Elfwood was a web-based alternative art gallery and online community devoted to original science fiction and fantasy art and writing. It was started 1 May 1996 by Thomas Abrahamsson and claimed to be the largest science fiction and fantasy art site in the world. It was most popular in the Americas and Europe. Gradually overwhelmed by its competitor DeviantArt, Elfwood was eventually shut down in 2016.

History

Early years

Elfwood was founded on May 1, 1996, by Thomas Abrahamsson, heavily inspired by Massimilianno Bertuzzi and Robert Orta, under the name of the "Lothlorien" project, and was aimed at amateur high-fantasy artists. At the time, its gallery consisted of three artists (including Abrahamsson), and all submissions and updates to the site were managed directly by Abrahamsson, with the individual users e-mailing Abrahamsson with their requested submissions or changes.

Abrahamsson stated his original intentions with the website could be described as the following: <blockquote>"There are three major ideas behind this site: Showing pieces of art from the wonderful world of fantasy to the general public, letting all amateur fantasy artists show their work for free, helping them to get a name and reputation, and helping other artists with inspiration by giving a chance to look at fellow artists' art."</blockquote>As the Lothlorien membership and gallery expanded, Abrahamsson developed the site's extranet in August 1997,

Elfwood had a major crash, dubbed "the infamous April Fool's Day Elfwood crash," on the first of April in 2005. All data was lost and the last backup was from February. The site came back with a timewarp to February and the rules were again revised and rewritten. Archived copies of the Elfwood statistics counter from the Wayback Machine show 8000 fewer images and 200 fewer stories between the 1st and 10 April 2005. adding new features for creating user profiles also for visiting users, tagging of favorite members and works and much more. Founder Thomas Abrahamsson said, "Cost for hosting and servers had become too high to handle as a hobby project." As of August 31, 2005 the rules were simplified, and in May 2009 they were further streamlined allowing also Non-Genre contents under a new "Other Works" tab. Members had to be 13 years or older to join with a real name.

Artistic Display Areas

Elfwood had three main display areas for creative work:

  • SciFi & Fantasy Art is the main section (it was formerly divided in two sections, "Lothlorien" for high fantasy art and "Zone 47" for science fiction and modern/futuristic fantasy art).
  • Wyvern's Library is for sci-fi and fantasy themed stories and poetry, including short stories as well as longer novels broken up by chapters.
  • FanQuarter is devoted to fan art based on sci-fi or fantasy themed visual media such as video games, movies, animated cartoons or TV shows.

As of August 16, 2010, there were 941 separate galleries in SciFi & Fantasy Art and 148 galleries in FanQuarter.

Woodworks

The Elfwood ezine Woodworks was started in January 2002 by Georgette Tan, which featured articles, reviews, artwork and tutorials by Elfwood members. Tan later retired as Editor and Megan Larson took the position, leading Woodworks to its final issue in December 2004. It is now hosted in an inactive state at the main Elfwood site after the domain was finally shut down in late 2006.

Statistics

In 2003, Elfwood had 6700 artists and 1300 writers. It logged 14500 sessions per day, each averaging 35 minutes in length. Sixty percent of the users were in the USA and most of the rest in Canada and Europe.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"

|-

! rowspan="2" | Date !! colspan="3"| Number of Members who Publish !! rowspan="2" | Non-publishing Members !! rowspan="2" | Total !! rowspan="2" | Comments Written

|-

! SciFi Fantasy (# of Images) !! Fiction (# of Stories) !! FanArt (# of Images)

|-

| 2003 ||colspan="3"| 6700 artists and 1300 writers || - || - || -

|-

| 5 Jun 2004 || 22417 (383239) || 4822 (30947) || 3508 (32467) || - || - || 9183329<sup>¤</sup>

|-

| 1 Apr 2005<sup>◊</sup> ||24984 (434163) || 5406 (34431) || 3943 (37210) || - || - || 11286593<sup>¤</sup>

|-

| 10 Apr 2005<sup>◊</sup> || 24523 (426700) || 5338 (34228) || 3879 (36668) || - || - || 11002115<sup>¤</sup>

|-

| Dec 2006 ||26285 (451312) || 5771 (36182) || 3836 (36740) || - || - || 11002115<sup>¤</sup>

|-

| May 2008 || 25867 (441332) || 5773 (36055) || 3595 (33830) || 35451 || 70686 || 4014119

|-

| 25 Feb 2009 || 25685 (434637) || 5767 (35853) || 3472 (32479) || 48622 || 83345 || 4165282

|-

| 20 August 2010 || 28841 (488826<sup>†</sup>) || 6419 (37056) || 3810 (-) || 61580 || 100650 || 4134721

|-

| 29 March 2011 || 29436 (494174<sup>†</sup>) || 6463 (37296) || 3843 (-) || 66463 || 106205 || 4063941

|-

| 29 April 2012 || 29393 (498269<sup>†</sup>) || 6494 (37429) || 3791 (-) || 79735 || 119413 || 3984801

|-

|colspan="7" style="text-align:left;"|*<small> Notes where data may have been left unchanged from previous recording in Wikipedia in error.<br></small><sup>◊</sup><small> A major Elfwood server crash on the first of April in 2005 wiped out 2 months of data.<br/></small><sup>¤</sup><small> This number may include posts from Elftown before the project split from Elfwood. Also, it did not appear to change after mid April 2005 until late 2007.<br/></small><sup>†</sup><small> This number, from the ticker on the top right corner of the Elfwood site, may be counting SciFi Fantasy and FanArt together.</small>

|}

Reception

Elfwood had been praised as an outlet for alternative beliefs.

The FARP section of the site had been frequently recommended as a free resource for tutorials in a wide variety of creative topics. For example, TeachEngineering.org cited two of FARP's tutorials as "excellent guides" for figure drawing and writing about action, Figure Drawing: Basic Pose and Construction by William Li and Writing Action by S. B. "Kinko" Hulsey.

References

  • Lothlorien announcement at Wired.com
  • Thomas Abrahamsson Homepage