Bluesky for artists and illustrators
The art community on Bluesky lives in feeds and starter packs. Get into them, post images with alt text at your best hours, and measure what lands.
Why artists are on Bluesky
Art was one of the first communities to move, and it built its own infrastructure: feeds for illustration, comics, pixel art, concept art and more, and starter packs that new arrivals follow wholesale. A chronological feed means your followers actually see your work when you post it.
Setting up
- A pinned post with your best piece and a line about commissions or prints.
- The art feeds your work fits, found by searching the topic and looking at what busy artists in it subscribe to.
- The starter packs for your niche. Ask into them; make one of your own.
What to post
Finished pieces, work in progress, the sketch beside the final. Up to four images a post, each with alt text that describes the image (not a caption): it reaches people using screen readers and people who filter for posts with alt text, and in Updrift's figures image posts beat an account's usual more often than any other format. Your best pieces from the last year are worth showing to the people who joined since; the Planner brings them back on its own, spaced out.
When to post
Art gets engagement in the evening on the audience's clock more than at any other time in Updrift's figures, but your audience is your audience. Measure it: each post's first day, by the hour it went out. Free for one account.
Hashtags
One or two on the medium and subject, on the first post of a thread. The feeds that carry art read them. Updrift's hashtag table shows which of yours beat your usual.
Tracking free
Followers by the hour, which piece gained the most, who reposted it, and a link page for prints and commissions with a click count per link. All on the Free plan for one account.
What a paid plan adds
- Duo: the Planner, four images with alt text per post, threads, your best pieces back on their own, and the Inbox answered in place.
- Studio: a second and third account (a shop, a studio), a helper with approvals.
- Every paid plan is 7 days free with a card; Duo is £7 a month for two accounts and the Planner, Studio £12 for five and a team. All the plans.
See your own figures, free.
Followers by the hour, the posts that landed, your best hours and how your hashtags do. One account, no card, for good.
The Planner, the Inbox and the full What works report come with a paid plan, 7 days free. See the plans.