A word on constructive critisism

[monokr0me]

For those of you who say things like "Thats awesome art" or "that stuff sucks, please quit making art", realize this: artists get to the point of proficiency through countless hours of hard work. You insulting a newbie's work shuts down his desire to practice and produce art; constructive and productive criticism will inspire him to work some more and improve. A similar situation is found in purchasing a house; If you don't like the house, do you knock it over and build a new one, or do you add on, change, and remove things until it is perfect? Breaking a piece down into what does and doesn't work is crucial to helping the artist flower into their full potential; nondescriptive (whether negative or positive) comments don't help him/her in this. Please remember this the next time you view a piece of sensational art or a factory-line GIMP filter text sig.

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Some Tips on constructively criticizing something are as follows:

• Look at the colors. Are they coherent and flowing, following a nice palette? Or are they scattered and random, unsuiting to the piece.
  
• Is the subject prominent? The eyes should be drawn to the subject as soon as you look at a piece; it should never blend with the background (unless it is the express purpose of the piece).
  
• Is the technique refined? This includes poor anti-
  aliasing on a graphic piece, or poor shading/dithering in a pixel art.
  
• Does the font (if present) fit the piece? Many otherwise amazing artworks can be brought down by poor choice of font.
  
• Does the artist have trouble focusing on the style? Most prominent in pixel art, budding artists will sometimes switch between several stylistic approaches mid-piece, making the whole thing look like a dropped experiment.
  

I hope this essay will help both artists and viewers alike in their cohesion on the forum. Thank you for reading :)

[Zrined]

So, I get what you're saying.

You also made a post about constructive-criticism through constructive-criticism.

Constructive-criticismception.

[Fringe Pioneer]

This is greatly needed. I'm turning this into a sticky thread...

[izacque]

Good thread. Should we translate it to egyptian?

[Qwerty]

I think you did a great job on this thread, but perhaps a little more detail may be in order. For example, tips on constructive criticism for things other than art.

(Yes, I did this mostly for the constructive critiception).

[nmagain]

Jan 16, 2012 3:19:35 GMT izacque said:

Good thread. Should we translate it to egyptian?

no thanks, i don't want to read it.