Criticism, Shut the hell up and listen

Alright, this is really pissing me off so, I'm gonna come out and be a ***** and rant about it.

How come hardly anyone can deal with criticism around here? There's like a few exceptions of people who can accept this stuff. Crits are intended to help you improve your work, that's all they're for. You can listen or you can ignore it but don't be a little ***** about it. Look at it this way, when you're learning a new language and people that speak it fluently give you pointers and translate some things for you to increase your understanding of it do you tell them to **** off and claim that you're right? Do you listen and thank them so you can improve yourself? Or do you just ignore them because they just learned the language themselves a couple years ago?

Now, I know not everyone is a god of art but everyone's criticism is as valid as any professionals. Some people may draw poorly but it doesn't mean they don't understand flaws in peoples artworks when they see them. A poor artist can give better criticism than an amazing artist. However, the artist themselves often have trouble noticing flaws in their own work. Going back to the language thing, when you write an essay, it's obviously going to sound good to you because YOU wrote it, but does it sound good to everyone else? That's why in many language classes, people proofread each others works, it's difficult to find your own flaws and fix them yourself. Being able to listen and work with others is a necessity in improvement no matter how you look at it.

I understand that not everyone is searching for criticism and they just want to show off something they made. I'm fine with that, but personally, I feel there should be some sort of separation between these. A criticism board and a general art posting board. Even if it's just one board for arts, I think people should state whether they want criticism or not in their topic so they don't get all pissy when they receive it because they don't wanna fix anything.

Concerning the general "friendliness" of criticism, that's all a load of crap. Criticism does not need to sound nice, constructive and destructive are two different things, I know, but being nice and being mean don't affect the quality of the criticism. The truth hurts, if your art sucks and there's a giant list of flaws that someone points out, it shows that they're really trying to help you, not that they're trying to be a dick. It's up to you to interpret the criticism however you want but you need to understand that if someone is even giving you criticism, they're just trying to help.

That should just about wrap it up.

Love, Shawn. <3

Why don't you ever act this intelligent on a normal basis.

I agree with the entirety of your post by the way, had to be said eventually. Less ass kissing more helping each other out.

This post has been edited by OSM on Jan 18 2009, 01:52 PM

I agree 100%, say what you want people, but if you can't take simple criticism there's a good chance you won't improve. It may be bothersome, but Shawn is right, the truth hurts and if you can't accept it as an artist don't even think about going into the big leagues. Criticism varies, but in the end it's all just helpful advice.

Agree.

And lock from mod is not good criticism ploz

I doubt they would lock this topic.

Shawn, have I mentioned that I love you?

I'm just going to leave you with this critique i found on the internet.

"It's just plain badly drawn. No depth, no shading, sterile lineart, cheap background, lopsided face... heck, she doesn't even have an expression. Seriously, there's really nothing good to say about the picture, and you would have to improve tenfold before your stuff could be considered attractive.
It's the truth, and you should be ashamed of yourself."

"Wow, just ****ing wow. I'm not much of an artist but that is... please go back to the basics of art and start over learning how to draw. So far all the art of yours that I've seen suggests you never learned the basics of art. Please get to studying and practicing so we can see some decent work.

Good luck."

These are considered critique, but do they really help? No. They're bad criticism.

Good criticism pinpoints what is exactly wrong with the picture, but he/she critiques it in a nice way. Great Criticism does that, and also effectively explains how to fix such mistakes ("You can fix this broken leg by doing this.. etc"). Excellent criticism does both, and redlines the picture to teach the artist what to do next time, just in case he/she has to draw something similar. Bad criticism just swamps the artist with negative feedback, and does not help the artist improve at all.

This post has been edited by Ashura on Jan 18 2009, 03:18 PM

ITT

tl;dr

guess thats cool but it seems like stuff is repeated in your rant, maybe it could've been shorter.

sticky this plz


oop nvm here comes the drama

This post has been edited by ZeldaMalon on Jan 18 2009, 03:18 PM

Why can't people distinguish true criticism from attempts to piss artists off

This post has been edited by Ashura on Jan 18 2009, 03:19 PM

if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen

ALL criticism is intended to help. It does ****ing matter how asshole-ish the person may be, they're trying to help. "No depth, no shading, sterile lineart, cheap background, lopsided face" and "please go back to the basics of art" ARE in fact, real crits. Ok, they sound like jackasses but so what? It doesn't mean they are giving proper criticism. Not all crits need to be exact steps of how to fix everything up, those seriously don't help the artist. It's up to you to fix the flaws, the people just need to tell you where it needs improvement.

Makes sense.
'Bad criticism' isn't really all that different anyway, though. Everyone should learn to analyze one's given criticism instead of being a **** about it. The quotes I wrote below share the same message but the latter is 'nicer'. All in all they're the same thing.

On a related note, whenever I'm given criticism, I check the parts I'm told to and usually go all 'Hey, whaddya know! It does look pretty stupid', and if I don't, the criticizer is usually a troll.
Also, the criticizer isn't the one you should expect the answers from. I can tell an author of a drawing that it looks bad, but cannot help him improve, as I do not necessarily know how it would look better.

This post has been edited by Raccoon Sam on Jan 18 2009, 03:31 PM

Hey shawn, go back to the basics of spriting, I don't like your pixel art.

gee I sure am helpful with my criticism

Everyone should go back and put "constructive" before "critisism".

Because "this sucks" doesn't help.

If the crit isn't brutal, the person won't get it.

My first sprites were ****, and people let me know. If they had told me "good job, they need work but aren't terrible," I never would've thought they were bad enough to need significant improvement.

The fact is, if crit is too nice, the person making the art won't strive to improve. And if they quit because they can't take it, that's their fault.

That's because that isn't criticism. I do understand your trolling effort, but still it contradicts itself.
"I hate you and your mother and I would like to strangle you with my ****. Don't ban me though, 'cause that's criticism." isn't a valid statement.

Criticism is pointing out flaws, not necessarily explaining how to fix them. If one does not point out even the flaws, he is a bad critic.

Ah finally. This is what we needed. I hope everyone actually pays attention to this.

Spriting is completely different. There are no basics, being a good spriter often requires being good at drawing as well. Any flaws I have in spriting are mainly due to my lack of traditional art skills.

Since you're the greatest god in the art world, you aren't aware that it does help to go back a few steps and try simplistic things like still life and accurate anatomy. Although it's not always easy to here, going back to basics is for the best. You can't learn to run without walking, you're not going to need to know general things before going into real detail and depth with art.

I just refuse to listen to criticism that's

a) too harsh (learn courtesy plz, artists have feelings)
b) doesn't point out any flaws (wtf?)
c) attacking the artist (obviously)

I do LIKE good criticism, but I don't like criticism that simply gives the artist no direction on how to improve his/her art. "Learn the basics of drawing" is one of those non-directional criticisms. (yeah it "directs" the artist to learn the basics of drawing, but the term is a blanket statement that can refer to anatomy, perspective, etc)

This post has been edited by Ashura on Jan 18 2009, 03:38 PM