Artstation is the main online portfolio website for artists. Other industries expect your portfolio to be printed out or be it's own custom website. Artists have an advantage in this aspect but by gathering all the artists into one platform, the competition has the same advantage you do. That raises the question, How can you distinguish yourself from all the other artists?
Artstation is a great platform but it may be disheartening seeing your work next to a legend in the industry. While true, that also grants invaluable info on how the pros present their works. Let's start with the most important aspect of an Artstation post (other than the art itself), the thumbnail.
You might notice a similarity among the works that feature already existing Intellectual Properties; a lot of them incorporate that IPs logo in the thumbnail itself. More often than not, that mean the artist that posted the work was part of the production team, and whether intentionally or not, gives the post a sense of legitimacy and professionalism. Even if you're doing fan art, I would recommend you still add the IP's logo into the thumbnail, it will distinguish the post from the others and grant in some semblance of professionalism. It'll also show you put in some more effort than just simply gathering up a bunch of JPEGS and batch uploading them. Do add "Fan Art" somewhere in the thumbnail and title, though.
