ArtSpots Rules

Yes, we do have a Terms of Use and a Submission Agreement—those things make lawyers happy. The Terms of Use contains the following line:

We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time.

Now, we don’t have many reasons to do that to people, but we want to make sure that your conduct and the content you upload is consistent with what users expect from ArtSpots. So here are some guidelines for avoiding such a fate.

Posting Comments

• Description and comment language should be appropriate for the rating of the image (e.g. no swearing in G rated pictures).
• Don’t make defamatory or insulting comments.
• Above all, to mark us as kids from the 80’s, “Be excellent to each other.”

Artists and Uploading Images

As I am sure you are aware, on ArtSpots you are held to a higher standard than most other art gallery sites. Here’s the differences:

Types of Images that Can be Uploaded

• ArtSpots is a gallery for illustrations and 3D art (both traditional and digital). Put your best work on the site. The gallery isn’t a photo dump.
• Sketches (but not doodles) are quite welcome in the gallery, but create a separate gallery for sketches to keep ArtSpots organized. Also keep in mind the Presentation of Images section below when posting sketches.
• Many artists have set up their own sketchbook topics in the forums to post sketches and doodles. Because those images are not in the actual gallery, the Presentation of Images section does not apply to the forums. All the other rules do apply regarding content, copyright, and so on.
• Photography is allowed in the gallery but we do have some special guidelines.
• Photos are only allowed if they are pictures of your original art (i.e. 3D works of art such as sculpture, murals, large paintings, outdoor art, etc.).
• Use the same thought of composition and lighting as you would for a 2D piece: no quick snapshots with a simple flash. This forum topic covers one way to properly light a sculpture.
• It is generally not appropriate to have photos of fursuits in the gallery even thought they are technically 3D art. This is due to the function of fursuits as costumes instead of as stand-alone pieces of art. We do, however, make an exception in that the fursuit has to be of a high-artistic quality, and the photo of it has a strong concept, composition, and lighting: the same requirements that we hold for 2D art. Here is an example of what would be appropriate for the gallery.
• If you upload older works, please use the backdating creation date feature when uploading. That way the actual creation date of your piece is listed in your gallery instead of the date that it was uploaded.

Presentation of Images

• ArtSpots is a gallery. Make sure that your artwork is presentable. You viewers shouldn’t be distracted by any artifacts that weren’t part of your original image.
• If you scan or take photographs of your images to digitize them, take some time to clean up the image if necessary. There shouldn’t be any wrinkles, creases, smudges, notebook paper lines, bad reflections from camera flash, bad crops, bad color/contrast, and other undesirable artifacts in your image. Scanners are usually better for this, but if you take digital photos of your work, which many artists do because their paintings are too big for their scanner or they don’t have one, you may need to spend some extra time cleaning up the image before you upload it to the ArtSpots gallery.
• If you want to show multiple angles of the same 3D artwork, compile all the images into a photomontage and upload that, instead of uploading many individual images into the gallery.
• Large watermarks that disrupt the viewing of an image (copyright notices, artist logos, etc.) are not allowed in the gallery. Such things should be off to one side or corner. Images should not be at a sufficient size to duplicate anyway.

Content Rating of Images

• The art must fall within our ratings of G through PG-13. Artwork that is R or X-rated is not allowed.
• ArtSpots users can raise or lower the maximum rating that they want to see in the gallery. Be respectful to your fellow users and give images the appropriate rating.
• G: Contains no sexual themes, nudity, bad language, or drug use.
• PG: May contain suggestive situations implying sex or violence, mild language, drug references, use of alcohol and/or tobacco, or mild/fantasy violence.
• PG-13: May contain mild nudity (no “below the belt” frontal nudity, must be non-sexual, non-suggestive, and not the focus), stronger language, mild drug use, or mild bloody violence.
• Fetish images, even those that fall within the above ratings, are strongly discouraged and may be removed by moderators at their discretion.

Original Artwork

• All of the artwork in the images you upload must be created by you.
• Respect copyright. Do not copy other people’s work. This includes tracing and making derivative works.
• Regarding fan art, we zealously encourage original works but we do understand that inspiration can come from existing sources. We allow fan art in small quantities, and they must not be derivative works (e.g. tracing or copying characters, scenes, or images; using copyrighted imagery in the final piece; and all other uses of copyrighted material as it applies to creating derivative works).
• If you decide to do fan art, we suggest that you do your own interpretations of characters; don’t copy them. If your art is based on visually recognizable characters, try it in a different style and/or do a situation that does not imitate a scene from the original work. Remember that parodies fall under fair use, so that is another option.
• We reserve the right to remove fan art if there is too much of it in a gallery.
• If you struggle with thinking of ideas for original characters to draw, we have regular Trading Posts where you can draw characters by other artists, and there are also online resources that will generate character ideas for you.
• If the copyright holder asks us to remove specific art of an existing character, we will do so.

Enforcement of the Rules

If these rules are repeatedly ignored or are violated again after a warning is issued, we will take action.

If a piece is flagged numerous times as being misrated, we will investigate and may bump the rating up a notch. No harm, no foul. If a PG-13 image is blatantly misrated as G we will change the rating appropriately and warn the user. Multiple misratings might result in gallery privileges being revoked.

In regards to inappropriate or offensive content:

• 1st Offense: Removal of the image and a warning
• 2nd Offense: Removal of the image and 5 day ban on their account
• 3rd Offense: Suspension of account.

In regards to unclean scans or photos in the gallery:

• 1st Offense: Removal of the image and a warning that any future images like this will be removed.
• 2nd Offense: Removal of the image and another warning.
• Repeated Offenses: If it’s obvious to us that you don’t want to put the time in to clean up your images and show no sense of improvement whatsoever, we may suspend you account.

These rules may change as issues come up or existing rules need to be clarified, so check back from time to time. If you’re unsure of anything, please ask us.