Artconomy.com

Abstract

Artconomy is a character art commissioning platform. Source code here.

Role

I founded Artconomy and developed it using Python and TypeScript, with some critical functions written in Rust. I lead the community and continue to act as the lead developer and maintainer, occasionally accepting pull requests to its codebase. I often speak at conferences about the platform and work with active users to continually hone the product.

Background

A bit over five years ago now, I quit my work as a software consultant to build a project of my own– Artconomy.com. Artconomy is a thriving community of artists and people who commission them, primarily for character art. Think Dungeons and Dragons Characters, online avatars, and fursonas.

While I have since continued my consulting work, Artconomy continues to grow in the background, and I continue to build and maintain it. It processes dozens of orders each month at the time of writing and helps artists organize their work while providing a safe environment.

Here are some of the cool things it does:

• It provides an escrow system, Artconomy Shield, which protects both clients and artists. It creates invoices, charges cards, and deposits into the artist’s bank account.
• It has a gallery system, allowing artists to show off their work.
• It has a character management system, allowing clients to collect art of their characters, share them, and attach them as references to orders.
• It dynamically manages the workload of artists to make sure they aren’t overbooked.

Artconomy has a passionate fanbase that grows every day. Its development was instrumental in the creation of several of my other projects, and it is my magnum opus, drawing from nearly every discipline I’ve managed to build over the years, from an understanding of how bookkeeping works, to in-depth frontend and backend web application development, to art, community building and writing.

Tools/Technologies used

Django, Django REST Framework, Django Channels, Python, TypeScript/JavaScript, Vue.js, Vuetify, Ansible, Rust, Make, Bash, NginX, Redis, Celery, PostgreSQL, Linux, Git, WordPress, Vite, Vitest, Stripe, Dwolla, Authorize.net, Cloudflare, Amazon SES, Drip, Discord, Excell, Trello, Telegram Bot API, …And more I’m surely forgetting.