When a submission does not meet our site rules, especially our
presentation rules, the entry will often times be removed by a
moderator or the artist will be notified to make a revision. If your
submission was deleted, don't fret. Take another look through our rules
and see if there's a way to fix up your entry so that you may repost it.
Presentation
The most common reason a moderator will delete an artwork entry is
because the artwork does not meet our presentation rules. Artwork with
the following characteristics will usually get flagged for presentation:
- blurry/out of focus
- pixelated, low resolution
- not properly cropped as in you can see the surface the artwork was photographed on or you can see the artists fingers/toes.
- the canvas or paper is crooked
- rings or ring holes from the sketchbook are showing.
- sketch is too light.
- text isn't legible on comic entries.
- entry is a screenshot of a computer application.
- distracting watermarks (see Watermarks section below)
When an artwork entry is flagged for presentation it will most often
be deleted and the artist will be asked to fix the image and repost it.
On rare occasions, the entry wont be deleted but instead the artist
will be asked to edit their submission and upload a fixed image.
The following are examples of artwork that do not meet our presentation guidelines.
Blurry:

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Rings of sketchbook not cropped out:

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Screen shot of an application:

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Uneven lighting:

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Edge of paper not cropped out:

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Image quality is too low:

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Artist's hand and edges of paper visible:

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excess whitespace not cropped out:

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Don't know how to fix your images? See our tutorials on how to use a free image editing tool to prepare your artwork to meet our presentation guidelines.
Watermarks
Watermarks are an effective tool to deter and prevent art theft and
plagiarism and we suggest that all artists make use of them. However,
we do have guidelines against overly distracting watermarks under our
presentation rules. We consider distracting watermarks as spam since the artists name and/or website becomes the focal point rather than the artwork.
Watermarks over the central focal point of an artwork are strongly
discouraged. However, if a watermark must be placed over the main focal
point, the watermark should be at a very low opacity (around 10%) and
not distract too much from the overall composition. You may want to add
an additional placement of your watermark within the corner of your
artwork at near full to full opacity and at a small size. The larger
and subtle watermark, while not very legible, keeps the artwork from
being reproduced/printed while the smaller one tells the viewer who the
owner of the artwork is.
For non-central watermarks, its ok if the watermark overlaps part of
the drawing but it must not be too large or too opaque. Something
between 10 and 60% opacity should work fine. The watermark should not
be large and/or opaque enough to become a focal point in the artwork's
composition. In other terms, the watermark should not act as a bullseye
guiding the viewers eye first to the watermark and second to the art.
This watermark example is acceptable and highly encouraged

Notice that there are two watermarks on this image. There is a light watermark overlapping the drawing and another in the lower right corner. The transparent watermark protects your artwork from being stolen while the lower right provides better readability.
The following examples are NOT acceptable
Watermark is too large:

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Watermark is repeated several times thus making it too large:

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Watermark is too opaque (35% opacity) and is over the face/focal point:
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