The simple answer: draw canon. Canon, canon, canon, and specifically movie canon. After all, that’s the unifier of TLKFAA, the LK universe. Most of the artists here love the movies, and so if you want to gain popularity among them, movie canon subject matter is what you need to draw.
Now, I’m not saying that’s the only way to win people over, but it’s the fast-and-dirty way. If you have your own original species or a particular drawing style that is really unique and fascinating, that also works. Dille, for example, is a fantastic artist in her own right with amazing style, but she doesn’t actually draw canon all that often. But people don’t really join the archive just to see the style she draws in, although they may adore her uploads all the same.
When I joined TLKFAA, like many others I was determined to show originality, and made up individual characters like crazy, playing with their designs, and also entered many user contests. But somewhere along the way I observed that my canon art got more comments, was favorited more often, and generally garnered more interest than any of my OCs. Gradually my art shifted in focus to where it is today – primarily canon and subcanon based. It may be that I am just going through another phase of being here at the archive, and eventually I will become jaded and return to my individual quirks and characters (I have noticed many artists before me do the same after becoming AotM).
I think if I actively drew things besides TLK art, I might be more tempted to strike out on my own.
But here’s the thing, the canon world has its own charm, and can be extremely interesting. It can also satisfy the urge for creativity in a number of ways. If you develop your own unifying fanon story, like I have, you can invent new ways that the characters relate to and react with one another. You can design relatives (i.e. Uru or Mheetu) and even invent relatives (i.e. Nala’s father). I’ve also found that a limiting factor on my artwork, constraints like “only TLK art” cause me to become creative in whole new ways–how can I make these 15-year-old characters new and interesting? This also comes into play in the site contest, which poses rules that you get to play within the boundaries of.
I was going to talk more about the site contest, but I think I’ll save that for another day since I’ve blathered on enough already. In summary, if you want TLK-lovers to become interested in your art, draw what interests them. =) You might fall in love with the movie and its characters all over again!
Confessions of a Lion King Fanartist 