I know my fellow artists and creators have been frustrated with the rise of AI on Pinterest and Google. Many of us find it difficult to serch for good references, tips, and general inspiration for art. So I want to share my collection of good, free websites for artists, designers, film makers, and creators so we can create without ugly AI images staring in our faces 🙌
Sketchfab
An incredible source for references. Has a huge collection of 3D animals, architecture, interior rooms, vehicles, food, objects, furniture, nature, memes, characters, etc etc etc. You can literally find several insanely detailed 3D models of the Notre Dame (this one is insane) Models can rotated at any angle as well as zoomed in and out. You can also change the view of the model to be matcap with flat, colorless planes, wireframe, or base color as opposed to fully rendered.
Cons: there are many uploads that are random and incredibly specific, which overwhelms the search. Can be excellent for game designers who want to download models but for artists looking for drawing references, you might have to dig a bit for what you want. Can be so fun for playing around and using crazy fun references for practicing.
Designspiration
As a photographer and graphic designer and someone who can doomscroll on pinterest forever, this is my favorite for finding inspiration for everything: typography, logos, product mockups, illustration, photography, web design, etc. Has an amazing feature where you can search for art with specific hex codes! Probably the coolest feature I’ve seen in search engines, and by far superior to google's color search. This site is mostly for design inspiration, but I feel like if you are super into moodboards, then this is the site for you too especially with the beautiful selection of photography.
Cons: I have no cons, I love this website so much and I used to be addicted to pinterest (still am actually😬) but this is easily my new favorite
Public Works by Cosmos
Thousands of artworks enter the public domain every year, and this website is a search engine for other 100,000 of those copyright free works. All of these works are free to edit, use, and sell with few restrictions.
Cons: I personally find the layout for the search feed a bit frustrating to look around in sometimes, because it’s not the typical "scroll up and down" website. But is very dynamic and overall fun to explore.
Same.energy
This is a good visual search engine that’s a good replacement for Google images and Pinterest. The minimal words makes it simple and easy, and clicking on an image you like to filter the feed to find similar images.
Cons: this is in beta so it still have some kinks to work out. It seems to struggle with specific searches and some of the images brought up in the search can be repetitive or not relevant.
Reference Angle
A website for finding face references in any specific angle and any expression for any gender and age.
Cons: I would love this website more if it gave you the ability to customize the light source, but sadly is not an option. I also feel like there is not a lot of racial diversity in the photos, and some of the images do not match the specific angle. But it is overall a great source for face references
Virtual Lighting Studio by zvork
A good source for light studies. You can change the source, direction, color, and brightness as well stacking several light sources on top of each other.
Cons: there isn’t a way to angle the face or change the expression, so it is permanently in portrait mode. There are four different models and I’m not the biggest fan of some of them…I like the black guy the best because he looks at me kindly instead staring into my soul like the two white guys. The ads are also a bit obnoxious and for the love of god DO NOT USE IN MOBILE!!! The ads are impossible to get rid of.
Film Grab
An archive of stills from a huge list of movies. Good for film makers, photographers, art studies, moodboards, inspiration, etc. Has a huge selection of movies and you can search by movie, director, costume designer, aspect ratio, year, genre, and country. You can also hit random post and it'll give you a random movie, which I think is really fun.
Cons: I do not recommend mobile. The mobile does not have the option to search for a specific movie, so you're forced to scroll through the giant A-Z list of directors or films to find the specific film you were looking for. Another con that I just discovered: a big-ass ad on the top of the website that occasionally advertises AI websites 🤢 (not shown on the screenshots I shared because ew)
Unsplash
Another image search website that has the feeling of Pinterest
Cons: some images are locked for premium only, and the feed is a bit frustrating to scroll through on mobile since they show the images one at a time instead of as a nice collage like pinterest. Some images can also be irrelevant to the search.
Sending lots of love to my fellow artists and creative peeps out there. AI sucks and it feels like it's overwhelming the creative space. But I promise there is a way to avoid it! Keep creating 💕
