Thought I'd give this a try. If it's not too late.
Hmm... Well, first of all, When I first joined dA, I was talking to people from the Yu-Gi-Oh! Tvtome forum, and I was posting art on fanart-central. I avoided joining dA for awhile, because I was already on one art site, but then I decided to join dA, too.
Here’s some of the first pictures I drew after joining dA:
I was a bit discouraged by not getting as much attention on dA that I got on fanart-central, but I think I also liked the challenge of it. Kind’a had a goal to get more people who liked my art (or, get better at drawing. One or the other). And... I kind'a ended up quitting posting on fanart-central. I kind'a liked dA better.
I did have some people I knew from elsewhere who commented on a lot of my first things.
and 
This is my first deviation that got over 100 favorites (or at least more faves than all my other pics before then - I forget exactly how many it got at first):
It’s still my second most popular picture (but the third most popular deviation, since my Lit deviation tutorial is the most popular now. ...I really should get around to updating that tutorial.)
The thing is... my Ed’s Return pic started out as this big scene from a (yet unfinished) fic of mine, but I couldn’t figure out how to get a lot of stuff to look right, so I just cropped it at Ed’s shoulders. :P It’s actually supposed to be so much cooler than it is, with this alchemy battle going on. :P
Here’s a few of the deviations that have inspired me over the years (so, all of them have the theme of inspiration):
(and other Fullmetal Alchemist pics of theirs. It's detailed, the brothers look nice (nice poses, clothing folds)... and it's traditional. Traditional.)
(it was so painty-like and semi-realistic. So awesome. D: I’ve always failed at the painty look, though I've tried to achieve it more than once)
(I was also impressed by the painty-like-ness. Plus, the details are nice)
(it looked realistic-ish, too, in its own way. Maybe about the water and the colors. Or maybe the pose)
(and their other pics are also nice. This pic looked so actiony to me. I wanted to make pretty, actiony poses)
(also painty-like and semi-realistic. Plus, it looks a lot like him. Though the jewel isn‘t very jewel-like. But look at those eyes.)
(so pretty, and detailed and stuff. He doesn’t really look like “Mozenrath” but he looks really cool. It's possible their Mozenrath pics helped to inspire my catch pic (below) in regards to more detailed shading)
Heh, it’s kind’a weird, but some of the old favorites no longer look so perfect to me. I guess that might mean both that I’m getting better at drawing and that I’ve been seeing even better pics on dA (plus, these artists have also been getting better - at least the ones who are still on dA and drawing).
And here’s two of the newest pictures I've made:
I think dA’s kind’a contributed to me becoming more hesitant to draw stuff, since there’s so many great artists on the site, and since a lot of times I’ll put all this effort into a drawing to make it the best thing possible, but then it doesn’t get the response I had expected (maybe it's selfish of me, but a lot of times I rate my drawings based on how other people see them).
But on the other hand, I’ve joined a few groups, and the pics I’ve drawn for group contests and collaborations tend to be some of my favorite drawings, and the contest/collab ones seem to make up a lot of my gallery. So I wouldn’t have drawn a lot of my pics if it weren’t for those groups. And I probably wouldn’t have drawn quite a bit of my other pictures if it weren’t for dA in general, with the deviations that give me ideas or inspire me to do better, or how I look forward to my watchers’ and other people’s reactions to my deviations - and their comments make me feel like it‘s worth drawing more pictures.
