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There is quite literally something for everyone on this site, doesn’t matter what type of artist you are, from a painter to a Digital artist who specializes in fractal desktop wallpapers to a Celebrity Photographer.
DeviantART (from here on out, referred to as dA) has many features to it, and the best one is the fact that registration and submission of art is FREE, and there is no limit to how many submissions you can put up. Not many websites offer that.
The second best feature is the community itself. It’s diverse and for the most part, pretty decent. There are places where you can go and get people to comment on your work (The best place would be the ThumbSHARE channel in the dAmn Chat), and the people who frequent that place give very constructive criticism, which is always nice.
My personal favorite feature is the shoutBOX. It’s basically a chat room, and you know how cool chat rooms are ;-). The people who frequent the “box” are pretty nice and fun to chat with, just don’t go advertising there though, you’ll be promptly told to get lost, since there are places for that kind of thing (Like the ThumbSHARE channel mentioned above).
If you’re a serious artist (Who more then likely already has a dA account), the best features for you is Subscription and the Print store. The first feature unlocks several features that are only available only to subscribers, such as browsing with no advertising, being able to view 120 thumbnails at time when going through someone’s gallery, enhanced journals (CSS styling, your own personal shoutBOX, forum, polls and several extra goodies), the ability to become an Official Beta Tester (you get to test out new features before they are unleashed on the unsuspecting community), and overall faster browsing. The second feature is the Prints store. You can sell your art and make real money. Now that’s just nice. If you don’t purchase a Print account though, you only get 25% of the profits from the sale of your art, if you get an account, you get 50%. Some of the best artists on dA make a living from the sale of their art.
dA has taken a large chunk of my life, much like OTF has. I’ve been a member there since November 28th 2002 (User page: http://aceman67.deviantart.com). When I first joined, I was only there to submit anime wallpapers (Desktop wallpapers that feature Anime characters with a manipulated background), but almost a half year after I joined, dA made the choice to get rid of the Anime Wallpaper gallery all together citing that it violated copyright law (which it did, and in fact, CLAMP, the makers of popular anime such as Cardcaptor Sakura and Chobits, filed a cease and desist order, although, that’s just a rumor) and I lost well over half my gallery (Thankfully I backed everything up, since they did give fair warning). With the main drive in my artistic life now gone, I tried something else out: Abstract Wallpapers, and I discovered that I’m actually quite good at it, and some of my more popular pieces have been Abstract in nature (You can see some of them in my showcase here on the artist guild’s website).
All in all, dA is the best choice for artists to showcase their work, with it being easy to use and accessable, and I highly recommend it, even if you don’t submit art, you can always give out comments!