Welcome to Gaia! ::

Gaia Forums » Artist's Corner » Art Discussion
<3 </3
Reply
< 1 2 3 4 5 6

Aged Codger

Offline
God-the-almighty
The stupid thing is that I'm not that bad. I have no idea why I was attacked.


Because anonymity from behind a keyboard makes some people very brave, and very much assholes. Especially teenagers, who are angry at their mom or their homework or the world for whatever asanine reason and want to bully people to make themselves feel better.

Penny Arcade said it best seven years ago.

frantic spark's Senpai

Angelic Unicorn

Offline
Annie Felis
God-the-almighty
The stupid thing is that I'm not that bad. I have no idea why I was attacked.


Because anonymity from behind a keyboard makes some people very brave, and very much assholes. Especially teenagers, who are angry at their mom or their homework or the world for whatever asanine reason and want to bully people to make themselves feel better.

Penny Arcade said it best seven years ago.


That's probably true.

Offline
Quote:
Is it an alien? The head is massive.


Not exact, but I received the critique on a drawing I did when I was 12 or 13. From that point onward, I understood that heads should be drawn -without- hair first. (Otherwise the proportions can skew out and look ugly.) The critique was also applied to other areas. (Draw the body first before clothes, etc.) It hurt first, being a youngin' who saw no faults, but it was helpful in the end.

Offline
I had a pretty crushing critique on my first comic in a thread I posted a couple of days ago. I can't lie and say that it didn't affect me. It's not exactly the best feeling in the world when something you work on turns out to be not as great as you would have hoped. But I think moments like that seem to tell you what kind of person you are. I figured I want to be the kind of artist who really looks at what people are telling me, and improves instead of mopes. People on here are right, I should lookforward to disagreements and critiques because it gives me a new chance to see a new perspective and improve my work. Maybe this is all basic stuff that everyone on here has figured out though.

Invisible Shapeshifter

11,400 Points
  • Gender Swap 100
  • Way Too Many Pies 300
  • Generous 100
Offline
I once participated in a very small fan art contest, hosted by a Swedish Naruto forum. I made a drawing of Hinata in EGL-outfit, in my own special style I used at that time (it was many years ago). I looked at the few other submissions, and it looked like they had put a transparent paper over some original pic from the manga and just copied it. The admins named me the winner and that made me happy of course...

But I looked up the comments to see what people said about the contest, and I have never been so flamed for something I have created as I was then. Most of them really hated my drawing and said things like a blind monkey could do better than that, and that any of the other submissions deserved to win more than my vulgar and horrible drawing.

That made me very angry and sad. If it had happened nowadays I don't think I would have cared so much as I did then. I guess my style was a little too daring for them ^^; But I was very sensitive, and even if they didn't like it there is better ways of expressing their opinions.

But I'm still glad that I won xD

Offline
I once gave my picture a drawing of a pony as a christmas card and he told me to do it again.
I was pissed at him for that. Mainly because he was my least favorite teacher anyway, but it was a small school so since I was giving pictures to the other teachers I thought he should get one too.

Offline
only picture post gives me crushing critiques. Or critiques at all for that matter. xPP

Invisible Hunter

Offline
getting crit in a art piece in which i couldn't have less interest to make, but we were pretty much forced to do that extra piece of art if we wanted to get the grade. then the teacher bawwwed through e-mail of how disappointed she was. well excuse me teacher, but we had bazillion other works to do. i came to solution that i won't bother to draw anything anymore.

Offline
I've never had a (legitimate) critique that shattered my soul. Just a terrible one, and my soul remains intact. This is not... quite art piece related, but art school related.

I was walking home after a year end party with some of my classmates. I'm older than most of my class, so one of them was asking me about the university I went to, assuming I had a degree already. When I told him I didn't have a degree and I was starting from scratch at this new school he looked at me and said 'what have you been doing with your life?!'

Maybe that doesn't sound like much, but it was exactly what I was worried about people thinking when I decided to go back to school. It almost stopped me from going back to school, actually. I was so proud of myself for fighting that fear and going back and doing well, and then this little kid, who doesn't know me well enough to make this assumption, basically tells me I've wasted my life up to this point.

(I comfort myself by knowing that I got into my program, and he didn't. Because I am terrible like that)

4,600 Points
  • Forum Sophomore 300
  • Forum Dabbler 200
  • First step to fame 200
Offline
Though I've never had any really harsh "soul crushing" critiques, a year ago my brother pointed out that all my more amine works were pretty much the same- a female, 3/4 turned to the left while slightly off-center in the composition, smiling or blank stare with a normal pose. It was an epiphany for me and I work hard to deviate from that template I once had. Now I try to tell a story, add strong emotions, color, pose, composition, whatever I can to make my art more interesting. c:

Romantic Fairy

8,050 Points
  • Dressed Up 200
  • Autobiographer 200
  • Person of Interest 200
Offline
I think gaia has given me some of my hardest critiques, though none have really been soul crushing. They have resulted in me being afraid to make jewelry the way I usually do- I've been told the crystal I use looks cheap and plastic-y, and that it's very tacky. So now I feel like I should avoid crystal, even though I know that pictures don't always show the quality of materials, and that they(the crystal, at least) look pretty in person. I almost wanted to delete the thread, because I was sick of getting 90% negative feedback, but I left it up, and decided to just take it. I put myself out there, and needed to accept it.

I haven't made a lot of crystal jewelry since then, though I've wanted to. I'm still afraid that it looks cheap- and I'm not going to lie, some of my jewelry does look cheap, now that I look back at it, but it's stuff made from glass beads, and stuff that I made a while ago.

It has resulted in me being harder on my work than I used to be. I'm more willing to tear a piece apart and redo it because I don't think it looks good enough.

__________

Where my drawing stands, I took art classes all throughout highschool. I was in AP art my senior year, and knew that my art was nowhere as good as everyone elses. There was only one girl who was on the same level artistically as me. My teacher gave me good criticism in a way that helped me better my work.

A girl in my class asked to see my sketchbook, and I let her. I always let people flip through it if they want, even though it's not that great. Well, the girl proceeded to tear apart just about every piece in there. I know my stuff wasn't that great, because I generally use my sketchbook as a way to let out emotions, and draw rough sketches, etc. I know I need a lot of improvement, but the things she said had me wanting to drop out of the course, because I felt like nothing I ever did would ever be good. I actually stopped drawing in my sketchbook for a year or so after that- it took me a while to feel like I could try again. I started slacking on my assignments, and was embarrassed to turn them in.

I look back on it and think, "Why on earth did I let her bother me like that?" My teacher was giving me good criticism, and had pointed out to me that some of my art was good, and was also helping me fix what wasn't so great with simple suggestions. My teacher had been an artist for way longer than that brat, yet I really let her get to me. I also failed to look at the fact that my teacher had signed me into AP art- which meant she saw some talent from me, and saw some potential.

Fashionable Explorer

Offline
I was... eight? I think? I was hanging out at a friend's house, whose grandfather was visiting. We were bored, so I suggested we draw something. All she had was crayola markers and that weird printer paper with one glossy side. We were just kind of dicking around with the OMG SHINEY paper, drawing doodles and stuff. I drew a flower that I was pretty proud of, so I fashioned it into a card for my mother, like "Thanks mommy I luv u". I bring it to her, all proud. My mother's all "aww thank you", and this friend's grandfather leans over and... proceeds to tear that thing apart, about how it "doesn't even look like a flower, what kind of retard came up with such a stupid idea <insert more arteestee opinions here>". I was... floored. I didn't even like cry, or get upset, I was just shocked. And he was like, DEAD serious about the entire commentary, I s**t you not. And my friend's soon-to-be-abusive b***h mother was like "Oh my father is an ARTIST, he knows what he's talking about! Isn't he the greatest painter ever? <points at painting of a fruit bowl>"

Thankfully I had very little respect for authority/older figures when I was little and quickly decided the old geezer was just a bigass raging douchetwat with mediocre skills, so I didn't take him seriously. Well, it did affect me in that I would not accept criticism of my work from other artists for a long time. I guess it actually made me into a special snowflake, surprisingly. But a few very patient art teachers, and some very talented and KIND artists went out of their way to teach me and show me otherwise. I make sure to try an encourage any and all kids who are into art around me every chance I get because man... Just remembering it makes my blood boil. I have a bunch of kid scribbles everywhere in my sketchbooks because they saw me drawing and wanted to draw too, and I proudly keep them all as mementos.

The only other thing I can think of was my mother telling me one of my characters was "gross and ugly" (he had scales, an attempt at working with a physically imperfect character), but that actually taught me to be more critical of my work. Also my step-dad telling me he doesn't "get this annimeay stuff and doesn't know what to say" after I proudly showed him a picture. That one hurt more because it invalidated all of the encouraging nods I got from him earlier. But this story actually has a happy ending, because earlier this year he actually told me he liked "how I draw now" and that he though the "black outline was a nice touch", and I know he meant both of those things.

Offline
When I was 15 or so I drew this castle, and somebody said "castles are supposed to look like they were built by master craftsmen, not 2-year olds with downs syndrome" or something like that. It's not the worst thing that I've heard about my art, but I remember it because it was the first time I realized that they didn't post any reference as to how a castle should look like to back up their claim and help me to improve, so I should just ignore them.

8,450 Points
  • Brandisher 100
  • Mark Twain 100
  • Sausage Fest 200
Offline
Piperita
I was... eight? I think? I was hanging out at a friend's house, whose grandfather was visiting. We were bored, so I suggested we draw something. All she had was crayola markers and that weird printer paper with one glossy side. We were just kind of dicking around with the OMG SHINEY paper, drawing doodles and stuff. I drew a flower that I was pretty proud of, so I fashioned it into a card for my mother, like "Thanks mommy I luv u". I bring it to her, all proud. My mother's all "aww thank you", and this friend's grandfather leans over and... proceeds to tear that thing apart, about how it "doesn't even look like a flower, what kind of retard came up with such a stupid idea <insert more arteestee opinions here>". I was... floored. I didn't even like cry, or get upset, I was just shocked. And he was like, DEAD serious about the entire commentary, I s**t you not. And my friend's soon-to-be-abusive b***h mother was like "Oh my father is an ARTIST, he knows what he's talking about! Isn't he the greatest painter ever? <points at painting of a fruit bowl>"

Thankfully I had very little respect for authority/older figures when I was little and quickly decided the old geezer was just a bigass raging douchetwat with mediocre skills, so I didn't take him seriously. Well, it did affect me in that I would not accept criticism of my work from other artists for a long time. I guess it actually made me into a special snowflake, surprisingly. But a few very patient art teachers, and some very talented and KIND artists went out of their way to teach me and show me otherwise. I make sure to try an encourage any and all kids who are into art around me every chance I get because man... Just remembering it makes my blood boil. I have a bunch of kid scribbles everywhere in my sketchbooks because they saw me drawing and wanted to draw too, and I proudly keep them all as mementos.

The only other thing I can think of was my mother telling me one of my characters was "gross and ugly" (he had scales, an attempt at working with a physically imperfect character), but that actually taught me to be more critical of my work. Also my step-dad telling me he doesn't "get this annimeay stuff and doesn't know what to say" after I proudly showed him a picture. That one hurt more because it invalidated all of the encouraging nods I got from him earlier. But this story actually has a happy ending, because earlier this year he actually told me he liked "how I draw now" and that he though the "black outline was a nice touch", and I know he meant both of those things.


Holy ********, that s**t was just uncalled for. This is precisely why I don't believe in really harsh crits or pushing things on people. They can leave a bad impression for a long time that will actually make the people resist genuine critique more than if they had never gotten a really harsh one.

It's good that you could move on from that, though. I'd probably have hated painting and drawing well into my adult life with those kinds of experiences.

Fashionable Explorer

Offline
The Atroxious
Holy ********, that s**t was just uncalled for. This is precisely why I don't believe in really harsh crits or pushing things on people. They can leave a bad impression for a long time that will actually make the people resist genuine critique more than if they had never gotten a really harsh one.

It's good that you could move on from that, though. I'd probably have hated painting and drawing well into my adult life with those kinds of experiences.


Eh, I think the man just had some serious illusions of self-grandeur, full of respect-thy-elders-for-they-are-god attitude with a possible sprinkle of paranoia. I heard from someone who's from his city (and hangs out in the art circle due to a few artist friends) that he apparently starts friggen' turf wars with other artists, especially younger artists, over "stealing his clientelle". He paints fruits and people. His fruits were alright, and you could usually tell who the person he was trying to paint was (though he'd usually get a little something off, so that it wouldn't just, you know.. look right), but his colour choices were bland and forgettable and his people frequently looked very lifeless.

As for my mother, well, she at least had the excuse that I was 14, so I think I could probably take it better than at 8. I'll admit, I haven't really experimented with aesthetically-unappealing character features since then (and the particular character in question was abandoned), but I don't know if it's even the result of her comment or not.

Heh, moving on is one of those things I do pretty well, much to chagrin of people around me. I get un-mad quicker than I get mad, which could create some... tension. I don't think I could ever give up doodling and drawing... it's filled up too much of time, and stopping would just feel empty. I get like, drawing-withdrawal, man.

I used to go a bit hard a** on people in Picture Post, back when the "shut up and bend over to your critique masters" attitude was really rampant there. Then I realized how stupid that approach was and I feel really bad about it now, even though I never really did it to anyone under the age of 15. So I try to do my best to give people encouraging and helpful critique - and if it looks like they don't want it then I just abstain from saying anything.
Gaia Forums » Artist's Corner » Art Discussion

Quick Reply

Submit
Manage Your Items
Other Stuff
More
Get GCash
Offers
More
Get Items
More Items
More
Where Everyone Hangs Out
Other Community Areas
  • Guilds
    fan clubs for the stuff you love
  • Chat
    chat in real time with other Gaian's
  • Art Arenas
    browse & rate gaian art galleries
  • Clans
    play zOMG with others
More
Virtual Spaces
Fun Stuff
More
Gaia's Games
Mini-Games
More
Play with GCash
Play with Platinum
More