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You can't Crit me 'less you a pro, dawg
14 years ago
This is the beginning of my Journal.
http://www.deviantart.com/#/d478mh9
TL;DR?
This girl is all like "If you ain't a PRO at arts, you can't crit my work." ALSO this gem "PRO = anyone better than me." ORLY? Subjective much?
Before I start, I want to say this: There are two inevitablities of posting your work online: 1) Your work will get stolen. 2) Someone will disparage your efforts. This has the distilled value of 1) I like it. 2) I hate it.
Now back the the meat of my potatoes...
Is this a common theme? It must be something that changes over the level of exposure of the artist. That's probably a hypothesis, but it seems to fit most molds. The more popular a digital artist (for the sake of argument I am defining a digital artist as an artist that provides their work through digital medium) the more immediate feedback you get. The more immediate feedback you get, the more likely it is that you will get feedback (feedback for me, is defined as judging) on your work. This can obviously be negative or positive. But it all comes down to what is negative feedback.
Is it negative because it wasn't phrased helpfully, was it all "YOU SUCK" or was it as suggested in the piece the fact that you don't believe that the audience has the capability to have a more critical eye (or at least a fresher one)? Perhaps your ego is fragile to the critiques of others. You obviously believe that experience is the measuring stick of validity. But what if someone is very experienced in the mechanics and understanding of art. Perhaps that person (unlikely, I know) is so well-versed in their understanding of art (obviously from their perspective) that they can explain what they find both good and bad about a piece in a way that is articulate and accurate, but lets say, for the sake of argument that their field of concentration was different than yours. Maybe they are abstract artists, or photographers. I know that when I went to art school the photographers had to take figure study and color theory and graphic design just like I did (though thankfully I didn't have to take photography because I would not have been able to afford that on top of all the other art supplies). Some of the things that these students did with photos was stunning and spoke volumes and evoked feeling and emotion beyond what even a photo-accurate reproduction in digital mediums could produce, but they couldn't draw for shit. I mean shit. I can't draw for shit, but they could not even draw simple two-point perspective with a ruler (I exaggerate, obviously). Does that mean that they don't know what the human form (or tree, or still life, etc.) look like? Laughable!
You say that only an artist who has suffered greater lengths at the hands of a difficult piece (providing that piece is better [read:judge] than that which you can do) can relate and thus tell you the faults of your ways? So then you are selfish! You're art is for you? Yet you are posting it for the digital world to see? Seems quite the conundrum...is it possible that you are looking only for the "atta boys?" That you want no crits on your work? DA has an option for that--you can gently suggest that you don't want crits, but you can guarantee it via the disable comments option. But we all know that as digital artists we live for the +fav and the +watch...but the comment...ahhhh the high of it all. So therein lies the rub...are you to disable comments for fear of your fragile ego, or brave the commentary to improve?
So is this a "have your cake and eat it too" situation or is this just a matter of me thinking opposite of everyone else again?
Let me know by critiquing my work, but only if you're a PRO.
Reflex
TL;DR?
This girl is all like "If you ain't a PRO at arts, you can't crit my work." ALSO this gem "PRO = anyone better than me." ORLY? Subjective much?
Before I start, I want to say this: There are two inevitablities of posting your work online: 1) Your work will get stolen. 2) Someone will disparage your efforts. This has the distilled value of 1) I like it. 2) I hate it.
Now back the the meat of my potatoes...
Is this a common theme? It must be something that changes over the level of exposure of the artist. That's probably a hypothesis, but it seems to fit most molds. The more popular a digital artist (for the sake of argument I am defining a digital artist as an artist that provides their work through digital medium) the more immediate feedback you get. The more immediate feedback you get, the more likely it is that you will get feedback (feedback for me, is defined as judging) on your work. This can obviously be negative or positive. But it all comes down to what is negative feedback.
Is it negative because it wasn't phrased helpfully, was it all "YOU SUCK" or was it as suggested in the piece the fact that you don't believe that the audience has the capability to have a more critical eye (or at least a fresher one)? Perhaps your ego is fragile to the critiques of others. You obviously believe that experience is the measuring stick of validity. But what if someone is very experienced in the mechanics and understanding of art. Perhaps that person (unlikely, I know) is so well-versed in their understanding of art (obviously from their perspective) that they can explain what they find both good and bad about a piece in a way that is articulate and accurate, but lets say, for the sake of argument that their field of concentration was different than yours. Maybe they are abstract artists, or photographers. I know that when I went to art school the photographers had to take figure study and color theory and graphic design just like I did (though thankfully I didn't have to take photography because I would not have been able to afford that on top of all the other art supplies). Some of the things that these students did with photos was stunning and spoke volumes and evoked feeling and emotion beyond what even a photo-accurate reproduction in digital mediums could produce, but they couldn't draw for shit. I mean shit. I can't draw for shit, but they could not even draw simple two-point perspective with a ruler (I exaggerate, obviously). Does that mean that they don't know what the human form (or tree, or still life, etc.) look like? Laughable!
You say that only an artist who has suffered greater lengths at the hands of a difficult piece (providing that piece is better [read:judge] than that which you can do) can relate and thus tell you the faults of your ways? So then you are selfish! You're art is for you? Yet you are posting it for the digital world to see? Seems quite the conundrum...is it possible that you are looking only for the "atta boys?" That you want no crits on your work? DA has an option for that--you can gently suggest that you don't want crits, but you can guarantee it via the disable comments option. But we all know that as digital artists we live for the +fav and the +watch...but the comment...ahhhh the high of it all. So therein lies the rub...are you to disable comments for fear of your fragile ego, or brave the commentary to improve?
So is this a "have your cake and eat it too" situation or is this just a matter of me thinking opposite of everyone else again?
Let me know by critiquing my work, but only if you're a PRO.
Reflex
Her example pic is talking about anatomy, which is of course the easiest thing for the human eye to see flaws in because we're surrounded by it every day.
Plus any person (not just PROS) criticizing you and saying they can do it better than you or faster or whatnot is full of themselves.
Artists don't get better in a vacuum. They can critique themselves, make revisions and drafts... But there's -always- something they will miss on their own and thus need a fresh pair of eyes on the subject from someone who's not a yes-man.
But there's always room for improvement. Fucking hands & feet! Clothing! Backgrounds!
Just as long as it's accepted the proportions are intentional so critique can pass on to other subjects I want to change.