Timeline of Fanart

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

1989

• June: Artforum, a multifandom zine focusing on discussion and advice about fanart is launched.

1992

• March: Artistic Endeavors: An information letter to Artists like me, a letterzine/newsletter for artists, is created.

1996

• May 1: Elfwood is created.

1997

• Kodiak's Hanson Page, a Hanson fanart site, is created.
• Masterpiece of Hanson, a Hanson fanart site, is created.

1998

• Looking At You, a Hanson fanart site, is created.

1999

• Artwork Ala' Hanson is created.
• Hanson in Clay-O-Vision is created.
• Hansonart is created.

2000

• The first round of The Paintball Awards for Hanson fanart is held.
• August 7: DeviantART is created.

2001

• The second round of The Paintball Awards for Hanson fanart is held.
• Hanson Toons is created.
• Hanson Weekly Manga is created.

2002

• FanQuarter, a separate fanart section on Elfwood is created.
• ArtDungeon.net, a private Harry Potter fanart gallery, is launched.
• Back In The Swing, Lily-fox's fanart site, is created.

2003

• November 30: SheezyArt is launched.

2004

• Fanart Central is created.
• acciobrain!, a Harry Potter Art site, is created.
• Artsy Fansons, a Hanson LiveJournal community, is created.
• November 9: Hansonicons, a LiveJournal community, is created.

2005

• January: SheezyArt bans all adult artwork from their site.
• January: Fur Affinity is created as a reaction to the SheezyArt ban.
• February: y!Gallery is created as a reaction to the SheezyArt ban.
• July: Skeddios, a Hanson fan comic and fanart website, is created.

2006

• May: y!Gallery bans anthro/furry art.
• Nabyn art community began operation.

2007

• September 10: Pixiv beta version launched.
• The launch of Yuletart.

2009

• Still Life is created, archiving old and new Starsky & Hutch fanart.
• Drawmelot, a Merlin Art community on Livejournal is launched.

2010

• The K/S Art Project is published, collecting three decades worth of K/S fanart.
• October: fanart-recs on Dreamwidth is created.

2011

• The great migration to Tumblr.

2013

• Amino is created, predominantly attracting teen fanartists.
• May: SheezyArt closes down "temporarily", administrators planning to rebuild the site, but in the end it never reopened.

2016

• y!Gallery goes offline due to hacking, thousands of works disappear.
• Elfwood goes offline, 32,000+ works disappear.
• September: Nabyn art community shut down by owner.

2017

• The Road So Far Archive is created, archiving more than 30,000 Supernatural works by active and deactivated artists on Tumblr.
• Writscrib is launched, aiming to be a Tumblr alternative where artists can earn tips on their posts.
• ambiance.gallery is created by former staff members of SheezyArt.
• Conversations About Hanson is first posted on Tumblr.

2018

• August 30: Writscrib shuts down due to "not enough interest or revenue".
• December: Tumblr bans NSFW photos/illustrations; artists leave the site in droves. (See Tumblr NSFW Content Purge.) Twitter, Instagram, Patreon, Mastodon and Pillowfort attract some of the migrating Tumblr artists, but there's fandom-wide discussion about the lack of a proper alternative.
• Artrise launches, promising a site similar to DeviantArt but without the restrictions. Activity ceases in November 2021.

2020

• July: Patreon's policies regarding off-site NSFW content cause a lot of NSFW artists to leave.