Are You a Crybaby or an ARTIST?

Oh hai.
So, I've lurked and posted in this section for a few hours now. I'm a fairly observant person, and from what I've seen - this section seriously needs a make over in terms of some of the encouragement and critique being given. The comments are too sugar coated as an excuse to bump up post count - that isn't how it works.

You can take someone completely new at designing, throw them into a graphics' section, and what do you get? Chances are, that the person is going to get a particular style of feedback, depending on the forum.

Its most often that until people are actually exposed to different styles that vary in skill, then you're going to have people just saying, "OMG THAT'S SO GOOD 10/10."

That isn't critique. That isn't even worthy of being a comment.
A good comment is someone that actually takes their time to take every single bit of the /tag/ into account. Meaning -

_______

1) Composition .... 2) Flow/Direction
3) Style .... 4) Colors ; Brightness, Contrast, etc
5) Quality ....6) Strength/Choice of Typography, "text."
7) Stock Choice ...8) Depth
9) Effects ....10) General appeal, based on effort
________

Now, I'm not saying that you literally have to place all of these high lights into bullet points when giving critique. However, whenever you do look at someone's work, those 10 factors should always be top priority. Otherwise, a person is going to be fed little responses that boost an ego that they shouldn't have like a baby with responses such as -

"omfg, ur so good." x 10, which might span about 2 pages. This becomes generic, and the artist will never improve. They'll just sink into a little heap filled with their understanding of how good their work is, rather than feel the need to change up their style or approaches. They wouldn't do that because they're so accustomed to being told that they're good by people who admire what they do because they haven't tried doing it or succeeding in it themselves.

Here, this is what I'm going to do for you.
I'm going to grab my very first signatures, and my most recent pieces.
I'm also going to give you a series of quotes that I've received from people on different forums who've reviewed my work.


Summer 2007 (critique) :
Comments:
from: Narutofan Forum's Graphic Studio and KHInsider Forums:

1st Level Crit:

2nd Level Crit:

3rd Level Crits:

Okay then. See what I'm getting at here? You've just seen a few examples of mixes of criticism and encouragement mixed in. Next to that, you've seen a dramatic change in not only style, but over all execution based from what I'd been given. Now as for the above crits, we'll have to see how I'll evolve based on them. It's most often the case that the one or few people that don't like your work in comparison to the handfuls or pages of people that "do" - the ones that don't are going to be the few that actually help you grow as an artist, and attain the level you've always wanted..or at least get en route.

* Be honest.
* Be clear and concise.
* Make your CnC substantial and meaningful.
If its just one or two sentences - make sure that they're buffed up with examples of what's right or wrong with them to make them count.

I had permission from Raiden to make this.
Anyway. This is how it works to help people improve, rather than baby them along in hopes of seeing the same style over and over because you haven't seen anything better.

This is from what I've observed, doesn't go for all of you.
All right. This is about to be stickied.


Enjoy.