What website can be used to create a library of all artworks, including older ones?
polycounter lvl 3
TLDR:
What would you be using to make a personal library and timeline with all of your art, including the really old stuff?
----------------------------------------------
I'm a 3D Artist and I'm looking for a social media platform that I can use to upload everything I have (that's not under NDA) chronologically.
I like keeping track of my progress and I also tend to forget that I've created a lot of artworks and assets. Looking at what I've already done and at how much better I got pushes me forward.
What I'm looking for:
- Ability to separate into posts.
- Ability to download the images after posting in full resolution, since I also want to use this as a backup.
- Ability to move around posts so that I can change the order of things if needed.
- Ability to set a post to private.
- No upload cap.
- Square thumbnail format, to keep consistency with Artstation and Instagram.
- If possible, it would be nice to also have a mobile application for IOS and Android. It's nice to show people some of my older stuff as well when I'm outside and they ask about what I'm doing.
Here are some more websites that I've tried for posting all of my work:
- Artstation - Using this for portfolio. I have one post for "older work", just in case someone asks about it, but I'd like to see separate thumbnails per project without messing up my portfolio.
- Deviant Art - I can download full-resolution images, but I can't create separate posts with thumbnails, otherwise, this would be ideal.
- Behance - I can download full-resolution images, have separate posts with multiple images and keep posts private. I've been using this for a while, but I feel kind of bad for posting older bad quality work on a professional website. On another note, it's also a bit annoying that their thumbnails have a different size format than Artstation and Instagram, but that's not really a dealbreaker since it offers everything else.
- Custom Website - Not sure what I was using, but I had some sort of blog format/timeline a few years ago and I couldn't download full-resolution images. The downside is that I would not have a community on a website, but maybe that's for the best when it comes to older artwork. Maybe I should try this again, but while replicating the structure from Instagram or Artstation. Does anyone know of a free and easy to use website construction tool? I also know of Wix but I'm not a fan of how that logo appears everywhere.
- Carbonmade - Tbh I'm not sure what the limitations are anymore. I used this about 6 years ago and I have no idea if it would meet the criteria above nowadays. About 6 years ago it used to have a cap for the amount of stuff you can post.
Websites I haven't used but I am considering:
- Communities: CgSociety,
- Website Builders: Squarespace,
Replies
Polycount sketchbook thread will do everything except 3 and 4.
Couldn't you do this on somewhere like imgur? It's social, can post and download original size images, hide posts if you like, and you could create your own "sets" of pictures from memory.
While 4 - Custom Website is probably the least popular (and does require a bit more involvement), I would say it is very much worth it.
Many would recommend using something like Wordpress for the backend, but imho that's not the best idea unless one is willing to do regular maintenance and is okay with the idea of the site suddenly breaking at some point. As you can probably guess this is exactly what happened to me as I ended up with my .com not showing any images all of a sudden - and even the webdesigners I've contacted to diagnose the issue couldn't quite pinpoint it. Which led me down the path of rebuilding the whole thing from scratch imposing myself the limitation of only using barebones tech I fully understand and that I could easily debug if I mess up or something breaks. I also wanted the layout to be done using an oldschool "wysiwyg" editor, 2000s style.
After days of research and testing I ended up with "Quick'n Easy Web Builder 8", which I found to be the most stable solution out there.
All this took much longer than using a service offering a readymade template of course, but I am very glad to have an oldschool-style website again that is 100% under my control with no strings attached / none of the weird aftertaste caused by a template that is good-ish but not quite what I might want.
So if you can spare a week or two dedicated to that, I would say it is worth it.
As for dumping things on a timeline, if find Tumblr to be pretty nice. Although for that too I'd ideally prefer an oldschool custom website without any social aspect. Like a single page with a simple script loading up all images from a folder, ordered according by file name.
Ohh, never thought about imugur. I'll look into it, thank you!
I've had a few posts around here, but while it's nice, I'd like something a bit more organized :(
Hahah so the lesson there is no wordpress :))
For what you recommended, I find it really cool that you have 100% control. What do you mean by "no strings attached" though?
Tumblr could be smth, but I want to also be able to move things around easily, a bit like drag and drop of posts to switch the order. The timeline would be mostly things from the same year, but I also want to keep things looking nice. Would I have this kind of feature with what you suggested as well?
So, for moving things around on tumblr... there's no drag and drop to switch the order. You can change the order non destructively, though, by editing the post, clicking the little settings gear in the top right, and typing/copying a time/date that moves it to where you'd like it to be (I've always copied the time of the post I want to be below it and added a few seconds). It's a bit old school but it isn't that much of a pain. It's also pretty extendable in terms of themes which has previously been why I stuck to it for a while. That said, I feel like if you forsee yourself doing this often, taking the time to set up a few scripts/plugins/etc like pior suggested would make it overall a better experience to edit. Unfortunately I think it would take some more in-depth stuff to make it exactly like managing Artstation, but I'm sure you could get something that does what you want.
Many would recommend using something like Wordpress for the backend, but imho that's not the best idea unless one is willing to do regular maintenance and is okay with the idea of the site suddenly breaking at some point. As you can probably guess this is exactly what happened to me as I ended up with my .com not showing any images all of a sudden - and even the webdesigners I've contacted to diagnose the issue couldn't quite pinpoint it.
That's unfortunate. And i feel your pain. But this is not the rule.
As much as even i sometimes hate Wordpress, i wouldn't generally exclude Wordpress since it is the most popular and still the easiest solution out there. Super big community, a solution for every problem. And you have the page up and running and also maintained in an eye blink. And usually an update works just flawless. That's at least my experience with it.
I have went through lots of other common CMS solutions over the years. Exotic ones like PHP Kit (not longer available). Typo3, Contao, and so on. The worst solution that i have ever used was Drupal. Super complicated to create, super complicated to maintain. Really every update broke something. And i couldn't even migrate to the next version of it then. Wordpress just works. Since years. There is a reason why Wordpress dominates the CMS market with i think over 60% nowadays. It has blown away everything else.
The biggest problem is that Wordpress has a really lousy performance. And you will encounter bot attacks at your wp-login.php since Wordpress is also for bots very popular. For the first problem i suggest to install a optimizer plugin like Autoptimize and a caching plugin like WP Super Cache. Doesn't make Wordpress to a race horse. But makes it tolerable for even a big installation with a ton of plugins. And for the security i suggest WP Cerber, and to give the wp-login.php another name then. Which can be done from within WP Cerber. Besides that, avoid unknown third party plugins where ever possible. It's these plugins that makes Wordpress insecure and even slower. The masses will lead you to the good plugins.
Of course just when you want to go the self hosting way at all. To host a own page is definitely work.
Okay, i take that back. The newest Wordpress update has just killed one of my pages :D
Haha well there you go :D If anything I feel like WP is great for quick development and deployment of, say, a online shop/product landing page. But anything more than that really felt like a huge drag to me, especially when knowing how fast things can be when developing locally as opposed to using online editors. That said it did work quite well for a while - I just stopped using it when it broke on me for no reason.
As a matter of fact when I was looking around for a solution to my need for a website refresh, the local web design shop explained to me that they don't use anything of the sort (WP or otherwise), but rather built their own CMS and templates that they have full control over. So in the end I settled with a poors man offline version of that, using an offline WYSIWYG web editor for a workflow similar to early 2000s web authoring. I have the full site backed up, I can also download it from the fileserver without any exotic dependencies, and if the server goes down I can just reupload everything in one single operation somewhere else.
This was the demonstration effect :D
Yes, sure writing it by yourself is always the best solution. Full control is just great. But the price is time and effort. And / or lots of money. And then you still have to maintain it. The problem remains the same. One update can still break everything :)
Well, the page is back working, phew. Made me really worry for a moment. To write this one from scratch with another solution would have taken months. But to be fair, i use it for something that you shouldn't do anyways. The page is a complete community solution with even a user image gallery, which means a ton of plugins are involved. Even i don't recommend that :D