At 4/30/23 05:48 PM, Aivrotsiel wrote:I find the most difficult part of a critique to be keeping the subjective opinion out of it. By subjective, I mean whenever you simply don't like an art style because of how X or Y looks or feels, as opposed to the strong or weak points of a piece (though I feel a critique should always highlight both the good and bad parts and not just the bad).

At 4/30/23 08:14 PM, Skoops wrote:

At 4/30/23 05:48 PM, Aivrotsiel wrote:I find the most difficult part of a critique to be keeping the subjective opinion out of it. By subjective, I mean whenever you simply don't like an art style because of how X or Y looks or feels, as opposed to the strong or weak points of a piece (though I feel a critique should always highlight both the good and bad parts and not just the bad).

I think subjectivity is welcome, so long as it's stated as such and it's there to support the main objective substance of the crit. The big issue is when people pass-off their preferences as objective, but you can definitely qualify feedback with a few mentions of what you personally like/don't like, what you personally would/wouldn't do, etc. So long as you're not just using their piece as a soapbox for your personal issues, you should be ok.

It's especially useful if you're trying to compliment sandwich a crit and it's, uhh, not productive to praise technical execution, let's say.

At 4/29/23 12:17 AM, picolocity366 wrote:Sorry for the extra thread but I gotta get this off my chest
Am I the only one tired of people dumbing down or sugarcoating their critique of other people's art for the sake of making them feel better? I get that it can be discouraging to the initial artist who made the art in question, but that more times than not doesn't help the artist improve; it makes them stagnate more than anything. I should know, because it happened to me. It's only thanks to the BBS that my art actually improved for the better.
Am I being too harsh here? What are your guys' thoughts on this?

At 4/30/23 09:03 PM, Aivrotsiel wrote:

At 4/30/23 08:14 PM, Skoops wrote:

At 4/30/23 05:48 PM, Aivrotsiel wrote:I find the most difficult part of a critique to be keeping the subjective opinion out of it. By subjective, I mean whenever you simply don't like an art style because of how X or Y looks or feels, as opposed to the strong or weak points of a piece (though I feel a critique should always highlight both the good and bad parts and not just the bad).

I think subjectivity is welcome, so long as it's stated as such and it's there to support the main objective substance of the crit. The big issue is when people pass-off their preferences as objective, but you can definitely qualify feedback with a few mentions of what you personally like/don't like, what you personally would/wouldn't do, etc. So long as you're not just using their piece as a soapbox for your personal issues, you should be ok.

It's especially useful if you're trying to compliment sandwich a crit and it's, uhh, not productive to praise technical execution, let's say.

After reading I agree with your points to an extent, I think at its essence the subjective elements to a critique can help, with some caveats. I think the main one would be a dissonance in art styles, and the person in question suggesting methods that run counter to what the other person is trying to achieve like suggesting cel-shading wholesale to a person trying to improve painterly or blending methods and vice versa. On the other hand, one could suggest cel-shading as a block-in step of the process towards blending, or painterly and blending methods as a step towards better understanding color interactions.

The more I think about it, the more I see how much more interconnected things can be. Perhaps the area of subjectivity that isn't helpful in critique is far more narrow than I previously thought.

At 5/1/23 01:40 AM, Skoops wrote:

At 4/30/23 09:03 PM, Aivrotsiel wrote:

At 4/30/23 08:14 PM, Skoops wrote:

At 4/30/23 05:48 PM, Aivrotsiel wrote:I find the most difficult part of a critique to be keeping the subjective opinion out of it. By subjective, I mean whenever you simply don't like an art style because of how X or Y looks or feels, as opposed to the strong or weak points of a piece (though I feel a critique should always highlight both the good and bad parts and not just the bad).

I think subjectivity is welcome, so long as it's stated as such and it's there to support the main objective substance of the crit. The big issue is when people pass-off their preferences as objective, but you can definitely qualify feedback with a few mentions of what you personally like/don't like, what you personally would/wouldn't do, etc. So long as you're not just using their piece as a soapbox for your personal issues, you should be ok.

It's especially useful if you're trying to compliment sandwich a crit and it's, uhh, not productive to praise technical execution, let's say.

After reading I agree with your points to an extent, I think at its essence the subjective elements to a critique can help, with some caveats. I think the main one would be a dissonance in art styles, and the person in question suggesting methods that run counter to what the other person is trying to achieve like suggesting cel-shading wholesale to a person trying to improve painterly or blending methods and vice versa. On the other hand, one could suggest cel-shading as a block-in step of the process towards blending, or painterly and blending methods as a step towards better understanding color interactions.

The more I think about it, the more I see how much more interconnected things can be. Perhaps the area of subjectivity that isn't helpful in critique is far more narrow than I previously thought.

Oh, yeah, I've seen that. When the question is "how do I work on X," answers that show someone's personally preferred approach to X could be valid (if it works), and answers that say "you shouldn't want to do X" are more of a derailing non-sequitur assertion of personal taste - worse than useless, especially if the recipient can't tell the difference.

It's a complicated mix, and I think context plays a big role in how that mix is balanced. I tend to stay neutral and don't mention stuff I just don't like so my criticism can focus as purely on technical execution as possible, and I save subjectivity for things I like, or which path I'd personally take up the mountain to their goal. If it helps them get there, good. If it doesn't and it makes them feel bad, not good. If it only makes them feel good but gives them no direction, less bad, but still not great.

i.e. Re: "Crit my drawing of 2B from Nier Automata smooching my OC":
-"I love 2B!" (subjective, said, non-critique, requires follow-up)
-"I absolutely despise your OC and 2B would never smooch them" ("subjective," left unsaid, non-critique)
-"She should be smooching my self-insert OC instead" ("subjective," left unsaid, non-critique, non-sequitur)
-"Her boobs are crooked." (objective, said, critique)
-"Here is how I would resolve that" (objective fix, subjective method, said despite deep resentment for how this knowledge will be used, post-critique)
-"Here is how you could make it more interesting, dynamic, etc." (subjective fixes, subjected method, I'd say it if I respected them, post-critique)

At 5/1/23 02:56 AM, Shadud wrote:

At 5/1/23 01:40 AM, Skoops wrote:

At 4/30/23 09:03 PM, Aivrotsiel wrote:

At 4/30/23 08:14 PM, Skoops wrote:

At 4/30/23 05:48 PM, Aivrotsiel wrote:I find the most difficult part of a critique to be keeping the subjective opinion out of it. By subjective, I mean whenever you simply don't like an art style because of how X or Y looks or feels, as opposed to the strong or weak points of a piece (though I feel a critique should always highlight both the good and bad parts and not just the bad).

I think subjectivity is welcome, so long as it's stated as such and it's there to support the main objective substance of the crit. The big issue is when people pass-off their preferences as objective, but you can definitely qualify feedback with a few mentions of what you personally like/don't like, what you personally would/wouldn't do, etc. So long as you're not just using their piece as a soapbox for your personal issues, you should be ok.

It's especially useful if you're trying to compliment sandwich a crit and it's, uhh, not productive to praise technical execution, let's say.

After reading I agree with your points to an extent, I think at its essence the subjective elements to a critique can help, with some caveats. I think the main one would be a dissonance in art styles, and the person in question suggesting methods that run counter to what the other person is trying to achieve like suggesting cel-shading wholesale to a person trying to improve painterly or blending methods and vice versa. On the other hand, one could suggest cel-shading as a block-in step of the process towards blending, or painterly and blending methods as a step towards better understanding color interactions.

The more I think about it, the more I see how much more interconnected things can be. Perhaps the area of subjectivity that isn't helpful in critique is far more narrow than I previously thought.

Oh, yeah, I've seen that. When the question is "how do I work on X," answers that show someone's personally preferred approach to X could be valid (if it works), and answers that say "you shouldn't want to do X" are more of a derailing non-sequitur assertion of personal taste - worse than useless, especially if the recipient can't tell the difference.

It's a complicated mix, and I think context plays a big role in how that mix is balanced. I tend to stay neutral and don't mention stuff I just don't like so my criticism can focus as purely on technical execution as possible, and I save subjectivity for things I like, or which path I'd personally take up the mountain to their goal. If it helps them get there, good. If it doesn't and it makes them feel bad, not good. If it only makes them feel good but gives them no direction, less bad, but still not great.

i.e. Re: "Crit my drawing of 2B from Nier Automata smooching my OC":
-"I love 2B!" (subjective, said, non-critique, requires follow-up)
-"I absolutely despise your OC and 2B would never smooch them" ("subjective," left unsaid, non-critique)
-"She should be smooching my self-insert OC instead" ("subjective," left unsaid, non-critique, non-sequitur)
-"Her boobs are crooked." (objective, said, critique)
-"Here is how I would resolve that" (objective fix, subjective method, said despite deep resentment for how this knowledge will be used, post-critique)
-"Here is how you could make it more interesting, dynamic, etc." (subjective fixes, subjected method, I'd say it if I respected them, post-critique)

Alright, I think I failed to address something in my earlier post and I think people need to hear this:

Critiques are not about improving the specific piece of work being critiqued, it's about expanding the artist's ability to create what they set out to create.

Saying "Her boobs are crooked" is objective, but not a critique. A critique should always pack a one-two punch of issue + solution. If the breasts are crooked and the artist didn't fix them or couldn't figure out why they looked crooked then likely there's something else going on. Breasts being crooked typically means there are serious underlying anatomy issues. I know that's just an example for the sake of illustrating your point, but this is also a major issue I see during attempts at critique. I've made this mistake myself many times and I'm seizing this opportunity to highlight it.

Focusing on details rather than the underlying issue. We're trying to help the artist learn to make things they want to make, not fix something. So we need to dig into our own knowledge and articulate the full problem, when we do that, the solution usually becomes very clear immediately. This is how you remain objective.

Another thing I see folks getting hung up on in this thread is the subjectivity of methods, which means we're overthinking it. We're missing the forest for the trees. When we're talking about critique we're largely talking about fundamentals, baby. I know people hate fundamentals and wanna play around with neat tricks like gradient maps, blend modes, etc, and that's fun and can create some awesome results, but these things are dessert... Ya gotta eat your vegetables first.

All those fanciful tricks won't mean squat if your fundamentals are lacking.

I'm not saying don't learn those things, absolutely learn them, they're tools in your toolbelt, but that's not what critique is for.

This doesn't mean other discussions and feedback can't happen or that you're blacklisted from exploring other methods. I feel like I shouldn't have to say that, but, people get fidgety when they think people are putting up gates. Rather, I'm aiming to very specifically identify what critique is, what it's for, and how it's used to improve yourself as an artist. That also does not mean that subjectivity is completely removed from critiques either. There's room for that if the artist wants it, and I would strongly suggest reserving that for the end of the critique -- remember, eat some vegetables first then dessert later.

I'm very tired. I hope this doesn't end up being incoherent rambling. :^)

At 5/1/23 02:56 AM, Shadud wrote:Another thing I see folks getting hung up on in this thread is the subjectivity of methods, which means we're
overthinking it. We're missing the forest for the trees. When we're talking about critique we're largely talking about
fundamentals, baby. I know people hate fundamentals and wanna play around with neat tricks like gradient maps,
blend modes, etc, and that's fun and can create some awesome results, but these things are dessert... Ya gotta eat
your vegetables first.

At 5/1/23 07:25 PM, Aivrotsiel wrote:

At 5/1/23 02:56 AM, Shadud wrote:Another thing I see folks getting hung up on in this thread is the subjectivity of methods, which means we're
overthinking it. We're missing the forest for the trees. When we're talking about critique we're largely talking about
fundamentals, baby. I know people hate fundamentals and wanna play around with neat tricks like gradient maps,
blend modes, etc, and that's fun and can create some awesome results, but these things are dessert... Ya gotta eat
your vegetables first.

Hopefully the quote bracket doesn't break lol
I don't think people hate fundamentals, rather the vocal ones probably just hate running in circles. The fundamentals are very important, but everyone digests information differently. For example, if I tell someone to draw from life and leave it at that, one person will probably figure it out, and the other one will bang their head against the wall and run circles before stopping. But if I tell them to draw from life, and then direct them to something like Michael Hampton to aid in how they build the human body, its pretty likely they'll both understand going forward. For some, you really do have to spell out a lot of it to make things easier to understand, and that's okay.

I would probably direct people to one of the many breakdowns/books/resources that aid in explaining how to understand the fundamentals (anatomy, perspective, color and so on), kind of like a jackhammer to break through concrete. Some people don't like using the jackhammer, and that's fine, there's different approaches to it. The wheel has already been invented several times over the years, so its just a matter of choosing which wheel to start with.

At 5/1/23 05:13 AM, Skoops wrote:I don't think we really disagree on anything, though I might be leaving too much to the imagination and taking a few things for granted when I simplify it that much.

The step after pointing out a technical error to someone that doesn't realize it, I'd say how to fix it, which I'd differentiate from just showing what it would look like if it were done right to begin with. In the case of fixing anatomy issues, a paintover from me would include structural information: where the ribcage is pointed, where its centerline would be, and how that would affect positioning for everything connected to it.

How much detail I go into depends on how much knowledge I think the recipient has. If they have NO foundation, I'll point out some mistakes, but stress that learning fundamentals is way more important than fixing a piece that doesn't have them. For intermediate artists that I know are learning, I'll put the most effort and explanation in, since I know they know enough to get the gist of what I'm saying, but might need me to draw it out just to be sure. If they're pros or semi-pros, I might just say "wonky tiddy" and expect them to see it and fix it themselves, cuz it's just a lapse in skill that I know they already have.

At 5/2/23 07:15 AM, picolocity366 wrote:

At 5/1/23 01:28 PM, Narratorway wrote:Other people are not you and you don't get to decide how they should be treated.

It is very much that simple.

I'm not deciding how they're getting treated, though...
I'm just talking about a common pattern I've seen when it comes to art critique. It is very much that simple.

At 5/2/23 10:15 AM, Narratorway wrote:

At 5/2/23 07:15 AM, picolocity366 wrote:

At 5/1/23 01:28 PM, Narratorway wrote:Other people are not you and you don't get to decide how they should be treated.

It is very much that simple.

I'm not deciding how they're getting treated, though...
I'm just talking about a common pattern I've seen when it comes to art critique. It is very much that simple.

At 4/29/23 12:17 AM, picolocity366 wrote:
Am I the only one tired of people dumbing down or sugarcoating their critique of other people's art for the sake of making them feel better?

Yes, you are. Notice who's not in that statement you made? You. You're not in there...because it's none of your business.

At 5/2/23 09:01 AM, Shadud wrote:

At 5/1/23 05:13 AM, Skoops wrote:I don't think we really disagree on anything, though I might be leaving too much to the imagination and taking a few things for granted when I simplify it that much.

The step after pointing out a technical error to someone that doesn't realize it, I'd say how to fix it, which I'd differentiate from just showing what it would look like if it were done right to begin with. In the case of fixing anatomy issues, a paintover from me would include structural information: where the ribcage is pointed, where its centerline would be, and how that would affect positioning for everything connected to it.

How much detail I go into depends on how much knowledge I think the recipient has. If they have NO foundation, I'll point out some mistakes, but stress that learning fundamentals is way more important than fixing a piece that doesn't have them. For intermediate artists that I know are learning, I'll put the most effort and explanation in, since I know they know enough to get the gist of what I'm saying, but might need me to draw it out just to be sure. If they're pros or semi-pros, I might just say "wonky tiddy" and expect them to see it and fix it themselves, cuz it's just a lapse in skill that I know they already have.

Yeah, I don't think we disagree either, I hope it didn't come off that I was directing the bulk of the reply at you. I think I slipped up and left it too ambiguous as to why I was replying to your post. The crooked boobs comment was just a perfect example for me to use as a launchpad for the point I felt needed to be made. It was more for those who seem unclear as to what critique is and what it's for since I kept seeing comments that give me that impression.

Like I said my whole aim of even being ITT is to help nudge everyone onto the same page for critique and how to perform it such that there aren't these questions about the authenticity and sincerity of said critiques.

I apologize if it came off as pointed at you when I didn't intend for it to be.

At 4/30/23 05:48 PM, Aivrotsiel wrote:I find the most difficult part of a critique to be keeping the subjective opinion out of it. By subjective, I mean whenever you simply don't like an art style because of how X or Y looks or feels, as opposed to the strong or weak points of a piece (though I feel a critique should always highlight both the good and bad parts and not just the bad).

That said, its important to check whether the critique is wanted or not (some people outright state not looking for it), and to keep things focused on what can be improved, and not "this is garbage, I hate it". To look at it in another way, why would you waste time critiquing someone who doesn't want it, or who will outright ignore it? Wouldn't the time be better spent critiquing someone open to critique?

At 4/29/23 12:17 AM, picolocity366 wrote:Sorry for the extra thread but I gotta get this off my chest
Am I the only one tired of people dumbing down or sugarcoating their critique of other people's art for the sake of making them feel better? I get that it can be discouraging to the initial artist who made the art in question, but that more times than not doesn't help the artist improve; it makes them stagnate more than anything. I should know, because it happened to me. It's only thanks to the BBS that my art actually improved for the better.
Am I being too harsh here? What are your guys' thoughts on this?

At 5/2/23 11:35 PM, AlexaWatterson wrote:

At 4/29/23 12:17 AM, picolocity366 wrote:Sorry for the extra thread but I gotta get this off my chest
Am I the only one tired of people dumbing down or sugarcoating their critique of other people's art for the sake of making them feel better? I get that it can be discouraging to the initial artist who made the art in question, but that more times than not doesn't help the artist improve; it makes them stagnate more than anything. I should know, because it happened to me. It's only thanks to the BBS that my art actually improved for the better.
Am I being too harsh here? What are your guys' thoughts on this?

Honestly the only thing that bugs me is that no 1 really, well.... Has anything really to Vote or review on any of my art submissions. I mean I am aware that everyone is busy and everything, I do find it strange..... Is it just me or.... Does my art really feel repetitive and cliche? Because I do try my hardest, And I slowly improve despite not receiving any sort of criticism or reviews whatsoever. So I have to ask again. Is it just me or Does my art feel repetitive and cliche?