TUTORIAL: How To Suggest DDs + Some Tips

Oct 12, 201316 min read

Deviation Actions

Published: Oct 12, 2013

12.1K Views

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[UPDATE: 1/20/2014] I updated this tutorial and added new pointers. These are particularly about browsing the artist's gallery (#4).

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Hi everyone!

Few deviants asked me for some tips on how I suggest DDs. It's true that I have suggested some DDs, though I don't really consider myself that good at suggesting. But I hope at the end of this tutorial, I could impart some inspiration and you would learn something new about DD suggestions.

I made this tutorial for those who are interested in DD suggesting. I also provided some tips, and hopefully they would be helpful. Most of what I wrote here are what I learned along the way (as I suggest), and based from my experience. The important reminders are in red bullets

1. First of all, what are DDs ?

DD or Daily Deviation is basically a one-day art feature of deviations selected by our Community Volunteers (CV) or Staff members. These wonderful deviations are brought to the attention of the dA community. You can find today's daily deviations in today.deviantart.com/dds.

2. Where can I find deviations that have potential as DDs ?

There are many ways to find excellent pieces in deviantart. One way is to 'browse' artworks at the front page of dA. I often select the 'Undiscovered' when I browse. I find the works here awesome. This is where I found some of my suggestions. It is a good place to look for a DD suggestion.

Another way is to search for groups that features exceptional works. There are plenty of them and they are good places to look for DD suggestions. How to search for groups? Go to your profile page and beside the 'deviantART', there is a little icon of arrow pointing down, click it and look for 'Groups'. After you're redirected, you'll see a Search bar and type in there, say, "DD" or "daily deviation". You may want to choose the larger and more active groups, then search for suggestions in the group's gallery.

Also, another way is to browse for past DDs, and this way you'll know the artists. How to do this? You can browse for previous DDs in today.deviantart.com/dds, by clicking the "Prev Day", or by changing the date. You may also browse for the DDs featured by the former and current community volunteers. I do this often. These are usually found in their favorites and collection. With this you'll have an idea of what the CVs want to see in a DD.

Or if you have a lot of time, you can 'browse' art for 'Popular All Time'. But do this only if you want to suggest for a specific gallery, say, Designs & Interfaces, to limit the number of deviation you'll have to check. Check each work and the artist. I don't really recommended this, since it would take a lot of patience and time to look for a suggestion, and some of them are old, and most CVs prefer, of course, newer and more recent ones.

3. I found one! What should I do next ?

i. First thing to do is to check if the artist has not gotten a DD for the past six months. To check, add " /dds " at the end of an artist's profile link. For example: ginryuzaki.deviantart.com/dds (you should see a thumbnail, and below is the date it was featured)

ii. After checking the artist's DDs, you may want to browse for more works of the artist, because most probably you will find more awesome works in other art categories (see #4). But you may skip this part if you want, and suggest the work immediately to a CV.

4. How do I browse the gallery of the artist I found ?

I think this part especially requires some personal experience on DD suggesting. If you're just starting, this will be a bit difficult to understand.

In the artist's gallery, I usually browse for all the works, by clicking the "All" button found at the left side. This way, you'll also see the all art categories where the artist has submitted his works.

After clicking "All" button, I choose "Newest" rather than "Popular" especially if the artist has been in dA for so long. But this depends on some case as I will point out later.

First thing I do is choose the art category (whether it's Manga & Anime, Photography, Artisan Crafts, etc.) which is similar to the piece you found. For instance, the piece you found is in Manga & Anime category, therefore, you choose the Manga & Anime category to browse. I guess it's easy to see which art category the majority of the works of the artist are submitted to. If you have seen a piece that you believe should be a DD, then you may send it to the appropriate CV right away. If you still haven't, don't give up. The next tip might help you.

Related art categories. As a suggester, I have browsed a lot of galleries, and I came up with a general pattern of browsing. This is probably a bit hard to understand, because you can't always rely on the art category, especially when a lot of works have been submitted to the wrong art category (for instance, you saw a Naruto Fan Art, but submitted to Manga & Anime). Thus, suggesting works also needs your observation and judgment.

For example, if the majority of the works are in Digital Art > Drawings & Paintings category, the artist usually don't have many Manga & Anime works, but most of the time, they have Designs & Interfaces > Game Development Art works. This also depends on the what kind of Digital Art. There are digital art works which are close to Manga & Anime style (for instance, see Iya-chen's gallery), and therefore in this case, Manga & Anime and Digital Art categories are "related"; while some are what I call 'works made by online illustrators' because I don't know what to call them (for instance, see Wen-Xaeroaaa's gallery) which mostly belong to Landscape & Scenery, Sci-Fi, Space Art, etc. sub-categories.

As I've said, this requires your judgment, and it depends on the gallery you're browsing, as well as the medium the artist usually uses. The following are some cases:

i. The work you found is in Manga & Anime category. Related categories I usually browse (in order):
Fan Art
Cartoon & Comics
Digital Art > Pixel Art
Digital Art > Drawings & Paintings
Traditional Art

ii. The work you found is in Fan Art category. Related categories I usually browse (in order):
Digital Art > Drawings & Paintings
Traditional Art
Manga & Anime
Cartoon & Comics

iii. The work you found is in Digital Art > Drawings & Paintings category. Related categories I usually browse (in order):
Designs & Interfaces > Game Development Art
Digital Art > Drawings & Paintings > Sci-Fi (or Space Art)
Fan Art
Traditional Art
Digital Art > 3-Dimensional Art
Manga & Anime
*only for 'works made by online illustrators'

Browsing for "Popular". I choose the "Popular" button for a specific art category when the artist has a lot of deviations, or when I am 'undecided'. What I mean is when you want to include all thumbnails of the artist's works in the note, because: (1) they are all impressive and DD-worthy; (2) they look great, but they all look the same to you (same style, concept, etc.) or basically nothing has stood out; or (3) you observed that the old works are more amazing than the new ones.

Browsing for other works by the same artist is important when the work does not follow the CV's DD guidelines (see the first tip in #5 to know more about DD guidelines). For example, there is only one CV for Digital Art category, and it says in the guidelines that he usually prefers to feature artists who has no DD yet. When I browse for works in the 'Undiscovered' section, I see a lot of Digital Art pieces, but when I check the artist's DDs, he hasn't got a DD for the past six months, but he has a lot of DDs already. Since this particular guideline must be followed, I browse other works of the artist in other art categories which can follow the guidelines of other CVs. Therefore, when I see a Digital Art work that I want to suggest, I end up suggesting another work from different art category (usually Designs & Interfaces or Sci-Fi). Honestly, this happens most of the time. Of course, this is not always the case because there can be exceptions too, but I can say that your suggestion has higher chance of getting accepted if you follow the most basic and 'preferred' rules in the guidelines, rather than relying on the exceptions.

5. How do I send the suggestions to a CV ?

i. Check the art category of the deviation, and then go to FAQ #18. You'll see here the list of Community Volunteers and Staff members (who also take DD suggestions). Choose the appropriate CV based on the category. Now, before you send your suggestion, you should always check the DD Guidelines of that particular CV. These are usually found on their profile page, some in their journals, but it shouldn't be hard to find, because they will link it to their profile page somehow.

The CV's DD guidelines is very important, so you should read and keep it mind. Some CVs put in there what they prefer, or what they want to see in a deviation. For example, some CVs only feature artists with less than five DDs, but some prefer those who doesn't have any DD yet. As much as possible, follow the 'preferred rules' in their guidelines.

Also, if you feel and quite sure that the deviation is not in the right category, you might want to send them to the appropriate CV and ask. For instance, if your suggestion is a Fan Art, but submitted in the Manga & Anime category, try sending it to a Fan Art CV and ask. Few of my suggestions are actually misplaced in other categories when I found them.

Another would be if the deviation can be considered in another art category. I saw a lot of this and it happens often, for instance, the deviation is in Digital Art, but you believe it can be considered Manga & Anime. What I do is I send them to a Manga & Anime CV and ask (honestly I do this often).

ii. Ready to send? Then click "Send a Note" button found at the upper right corner of the CV's profile page (below where the badges are displayed). CVs prefer to see thumbnails instead of links, so copy-paste the thumbnail of your suggestion. It is found in the deviation page, above the statistics (views, favorites, comments). You may also put a short description if you want.

Remember to send it to only one community volunteer so that it won't make a confusion!

6. What to do after sending a suggestion ?

Just wait. CVs receive probably hundreds of notes daily so expect it might take a while. Some CVs reply to notes, others don't. And while you're at it, you may start looking for other suggestions!

7. Additional tips

CV preference. Note that if there are more than one CVs for a specific category, you may want to consider each CV's personal preference rather than sending randomly to any of them. How do you choose among them? Actually, it's difficult and you're not 100% sure because you are merely speculating each preferences based on what you observe. But it somewhat increases the chance that your suggestion will be accepted. Of course you also have to consider what's written in their DD guidelines. Anyway, what you'll do is to observe the DDs featured by the current CVs. What do you see, and how do you describe the DDs?

Declined suggestions. This is unavoidable. It's not like everything you suggest would be accepted, so be prepared if your suggestion gets rejected or declined. If there are more than one CV for that art category, try suggesting it to the other CV (only when the CV whom you sent the suggestion first tells you so). If your suggestion gets rejected, don't let it get to you, and make it your motivation to look for better suggestions in the future.

When the note is overlooked or suggestion got featured, but not you as the suggester. Now, there are also cases when your suggestion gets featured, but the suggester is not you. It happens a lot; it happened to me several times before from different art categories. You might say, "the credit should be mine, I worked hard to look for that suggestion!" and it's true. But well, your name as the suggester is not the most important thing right? I guess you should just be happy for the artist that he gets a DD feature he truly deserves and that's the most important thing. But this depends on whether the CV overlooks your suggestion every single time; well think about it also.

DD suggesting really requires patience and time, so you should have at least passion to suggest and help others get noticed.
Why do I suggest? I love suggesting DDs because it makes the artist very happy. Whenever I receive a "thank you" comment or note from the artist and telling me how DD feature made their day, it makes me happy too and it was all worth it.

Art appreciation is one of the best things an artist could get, and always think of it when you suggest.
I hope you learned something from this tutorial.