The Critical thread...

I like critiquing artwork but sometimes people find me way harsh... so what I would like to do is... if you want your image critiqued honestly, and not just praised, please post it here... This will help in a couple ways...

What do I mean?
Well if I go around criticizing people they'll likely get mad so it helps me ^.^
If you want to have an honest opinion without someone pulling their punches which there is usually tons of this helps you...
With the combination of sub forums it might help stem the possible problem of having harsh comments elsewhere...

Seems like a pretty good idea to me, but if no one else does, it's just another wacky Durakken ideas ^.^

Sounds like a good idea, I'll keep it in mind.

I thrive on for-real critiques. My current WiP can't be posted directly here though, if you know what I mean! But anything on my dA gallery is open for critique.

Do you have a link to a portfolio or arts? I'd be interested in checking it out.

Good idea. I also give honest critiques and don't pull any punches when I see things amiss (I also welcome and actively seek con/crit for my artwork as well).

First and foremost though my goal is to give constructive criticism meant to help an artist improve not to bash their work needlessly. As long as people keep it constructive it should be fine to say what you think without ruffling too many feathers.
What does that mean?

"That face you drew is teh sux!"

This is not constructive in anyway as it gives no indication what they found to be wrong with it or what can be done to improve it.

"That face you drew has several issues, namely the eyes are not aligned right and the ear is sitting too low and also the lips are too wide.
If you were to move the eyes further apart, raise that ear a bit and narrow the lips and it would make it a much better piece.
Oh and by the way I love what you did with the wings."

This is constructive as it clearly points out what is amiss, tells how to correct/improve it and also tells what is good about the piece as well as what is lacking.

If people can keep things constructive this could be a good thread for artists that really want to improve their works.

P.S. Granted not everyone will know what a piece needs to fix it or even what is wrong with it exactly but
just saying "something is not quite right about that eye but I'm not sure what it is"
can be helpful to the artist or can clue other people into it.

One --> Artz Giveaway <-- To Rule Them ALL!

I will settle this. ORANGE FTW! - Ex Libris

I don't mind constructive feedback and criticisms.

It was absolutely a vital component of my training when I was working as a Registrar in the District Court, and then as an Policy Advisor for the Ministry of Justice in Wellington.

As a Registrar every word and detail had to be absolutely correct as I was creating legal documents and forms based on the decisions of Family Court, Tenancy Tribunal, and Youth Court Judges, Justices of the Peaces, and Adjudicators.

Doing Policy Work was the same. Every letter, report, submissions and recommendation was checked and critiqued at every stage of the production for quality control purposes.

I started Creative Writing courses a few years back (completing my Diploma at the moment) and it was compulsory to not only submit your draft and completed works to the course coordinators and tutors, but also to make it available online to the other students in your class. Part of the course curriculum involved giving and receiving feedback and critiques.

And there were certainly many areas I completely sucked at as there are essential differences between business writing and creative writing. But it was a great experience.

I don't create much art per se, I'm still working on my own Manuscript for academic consideration in my Diploma. I decided to post the material on deviantART and open it up to critiques and feedback. So if you ever want to read and comment on my written contributions, that's where you'll find my material. (http://supermaorifulla.deviantart.com)

I'm always happy to recieve critical feedback of my work. it helps me to see my work from another set of eyes. there is a link to my DA page in my sig. I mainly have my color work there which you are free to critique, but there are also some digital paintings and process works aswell, for example some matte paintings in sketch phase. feel free to pick something from there or if you dont feel like it I'll throw something your way. I'm easy.

hmm so does this become a sticky and we just reference it anytime an artist wants feedback? If so we probably need someone to get the ball rolling. I can throw up some stick figures or a post-it sketch...in about two weeks.

Hrmmm I dunno... I doubt it will become a sticky. So it's more like just have to recall it somehow >.>

I also doubt the stickiness, but I'll see about getting this current WiP onto my dA page. Like I said... I can't direct-link it, but feel free to put the crit here so we can get the ball rolling ^.^

I'll edit the post when the WiP is up.

EDIT: up in my dA gallery, under the title of "Oops"

Here's something I worked on last night as part of my Livestream. Keep in mind it's a wip. I'm establishing greyscale values which will converted to color.

Wassy here are my comments:

1. The lighting is a bit confusing. I'm not sure what that white triangle on the floor is--whether it light coming in from a doorway or something in front of her, or light projected from behind her. Her right foot is casting a directional shadow, but the books and the chair are kind of indeterminant. The globe and the back of the table look like they're lit from the fireplace, but the angle of the table leg shadow looks off.

There is a squarish section of light on her chest that visually connects with the fireplace, even though she is turned away from it.

2. The scale of the objects is a bit strange. The table looks huge. The books look really big too, maybe they're large magical tomes or something but together with the table it reads almost like a hobbit house with some human sized objects inside.

3. Something is strange about the perspective. I feel like I'm looking up and down at her at the same time. Looks like I'm looking down at the chair and table, but the horizon line looks elevated. The globe looks really strange--detached and floating there, part of it making a tangent with the bottom of the cabinet. When I look at it, it flattens the spatial depth around it.

4. The woman's anatomy is distorted. I take this to be stylistic choices, but just to communicate what I'm seeing I'll comment on it. Her head and hands look large and her torso and legs look small. The length from groin to knee in particular looks short. Also elbow to wrist on her left arm looks short.

As usual this is just food for thought and I hope it's helpful.

I'm doing light from an unseen doorway, but kind of put the light area on the floor as more of a placeholder because I see the light as being more from color in the final. It didn't look 100% to me either, but I wanted to mess with that more in PS where I can shove it around a bit as I can't quite settle on the angle yet.

I made the desk and books on the large side because that felt a little more magical to me. If its reading wrong though, that's something to think about...

Thanks for pointing out the tangent! I hate those bastards.

FD-

For me, the biggest negative thing sticking out about the Mel piece is the hand (raised one). I know its flat due to lack of value variation yet, but the structure also isn't looking right, especially around the knuckles.

For nit-picky stuff, her nose is looking a bit squished and the face isn't as... hmmm... lively as one would picture for Massacre Melanie. Somewhat lacking in expression.

@Wassy. I agree with BW's points I think maybe the sameness in your line direction/weight maybe in part the cause of much of it... i.e. the globe is floating because the lines on it are the same as the ones behind it and the perspective seems like you are looking up and down at the same time because the lines on different planes all go the same way (like the table which has two planes but the shading is the same across both so it looks like one flat plane) I through up a quick redline to illustrate this (Here is a link...) and don't worry any naughty bits have been blurred out so it's safe.

Also I would add that her right hand is at an unnatural angle even if you intentionally flex it down hard you should never see a corner at the wrist and if (as I'm getting from the rest of her pose) it should be relaxed then the wrist should be rounded and the hand project forward more than down and the thumb should be closer to the hand and not stretched.

Finally the far leg of the table is too thin even given the distance between it and the near one. It almost comes to a point in
yours so I thickened it and added the rings but you can still see you lines inside of mine.

I noticed the tangent and pointed it out in red but I see BW mentioned it already.

Much of the stuff with the shading stuff I'm sure would be addressed in the coloring phase but I thought I should point it out so you are aware going into it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Durakken I agree with that to a point. There are occasions when something is just bad and there isn't much you can say due to your own knowledge or you simply can't figure out what is wrong with the piece... for example colors... some people see a colored image and they get this dislike of what they are seeing and they don't know why...some more experienced people might be able to explain something from color theory, but not everyone can...they just see it as wrong. So in those cases I think it's perfectly OK to say something like "I don't know why but there is something wrong with it that I can't put my finger on it"

It sounds like we are saying essentially the same thing here I just posted it two minutes sooner (nyah nyah).
You probably had the reply screen up and didn't see it though.

One --> Artz Giveaway <-- To Rule Them ALL!

I will settle this. ORANGE FTW! - Ex Libris

Frozen Death,

I agree with Wassy about her technical points,
Both hands look messed up to me, but without a physical reference I can't really say how so and it's pretty much impossible to describe with words ^.^
The nose on the other hand is very easy to fix if you weren't going for that look (the broken nose/squashed face look) and that is... the end of the nose needs to be moved further out beyond the nose bridge line. I'm not sure if you got that from a reference or not, but most of the time, from my memory, the bridge is almost always behind the end of the nose.


On a non-technical note. The pose is very unnatural. Is she supposed to be posing? or in a combat stance? If she's just posing then ok... but for anything else I'd say that pose if I saw it in submissions of any sort to me would either lead to the artist redoing it in the case they have the job, or not getting the job if they are looking for it. even over someone who is not as technically sound. The only way I know of to help you with this problem is find a movie with these type poses and really look at them, or try to take them your self and observe how you are holding your body and such.

Wassy,
Off the bat I have no idea where your light source is. I assume it the fire in the background, but most things indicate on the horizon line to the left, but then we have what seems to be a large section of lighting in the front but no shading other than on the floor to indicate that there is a huge light patch there....and then some of the shadows seem to be coming from the front left... The only real suggestion to fixing this is in future work, have a layer or a nonscan blue pencil and indicate your light sources and draw out their interactions.

The only other thing I can see at the moment that really stands out is that the characters left hand seems a wee bit too big, nearly the size of her head and it looks also to be about equal to just slightly behind her head from the viewer so >.>

It is true that it is the critical, especially the bad to help us move forward is with pleasure that I wait your owns ... Well-accepted are good too

Wassy-- Thanks for the feedback. I knew the hands were a bit wonky but for some reason I didn't catch the distortion of the nose. Now it's pretty glaring. I'm not sure what expression I'm going for with Mel, but I thinks it's something more subdued than her out of control craziness.

Durakken--

I love this thread idea. I have been one of those people that have really thought it was completely inappropriate to be overly critical of the majority of peoples work here since it was a fan art, for fun kind of environment. This last year or so saw some really critical stuff that I know some liked, but a lot were turned off by it. Having a thread dedicated to being critical in theory seems like a good spot to contain potential damage to sensitivity some artists/collectors may have.

With that said, one of the biggest ironies I felt with some people being critical with comments is what exactly is the background of the person being critical? Just because you may draw now or took an art class in high school, doesn't really merit (or in my opinion weight) to someone who seems to enjoy nitpicking. Because really, without a formal education in some manner of "real" art criticism, the vocabulary and constructive nature of a criticism comes off as just that - a nitpick.

So Durraken, what is your artistic background? I have two degrees in art myself and run a design shop as well as freelance illustrate. I don't think I have ever come right out and stated my background in art so much as I did just now, but since this is the critical thread, I feel it's only fair to establish the credibility of my critiques.

Durakken -

Well, I won't comment on whether or not I think you have a solid background for your critiques, but I will say that your explanation was an interesting read.

As for some of the previous comments, I agree with BW - keeping the dialogue about the work seems to be what is the most relevant, speculating whether or not someone will hire you based on the image being critiqued is more-or-less irrelevant especially if that piece is a WIP like BW's is.