Just to add on to what you're saying, it's great for less-skilled artists to provide critique in order to help improve themselves, too! Looking at a piece critically can help artists improve their own craft, since it helps them to scrutinize some of those same issues they may have.

Exactly! :D Viewing anything as perfect doesn't help anyone improve, and recognizing things that make it imperfect doesn't mean you have to love it any less c:

I try to bring up insightful critique whenever I can, although you always nail everything you do. Each piece that you make has fantastic anatomy, lighting, color, texture, it's all good. But If you want me to give more critique on those things I definitely will do so! But I'll try to keep it short and simple.

And muscles looking funny? Do they have their own comedy routine? Ah heck, anyway... Please keep being awesome Beatz~
Although I do understand what you mean about providing critique. It helps everyone, even yourself to see what could be fixed or changed.

I just don't give critiques anymore because this varies artist to artist.
Like you mention yourself, this is "your" take on them, and you do welcome them. This varies for others.
While I applaud you for being welcoming of critiques, I can only hope people feel inclined to give them from the negative stigma it can carry.
It's just too dangerous a territory for most people to feel comfortable doing. Even from personal experience, giving a good-intended critique can get you blocked. Especially from more well-known artists.
I can understand why, but it still leaves me feeling too untrusting to leave a critique anymore based on how easy it is for people to block you for pointing out even the smallest of a flaw on someone's work.

IE: "The position you drew the character in makes it look like they are standing up despite the image drawn with them lying in bed. [background contrasts character's pose]"

Is somehow worthy of getting you blocked in my past experience.

I feel the exact same way. Personally I've been blocked when an artist ASKED for their followers opinion on stuff...and I gave it.

See that's some grade A pettiness right there. Those are usually artists that are looking for people to go "oh nu ur so good and perfect" and they go "pffff staaaawp guys I'm so bad at art"

Very highschool.

If I remember correctly you've left commentary on my stuff before and it was a little awkward and blunt but pretty clearly not malicious. Or I might just be hard to offend.

I tend to be VERY bad at communicating, which I can explain (not that anyone's ever interested in the explanation, it just makes me feel better that I can at least explain why I can't talk to people, but they can't truly justify dismissing another human being).

And this might sound a little silly, but I actually cried reading your response (happy tears that is) here because you're the only person to notice I'm awkward and blunt with how I interact. So thank you for that, really.

I understand to a degree because I struggle a lot with social anxiety and spent a long time really struggling at verbally communicating with people. I try to not be so quick to assume that people are being malicious.

I'm glad it means something to you, I can imagine it's frustrating being treated as if you have ill intent when you don't have it.

That's why I specified my stance on it, cause a lot of people are giving these blanket statements and going "oh just approach it like this" and then touchy artists get butthurt, and others that go "don't you dare do it" and then artists seeking to improve don't get that helpful feedback.

And I can understand the blocking bullshittery. Though if it helps, you can go through my past journals and see some of the nasty stuff people have said to me, and know that none of them are blocked lol.

If someone says something hurtful, I'd rather leave them out to dry than use silencing tactics. I don't want people seeing a ton of hidden comments and being discouraged from voicing what they have to say.

I appreciate the insight, no doubt.
And I thank you for being open about this kinda stuff.
It is very reassuring to know your view on critiques. I wish more people would share this perspective.

It's a perspective that I hold in high regard. I can understand that it's shitty to know there's flaws in something you put time and effort into, but you're so much less likely to repeat them if they're identified early on.

Hopefully uninvited feedback is good, given context (please let me know if it's not).

My experience suggests;

1) always ask if someone wants critique, sometimes people just aren't up for it or it's a customer's piece and for the customer to critique, not me.

2) if I critique someone, it means I think they could make cooler stuff and will make cooler stuff. It's therefore in the best interest of myself, the artist, and the greater community for me to phrase things as encouraging as possible, because nobody gets anything positive when you discourage an artist. So I always want to say something positive if I'm going to launch in to what could be better.

3) for technical purposes as well as for morale, I want to compliment some aspect of what they made if I criticize another aspect of it. "This is what I liked" is as useful as "this is what I found flawed."

I'm all good with uninvited feedback. I like knowing what people think of work.

Part of the thing is, though, there's so many of those things that people won't respond well to even if you do play your cards right, so to speak. Like on that first bit, there's some artists that ask for critique that are actually...looking for critique, but there's this whole group of them that ask for it with the sole intention of suggesting fault to incite praise. "I'm so ugly..." *entire group speaks up* "NO UR SO GORGEOUS AND PRETTY AND FLAWLESS"

I'm not suuuuper comfortable with critique on customers pieces but also feel that having that pressure is good. Like if someone says something negative about a customers piece it's like "well shit now the customer has this bad thing to look at" but it also means that future commissions have improved quality.

It's one of those "it sucks to hear but it's ultimately for the better" type deals.

And I agree on the latter two parts for my personal method of giving critique, I actually specified it in my reply to Lux down below.

A good way of giving feedback that I've learned is starting the comment with three or so good points about their work, what they did best at, and then giving the critique on what seemed weak. In fact, keeping a good amount of positivity can help alleviate the blow, so to speak.

That being said, some artists just don't accept criticism for whatever reason they might have. Thank you for this journal, seeing others share their techniques helps people give better criticism.

I use a method similar to that when giving critique myself. I think some call it the "compliment sandwich" method.

Start off with positive reinforcement, share what you think they could improve on, then end on something they did well.

I was less so making this journal to give a guide on how to criticize, and moreso just letting people know that I'm an artist that's open to criticism.

I would also recommend to give critique PRIVATELY to the artist if it is a commission piece.

I'm just talking about for people talking to me, and honestly, it sucks if a commissioned piece gets publicly critiqued, but I view it as incentive to improve. Higher stakes if it's public.

I understand how that may give you more incentive, however I feel it disingenuous if people only consider the artist's views on the matter. Maybe the commissioner didn't want to have pointed out that given the angles of things the tail is much higher than it ought be, or their hands are disproportionately small or yada yada. Because after they hear it, that's probably going to be the first thing they see every time that they look at it.

It's one thing to let the artist know, because they actually have something to gain from it. What does a commissioner have to gain from having flaws and inconsistencies pointed out in their piece?

Hadn't really thought of that, and it's a valid concern, I'd just rather encourage my viewers to voice their constructive criticism without having to worry about too much.

That's the air I wish to keep in my personal space, and that's what I will encourage. If a commissioner doesn't wish to see what people have to say about my skill level, to me, within my space, then they can skip over the comments and instead read the ones made on their posting of the image.

Plus, it's worth noting that my art in this setting is a product. Nearly every other products gets reviewed in a public space, and I don't think mine should be treated any differently.

Plus, thinking from the commissioners perspective, should they decide to read the commentary directed at me, it can be good for them to look at art critically as well, and hold me to a higher standard in the future (considering most of my commissions are repeat customers)