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The purpose of this thread is to explain what criticism is, how to give it and how to make use of it. Criticism is just an analysis of the flaws and merits of something. Without input from other people, it would be very hard to improve as an artist. Criticism is not inherently good or bad. Criticism is just an opinion and at most, a suggestion.
[LEFT]Giving Criticism
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"Giving Criticism"
First, when you give criticism to a person, you are essentially taking on the role of their teacher to share or say whatever you think can help them. To give proper criticism you need to be able to do three things:
1) Analyze a work – Be able to judge the positive and negative qualities of an animation or other form of art.
2) Be capable of describing these positive and negative qualities while also being able to point out what makes these qualities good or bad.
3) Offer ways to fix and improve upon the negative qualities of the work if possible. I say if possible because sometimes it’s hard to put what’s wrong with something into words and provide a solution at the same time. So at least pointing out that something could be improved upon is a step in the right direction. If something is pointed out as something that could be improved upon, someone more knowledgeable could chime in and provide solutions. Trying to be helpful is better than doing nothing at all.
1) Analyze a work – Be able to judge the positive and negative qualities of an animation or other form of art.
2) Be capable of describing these positive and negative qualities while also being able to point out what makes these qualities good or bad.
3) Offer ways to fix and improve upon the negative qualities of the work if possible. I say if possible because sometimes it’s hard to put what’s wrong with something into words and provide a solution at the same time. So at least pointing out that something could be improved upon is a step in the right direction. If something is pointed out as something that could be improved upon, someone more knowledgeable could chime in and provide solutions. Trying to be helpful is better than doing nothing at all.
[LEFT]Receiving Criticism
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"Receiving Criticism"
For someone new to making art, criticism might be hard to take at first. A common mistake amongst people new to receiving criticism is taking criticism as a personal attack. It is unfortunate to put a lot of time and effort into something and find out that what you made is not as good as you hoped it would be. A good thing to keep in mind when looking at criticism is to do what I call “Separating the art from the artist.” When you post a work of art in a public environment, you are opening yourself up to the possible criticism of anyone who sees what you made. In order to soften the blow of finding out what you made not being as good as you thought you should keep in mind that just because someone says what you made is flawed, doesn’t mean they are saying that you, the creator of the flawed work, is bad. They are not saying you didn’t try either. Your work is simply what you made.
Your main goal in receiving criticism is to learn something and get some advice that you can use to better yourself. If they are following the three steps I laid out above for giving criticism within their post, then that’s all you need. I’ve heard some people say that a “compliment sandwich” is a good way of critiquing someone because it cushions some of the blow of receiving some hard criticism. You’re free to try all types of ways of criticism but your attention shouldn’t be on how they’re saying what they’re saying to you. That’s irrelevant. With this in mind, be aware that criticism cannot be used as an excuse to flame or blatantly disrespect someone. For example, saying things like: “This looks like shit,” or “What the fuck is this”, “This is horrible” would be examples of flaming or disrespect. On this forum while it is not against the rules to give out your opinion or criticisms, it is a rule that you need to respect one another and not flame.
To reiterate, as stated in rule #4 of Maplemation:
“A note on criticism: Criticism (or “CnC”) on your work from other users should not be taken to heart, as it is a comment on your work, and not you as an individual. That being said, you should always try to be polite regardless of how harsh your critique may be.” The person giving criticism has as much obligation to be respectful, empathetic and understanding as the person receiving criticism.
Furthermore, I am going to call back to my previous statement about MM being a place where everyone is trying teach and learn from each other all at the same time. Keeping this in mind, it is the duty of those trying to learn/being given criticism or the “students” to reach out to the “teachers” and ask questions when they do not understand. We are all human and people are not perfect. In the three step method I gave for giving criticism, sometimes people forget to do the third step and suggest solutions to the problems they identify. Sometimes people don’t make their thoughts as clear as possible when putting them into words. Ask for clarification if something doesn’t make sense. If someone doesn’t make themselves clear, as a student you need to take the initiative and ask questions. If you don’t let someone know you do not understand, it will be assumed that you do understand.
More often than not, if someone cared enough about your work to point out its issues and describe them, if you ask they’ll probably point out why these things are problems and how they can be improved upon. Giving criticism is a two-way street: the person giving criticism needs to give their full effort to teach and the person receiving criticism needs to give their full effort to learn.
Your main goal in receiving criticism is to learn something and get some advice that you can use to better yourself. If they are following the three steps I laid out above for giving criticism within their post, then that’s all you need. I’ve heard some people say that a “compliment sandwich” is a good way of critiquing someone because it cushions some of the blow of receiving some hard criticism. You’re free to try all types of ways of criticism but your attention shouldn’t be on how they’re saying what they’re saying to you. That’s irrelevant. With this in mind, be aware that criticism cannot be used as an excuse to flame or blatantly disrespect someone. For example, saying things like: “This looks like shit,” or “What the fuck is this”, “This is horrible” would be examples of flaming or disrespect. On this forum while it is not against the rules to give out your opinion or criticisms, it is a rule that you need to respect one another and not flame.
To reiterate, as stated in rule #4 of Maplemation:
“A note on criticism: Criticism (or “CnC”) on your work from other users should not be taken to heart, as it is a comment on your work, and not you as an individual. That being said, you should always try to be polite regardless of how harsh your critique may be.” The person giving criticism has as much obligation to be respectful, empathetic and understanding as the person receiving criticism.
Furthermore, I am going to call back to my previous statement about MM being a place where everyone is trying teach and learn from each other all at the same time. Keeping this in mind, it is the duty of those trying to learn/being given criticism or the “students” to reach out to the “teachers” and ask questions when they do not understand. We are all human and people are not perfect. In the three step method I gave for giving criticism, sometimes people forget to do the third step and suggest solutions to the problems they identify. Sometimes people don’t make their thoughts as clear as possible when putting them into words. Ask for clarification if something doesn’t make sense. If someone doesn’t make themselves clear, as a student you need to take the initiative and ask questions. If you don’t let someone know you do not understand, it will be assumed that you do understand.
More often than not, if someone cared enough about your work to point out its issues and describe them, if you ask they’ll probably point out why these things are problems and how they can be improved upon. Giving criticism is a two-way street: the person giving criticism needs to give their full effort to teach and the person receiving criticism needs to give their full effort to learn.
[LEFT]Conclusion[/LEFT]
"Conclusion"
Finally, if you take nothing else away from this know one thing: criticism is not absolute. Criticism is not a command or mandate, it is just the opinion of another person. It is up to you to decide what to do with it. Criticism cannot make you any worse of an artist. Criticism can only improve your work if you let it. To reiterate, criticisms are just opinions. Opinions are subjective and flawed. There is no right or wrong opinion and the same goes for criticism. There are only popular and unpopular opinions.
Art is an experiment. We’re all just tossing shit together to see if it looks good. It’s your job to use the criticism you’re given to make something that looks good to a lot of people. And people come in all sorts of shapes and sizes with different ideas of what they think looks good. So if you get two contradictory criticisms, just try them both and keep posting to see what works. If what the first guy said you should do doesn’t look good to a lot of people, don’t do it anymore. If what the second guy says you should do looks good to a lot of people, do it. That’s how it is with criticism, you cannot just listen to what every single person says. Sometimes people suggest things that are not very helpful or you just cannot do. You need to think while you’re being given criticism and decide what you can use and what you cannot. If some criticism doesn’t seem like it will work, you’re not obligated to make use of it. Just like how you aren’t obligated to take someone’s opinion as fact.
Ultimately, criticism is just the opinion of someone who saw your work. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s up to you to decide how it’ll affect you and what you do. Don’t be intimidated. We’re all in this together and we should all try our best to understand and help each other.
Art is an experiment. We’re all just tossing shit together to see if it looks good. It’s your job to use the criticism you’re given to make something that looks good to a lot of people. And people come in all sorts of shapes and sizes with different ideas of what they think looks good. So if you get two contradictory criticisms, just try them both and keep posting to see what works. If what the first guy said you should do doesn’t look good to a lot of people, don’t do it anymore. If what the second guy says you should do looks good to a lot of people, do it. That’s how it is with criticism, you cannot just listen to what every single person says. Sometimes people suggest things that are not very helpful or you just cannot do. You need to think while you’re being given criticism and decide what you can use and what you cannot. If some criticism doesn’t seem like it will work, you’re not obligated to make use of it. Just like how you aren’t obligated to take someone’s opinion as fact.
Ultimately, criticism is just the opinion of someone who saw your work. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s up to you to decide how it’ll affect you and what you do. Don’t be intimidated. We’re all in this together and we should all try our best to understand and help each other.
