/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

[Anonymous No.2565757]

How does /ic/ organize their art folders?

I have just under 20 thousand pictures saved on to my computer by various artists, and am completely overwhelmed at the idea of sorting them.

I would like to organize them into some kind of reference library, sorted by what it is I want the image for. That alone is daunting enough, but of course many of the images have multiple things i saved them for, ie, line work, general anatomy, maybe just the way an eye or hand was drawn.

How do you guys keep accumulated images sorted?

[Anonymous No.2565758]

[Anonymous No.2565760]

[Anonymous No.2565766]

Stop being a little shit and just organize them in folders. I have one folder named "art shit" then in there I have 5 different folders. "Works in progress" "Scraps" "Completed Works" "References" "More Random Art Shit". It's not fucking hard.

[Anonymous No.2565768]

>>2565757
I've done the whole sorting local files into categories thing and ran into the same problems you mention. It all grew out of hand and now I just use pinterest, much easier and every time I log in it gives me few suggestions for my collections that are surprisingly on the money.

[Anonymous No.2565772]

>>2565766
Pretty sure he wasn't referring to his own work autismo.

[Anonymous No.2565775]

>>2565757
There is no way this can be done perfectly. A piece may have fantastic lines as well as colors, so you either put it into both folders or you don't sort them out that way at all.

I have a huge reference folder divided by free and not-free photos, then by people/environments/animals/architecture and then into smaller groups if necessary.

For art I just have a folder with really amazing art, nothing mediocre, becauese you can see that anywhere online and it only takes up space on your computer. If you have favorite artists, sort them out by name, that's it.

A special folder I have is for colors and moods, which includes both photos and paintings.

[Anonymous No.2565782]

>>2565766

I am only talking about other people art I have collected, and having about 20 thousand images in one folder is not practical if i need to find a certain image, or type of image.

[Anonymous No.2565783]

Is there a Craig Mullins archive anywhere like the Jaime Jones one? I'm too lazy to download each image individually off of Craig's site and he has removed a lot of stuff anyway.

[Anonymous No.2565788]

If you have 20k artworks of other artists on you hd i am pretty sure you are one of those who just admire others and not drawing on his own

[Anonymous No.2565814]

>>2565757
I just make folders for each stuff I know I'll be looking for later, and I don't bother if I have a pic in several folders

[Anonymous No.2565834]

>>2565757
I'm not sure how many I have but probably around 50k. I have it mostly saved into folders by artists and then have a miscellaneous unsorted section.

[Anonymous No.2565911]

I have art in its own directory sorted by artist's name.

Photos sorted into
- people (separate folders for male and female, also includes separate folders for anatomy refs, sculptures, statues, clothing, armor)
- animals
-environments (architecture, plants, landscapes)
-objects (vehicles, guns, swords, furnature, pottery, etc)
-mood/color/lighting
-compositions (mostly abstract things to draw ideas from)
-movie/tv screenshots

Sometimes things qualify for several folders. I just put it where I feel it belongs the most. It's not an exact science.

[Anonymous No.2565917]

>>2565788
So what if OP is not drawing on his own? He had a legitimate question and I am pretty sure you are one of those who just wants to post on threads and not contribute.

[Anonymous No.2565960]

>>2565766
autism

[Anonymous No.2566492]

>>2565775
>A piece may have fantastic lines as well as colors, so you either put it into both folders or you don't sort them out that way at all.
if you're on a posix-esque system (like GNU/linux and OS X) this shouldn't be a problem. In posix systems, a single file can have many equally valid names/locations without taking up any more disk space, each of which look like a normal file. These files are known as hard links, a file's data won't be truly deleted until all it's hard links are deleted, even if you delete the "original" file, since that itself is just another hard link.

so for example, I for can put my paintings of beautiful landscapes in my landscapes folder, then hard-link it into my colors folder and also hard-link it into my paintings folder, without tripling disk usage.

Apparently this is also possible in Windows, look up Link Shell Extension. I'm unsure if hard links in windows are the same on posix systems.

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_link

[Anonymous No.2566507]

You can try storing file paths to images in database.

Or try file systems and automatic naming conventions.

[Anonymous No.2566856]

>>2566492

Thats actually pretty helpfull, cheers

[Anonymous No.2566959]

>>2565757
ehhh, I have a dedicated "art stuff folder" which has sub categories in it like "inspiring artists" and others for "references" "head shots" "buildings"

or if im actively looking for specific stuff for example Armour for drawing a knight ill make a new folder for that and put it in the references subfolder.

[Anonymous No.2567318]

here's mine. for inspiration images, it's just a folder with a clusterfuck of 1000+ images. every so often i go through them and delete things i don't like anymore.

art direction is the art that is next to exactly what kind of art i want to be making in the future.

i organise my own art in folders by year, then extra folders in there by month.

studies is full of books, video courses, tutorials, reference images, etc.

[Anonymous No.2567338]

>>2565757
we are in the same conundrum