there are other sites like Polycount that may help me and broaden my learning skills.

Muzzoid

Find a community you like the people in. really that's all it should be about.

ZacD

Just my experiences, some sites I've seen just a few hours on, others I've used on and off for a year.

Cghub is dead. Sad.

Cgsociety is too large and doesn't have any major focus. Not much of a community.

Game Artistians seems to be too nice and not enough harsh criticism (plus the Dominance War drama). Although I haven't posted much there, I'll probably give it a real shot once I'm trying to get a job.

Pixologic a place for artists to drop awesome sculpts and zBrush breakdowns.

Polycount is great for honest and harsh criticism, generally helpful with technical issues, or learning how to model/bake/texture most effectively. You won't get too much comments or feedback if your work is middle of the road, but if you really need to work on a certain area, people will let you know. Great community, lots of ways besides the forum to interact.

PyrZern

I tried both GA and PC at first while I was testing the water. The comments I received here are superior in quality for me to improve myself.

ZBrushcentral has some awesome stuff worth looking around once awhile though. (IMM, plugins, breakdowns, or tutorials).

iconoplast

Cgsociety's forums are dying, actually. I wouldn't call them large anymore, at least in that department.

Super

Most forums are genuinely poor these days. I don't know what it is but go back 3-5 years and they were BUZZING with work and communities, crits and advice. Now it's almost gone, even the high profile artists who used to post on the sites have completely vanished.

I've got folders of artwork from artists that I would follow these very forums and now have no idea if they're even working in the industry any longer. Maybe people are busy with real life but there's not even a new breed.

Bigjohn

Gameartisans is still around. It was, and in my personal opinion still is, the most newb-friendly place to go. If you want to learn and improve, their mini-competitions are just so very useful.

cptSwing

Game-artist.net has also been around for a while. It's smaller and more newbie-focused though, I would say. Then there's also Nextgenhardsurface (which seems to be down right now), tech-artists.org, 3dtotal has forums, as does eat3d.

But the only forum I check several times daily is PC