A few weeks ago, I added 2 new links to the top of the site: FAC Store and Gaming. Check them out.

There are many bug, security flaws, and problems in Internet Explorer. Some of these bugs and problems affect the display of FAC on that browser. Therefore for optimal browsing of FAC and many other websites I suggest getting
. It is a faster and more secure web browser.

FAC now has a store where you can buy merchandise. We have shirts, mouse pads, mugs, and some other stuff.

Check it out HERE

Merry Christmas and happy whatever other December holiday you celebrate.

In other news, the origional category has been removed. Its contents have been murged with Miscellaneous. These 2 categories served more or less the same purpose and were causing confusion so now they are one.

FAC's email server has died. Looks like a hard drive crash. Don't expect email replies anytime soon.

This month's artists of the month are Sorceress_Ultimecia and butterfly111585 check out their work.

In other news, I've recently started a new site. Anime Vidcaps An anime pictures site for image captures from anime.

If you like looking at vidcaps or making them, check it out.

An anime pictures site for image captures from anime.

If you like looking at vidcaps or making them, check it out.

http://www.anime-vidcaps.net

Tho late, this month's artists of the month are Yambe-Akka
and lil_artizt

This month's artists of the month are Faith and Marla. Check out their work.

Due to an error related to the database, all submissions since 1:30 am are lost. Please repost your images, comments, forum posts, etc. as needed.

Sorry :(

FAC is now on a new faster server. This should make the site faster

There are also new thumbnails being generated with a nice shadow effect

There are problems with the fanfiction submissions on the new server and I am working on them

November's artists of the month are Jessie and Poonyo

Due to the money being made by the Google banner ads, I have removed the popups. Although not a profitable as I initially hoped, they are making enough to cover the server costs so the annoying popups get to go.

In other news, I've made some recent much needed and long overdue improvements to the fanfiction system. See the forum announcements if you want details.

This year Fanart Central will put the spotlight on worthy fanart central members who you will nominate and vote for! For more details on the awards you can check out the site discussion forum here. The actual nominations should be done Here

September's Artists of the Month are animark and Kate. Check out their work.

In other news, since I don’t think I ever made a formal announcement about it, I removed the image size restrictions a while ago. Instead, the images are automatically resized for display.

August 2004's artists of the month are
beastofoblivion
and
Jack Check out their work.

In other news, fanart central is now selling banner advertising space. Check out our advertising page for details if you are interested. I'm sure everbody would much rather banner ads than popups.

As of now, we are cleaning out and organizing the "Original" category
section. Any help by the users to clean the category out and place
pictures in their proper places would significantly help the staff and
cut the amount of time it will take drastically. If you have anything
in the Original section, please just make sure that it is in the proper
specific category, including the sub categories.

This means no

angels, fearies, etc, (Go under fantasy)

real people, (It is its own category)

games (have their own categories under Games),

or any official anime or manga characters should be placed under the Original category.

Please make sure everything is placed accordingly and properly to their
sub categories by what the picture is of. We would greatly appreciate it
if the users would take a few minutes to just check this and save us
the time having to move all of pictures and art ourselves. And
remember, this will be taking place in "Original" category, and all sub
categories under it. Thank you.

July 2004 featured artists of the month are Selphius and Chibi-Robin. Check out their work.

This month's Artists of the month are fallenangel and ryosen

In other news, there are a few problems with the site for some people. I am aware of them and am working on them, so you don’t need to email me about them

1. This site is unable to send any email to Verizon email addresses. This means no comment notifications and stuff, and validations will not work. Due to Verizon ignoring my emails, this may never get fixed. Use another email provider.

2. If your email address breaks/broke and I invalidated it because of bounced emails, you will be unable to re-validate it. I'm working on fixing it.

3. Some people seem to be getting an "Invalid Password" error when commenting. I think this may be related to profile editing. I suggest not editing your profile if you are worried this may happen. If it already has, you'll just have to wait for me to fix it.

This month we have a new feature starting--Featured Artists of the month. Every month the site helpers, who with the category cleanup and approval panel see a lot of people's work on here, will be choosing 2 of the many skilled artists on here for be featured artists of the month.

This month
belliebuik and Noot_das_Schaf have been chosen. Check out their work

For those interested, Here is the thread proposing and discussing this on the forum.

1. Put effort into your work. Don’t submit every little doodle.

2. Lined paper drawings will generally NOT be accepted. Draw on unlined paper. For all those who draw in class, stick some unlined paper in your binders. Another option is to trace your art on to a clean sheet of white paper before scanning. If you are skilled with computer graphics you can clean it up in Photoshop or something, but this will work poorly unless you know what you are doing. Read Lasher's Rant on lined paper drawings in the forum if you want more on this subject.

3. If you are posting official characters and they are not identifiable, you should really practice more before submitting your work.

4. Keep the size of the picture to less than about 600 pixels wide. This size allows those who use 800x600 screen size to view them without having to scroll to the side.

5. Scan your work well. EccentricSage has written up some guidelines for scanning Here. If you don’t have a scanner get one or find somebody with one, digital cameras usually a very poor substitute for a scanner, they tend to have serious light level problems (if you can do it well, then that’s fine, but few can). Or learn how to draw on the computer.

I was considering purging the "quick sketch" pictures. But I've decided not to do so at this time and just leave it up to the artists to voluntarily remove their poor quality work in favor of their better stuff. Why show off stuff that is less than your best work?

For anybody who doesn't like this, there has been a forum topic about this up for almost a week. People have had the opportunity to provide input on this. I got no negative comments about quality rules, so I'm implementing them. You had your chance.

The category cleanup team has been working hard to cleanup the category system for the site. With almost a thousand categories and around 38000 pictures it will take quite some time but they are working hard

To support their work, make sure you submit your pictures in the best category available. For example if you have a picture of Kagome, put it under "Anime/Manga > Inu-Yasha > Kagome" not "Anime/Manga > Inu-Yasha" or just Anime/Manga. This will keep the site organized and easy to use and fine what you want.

Pictures not submitted under the best category will be rejected. The categories for series change all the time as the cleanup crew does them. Check for the best subcategory when you submit a picture for a series.

I don’t know if I will ever get a new chat room up, but Sanoshi has provided a groupboard paint chat for the site to use.

There are lots of contests running. This news post is already too long so I won’t list them. If you are interested look in the contests forum

If you can see this, you are on the new server. It may take a few days for the main address to update for everybody, but it should be accessable to anybody via http://new.fanart-central.net/

All submissions are re-enabled.

The old site can still be accessed (read only) from http://old.fanart-central.net/ You can use that if somthing happens to the new server.

Site move will now start.

The picture uploads will be disabled so I can copy over the pics.

2 or 3 hours later, the rest of the site will be made read only.

Shortly after that the new site will be opened, and a link to it made available.

Those who follow the forums will have known about this ahead of time =P

I have setup a Random Image Board for the site where people can post many of the things that violate the rules of the main site.

In other news, I am considering offering paid accounts with no popups and other special features. Check out this forum topic for more info and to comment. I know the popups are annoying, but somthing has to pay the expensive hosting bill

In contest news the following contents are currently running:

Furries Contest - Deadline April 1st

A Gothic Drawing Contest - Deadline March 6th

The Cosplay Contest - Deadline TBA

Classical Contest - Deadline April 2nd

Chibifying Contest - (couldn't find a deadline)

Yu Yu Hakusho Contest - Deadline March 14

Anything You Want To Draw Contest - Deadline March 5

Starting later today all new picture submissions will need to be approved by somebody on the Approval Panel. This means new submissions won't appear in the new picture list right away.

In chatroom news, the chat page now has a set of rules on it for the chatroom. Also a roleplay room has been created. Roleplaying is no longer allowed in the main room.

In contest news, there is a chibi contest, an anything contest, and a Yu Yu Hakusho Contest running. Check them out in the contests forum if you are interested.

Due to some confusion, I'll provide a direct link here to the new validation email request system. ONLY CLICK THIS LINK IF YOU HAVE NOT RECEIVED A VALIDATION EMAIL

The number of validation problem emails has slowed down and I think everything with this is now working. The problems with AOL and Yahoo have been fixed, and I have confirmed that it is not being caught by Spam Assassin. I see no reasons why any should not be getting through now.

If you still have not received one you can request a new one be sent from your profile. For anybody having problems reminder the following things

1. If may show up in your bulk mail/junk mail folder if you have one (doesn't seem to for hotmail, may for yahoo)

2. You MUST be able to accept mail from fanart@ctgameinfo.com (and preferably apache@ctgameinfo.com and cstdenis@ctgameinfo.com for optimal assurance of receiving stuff). This is directed at users of AOL and Yahoo mainly which can block mail from everybody except ones you specify.

3. Make sure your address is correct. I see some with typos.

4. If you get more than one, only the newest one will work. (If you are impatient and request a new one then the old one shows up the old one won’t work)

If You followed these instructions and still didn’t get one within 8 hours email me and I’ll check the mail log and see if I can track down the problem

There was a problem the last few days that resulted in mail directed at this site to bounce. If you were trying to send mail and it bounced, it should work now.

In contest news, Verg's Naruto contest has ended, the results are up in the contests forum. There is currently an Invader Zim contest running anybody who likes that check it out in the contests forum.

Q: Why are you doing this?

A: Due to abuse, I am validating all email addresses on the site. Among other reasons, I am sick of bounced emails from notifications.

Q: I can't submit content to the site. It says my email is invalid.

A: You need to follow the instructions in the validation email before you can submit more content to the site.

Q: I didn't get a validation email.

A1: Make sure your email address is correct. Check closely.

A2: Check your 'Bulk Mail' folder if you have one. Some systems will filter it into there.

A3: You can request a new confirmation email by Slightly change your email address (capitalize the .COM or somthing).

Q: The link in the email didn't work

A: The site was down the morning of the 23rd. Try again now.

I am doing a mass mail out to validate all existing email addresses in the system. If you did not receive one, the email address in your profile is probably incorrect. You will need to correct it and follow the instructions in the email to be able to submit content to the site.

If you get more than one confirmation email you have more than one account. go Here to remove unused duplicate accounts. (Note: there was a bug in that when I first put it up, it should work now)

All pictures are back online and everything should work. Some changes were made, so if you get an error send an email to cstdenis@ctgameinfo.com and i'll look into it. Also, all the old "quick sketch" images were purged before the move to save site resources.

Everybody should go Here and remove any duplicate accounts you have.

Fanart Central was shutdown a few days ago due to MASSIVE bandwidth (data transfer) use.

To solve this problem the following changes will be made:

* Limit to 1 submission per day. Few people are skilled enough to create more than one high quality work of art per day.

* Submission approval panel. This will decrease the number of inappropriate and very low quality images submitted.

* Prevention of bandwidth stealing

* If this isn't enough, a mirror will be setup, probably only for recent submissions or something. (If you have access to an unmetered T1 or better connection and want to help, contact me)

For today, no viewing of pictures hosted locally and no uploading new pictures. Tomorrow I expect to enable viewing again, then uploading the day after that, if all goes well.

Rules
The sites rules have been revised. These new rules were created with heavy input from the community in the forums. Each user must agree to the new rules before being permitted to submit any content to the site.

Site Cleaning

I have done some cleaning out of the categories and there is more coming. There are also way too many very poor quality pics on this site. Remove your poor quality work and show off your best stuff instead. Also, those of you that have pictures that violate the new set of rules must remove those pictures.

Christmas
I have put up a Christmas skin for the site for those who want a more Christmassy looking site.

Contest

There is a Christmas contest running right now. Its on 'till the end of the month so there is still time to enter.

There is also a Naruto contest running that closes Jan 20 for those who like that very popular series.

Everybody should read and contribute to the discussion on the forums on what should and should not be allowed on this site (in terms of stolen picture stuff). You can find it here. Its your chance to get involved in how the site is run.

For those who dont use the forums, the accounts are part of the site, just login with your username and password you use with the rest of the site

Due to a server problem, the site was down for about 5 hours this afternoon (maybe longer, dont know about its status before i got up)

It was a minor problem, there should be no dataloss and it should not happen again

The fanfiction section has been removed. It is no longer a section, but completely integrated into the site.

I have created a new set of nav buttons to replace the old rather crappy looking ones. The order and locations of buttons have been changed around in what I'm hoping is a more logical streamlined system.

Some changes have been made to the picture listing under the categories and user sections and more smaller changes will be comming as I have time to do them. Lastly, the who in chatroom bar has been removed becasue I can't get Kotoko to work and dont expect it back anytime soon.

The message board/forums are back up. I modified invision to integrate with the sites user database so some functions may not work, espically profile based features. But posting and reading should work, I'll tweek other features later

Contest 8 is up. Go see it on the forums

Some people have been attacking the site, posting crap on the message board, and some other stuff.

Becasue of this, I have had to ban all submissions from a few locations, most notably all AOL users. This will probably only be temporary, but I’m busy for a few days and don’t want to deal with this. Those same groups of users are also banned from the chartroom.

In other news, the second round of voting for contest 7 has been open for a few days, go to the contests page to vote.

The following users have invalid email addresses. If you are listed below, fix your address. I encourage everybody else to check their addresses too, invalid address + comment notification = bounced emails.

I've added several new features and changes.

New rating system has been made, the old one will still be around too for a while.

Picture page has been improved a bit. the links were moved, and the number of views is now displayed.

You can now have a list of your favotite pictures, stories, and authors/artists. This can be viewed on your profile page.

Popups were changed to one per person a day a few days ago, which I think is a much more reasonable level of annoyance.

All I ask for this is that you allow the one (multi)popup to fully load because I dont get credit for it if it doesn't. The recent stats show that less than half of you are.

If this keeps up, I'll have to increase the number of popups to make up for it.

I finally got around to making the award for contest 4. The results are up. You can see them on the contests page linked above.

Contest 5 is almost over, if you still want to enter do so now. For more infomation see the contests section on the messageboard.

I have added the ability to receive email notification of new reviews in your pictures. You can enable it by editing your profile. Also in the same place, you can now hide your email address from your public profile.

Anybody who does no have a valid address in their profile, please add one, I need to be able to contact people if there is a problem with your pictures or something.

Contest 3's voting is now open. Go here to see the entires and to vote.

Contest 4 has also been announced. You can see it here

Another user has been discovered posting stolen artwork, baby-kittin. Three have been confirmed by the origional artist, and others are suspected.

In responce to this increasing amount of stolen artwork, I have created the Wall of shame.

I Have started a new fanart contest, check it out here

Rizubeth has also started a fanart contest, check that out here

There is still time to enter the Fanart Challenge/Contest 1. If you have not seen it, go here.

I'm going to be doing some work on this site over the winter break. If there are any features you would like to see, or suggestions for improvement, post them here

I have added a Message Board. All users automatically have accounts on it with the same username and password you use on the rest of the site.

If you have a problem post in help (you do not need an account to post there curently)

The site has been having various server problems as you may have noticed, but I think they are more or less fixed now. Basically the server was moved to Singapore causing it to be really slow for oveseas traffic, but now has been moved again to fix the problem.

Appearently angelfire.com does not, or at least does not anymore, allow off site linking. The faq has been updated and so has add picture page to prevent such pictures from being added.

New poll added. Result of old poll: Adobe Photoshop is by far the most popular program used by artists

here with over 55% of the votes.

added ability to change picture category under the edit picture page.

Categories moved around and changed. See change log for details

If you are seeing this, you are looking at the site on its new server.

A small bug has been discovered that caused all recent artists names to be set to "fullname". The bug has been corrected and affected full names have been removed.

Anybody who cares about your full/alternate name, update yo