Review on Critiquing v2

• The introduction

The creation of such a ‘tutorial’ is mainly fueled by the desire for anyone and everyone to offer valuable and insightful comments and critiques to a piece of art or writing.

_{(Note: The ideas and opinions expressed below are ~ikeda and ~yue-xumeragi’s views on the subject of criticism on art.)}

As many already know, a good majority of the deviantART community is adept of single-worded and/or repeatedly encountered replies – be they positive or negative – and/or a continuous reiteration of emoticons in regards to submissions.

<sub>Example: (art form and brief description: digital painting of a blond girl sitting by a lake, fishing)

-‘Great.’
-‘you’re way too good.. *drool-’
-‘Whoa’
-‘omg!’
-‘ ’
-‘i love it! omgosh!1!!one11!!’
-‘you suck’</sub>

The above expressions can designate a multitude of literary or artistic conceptions – despite the fact that the piece was a digital painting of a blond girl sitting by a lake, fishing. They may also propose relatively nothing to the artist(s) who created the piece – especially if that artist wishes to improve or broaden his/her abilities – because they are so vague and uncertain.

This brings us to the matter that will be discussed in this guide: How to comment.
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•SECTION 1: Why comment?
•SECTION 2: A few preliminary steps
_{2.1 Comment level specifications
2.2 Concentrating on the art
2.3 Reading important fields
2.4 Reading important fields 2
2.5 Full viewing (the art)
2.6 Spell checking}
•SECTION 3: Comments in general
_{3.1 What, how, and where to post?
3.2 What not to post?}
•SECTION 4: Criticism and critiques
_{4.1 Do your research!
4.2 Specify the problem
4.3 Explain why it’s a problem
4.4 Share ideas on how to improve
4.5 Repeat the latter steps!
4.6 Suggest}
•SECTION 5: Responding when you have no critique(s)
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• SECTION 1: Why comment?</b>

(The title of this section might be misleading to some: I do in fact mean commenting well as opposed to saying randomosities.)

The most obvious positive point to commenting is, naturally, helping others with insightful notes on their art piece(s) that may or may not improve their abilities in the near or distant future. In turn, you might even be able to learn a few things from your critiques on works if you do a lot of digging in the process (searching for references, observing, etc.).

Other bonuses exist, but shouldn’t be the principal reason that explains your willingness to critique. Such bonuses are obtaining pageviews, comments, or favorites in return, an extra watcher, making a new friend, etc.

If you’re still convinced about critiquing because you seldom critique or are afraid of doing so, please read the following; if you are convinced already, skip onto Section 2:

In my previous review, I broke out with many answers to those who used excuses as to why they can’t critique (went from age issue to lame justifications to imperfection, etc.). I found that one reply was enough to summarize the situation:

Saying that you can’t critique is a fairly powerless argument. Reviewing correctly with sufficient information comes with practice – contrary to popular belief, it is not an innate ability. Just like ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’, a person who has never criticized can’t expect to wish upon a star and become Wonder-Critic or CriticMan of the Hundred Artforms. By continuing to push yourself down with the I-can’t-do-it speech, you’re just forcing yourself to believe what isn’t true because commenting and critiquing appropriately is something everyone should be able to achieve in time.

If you’ve got any concerns about commenting, send me or ~Yue-Xumeragi a challenge!

*Last thing for this section: Remember this very important rule: quality over quantity. As mentionned in The Introduction, fractions of sentences – otherwise known as fragments and considered errors in grammar – are not very contributive; they’re mainly an ego booster, but becoming too confident isn’t good at all. If you want to assist your fellow deviant, aiding to their improvement is key.

On to Section 2 now!
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• SECTION 2: A few preliminary steps</b>


2.1 Comment level specifications</i>

Whether the artist has posted ‘Critique discouraged’ or ‘Advanced critique encouraged’ will make a big difference in what you post regarding the piece. Better not to post a critique on deviations that don’t ask for one, and better to give a helping tip/critique on pieces that crave one!


2.2 Concentrating on the art</i>

When an artist posts a drawing, painting, poem, or something else of the like, he/she expects to receive questions, comments and/or criticism on their submission, not questions about them. Occasionally, it can be flattering to read something along the lines of: ‘Oh my gosh! How long have you been drawing??’, but these posts belong in a place other than the deviation comments and tend to annoy when asked too many times by too many people (or the same, you never know) in inappropriate spaces.

The fundamental difference between deviation comments and deviant comments, in my opinion, is to what or who the comments are destined. If it’s about the particular submission, post your comment in the deviation comment box.

If it’s not, there is an area on deviantART that is dedicated to the artist and his/her art as a whole, in gallery form. It’s the deviant’s page! Rather than bombarding the artist’s deviation with insane amounts of questions on their skills and their personal life, click on their icon to direct yourself to their main page, and post/ask away about things specifically regarding them.

You also might want to send a note to the artist in question if you’re afraid he/she might miss the message you left on their page. Despite what some people will say about artists being aggressive when noted, most of them are quite nice and reply rather quickly (this doesn’t mean you should send them a question 20 times a day to annoy them, however). Be nice rather than shy, and use your common sense. (Example: when living on the 3rd floor, it’s common sense not to drop your iron bowling ball collection on the floor every morning, at 3 in the morning. Likewise, be polite in your comment or note formulation.)

If you need any help on finding out about how to post comments, check out the deviantART help page at the +helpDESK (help.deviantart.com).


2.3 Reading important fields

It’s always important to read both the title, and the artist’s comment. The viewer should also check the category in which the piece has been placed.

Titles are often a pre-description of the concept and ideas behind the piece you are about to witness, but more importantly, on most finished works, they are the name that the artist chose for their masterpiece – this sometimes makes it part of the piece; it gives meaning to what you will see.

Comments are generally the explanation of how a piece came to be, the artist’s sentiments towards it, the conceptualization or the story of a character, scene, photography, etc. that was presented throughout the art form.

In addition, it could also include the answer to a question you have. Oftentimes, the artist is aware, before completing or submitting his/her piece, what types of questions might be asked regarding their creation. Taking the time to read the artist’s comment in this case will save you from the shame of looking dumb – whether you know it or not – in the eye of someone you may or may not admire.

<sub>Example: (art form and brief description: digitally achieved anime picture; it is clearly stated in the description that the art was colored with Photoshop CS)

‘That’s amazing! You are sooo good!!! WHAT did you DRAW WITH???’</sub>

Kids, people really don’t like getting stuff like this. The first few times artists see this kind of question (they have in fact stated the medium used), they’ll probably think that their art is worth viewing and be happy about it, hence replying to the question(s). However, after getting this a few tens of times (more even for certain individuals), they will probably become reluctant to answer.

Something else that might be aborded in the artist’s comment (this is more frequently applied on visual art) is anatomical abnormalities – or other such mistakes that were done purposely – on a character. For example, a man who has an arm shorter than the other might not be a mistake in the figure at all. Said character might have been born with a defect, or he might have been in some sort of accident, which would explain his problem.

_{I once picked out the fact that someone drew his/her character’s hand flipped and that the thumb was wrongly placed. Naturally, the artist who drew the ‘wrongly flipped hand’ was angered and pointed out that he had already mentionned that the character’s hand was supposed to be that way in the post that came along with the image. And so, naturally, I was dumbfounded and shocked, but mainly embarassed. It’s not a good feeling to have. Apologizing is the first thing you should do here, but still you might feel bad for what you’ve done (for a while anyway).}

~Yue-Xumeragi found an interesting example of people not reading comments, and this is something that happened close to home. On deviantART, there had been a daily deviation featuring a great piece of writing with a photo of flowers to help the aesthetics of the literary piece. The comment clearly announced that the author had paid a site (link included) for the right to use the particular image. Some people commented about how pretty the flower was. A deviant even started giving tips on how to correct the photo.

Obviously, those people did not read the artist’s comment or take a peek at the category the art was placed in (and managed to miss the 7 pages of text that were there!!!).

Another example (again, brought to us by Yue-Xumeragi, such a hard worker!) of such a situation happened to a Daily Deviation of a photo in which a man was floating two feet away from a table and chair. It was placed under ‘Photography’, and the artist commented on what camera he had taken it with along with the film, exposure, and that kind of thing. The admin who had chosen that deviation also pointed out that it was a great photograph. Unfortunately, a deviant had the bright idea to post ‘DudEee! AwEsomE DraWinG!!!’ _{(Note from ~Yue-Xumeragi: ‘I’m sorry little one, but I’ll have to off you now for the greater good of humanity. They’ll thank me someday.’)}

Finally, failing to read an artist’s comment is a direct insult to the artist. It is disrespectful because you are not willing to read their views on their art, only your own.

On to the next part!


2.4 Reading important fields 2

You should also try to read what those who commented before you said. Questions you might have wanted to ask could have already been asked and the artist may have replied to them already.

Sometimes you will stumble onto pieces that have been commented 50-100+ times. In this case, try to at least read some of the posts that seem to have something important to say – not those with empty one-liners – and the artist’s replies.

On deviations with less comments, try to read all the posts with important notes and also the artist’s replies.

This might give you the point of view of those who have posted and interesting ideas on what you can add to your feedback.


2.5 Full viewing (the art)

This is an important part of commenting or critiquing, albeit it is not essential. When images are shrunk for the deviantART preview system, it is possible that they will lose some of their details in the process. A full view is a good way to give better tips on drawing.

*Of course, don’t kill yourself or your computer to view sketches that have a resolution of 2010*3641 pixels or more and a file size of 3+ MB. Those can’t even be displayed entirely on a computer screen! Jeez! In this case, try to comment about how oversized the image is; don’t talk about things you can’t see.


2.6 Spell checking

It’s always a pain to read something written crooked and botched, especially if your mother tongue isn’t English. Writing things like ‘wwoOw htis ish zo coiol!’ (Thanks, Yué… it cracks me up everytime!) only shows that you don’t consider the art worthy of you working your fingers a little. It can also be offending to artists, and it is most likely that you will get no reply (unless they’re just pasted ‘Thank you’s.).

In addition, not everyone on deviantART is fluent with English. Writing properly for the sake of those who come from foreign countries is a lofty goal. Also, for those who don’t speak or write well in English, it’s always good to make an effort to type as well as possible to be understood. A new language might even be mastered!

Slang, 1337, and an excessive use of capital letters for non-abbreviated terms is, of course, discouraged. As a general Internet rule, capitals are reserved for screaming. (Most people would also like for l33t to stay in chat rooms.)

<sub>Example: (art form and brief description: unimportant)

‘y0u |2 d4 13375 y0! d00d i l0v3xx0|25 y0z 4|2t5 |v|4|\|’
‘dats the shits dawg’
‘OMFG!!! *SQUEE* *GASP* AAAJ!!! I LOEV YOR RAT!!!!’</sub>

Do you really understand all that stuff? What’s the shits? ‘I LOEV YOR RAT!!!!’ You love my rat? What?… You get the point.

If you know that you make an average of 5 mistakes per 3 words when writing, then keep a dictionary near you, go to www.dictionary.com or search Google, Yahoo!, Altavista, etc. for a good online dictionary. Using the same search engines, you can also find amazing free English grammar lesson sites.

On to Section 3 now!
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• SECTION 3: Comments in general</b>

(Journal posts, forum posts, etc. will be disregarded.)


3.1 What, how, and where to post?

(This has been explored in a previous section.)

When writing comments on deviantART, it is important to keep in mind whom or what your comment is directed. If it is written for a deviant, it will probably be different from a post destined for a deviation.

Deviant comments: Generally, a comment written strictly to a deviant is found in the form of a praise, however it may be a question, consultation, or discussion on a certain subject matter. (It’s probably better to send a note if you want to discuss something in-depth with an artist, especially if it’s on a more personal subject matter.)

Deviation comments: As mentionned in Section 2, deviation comments should principally regard the deviation that is being showcased. Always remember to be respectful and use proper language.


3.2 What not to post?

When posting, steer clear of the overuse of emoticons for respect of others. A lot of deviantART members use 56k or 28.8k internet connections or low memory computers and risk freezing, crashing or overloading their system by visualizing the contents of a smilie festival.

Many artists also detest people who aren’t able to control their emoticon debauchery. These artists may find that those who post x 1,000,000 are immature and annoying.

Remember, too much 1337 and/or capitals is also unwelcome. In other words, try to use proper English in what you write. Try to keep a quota of more words than numbers, smilies, or capitals.

Demeaning words, agressivity, harrassment, and/or death threats in posts is a definite nono. They are hurtful, insulting, and disgusting. You really don’t know how much harm you can inflict on a person with what you might think of as 'only words'. No one likes to be damaged, especially not psychologically. Added to that is the fact that the employment of such types of comments can get you warned or even banned from deviantART depending on the severity of your fault. (You might think people don’t care or care very little about this, but I know of one artist who doesn’t appreciate the use of swear words in comments directed to his/her deviations, even if those comments are positive ones.)

On a lighter note, refrain from posting nonsense and one-liners. They bring the strict minimum in terms of encouragement – sometimes none at all.

<sub>Example: (art form and brief description: graphite portrait of Angelina Jolie)

-‘cool!’
-‘i love it!’
-‘amazing!’</sub>

The examples above can apply not only to the graphite portrait of Angelina Jolie, they can describe any and every image or writing, meaning that they give no helpful information whatsoever on what exactly in the Angelina Jolie portrait was amazing, cool or loveable. They do not aid in a short or long term improvement.

On to Section 4 now!

• SECTION 4: Criticism and critiques</b>

This next segment is the most important one in this guide: the actual way of writing a critique. Keep in mind that there is no ‘one rule’ to commenting. These are meant to be guidelines and tips to making more insightful comments.

Short foreword: Through talking to some deviants in the community, I realized that a lot of people are hesitant to critique because they have a fear of insulting the artist or his/her piece.

This fear should not prevail: the basis of a critique is to help others to improve, not bash their art. If you see mistakes, write a polite and proper comment/critique while explaining concretely how something is wrongly done, you will not risk insulting the art in any possible way.

Posting a gushing comment when you know that something can be worked on can be considered an offense. You are mindlessly praising the art while something can be improved on, while you know that you can do something to make it even better.

As long as you steer clear of the ‘you suck’ or ‘your drawing sucks’ (what gives you the right to judge their art?) type comments, there is almost no way you can offend someone with a critique (a critique is not a judgment, it is a way to help improve), unless you posted while they specifically asked for no critiques.


4.1 Step 1: Do your research!

In order to be helpful, you might want to come up and say that ‘this here is an anatomical problem’ or that ‘that there is a problem in the wing’s structure’. Before you jump onto that, do your research first. Most people on deviantART aren’t experts on human or animal anatomy, the composition of a building, etc. and haven’t majored in architecture, literature, or any other artistic field.

It’s always important to get credible information and references before concluding on a point. Afterall, you might be wrong, and doing this will save you much embarassment! In addition, it could potentially teach you a new technique for drawing or writing, taking pictures… you know, for stuff.


4.2 Step 2: Specify the problem

Tell the artist what you think is a problem in the picture (after carefully reading through their comment and after you’ve done your research). Try to be specific!


4.3 Step 3: Explain why it’s a problem

Tell the artist why the problem is, using whatever details you deem worthy of speaking of. Use proof/references if you are unable to phrase your thoughts. Be clear and concise, and use examples and comparisons if you need to. If you can not find the right words – don’t worry. Simply explain as best as you can. It’ll turn more right than you could have thought.


4.4 Step 4: Sharing ideas on how to improve

It's nice to get a constructive crit on a piece, but when you have no idea whatsoever on how to make it better, that can be a bummer. If you know how to draw what you see as a mistake in the piece you are critiquing, tell the artist how you draw it, what you do to draw it, or what references or tutorials you might use to draw it. If you don't, (and the artist is drawing a character or an item or setting easily accessible) ask them to find a reference picture or use themselves or other people as models to get an idea on what to do next time. If it is inanimate things like trees, suggest that they go to the park or find photos of trees as references. Use the same principle for other types of reference.

If it’s a literary piece, the most frequent error might/will be a grammatical or a spelling one. Don’t be afraid to direct the writer to a dictionary or grammar books or even a friend who could proofread the artist’s piece. These steps will, afterall, help the writer in the end.


4.5 Repeat the latter steps!

This section is simple. Review your comment, and go over the four previous steps for more mistakes you might encounter.

* (Courtesy of ~Lauwenmark.) It’s important to separate your critique into sections because if you were to comment on a piece while all the mistakes you took note of were jumbled together, the person reading would have a hard time understanding your review, and, in the end, it would not have helped them much – and helping them was the goal.

_{Example: (courtesy of ~Dathamir) The head is not correct, but the left leg is not supposed to be attached this way to the hip. So the head isn’t right. By the way, I love your BG, too, it makes this so beautiful. SO, as I was saying for your head…}

Therefore, separate each ‘mistake’ into paragraphs; in addition, a long paragraph without line breaks can be hard to read and sometimes discouraging. Some people might get caught up in the text and decide to stop reading it. Paragraphs allow a person to get anchor points in a text. If they are comparing what you said with their image, they will be able to refer themselves right back to the exact paragraph they were reading.


4.6 Suggest

The elements of suggestions are not critiques. They are meant to be subjective in fact. It is NOT, however, bashing other people's art. Suggestions are a way of letting the artist know what you disliked about a picture, and what can be done about it.

For example, if lighting on a piece is not wrongly done, but very sharp and irritating to the eye, suggest to the artist that he or she take off some opacity on the lighting layer because it hurts the eye.

What NOT to say (same situation as above): 'This really sucks, your pic hurts my eyes! Change it now!' This is not only authoritive (complete opposite of a suggestion), it is rude.

** (Courtesy of ~CapnTsubasa.) When critiquing, it’s also a good idea to tell artists what they did good on. Then they’ll know what they should continue doing, and it’ll provide them with a little encouragement, which everyone needs every now and then.
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• SECTION 5: Responding when you have no critique</b>

Not having anything to critique doesn't mean that saying one-liners is alright. Comment about what you did like about the picture. If it was a character pic, and there was a girl with long blond flowy hair, and that you liked the hair the most, make it known to the artist:

_{'I liked the hair in this piece a lot. I thought it brought a lot into the composition and the mood of the pic. It also seems to show the purity of the girl who is in the picture! Good job in representing that!'}

Something like that doesn't take much time to write, and it explains a lot about what you thought of the picture. The artist will know that you actually took the time to analyze and observe the image, and often he/she will remember you and what you said.

We’ve reached the official conclusion of this review on critiquing. On a final note, I will simply copy/paste what I wrote in my journal entry from many many months ago (and also that other review…) :

Being intelligent human beings, we like to get intelligent comments. Intelligent comments doesn't necessarily mean 'three page long comments'. It could just be one sentence comprising maybe 9 or 10 words. They are a lot higher in level than the infamous 'one-liner' posts most of us are accustomed to reading.

So, spread the wave of critiques and maybe sometime in the future, we'll all be getting decent comments… Ok, that was dramatic again. But hey, what a nice way of finishing this up! Drama + drama = more drama! Muhaha, I'm so smart.
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• Annex

-Ideas from ~CapnTsubasa
comments.deviantart.com/5/3751…

-Ideas from ~Dathamir
comments.deviantart.com/5/3751…

-Ideas from ~Lauwenmark
comments.deviantart.com/5/3751…

-Ideas from ~Yue-Xumeragi
comments.deviantart.com/5/3751…

-The Art of Commenting (journal)
ikeda.deviantart.com/journal/3…

-Review on Critiquing v1
www.deviantart.com/deviation/1…