Elfwood is one of the oldest amateur fantasy art galleries in the web. Now it have fantasy writings as well.
Design [ 95% ]
Well, being a site entirely devoted to art, Elfwood have, not surprisingly, a wonderful design. From the great logo with the faerie
to the care with backgrounds and easy browsing in every of its infinite galleries, its hard to note any flaw on designing. But being
a reviewer, I searched and finally found a flaw... Ok, its amateur art, but that doesn't mean that its not good, and we want to see
just the good ones, most of the time...
Because its so huge, you probably won't find the better galleries unless you really expend your entire nights on it. There could be solutions to this,
like competitions or ratings, but then it would not be fair to the people who are there just to show their art, and not competing to be the most visited gallery or
the better artist, etc... But they found a good solution: The guided tours.
Content [ 100% ]
Over 70.000 pictures and 6.000 stories. Yes, that is right, they count it and show on the index. If you don't believe, you can start counting too!
You will find pictures on absolutely any possible theme related to fantasy or sci-fi. But the real bulk is on fantasy pictures (over 62.000)... Try
to search for Unicorns, or Elves, or the dreaded Psi... You will find tons of pictures, and the only problem is to find the real good ones over so many of them.
For that, you use the guided tours, where long time visitors show their most loved pictures on a really good, functional, java based tour.
In other words, it deserves 101%
Originality [ 95% ]
Ok, its not so original to start a fantasy art gallery on the web, but if you started it a couple of years ago, it could be...
Because if you had done so, your gallery should have many, many artists. And that's what Elfwood is, a great amateur artist community.
And what makes it original? It is non-profitable, it have a intranet for the members and that's for free, you may comment every picture of every
artist, it have a "netguide" for the amateurs done by the not-so-amateurs, it have the guided tours, it have Fantasyhoo!, and so on... And why not
flawless on originality? Because it has a theme: Fantasy (and sci-fi), and so the artists aren't totally free to do what they want. Perhaps its more good than
bad, but if you send a Conan with a sniper rifle to the gallery they will simply reject it.
Hot Spot [ Guided Tours ]
Weak Spot [ Its hard to find the better art on the bulk ]
Total [ 97% ]
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