Are you using the Japanese suggestions that pop up as you type? If you put only English letters and don't use the suggestions, your results will likely be not great.

Also, premium allows you to sort by popular rather than time, so you don't have to rabbit hole what you are searching for. But if you don't want to do that, you can find a less impressive fanart of a character/ship and keep looking at related. The algorithm is pretty nice and should bring you close to what you are looking for within a few "related" clicks.

I got pixiv today since a friend told me its a good place to find good fanart. I'm trying to search for a ship but nothing seems to pop up. When i search for anything like a character i get barely any results. Am i doing something wrong?

How do i search on pixiv?