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 Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 11:35 pm
First off, I don't have delusions of grandeur. I realize I still make a ton of mistakes, so when you comment, please, tell me if something is messed up. On the flip-side of that though, realize some things are done on purpose. For example, I have had some people say that the tone of black used here: [link] was too plain, and I should have used like 16 colors and mixed my own black. Well, did you ever consider I WANTED a plain black? It's called CHARCOAL people, they sell clothes that color in the store!
I've also had people say "When you draw with a regular pencil, you need an area that is as dark as you can make it." SAY'S WHO????????????? Not every picture drawn in pencil is meant to have a Gothic, high contrast feel to it. ART TEACHERS DON'T KNOW EVERYTHING!!!! So many art teachers say things that are down right stupid! Art is personal expression, not a list of rules. True, certain styles require certain traits, but if a picture doesn't have them, maybe the person who did that picture was doing something different! Ever consider that??????? O_o (I know, it overloads your little pee brain minds, doesn't it? *This means you, art teachers*) And, no, I'm not calling anyone out . I just want people to understand this. The art world has suffered a lot because of people that have turned it into a rule book.
TRUE ART HAS ONE RULE: DO IT HOW YOU CHOOSE TO DO IT!!!!!!!
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Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 10:08 am
To break the rules, you must learn them first.
Art isn't solely about "self-expression," it's about communication. If you can't communicate your ideas, whether it's 'self-expression' or otherwise, effectively from your head to paper/canvas, then your art needs improvement. It's as simple as that.
I have to defend the role of art teachers here. In high school or lower, yes, you will meet art teachers who don't give a s**t or know anything. However, they are still incredibly important to your education as an artist, as long as you are willing to listen to them. You're the student, they're the teacher; you don't know everything, either. Their goal is to teach you how to draw/paint, not how to be creative. They will teach you techniques and certain rules to help communicate your ideas better on paper, but they're not there to let you do your own thing. Learn the basics from art teachers, apply them to your personal work when needed. That's what learning is for.
If you really do think that everything you do is "self-expression," then really, you're not going to grow as an artist. Yes, self-expression is a large part of art making, but so is general technical skill. If you want to improve, put down your ego, buckle down and listen to all the advice given to you.
Regardless, you're still in control of what critique you want to listen to.
And by the way, I'm so happy to see that you completely shrugged off my advice. It was merely a suggestion, but thanks for the unnecessary backlash.
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Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 10:54 am
You misunderstand.
For one, I was not even talking about you, I had other people say that in person, and when I told them I wanted the plain black they still were saying I had to do it the other way.
Second, I'm not saying everything they say is wrong, but I have heard a lot of them that get so wrapped up in doing things a certain way that they call anything else wrong.
I have nothing against suggestions, and I even welcome most. I am speaking purely about the people who make absolute laws on art.
Like you said yourself "You must learn the rules in order to break them" I am talking about people that say you can't break any rules whatsoever.
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Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 11:32 am
I also want it to be known that I am working on a picture where I will be mixing a dozen or so colors to blend the black. I will try most suggestions at least once. Believe me, for as bad as my art is now, I'd be a LOT worse if I threw away every suggestion I ever got.
If there was a misunderstanding I am truly sorry, I meant no offense and hope you will still continue to give feedback.
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Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 1:19 pm
All right, I see where you're coming from. I agree that sometimes it's frustrating when you hear the same critique over and over, but personally, if I hear the same critique over and over, I tend to look into that critique more seriously. The black suggestion was one that was constantly told to me by others, and eventually I decided "oh why the hell not" and decided to make the color black without using black colored pencils. I actually liked the result, so I refer it to others ever since.
Don't worry, I'm not going to stop giving feedback to anybody because of something like this. XD
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Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 2:08 pm
I meant feedback to me, but okay!
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Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 3:37 pm
Phydeux77 Art is personal expression, not a list of rules. True, certain styles require certain traits I was gonna say "couldn't agree more" here, but the following is a very good point that I somehow overlooked before reading it. Kupocake Art isn't solely about "self-expression," it's about communication. If you can't communicate your ideas, whether it's 'self-expression' or otherwise, effectively from your head to paper/canvas, then your art needs improvement. It's as simple as that. I don't think I have much experience with critique like what you mentioned, though biased opinions in general annoy me. One time I posted some of my comics in some section of the main Gaia forum and a couple of people gave me some useless critique, such as "You should use an odd number of panels because odd numbers work better in comedy". Really, what kind of advice is that? They seemed to think ALL comics had a specific setup to follow where the first panel is setting up the joke or something, the second panel is delivering it, and the third is the punchline. They very strongly believed that if you had four panels, one of them would be used merely as a "pause". Then they're complaining about how my comics aren't funny in any way whatsoever, that they're completely incoherent, and that anyone who finds them funny is a retard (not that anyone could even possibly find them funny). There were a few people who said "I liked some", "They were hit and miss", or other comments indicating they did indeed like some of them, but how could those brilliant art critics be wrong?! They slammed my art rather than telling me how to improve it, and their only advice was stuff like "You should learn art in an art class" or "You should thoroughly study art and comedy before you can even think about trying to put your time into doing something creative to amuse others at no expense". I disproved their points and recognized my lack of artistic ability (or other actual flaws), but they just didn't want to listen. They were so biased that they told me Cyanide & Happiness (explosm.net) had WAY better art than MY worthless piece of s**t comics. I know my art wasn't perfect at the time (and still isn't), but I know for a fact that it was more skillful than stick figures. Anyone can draw a stick figure, but it at least takes a small amount of artistic ability to be able to draw an actual person with somewhat accurate proportions and actually having attempts at backgrounds, plus Cyanide & Happiness even copy+pastes their simple drawings. Really, it was all quite ridiculous. Even if they weren't thinking "Okay, heheh, I'm gonna go troll that guy", they were totally trolling, yet the moderator did nothing and even gave me a warning because I was saying stuff like "IF you guys can't accept that some people DO find these comics funny (when there's undeniable proof right here in this thread), then you're idiots." I was always saying "IF", not directly calling any of them out like they were doing to me... Anyhow, yeah. I don't like biased critique. I try to be as fair as I can when giving or receiving critique; if there's a disagreement, I'd gladly hear the other person out since there is a possibility that I might have been wrong. If someone has a suggestion, I want to hear some reasoning behind it, not some Nazi "DO IT THIS WAY, I'M NOT LISTENING TO YOUR SIDE, END OF STORY" BS.
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Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 5:28 pm
Phydeux77, I'd give feedback regardless what happened. XP I'm not the type who would stop helping someone because we came to a disagreement or something. And, I'm glad we got to a clarification on both ends. 3nodding
Zantetsken, are you talking about the Comic Creators subforum on the main Gaia forum? I post there quite a bit, and I can understand that you're frustrated with the CC-regulars; they can be a rather harsh crowd, and they do tend to attack at once if they see you're fighting off their critique in any way. However, I have posted a few comic ideas there, and I have received relatively good advice and suggestions, so I guess it depends on how you approach them.
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Profitable Conversationalist
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Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 7:34 pm
Hm...I can say I know the feeling of frustration with some art "crits" I've gotten in the past. I will take some suggestions offered to me, but generally not all. If a suggestion helps me with anatomy (I HATE anatomy most days) I generally take it. Same for coloring crits or other technique related crits. If it is a style crit, I honestly tend to ignore it. There are some exceptions, of course, but for the most part I stand firm on maintaining my own style. I find following other people's crits on style only results in me losing the aspects of my own style that makes it mine.
I think we each need to make our own choices as to which crits are good for us and which don't help us and go from there. And realize that here most people offer crits that they hope will help us, even if that doesn't necessarily happen to be the case from our perspective.
I admit I have a hard time taking crits on poses I select unless it is a really impossible pose anatomically speaking. Why? Because I chose that pose for a reason and it conveys something to me that I feel will be lost in another pose. Granted, I know my art isn't strong enough yet for me to always convey things in my art the way they are in my head. That's why I'll at least always consider the points of every crit I am given.
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Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 1:16 pm
Kupocake Zantetsken, are you talking about the Comic Creators subforum on the main Gaia forum? I post there quite a bit, and I can understand that you're frustrated with the CC-regulars; they can be a rather harsh crowd, and they do tend to attack at once if they see you're fighting off their critique in any way. However, I have posted a few comic ideas there, and I have received relatively good advice and suggestions, so I guess it depends on how you approach them. Yeah, I think that was the place. I think I posted a comic or two as examples and gave a link to my site/comics, then they started giving me a bunch of groundless criticism. I found the topic... the first two pages sum it up (the rest is pretty much just them trolling and me continuing to read their posts and write to them as if they're human beings): http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/promotions/cloudflash-mix-my-webcomic-series/t.48231199/ Granted, I did post in the wrong section, which I did admit. I did just want to show the comics around a little, but I'd be willing to listen to helpful advice at any time. There's no way I'm going to make changes I disagree with, though, especially if they can't be explained in a logical manner. I think I just plain offended the KayJKay person (who seems to used to be called Sayterra). A friend of mine was looking her up and stuff and saying I should use personal information against her, but I refused to since that had nothing to do with the argument. Still, he found that she apparently did some work in women's writing or whatever, which sorta indicates feminism... Someone who believes males and females are equal wouldn't go out of their way to join an all-woman project and let the world know "Women can write, too! We are equal (or superior) to men!" The first comic I showed displayed a female in a less than intelligent manner, so maybe she got offended right there. I think the CatBrush guy was offended as soon as I mentioned furries, bisexuals, and gays being a subject of interest for typical Gaians. I don't have anything against people being interested in those things or people being gay themselves or whatever (which I even stated right after he questioned it)... It seems like we got off on the wrong foot and then they simply refused to admit that I might be right about anything, and that I was the "bad guy". Biased critique... They weren't even trying to help me at all after maybe the first page; they were just trying to knock me off my "high horse" (even though I was still reading everything they were saying and treating them like human beings on equal grounds, unlike how they simply walked off saying "I'm right, you're wrong" or "I didn't even read your garbage post"). If one has no intentions of helping another, they really shouldn't offer any critique.
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Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 5:44 pm
Ah, posting a promotions-type thread there does anger the CC-ers, that much is true.
Like I said before, the regulars there have a mob-like mentality if you try to fight off their critique, even if you disagree with it. KayJKay, who is an acquaintance/mentor of mine, gets particularly offended by sexist jokes. However, the group she joined was more of the "unique female comic writers" type of thing, rather than a "feminist comic writers" group (comparable to all-black writers group versus 'black pride' writers group). But, reading through the first page, I feel that KayJKay/Sayterra and sinistersquid's critique was legit, Baron Catbrush going a tad overboard though. They are right in the sense that if your comic was truly funny, you shouldn't have to explain the joke. It should be able to stand on its own two feet.
I feel they were initially giving out general critique, but fighting them will only push them harder, so by the end of the first/second page, they really were just picking at you. Remember, everybody thinks they are right, you and the people giving you critique. Be courteous to everybody's suggestions, and don't try to tell them they're wrong. Just accept it all, and listen to the advice you personally thought was valid.
Apologies to Phydeux77 for thread-hijacking. XP
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Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 9:05 pm
No worries! That's what discussion topics are for! (And I did start this for discussions like that! smile )
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Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 12:28 am
I get what you guys are saying (even though I don't get much critique) it frustrates me to no end to hear what some people give out as critique! I've recently gotten upset 'cause of some of friends. I had asked them to take a look at a picture I drew and they told me 'why don't you color it, it would look better.' I'd intentionally left it black and white for shading purposes but they continued to say: 'this would look better colored', 'why don't you color it', and so forth...
You don't have to color something to make it look good -_- And that's all they could concentrate on, nothing else, so I couldn't even get good critique...
I've also encountered people who tell me (but not my boyfriend) that my boyfriend's art isn't even that good. That's all, it's not good, nothing to help improve his art skills! I had to help him when others were making him feel down, but I think most people didn't like it was that it wasn't anime style (he draws american style)!!! They don't even look at the storyline! Just the art and his art goes well with the storyline so there isn't any confusion.
It's so frustrating!
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Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 6:52 pm
Kupocake Ah, posting a promotions-type thread there does anger the CC-ers, that much is true. Like I said before, the regulars there have a mob-like mentality if you try to fight off their critique, even if you disagree with it. KayJKay, who is an acquaintance/mentor of mine, gets particularly offended by sexist jokes. However, the group she joined was more of the "unique female comic writers" type of thing, rather than a "feminist comic writers" group (comparable to all-black writers group versus 'black pride' writers group). But, reading through the first page, I feel that KayJKay/Sayterra and sinistersquid's critique was legit, Baron Catbrush going a tad overboard though. They are right in the sense that if your comic was truly funny, you shouldn't have to explain the joke. It should be able to stand on its own two feet. I feel they were initially giving out general critique, but fighting them will only push them harder, so by the end of the first/second page, they really were just picking at you. Remember, everybody thinks they are right, you and the people giving you critique. Be courteous to everybody's suggestions, and don't try to tell them they're wrong. Just accept it all, and listen to the advice you personally thought was valid. Apologies to Phydeux77 for thread-hijacking. XP Well, I found her advice to be too general (i.e. "You need to work on your art and comedy"). She got specific on that "Sexism" comic, but her points were not valid because she's the only person I've ever encountered who didn't understand it... or she says she did understand it, but she just thought it wasn't funny. She can't possibly argue both of those sides as siding with one means dropping the other. Some of her other points, such as "odd numbers work better in comedy", were just plain groundless. I've seen plenty of comics with an even number of panels that were hilarious. The only thing funny about odd numbers is the name itself - that we sometimes use odd/funny/weird interchangeably. Of course, you don't want your comics to have perfect symmetry since that would look very plain, but odds and evens have nothing to do with that. I could have held back from being hostile in return to insulting comments and being talked down to, though I doubt it would have ended much differently, and I sure didn't want to have to take it up the a** when I gave logical explanations and facts for my points. The critics there just seemed to have a mindset that I should be ashamed of posting such garbage art, that it's necessary to be an amazing artist to be able to make decent comics, and that I'm the lowest of the low for daring to use PBF comics as examples to explain some of my points because my art is nowhere near that level. She's definitely an amazing artist, but I think she was nitpicking way too much. Even if I think she's an idiot, there's no denying her abilities. Some tips on anatomy and stuff would have been nice, minus the attempts at crushing my creative mind. I don't think sinistersquid's critique was very useful since she took things the wrong way and it pretty much just turned into her saying "get off your high horse". I wasn't at any point expecting "easy a**-pats", and it's obvious that most friends/family will try to avoid hurting your feelings, so they might not give honest reviews (but I replied and stated that I wasn't just showing them to friends/family). As for her third point... Well, yeah, a person might not feel obligated to read your comic if you single them out and treat them like crap. I, for one, can still recognize skill even if it belongs to someone I don't like, though. Again, it's the misunderstanding, though. She seemed to think I was "being a jerk" to people solely because they disliked my comics, which was not the case at all. CatBrush was actually the one calling people retarded for liking my comics. The worst I said was that they had no sense of humour or that they needed to loosen up a little if they couldn't see the jokes in some of my more obvious comics. I said in that topic that different people have different tastes in humour, and that I wasn't going to change my jokes to suit their individual preferences. There was proof that some people did like them as is, so that tells me I don't need to change that. It wouldn't make sense to try to make jokes I'm unfamiliar with to try to appeal to an audience I hate. I think I asked her what kind of humour she liked, but she didn't answer - now that's really not helpful. But that's all in the past. She's probably long forgotten about it by now without having taken anything from the argument. A look at CatBrush's signature indicates he's just as snobby as ever. It kinda pains me to see that, but I guess it doesn't matter to me if they remain in a frozen time - I only have to worry about moving forward, myself. Sorry for the wall of text; many of my posts end up that way. It's not like you need to defend these people or whatever, and I don't mean to make it sound like I'm taking it out on you or whatever. I try to explain myself as best as I can to avoid any confusion and to allow the other person to understand my perspective, but it often turns into them skimming the post and misunderstanding everything. Ironic, huh?
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2010 11:56 am
Zantetsken Phydeux77 Art is personal expression, not a list of rules. True, certain styles require certain traits I was gonna say "couldn't agree more" here, but the following is a very good point that I somehow overlooked before reading it. Kupocake Art isn't solely about "self-expression," it's about communication. If you can't communicate your ideas, whether it's 'self-expression' or otherwise, effectively from your head to paper/canvas, then your art needs improvement. It's as simple as that. I don't think I have much experience with critique like what you mentioned, though biased opinions in general annoy me. One time I posted some of my comics in some section of the main Gaia forum and a couple of people gave me some useless critique, such as "You should use an odd number of panels because odd numbers work better in comedy". Really, what kind of advice is that? They seemed to think ALL comics had a specific setup to follow where the first panel is setting up the joke or something, the second panel is delivering it, and the third is the punchline. They very strongly believed that if you had four panels, one of them would be used merely as a "pause". Then they're complaining about how my comics aren't funny in any way whatsoever, that they're completely incoherent, and that anyone who finds them funny is a retard (not that anyone could even possibly find them funny). There were a few people who said "I liked some", "They were hit and miss", or other comments indicating they did indeed like some of them, but how could those brilliant art critics be wrong?! They slammed my art rather than telling me how to improve it, and their only advice was stuff like "You should learn art in an art class" or "You should thoroughly study art and comedy before you can even think about trying to put your time into doing something creative to amuse others at no expense". I disproved their points and recognized my lack of artistic ability (or other actual flaws), but they just didn't want to listen. They were so biased that they told me Cyanide & Happiness (explosm.net) had WAY better art than MY worthless piece of s**t comics. I know my art wasn't perfect at the time (and still isn't), but I know for a fact that it was more skillful than stick figures. Anyone can draw a stick figure, but it at least takes a small amount of artistic ability to be able to draw an actual person with somewhat accurate proportions and actually having attempts at backgrounds, plus Cyanide & Happiness even copy+pastes their simple drawings. Really, it was all quite ridiculous. Even if they weren't thinking "Okay, heheh, I'm gonna go troll that guy", they were totally trolling, yet the moderator did nothing and even gave me a warning because I was saying stuff like "IF you guys can't accept that some people DO find these comics funny (when there's undeniable proof right here in this thread), then you're idiots." I was always saying "IF", not directly calling any of them out like they were doing to me... Anyhow, yeah. I don't like biased critique. I try to be as fair as I can when giving or receiving critique; if there's a disagreement, I'd gladly hear the other person out since there is a possibility that I might have been wrong. If someone has a suggestion, I want to hear some reasoning behind it, not some Nazi "DO IT THIS WAY, I'M NOT LISTENING TO YOUR SIDE, END OF STORY" BS. The mod gave you a warning for calling them idiots not for being trolled. You can't call people names but it's accepted for you to show they are idiots as long as no insults are given to them directly.
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