Approved artist? Do you mean scouted artist?

@StarVsFallout When you see the site frontpage you see different sectors: Audio, Art, Movies, and Games. The artwork you see are from scouted artists, scouting is a system used for both Audio and Art Portals to prevent low-quality works and spam submissions from flooding the website. When you are "not scouted" your uploads will appear in the "Undiscovered" section meanwhile the "scouted" appear under the "Approved Artists" section in their respective portals. New Users are not scouted upon account creation.

The equivalent of scouting for Movie and Game Portals is the Under Judgment process.

Scouting basically is a system implemented in the NG Art and Audio Portal that lets users decide who is allowed to post art in the portal. Only scouted users can submit art to the portal. All users can submit work to their user page though, and anyone can see the work, even if its not marked for the portal. If you rake a look at the artwork in the Art Portal you will see the type of quality art that will make you scouted/approved artist:

https://www.newgrounds.com/art

Here the guidelines for posting art: https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/help-information/terms-of-use/art-guidelines

Quick info about scouting: https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/help-information/content-submission/scouting

If you have any question don't hesitate to ask.

@StarVsFallout No problem, glad to help and Happy New Year!