Group effort to comment

[Blewzen]

My sketchbook is one of those with few comments but I understand it, I dont usually spend a lot time lately commenting in others sketchbooks (due to not having alot freetime or spending it in other stuff, also having a shitty internet line) so I guess those sketchbooks that usually get more comments are from people more dedicated to comment to others threads.

I'll try to force myself to comment and crit more, also I'll have better internet line so I guess ill be giving more feedback soon because it brings benefits and I can hopefully help and learn from others.

And I don't really know if changing the forum would make people comment, I also think is more like a habit.

[Mayenla]

It can certainly be intimidating to post in other peoples sketchbooks when you feel like you yourself are only a beginner.

And while just posting something like "Awesome work on X" feels kinda spamy, I know I appreciate people taking the time to stop by and make post, even if it's just a short "Good job" or "Keep it up".

I think a good personal rule is when you update your own sketchbook, take the time to post in someone else's, even if you feel like you can't offer anything critique wise, a few kind words certainly helps motivation!

I know I'm new, but I'm certainly here to stay! :)

[OtherMuzz]

Ya know i already see a positive change :). lets keep it up.

[aks9]

I super agree with this. It's surely the main reason we are here on this board right? I think partially it can be down to shyness/not knowing the culture of a place and how people interact, what the hidden "rules" or expectations might be. I agree with Blewzen that I think it has more to do with attitude than the tech side of the forum. If we all comment more and encourage that type of interactions and make people want to comment, then perhaps we'll get more of it.

Something unfortunate I noticed was that many of the introduction posts in the Welcome section have 0 replies.. this isn't encouraging either!



****** danger, sketchbook rant ahead: ******

I think it's really important for us to have a culture of friendly, constructive and even abundant critique in our sketchbooks. This rant might be going over the top but its truthfully how i see things right now, so I'd appreciate any critique on my rant on critiques, feedback on what you guys think, and i hope it's helpful.



The sketchbook section should be a place where artists of all levels are buzzing around each other, constantly offering their encouragement, feedback, insight and critique. The critique section is for asking for specific advice on a specific piece/technique, the sketchbook section is for getting feedback on your work as a whole and your development as a whole.

We really have to avoid the trap of our sketchbooks becoming just a log of our work output, where we're all working in isolation.. politely saying "good job!" to the other artists.

Here are some thoughts on the importance of giving and receiving critique from other artists:


Benefits to the person receiving:

1) They will always have an idea of what they should work on, and not fall into the trap you often see where people don't know what to practice. Following up on the advice other artists give you shows that their advice is appreciated and if you are able to really apply the advice in a critique, especially when it gets to subtler level critiques, it essentially means that your learning ability won't be capped, its a process that almost ensures that you will improve, because everyone will keep on critiquing the parts of your work that are lacking until there is less and less stuff to critique, through the process of which your work can become really, really good. This is essentially the process that you get in good art ateliers and online communities.

2) It can keep you from being complacent once you get to a middle level, where your work might start to impress some friends or get you small jobs, and where critique is sometimes harder to come by. It seems to me that its the middle levels where critique is most important, and the middle levels are also the ones where we have the most amount of artists! there are few beginners and few masters, most of us aggregate around the middle, where the learning really takes off and we should all be critiquing the hell out of everyone. we got work to do.

3) it helps you feel connected, and to pay attention. i really like Mayenla's post and I agree wholeheartedly with what s/he said, but there is a danger of feeling somewhat disconnected if people are *only* leaving quick little "nice!" comments. they're really important, but what is even more important is if people are taking the time to leave actual feedback. its easy to rush through a few "nice work, keep it up!" comments, but when your comments are offering feedback on how to improve your work, you really feel the eyes are on you, you feel the appreciation that someone spent the time to look at your work and offer feedback, and this in turn can help you pay more attention to your own work, honour the critique that was given and learn from it, etc. And its another way to help the sketchbook culture avoid becoming dead.
4) helps you continually stay in "beginners mind", always open to learning and not thinking you're ever above that.


and for the person giving critique, it's important because:

1) Helps you enter into an analytical mind-set, which is crucial for the technical side of making art. Critiquing other people will help your own technique. Giving critique can help you understand, from a different perspective than the one you usually take when working on your own stuff, why things work and why they don't. The more you do this, the more your brain/mind develops the ability to see how work can be improved, and when you apply this to your own, and you not only see the flaws but you see how to fix them, then you can go and fix them, and as this process iterates you can improve your technique a lot.

2) Can help you feel participatory and helpful, to not be just an observer who is thinking of creative new ways of saying "good work, keep it up!", but to actually do something helpful and positive, and feel good, knowing that it was positive in seeing the appreciation from the person who received the critique

3) Giving critique empowers beginners. People at all levels should be giving critique, if you are a beginner, you can also give critique to other people at your level, help them spot things in the work that they can rectify right now, its a good way for people at beginning levels to bond, and it helps the learning process dramatically. It can be tough for beginners to know what they should be doing, but when looking at another beginners work you might get an idea of what small things they could do to improve their work, and apply that thinking to yourself.

4) An extension of all this is the paintover. Doing a paintover of someone else's work is a great way to learn because it allows you to focus on a very specific part of a piece without spending all the hours doing all the stuff that led up to it, and also because invariably the piece you are critiquing will be quite different from your own drawing style, it'll be easier to see it objectively, and again, all of this trains your own analytical abilities which will help your own work.


I think the reason i think this is so important is that nobody with any skill emerges from a vacuum, so much of it has to do with the culture you're in, and to me these seem like important ingredients in creating a culture that produces tons of happy awesome artists!

thoughts??

[YOLOLEX]

yea that makes sense :).

Also wanted to add something about online communties, there was like this whole science or maths thing where they would give a problem to an online community and they would solve it faster than the researchers thought was possible due to basically a collective focus on the problem, which meant that each individual strength was pooled together and their weaknesses were lessened due to the others strengths.

Basically = more people = faster solution to problems.

in art terms More people sharing ideas means, more life experience and unique perspectives = more unique ideas. I have a feeling that this might be exponential. That is, as every group gets bigger, the amount of new neural networks and connections created in ur brain will begin to increase at an exponential rate (i think that is squared) due to the amount of varied perspectives and ideas. (this of course is just a hunch)

sharing is caring.

[aks9]

definitely! : )

i have no idea if its exponential or what the frequencies are but that's just a detail, but collective energy is definitely more than the sum of the parts.

very interesting ideas there yololex.. its amazing to think there is some type of symmetry or synergy in the neurology of the brains of people who interact as a group, as they adopt and share common ideas and act on the same motivations and idea structures, surely thats how groups like conceptart.org and crimsondaggers and all these places work, and why people feel such a strong sense of community.

in the shoutbox a few days ago a couple of people were talking about how they'd been thinking/working on their own IP stuff shortly before CD announced the Endless Summer thing, and now conceptart.org has just launched their DreamFuel to also empower artists to take control over their IP. definitely a huge global synergy of ideas going, in no small part thanks to the internet

yes sharing is caring

[YOLOLEX]

well this mite be going a little off topic so i wont go too deep but.

Basically scientists consider things to be alive (as in a life form) when they meet a certain set of criteria... anyone learn MRSGREN in school?

Cells are the basis of all life on earth. When cells join together and function interdependantly, they are considered to be a ....tissue i think. This doesnt mean they lose their INDEPENDANCE, as they still function as a single cell would. Just that the collection of cells together performs as a whole a new effect.... (i.e muscle tissue etc)

I wont go any further into that. but what im really interested in, is how, the internet.... almost seems to work like some sort of meta brain, but quickly and by that i mean in the next few years is moving into meta (really big) consciousness. Funny how this network of computers resembles the network of neural synapses in our brain no? making new connections.... disconnecting old or less functional connections etc. each page is like a synapse, waiting to spark new ideas and new apsects to this meta consciousness of human beings.

I wonder if in time it will create a collective shared consciousness.

so the internet = our brain.

[hollinrake]

It's strange that I've been posting in my sketchbook for over a year now and hanging around in the Google Hangout but next to never ventured onto any other boards. With the Summer Pitch project I'm really hoping to change that.

I guess I think the key to this is in community activities. A lot of the time in sketchbooks there isn't a lot of context behind the work - aside from glaring issues with anatomy I usually don't feel qualified to give constructive criticism, particularly to people I might not know that well.

On the other hand, community projects with context behind them would help a lot, I think. The summer pitch looks cool because there's a clear idea behind it and a thread devoted solely to that work - people can see the concepts build from the beginning and can comment on its progression and add their own views in since there's more than just art going on - there's plot, there's design, there's gameplay. A lot of people have said in here that it's difficult to say something other than 'awesome! keep working!' a lot of the time, and yes, the exact same can be said for the summer project, but at least there's a wider avenue for discussion available.

I guess giving people more of an opportunity to work together and focus on a Crimson Daggers challenge can only be a good thing.

[Goht]

I'll make an effort to comment on 5 sketchbooks a day. Problem solved!

[smrr]

It can certainly be intimidating to post in other peoples sketchbooks when you feel like you yourself are only a beginner.

Yes, I agree! This has been the main reason I haven't been comfortable providing others with some kind of constructive criticism other than "keep up the good work!", I don't feel I'm qualified to do so, though I always wished I could - because I love the feeling I get when I'm able to help people.

Something unfortunate I noticed was that many of the introduction posts in the Welcome section have 0 replies.. this isn't encouraging either!

Yeeeeah I noticed that as well, D: I should get into a habit of welcoming new daggers!

The sketchbook section should be a place where artists of all levels are buzzing around each other, constantly offering their encouragement, feedback, insight and critique. The critique section is for asking for specific advice on a specific piece/technique, the sketchbook section is for getting feedback on your work as a whole and your development as a whole.

We really have to avoid the trap of our sketchbooks becoming just a log of our work output, where we're all working in isolation.. politely saying "good job!" to the other artists.

Secondly, I completely agree with this ^ although, really just a "good job!" or a "keep it up!" goes miles in terms of sparking motivation :) but like anyone (I'm sure) I'd prefer to receive some kind of constructive crit - as 90% of the time I have received such comments, I feel my understanding improves, thus I improve! Though of course the phrase "what you put into something is what you'll get out of it" comes into play here.

Here are some thoughts on the importance of giving and receiving critique from other artists:

And lastly, everything you mention after this ^ is complete gold imho! It all makes sense. I mean it's good to keep a personal sketchbook to track individual progress and reflect on your previous work (as reflection is proven to be beneficial in a learning type of environment) - but no where near as beneficial as reflecting, taking the time and sharing your thoughts on other peoples work in their sketchbooks! As mentioned previously: 'we're all at different levels' - so by taking the time to view another's sketchbook, you might find the answer you've been searching for in your own work by accident :) I know this because it has happened to me more than once while ninja'ing about in others sketchbooks. I need to get out of this habit!

There are more than enough reasons that have been stated in this thread alone (and that still out there) that should help motivate daggers including myself to just step in and join in on what this amazing community has to offer :D

[YOLOLEX]

also yea its really hard to critique people u dont know too well cos u dont want to offend.

Solution = partay time get to know EVERYBODY