ArtStation PRO accounts released!

Hey guys,

Earlier this week we quietly launched the ArtStation Pro plans. I’m really happy to say that many artists have been jumping onto it with positive feedback. The new Pro Plans offer artists a super easy way to setup and maintain a portfolio website, along with some great community features.

Here’s some highlights of the features:

• Pro website themes
• Connect your domain name to your ArtStation website
• Password protect pages
• Unlimited bandwidth, pages and projects
• Larger Marmoset Viewer uploads
• Appear at the top of searches by default (end user can override this)
• Pro badge on posts and community profile
• Priority support
• And a lot more that’s in development

For me, this has been a 3+ year journey and was the original vision of ArtStation. It was always intended to be a website builder, linking everyone together in a community hub. When we launched ArtStation, the community wanted ArtStation to be CGHub 2.0, and as a result, we had to put the website builder on the backburner while we madly worked on the community site, rearchitecting, scaling and trying to keep up, all while also trying to make a viable business that would ensure its sustainability. I’m happy to say that ArtStation really turned around this year – we’ve made it into the top 1500 sites on the Internet traffic-wise and continue to grow.

How did the Pro plans originate?

To understand the Pro plans, one must go all the way back to the beginning of the ArtStation project in 2012/13. Having worked in the industry since 1999 (I founded CGSociety, Ballistic Publishing, worked with Autodesk, Softimage, Gnomon and more), I had many artist friends. They all had the same problem – their damn website. Literally almost every single artist I knew had problems with their website. Everyone agreed that they needed a website, but there were so many problems with updating it. Some artists were hosting it themselves and just never updated it. Some used tools like Frontpage and Iweb from Apple and could no longer update them. Some used WordPress, got hacked and never recovered. Most just couldn’t be bothered. 🙂

Even though there are website builders out there like Squarespace, Wix, Cargo Collective and WordPress hosted, it didn’t matter – artists got busy and just wouldn’t bother updating their website. They’d create a website, pay $100-$200 a year and leave it there to rot.

The other problem was discoverability. So you have a website – so what? People wouldn’t be able to find all these great artists. And this contributed to the problem. Because people weren’t engaging with artists via their website, artists wouldn’t bother updating them.

That’s why we built ArtStation.

Purpose built for Media & Entertainment artists

What makes ArtStation unique is that it is designed very specifically for the needs of artists working in media & entertainment. We didn’t build a general purpose portfolio tool for photography and UX web design. We built it very specifically for game, film, CG, media & entertainment artists with support for Sketchfab, Marmoset Viewer, multiple images and video assets. Soon we’ll be adding 360 VR and animation clips. You won’t find this kind of dedication to this industry with general purpose website builders.

Our themes are carefully crafted for the specific needs of artists in different domains. We spoke to dozens of artists working in all kinds of roles to come up with the themes we launched with. For example we have the Vertical theme which is designed for presenting works with a predominantly vertical aspect ratio – e.g. characters, novel covers, etc. We created the Horizon theme for work with landscape aspect ratios such as matte paintings, environment art and weapon art.

The Vertical theme was designed specifically for artists to present work with vertical aspect ratios – such as character work, novel covers, etc.

The Horizon theme came about from artists who wanted to show really elongated works with landscape aspect – e.g. weapons artists and environment artists.

Convenience

The biggest thing that we designed the Pro website for is convenience. The fact is, most artists hate updating their websites, but they find it really easy to just post their work on ArtStation. With the Pro website, it literally takes a few seconds to set up a great looking site with zero hassle. What you post on ArtStation shows up on your website, and because it’s all hooked into the central community hub where all the industry recruiters and art directors are, they’re going to find you.

Now, I don’t want to sound like I’m marketing this, so don’t take it from me – this is what artists are saying:

“OMG this is so easy to use!” – Raphael Lacoste

“ArtStation PRO is perfect for a quick site with zero hassle.” Kurt Papstein

Check it out

So with that, I encourage you to check out the ArtStation Pro product page.

Do also read the FAQ at the bottom of that page, as it covers many of the questions that artists have been asking about the service.

This is a new phase for ArtStation, and we’re so excited about what’s to come! Thank you all for your continued support and here’s to 2017.

Best wishes,

Leo