Sta.sh
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Watch me IF you like my art~ ;v;
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Neglect 
Greetings, peeps! Have you heard about dA's newest 'improvement'? I have, and like everyone else, I've whined about it. But there comes a time when whining becomes mere static to the background of general displeasure of lesser things. Soon, there comes a time when we must actually do something about it, rather than point fingers from our sofas. So, here's something to do... Ze plan iz as follows; all of us watch someone, each of us has an artist friend here on dA who deserves to be seen but isn't getting enough attention. So, if everyone invested a bit of time shining a spotlight on that artist, then deviantArt would be a whole lot less one-sided. Pick someone you watch, select their pieces that you like best and talk a little about them. Cross-link artist features in other artists' journals if they've done one too. Think of it as a PRODUCTIVE meme. Go, play.Here's my special feature - ~cheddarpaladin.
Cheddarpaladin, or Cheesy (as I call him without permission), has been one of my longest of deviantArt friends. Exact circumstances of our meeting are lost to time, but his comments had found me even as far back as 2004. Since then, I've watched (and damn well had my say) his development as an artist, I've watched his style evolve, become sharper, but always remain recogniseable in my watch box.
PortraitID by Cheddar, with a characteristic cartoon-inspired style in his early period.
Blue Dragon, a gift to me, with a most excellent, impressionistic colouring approach.
Rarest of all Collections, where Cheesy commenced upon a most epic of projects - a collection of cards honouring his dA friends.
Over time, his pictures expanded to portray awesome battles, and very detailed backgrounds. Something that I'm still very much envious of.
Solid Snake, in a sneaking position in the shadows. What else could you possibly want?!
The All Father. A scene with a moody knight, and an eight-legged horse. Again, full of detail and atmosphere.
The Forest Temple. One of my favourite pieces. Lots of hyper-detailed characters locked in a kick-ass battle, with fancy-pants lighting. Perfect.
I've watched his gallery for about six years and while other deviants of the green times have gone, Cheddarpaladin is one of the few who've stuck by (Ahem, without pointlessly prancing about through new accounts). It almost feels as though we've 'grown up' together as artists here, on this site.
Like all best galleries, his shows where he's been, what he's seen and what his interests were. His life is in his art, as it should be.
Here's to you Cheezmeister and to another six years.
Keep creating,
~Y.
You... you're too good to me, Yel.
Excuse, me. I'd love to try and find the words to best convey my immense appreciation, but I have a sudden, intense urge to get off my lazy ass and get back to painting. As if I choose to do anything else would just be... wrong.
Thank you, Yelena.
Much love from your silly American friend.
Lulz, get off yer lazy arse and get on with the painting. >
Even with 120 results on a page with premium, it's still 1000 pieces. By a given point all the entries that have any degree of popularity whatsoever have given way in favour of pretty-bad scanned pencil scribblings.
For things like art references, again... I've searched for 'body pose' and a big percentage is just naked ladies in erotic poses that does not help me in the slightest. If the search is restricted to a 1000, remember that a large portion of that will be totally useless to your purposes.
I agree that the quality goes down further down the popularity scale... but I HAVE found pretty sweet pieces further in that aren't seen by many people.
...huh. That reminds me. Searches haven't randomly died on me in a while. If this is an alternative to 'never being able to search outside of a couple of hours each day', I'll take it.
What are the odds returning more than 1000 results will turn into a premium feature, eventually?
I don't know, I often get an error in searching... but granted I haven't had a search 'die' in a while either. Still though, I used to save the page if it DID die, and then amend the address to keep browsing from that point.
*shrug* In yesterday's DDs someone suggested a modified search with an option to only search deviations from two years back (or another date).
But anyway, most people's problem is that much of their work (if they're not 'popular') won't be searchable.
If DA can work out an alternative that leaves searching the entire depth of DA's offerings, rather than the first 1000, still possible - maybe not have it as the default, maybe browsing via tags (it... works really well, actually) - I'd be happy.