Does constructive critic really works?

[Triggerpigking]

So you're saying you never got defensive? you never tried to make excuses why you did your art in this way that someone thought is bad? You always understand every constructive critic that was provided to you even at the beginning? Like, you know at the very begging when you have vague concept of many thinks. If you can recall this happening to you did it helped you or make you depressed?

Nope never been offended by a crit in fact I got depressed more when I did'nt get crits XD, though i've never had a paticuarilly nasty crit or a suger coated one as I remember, usually they'd just point out the problem to me and sometimes tell me how to fix it, I think there has been one or two times where i've misinterpreted a crit though.
I think the reason i'm so layed back with crits is because I don't paticuarily think much of my own work, theres been stuff i've been proud of sure but i've always acknowledged the problems with them, and the stuff i've been proud of were usually study's or copies of photo's anyway.
I had'nt really started drawing from my imagination that much until quite recently (major problem I know it's kicking my ass now) as well so I never got defensive about them.

But really my question is what helps you make the fastest improvement? Was it constructive critic to your pictures or was you watching others how they're dealing with problems. I'm starting to think you learn most from others mistakes. I learned most important things from books. Because they have simple examples, your own pictures can be too complicated to understand obvious mistakes.

I don't think you can really learn much form a crit unless they point out how to fix it and get better at it like say a drawing excersise or something, an example is that about half a year back someone from my old sb said my gestures were looking stiff and pointed out a video on them to draw them more fluidly and it helped alot. So really how much I learn depends on how in depth the crit is, but sometimes I think it's better to leave the crit a bit more vague so you can figure out your own way around a problem.
I have learnt a few things from other peoples problems but not much usually, I think it's one of those things that just differs between different people.

I've only really started getting better at self teaching myself recently but something that seems to be working for me at the moment is drawing something from imagination and just studying a big problem with it afterwards.I did a small imagination piece on someone with his leg up against the wall the other day and the leg looked horrible especially around the knee area, so last night I sat down got loomis, bridgman and a handful of pictures on the net of legs out and just studied them for ages, probbly a more specific way I could focus on these problems but it's working for me for the time being.