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The first thing I will say about Shadowness is: It is weird.
There is currently over 45 000 members and it seems to be doing quite well as a community. When I said that it was weird I was referring to a few things. One of them is the site layout, which at first might seem fairly normal, but considering that this is an art community, it's not that normal. The colours are all dark, as you might assume given the name “Shadowness”. If your sight isn't all that good you might have a bit of trouble reading the grey fonts on the black interface. Then there's the background image which is quite a piece of art, ever present through the site. Most communities keep things simple and have flat colour backgrounds. But over all the layout makes sense and the site is fairly easy to navigate.
Another one of the weird things about this site is that everything a member does is kept separate. There is a profile page where people can find some information about you and some photos of you if you so choose to present any. Then there's your pictures which are kept in the browsing section and not linked to from your profile page. There's also journals and portfolios that you can create, but they are kept in separate sections of the site too. All these sections are listed in the top navigation bar. The strange thing about this is that it is normal practice to have all a members creations in one spot, including their gallery, their journals and their profile, etc. Instead in this site you might find a person in any category, and then from that you can find a link to something else of theirs. From their profile there is a link to their blog/journal. From one of their images that you might find in the Shadowness pictures section you will find a link to the persons profile and to their gallery. But you won't find a link to the gallery from their profile. And then there's portfolios...which I don't really know much about.
Also weird about Shadowness is that there are no ads. None at all. Practically all the other web communities have them unless you subscribe. This is a good feature that if they keep, it will be good for them.
Another weird thing is that this site has an arcade section. Here you can find flash games to play where your score is recorded and the highest score is kept. Now there aren't many art communities with a section like this. Be careful if you try this out though, some of the games are quite addictive. Weird...
Like most community sites this one has a forum where you can discuss things by posting. You can also post your artworks and links to your other websites. There are quite a few categories allowing a wide range of choices.
Like most other communities you can choose to watch people and they will go onto your watch list. The thing is I'm not sure if you receive updates of their work. What happens if you choose to view your watch list is that it opens a view of thumbnails of the artists work which can be arranged like browsing the normal pictures section.
Most of the workings of this site are still a mystery to me. However, the website is still changing and improving. It is a functional art community with many members and a healthy community.
Overall Community Score: 7.5/10