"Is my art bad???"

[Sidewalk Surfboard]

2 minutes ago, Vae said:

1 out of 5 is still failing a test, though.
If you don't understand your craft, you can't possibly expect to have your work respected by or in comparison with those that do.
I can cook, and not catch the stove on fire, but that doesn't mean I made good food from that one positive alone.

Also the second point was already addressed in the thread.
If someone wants criticism on their work, they should ask in fragments about what they're unsure of. They're not gonna fix everything in one sitting if their work's that bad anyway. And that's unfair of the rando they're asking to be expected to dump a fuckload of corrections about a bunch of vague categories on their head, when that person could be working on their own art, instead.

And, as Kea already said and I already made mention of, you also more often than not get the people who just give shitty excuses when you do criticize them anyway.

Yeah, you're right. I didn't read through the entire thread so I didn't see the mention of fragments. That makes much more sense, because I know a lot of artists (myself included) do ask about specific pieces of their work when wanting opinions on it.

[Saxon]

On 17/02/2017 at 6:08 PM, Sidewalk Surfboard said:

I feel like a lot of people in this thread are being particularly snooty. While yes, there are things that (in terms of technique) can make a person's art bad, there are always unique characteristics in everyone's art that can be viewed as good. A person asking if their art is bad isn't always begging for asspats. Some people genuinely think their art is bad and want to improve it. Then again what do I know, my art a shit.

Regarding this topic actually, I think there needs to be more recognition that being polite in discussion of art is a two-way street.

I can understand that people find it difficult to decide how to help somebody when they ask a broad and emotionally charged question such as 'should I give up doing art?'

Responses which are along the lines of 'stop seeking affirmation from me you fuck wad,', are not going to resolve this problem. As I discussed with tsuujusou (?spelling) earlier, I see comments like this routinely, and they simply don't help anybody.

Something that struck me is that people who have problems making art that they are satisfied with often don't have a good idea of what problems exist in their art, so I am not sure whether it is reasonable to expect them to ask questions such as 'Are my proportions consistent?' when what they might actually need is somebody to help point that out for them.

[Vae]

Self-study and self-criticism skills go a long way.

Ultimately, other artists owe you nothing. Not their help, not their affirmation, and not their time when you can't narrow your concerns for them, in a manner that wastes less of their time on such a broad subject.

If you simply want general criticism, stating it in a manner like "Any crit is very much appreciated" is much less demanding and places advice topics at the leisure of the viewer, instead of "Is my art bad?"

[Endless/Nameless]

what do i get if I tell you

[Lopaw]

On 11/02/2017 at 3:32 AM, Vae said:

Uh, a lot of things. I need to work on perspective probably most of all, and posing, but almost all categories are things I could definitely improve on.

These are more along the lines of what my endgame goals actually are:

I've noticed that all these apart from the second one down use red-cyan as complentry colours, though orange-blue tends to be more commonly done, especially with film posters. 

I think this goes a long way into making art look high quality, at least as far the DA groups I want to get in are concerned.

[Saxon]

On 20/02/2017 at 4:50 AM, Endless/Nameless said:

what do i get if I tell you

Why it depends on the answer of course.

 

 orange-blue tends to be more commonly done, especially with film posters.

My brother pointed out that a lot of movie posters/dvd covers are blue and orange too. I find this surprising, because I would have imagined that 'standing out' could increase their sales against an effectively dichrome backdrop. Perhaps blue/orange has just become the accepted code for 'this is an action movie', like yellow and black seems to be the universal code for 'stinging insect'.

[Vae]

Blue, red, and yellow are all primary colors, and very popular colors in general.

They're also really easy to use together as a very strong complementary scheme and not fuck up (which is quite a bit harder to do and takes a lot more planning with something like red-green, purple-yellow, etc).

I've been using a lot of blue and red tones together in my work lately just because it looks good.

[Fossa]

This came to mind, for some reason: (always loved this comic strip, 'Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles')

[Red Lion]

Kind of just comes down to "why ask a question if you'll only accept one kind of answer."

This particular one has happened to me a few times.

Artist: "Is my art bad?"

Me: "Well you could use some improvement. I have a book on anatomy that I find very helpfu-"

Artist: "I don't want to hear it from you! Your art looks like it was drawn by an autistic monkey having a seizure!!!!"

If you think my art is such garbage tier shit that I have no room to comment on yours why the fuck are you even asking me???

[Saxon]

10 minutes ago, Red Lion said:

Kind of just comes down to "why ask a question if you'll only accept one kind of answer."

This particular one has happened to me a few times.

Artist: "Is my art bad?"

Me: "Well you could use some improvement. I have a book on anatomy that I find very helpfu-"

Artist: "I don't want to hear it from you! Your art is a looks like it was drawn by an autistic monkey having a seizure!!!!"

If you think my art is such garbage tier shit that I have no room to comment on yours why the fuck are you even asking me???

This is a good point. I'm not sure whether it is a good idea for artists to ask other people, who are plainly not as skilled as they are, how to improve.

On the one hand, it's possible that you don't have to be a good artist in order to spot problems and think of solutions in somebody else's art...but maybe that argument is tenuous, because novice artists often provide poor advice.

I think artists are in a catch-22 situation, because if you avoid seeking any advice from people who aren't as skilled as you then people might end up thinking you're aloof. :\

[Red Lion]

Just now, Saxon said:

This is a good point. I'm not sure whether it is a good idea for artists to ask other people, who are plainly not as skilled as they are, how to improve.

On the one hand, it's possible that you don't have to be a good artist in order to spot problems and think of solutions in somebody else's art...but maybe that argument is tenuous, because novice artists often provide poor advice.

I think artists are in a catch-22 situation, because if you avoid seeking any advice from people who aren't as skilled as you then people might end up thinking you're aloof. :\

I'm fairly positive you don't necessarily have to be good yourself to give people tips or share tools you're using to improve your own art. I can attest that my own has gotten a lot better after watching some tutorials and looking at charts on anatomy and the like, some of which were given to me by people who draw stick figures. You don't have to even do art to be able to spot when someone's got an eye that's in the wrong part of the face. 

But yeah, if you don't respect someone or think they are qualified to give you advice, you probably shouldn't ask them in the first place. 

[Saxon]

Just now, Red Lion said:

I'm fairly positive you don't necessarily have to be good yourself to give people tips or share tools you're using to improve your own art. I can attest that my own has gotten a lot better after watching some tutorials and looking at charts on anatomy and the like, some of which were given to me by people who draw stick figures. You don't have to even do art to be able to spot when someone's got an eye that's in the wrong part of the face. 

But yeah, if you don't respect someone or think they are qualified to give you advice, you probably shouldn't ask them in the first place. 

Indeed.
I have to say though when people offer advice to me, I usually go to their gallery to check whether that advice has worked for them, and if hasn't I tend to invest less confidence in it.

[Red Lion]

1 hour ago, Saxon said:

I have to say though when people offer advice to me, I usually go to their gallery to check whether that advice has worked for them, and if hasn't I tend to invest less confidence in it.

Fair enough.

Can't say I don't know where you're coming from.

[Tsuujou]

6 hours ago, Saxon said:

Indeed.
I have to say though when people offer advice to me, I usually go to their gallery to check whether that advice has worked for them, and if hasn't I tend to invest less confidence in it.

For me that depends on the advice given. If it's something they can back with references and examples as well as very thorough and confident guidelines, I'll trust it enough to consider it. They might not be good at drawing themselves, but they care enough to study the art and be a potentially valuable critic/connoisseur that understands how to help with a somewhat trained eye. Don't have to make pizza to know what tastes better than something else.

But if it's just a flimsy "your anatomy is off" and the person draws like a 2004 Newgrounds flash, consider it dismissed.

[Vae]

It also doesn't take much to fact-check whether or not a criticism is valid on a technical level.
Dismissing people automatically who don't execute their craft on a level that reflects their knowledge, without any further investigation, doesn't come off as "aloof" to me.
It just comes off as fucking lazy.

[Saxon]

8 hours ago, Tsuujou said:

For me that depends on the advice given. If it's something they can back with references and examples as well as very thorough and confident guidelines, I'll trust it enough to consider it. They might not be good at drawing themselves, but they care enough to study the art and be a potentially valuable critic/connoisseur that understands how to help with a somewhat trained eye. Don't have to make pizza to know what tastes better than something else.

But if it's just a flimsy "your anatomy is off" and the person draws like a 2004 Newgrounds flash, consider it dismissed.

I think this is a good assessment. I suppose if you can see that other people have employed the technique they recommend, and managed to make good pieces, then it is worth giving a shot.

It's a little bit tricky to decide which avenues to invest effort exploring, because sometimes a whole bunch of people might all feel obliged to offer advice at once, and they often contradict each other.