I've been feeling down about my work lately? and I'M DESPRITE.

[vayne108]

The thing is that you are ultimately competing against yourself, nobody else. Your ego can either be your best friend or your worst enemy. There are times where you are going to have to force yourself though a bunch of shitty drawings, just to get to your next level-up. You should be able to see improvement in your art, if not, you need to flank the enemy (again, your ego). Focus on improvement, not your ratings or whatever. It can turn into a prison, and its hard to get out once you are trapped. Do your craft for you foremost, seek to improve over what you accomplished previously. Seek feedback to help yourself improve, not for more stars or whatnot.

You'll be fine.

Thanks !!!!!!!!

[MiniGoth]

Worrying more about internet views than the art is a sure recipe for failure.

Now go draw.

[Carnifex]

......and,as aptly proved by some of the replies here,you just have to take a break from the forum every now and then. remind yourself why you draw,and what you actually like to draw,without worry.

[nonie]

By the time you get to five stars you'll realize ratings don't matter at all. Focus on improving, and the stars will come with time. By the time you get them, you should have figured out that the reward for all your hard work is not some stupid gold stars, but that you get to keep working hard and keep improving all your life.

You will get t a point to be good enough to really impress people all around you, but by then you'll know enough to know you don't know shit. Might as well take a shortcut and admit it now, and set out on the journey to learn to draw for the sake of drawing - the rest will come.

Art is bigger than this site and its ratings.

[Max Challie]

I never liked ratings. I think they are pointless features that create problems. I only look in a thread out of curiosity. If it doesn't interest me, I leave it alone. I never look at "stars", and I never rate anything. Meh.

[Costau D]

"I I I, ME ME ME" well aren't you one dandy person... :p

*pinches cheeks* gewd fir uuuuuuuu... ^-^

[vayne108]

"I I I, ME ME ME" well aren't you one dandy person... :p

*pinches cheeks* gewd fir uuuuuuuu... ^-^

I wasn't trying to be selfish, I was just gauging my work by suing and comparing ratings. So plz don't read me the wrong way and get to know me first before you make those kind of judgements PLz.

[Costau D]

My post wasnt referring to you. Look above it. No worries.

[vayne108]

My post wasnt referring to you. Look above it. No worries.

I'm so sorry about that.

[Dorkthrone]

It's been said multiple times before, but you shouldn't focus on how many stars you have. Many of the all-time greats didn't focus on accolades. Ego can be your enemy when you're trying to improve.

Instead, I recommend you look at your improvement as an artist. Feel free to critique your own work. Strive to improve on things that you're lacking in. Ask for some honest feedback on how you can become better. Go out of your comfort zone every now and again.

[Max Challie]

"I I I, ME ME ME" well aren't you one dandy person... :p

I didn't mean to say my way of thinking is in any way better than anyone else's. And, how can you decide on me as a person if you've only talked to me on an internet forum?
Judgments are projections of oneself onto others. I try to avoid this; take my own advice before handing it out kind of thing. But, I'm probably just talking the talk anyway, trying to get other people to do the walking for me.

In saying that, though, that sentence is also full of "I's" and "me's", so thanks for pointing this out.

[Mock]

Yeah, nonie and artzealot pretty much hit the nail on the head. My sketchbook has hit 5 stars a couple of times. Once it does people start looking, say "Why does this have 5 stars?" and rank it lower. Then it happens again about two months later, haha. The first time I got a bit bummed, but it quickly dawned upon me: when I have 5-star work, I'll have a 5-star rating. It's the art I need to be focusing on, everything else will follow suit with time and practice.

When you get people telling you that you've inspired them, whether its through your art, your determination, or whatever, you'll realize that those comments are vastly more rewarding than any rating. When you get the occasional person asking for advice or help, it's a hell of a lot more rewarding than pageviews on DA.

You're off to a good start. You've taken some pretty blunt critique in here without getting overly defensive or emoing out. More importantly, you've taken that advice and put it into action. That's a hell of a lot more than most artists can say. Keep going down that road and you'll be fine.

[alesoun]

I don't have any stars. I'm distraught..... destroyed....... disaffected...... disarrayed..... disappointed......

(sorry, run out of "dis" words)

Ain't gonna stop me working, though....

[Max Challie]

I wonder what the deal is with stars. In a finally finished thread for example, wouldn't you enter it because the title and/or thumbnail is interesting? I don't really understand... do we just lack the time to look at everything, so we use ratings to determine our interests? Personally I'd be fine without them, but I'm curious why ratings are so important.

[JJacks]

My life drawing teacher told me not to expect praise by simply doing something adequately or finding a simple solution.

With a positive attitude and perseverance you can get the attention that you want but your art has to be your first priority.

[Grief]

don't be taken in by the fast-talk of these fools. the stars mean everything. the star rating method on conceptart is as follows:


ouch. the community wants you to get cancer on your ugly bloated face. you make children cry and you couldnt cook a pop-tart if given an hour. you'd do the art world a favor by jamming your drawing tools into the toilet. god you even breathe like a shitty artist. just stop.


we are angry with your mother for not beating you as a child. you deserve it. i hope you put your shirt on backwards and don't notice until about lunchtime you piece of trash. i wouldn't hire a gorilla to piss on you if you were on fire.


well its nice to have users with special needs contributing to the forums. your sketchbook was permanently retired to the "oooh and aaah's" section before manley pulled an old yeller on that sumbitch.


oh wow, four stars. damn, you are the badass of your highschool. i bet you maybe even drew from life once. what's that, you can draw odie from garfield in one pose without reference? you're laid now m'man. you totally know how to use all the best filters, let the good times roll.


dude you must have a drawing pad or something, cause i could never draw that with just a mouse. u r teh hard-core gud artist. can you do inuyasha fighting naruto pic 4 me? omg. you even do traditional old-skoo type drawinz wif a machanical pencil. 2 pro 4 realz.

now go draw.

[Elwell]

Those should be the official star descriptions.

[OmenSpirits]

stars?

where do you see stars?

Never occurred tome to see if I have any. I've given them, but receipt?

Hm.

edit: Ah so that's what it is. Well feel good, friend, I ain't got none!

Oh well.

[George Abraham]

Don't really see what the problem is. Your sketchbook have healthy useful crits. In fact you are getting allot of attention.

While we are on the topic of appreciation:

Your mom believes in you. If you don't fall for faith anymore you’re stuck. If believers don't inspire you or you don't get it off yourself, you won't surprise yourself and you won't have little miracles of improvement. Believe in magic, art becomes boring without spark.

Sugar coaters; decide to point out what they like. Useful information. They might not notice the stuff you want them to but that is the reality of it. They might not admire your turd study as much as you wanted them to or they might not notice your beutifull revolutionary exploration of color in the midst of all the other stuff that needs work.

Arses are either breaking away from being puffy and might give you some honesty. Usefull information. Something probed them to post. What is it? The real value in other's crits is the stuff they see that you don't.

People who don't know what their talking about: Have eyes. It's like saying. They don't know how to look at your work. These people are everywhere, muzeums, art conventions, at home picking their next desktop wallpaper, buying art etc.. Decode what they are trying to tell you. It might be useful information.

It would not be a surprise if you feel like you miss stuff if you don't know how to mine crits.

Try to have a good balance between personal enjoyment and social attention seeker. At the moment you are like a emotional sucker fish seeking more and more attention to make you feel valued where us doing so makes it worse. It's the second thread on the issue, in like a week if I'm not mistaken. You are curtailing the wrong habit. It's like a bad drug addiction. And can you really tell me you don’t know what you are doing when you round up a hoard of pity posters with this thread? And did you really extract the value from these new posts or did you bask in the attention?


Try changing the way you work for a while. Draw for pleasure, what do you want to draw today. Break away from the forum for a while and get back to your roots. Rely on your own satisfaction and crit yourself. How honest are you rating your own work. Along with what you like about a piece, do you blind out the flaws or do you actually see them and actually know what areas you need to work on? Don't expect everything to change in like, your next post. Get personal with yourself again and enjoy your own progress.

If you are an extrovert that thrive on interactive involvement. There is a way to use that constructively. Get involved perhaps in community challenges or form a support group or something that could make you feel like you are part of a crew. Humility is an asset; it keeps your eyes open and free from delusion, get as close to reality as you comfortably can. It’s a balancing act between magic and humility and the next thing you know you are the shit being tempted by the devil and your ego to make you crash and burn all over again.

You'll notice that the real pro's are the only ones that can have both feet on the ground after a glorification attack. And their compettitors kinda exploded to the side somewhere. Hehehe!!
The "devine forces at work" made their pants hang around their heels at just the perfect moment of opportune when they went of on thier own really believing in their own godlyness.
Ever hear the phrase:” May the best mad win".. That is a true structure in more than one way.. The non best men are the ones who get derailed, deceived, jealous, defeated etc..
I am an expert at that falling victim to that last bit there. (;

[Max Challie]

I remember when Ilaekae wrote something like that, only with much less swearing etc. I thought it was funnier, to be honest

[George Abraham]

I resent that comment. I did not swear.

You just don't know "the shit" when you SEE it. Hmf..

PS. The critique center is not a good place to go and blow off some steam.

[-leo]

Deviantart is not, nor ever will be, important. It is the landfill of the internet.

Wow... what an attitude. Now I'm wondering why all these great artists, sculptors, 3d modelers, photographers etc. spend their time on the landfill?

[daestwen]

Nope, we are not going into a CA vs DA discussion or I will close this thread. Please keep to the topic.

[vayne108]

Nope, we are not going into a CA vs DA discussion or I will close this thread. Please keep to the topic.

Hi really, plz I don't want this thread closed even though I do feel better and have done studies That I will post soon. But this thread also be useful for others who might feel the some way as I did.

[Max Challie]

I resent that comment. I did not swear.

You just don't know "the shit" when you SEE it. Hmf..

PS. The critique center is not a good place to go and blow off some steam.

lol.. my comment was directed towards Greif's list, not your post. I actually have yet to read it.

I'm sorry, I should have made my post more clear. And what's this about blowing off steam in the crit center?

[George Abraham]

Too late... I'm still offended, and now even more that I know you didn't even ready MY post. Good grief.

[Jazz]

Vayne, even though all kinds of great advice has been said, I'll also mention time. If you have it, totally use it!! Improve on what you can, because when time isn't there and IF you have to focus on something other than art (for any reason), you might find yourself crying just to put pencil down to paper.

I know I do. >_< After working like mad in Computer Science courses and having to set aside drawing, I was desperate to even doodle! O_O And like you, I was actually looking at my own ratings and my progress. Not too good; I didn't do much artwork for some time now because there was no time to do it. Understandable, in my opinion, now that school is winding down and I see the kind of work that I was doing. Truthfully though, that's why I decided to start socializing with fellow artists more. Any way to feel like somehow I'm improving with my art, even just by talking.

Now if you're idle and worried about ratings and comments and such, turn your attention away from that! It is far too compelling to dwell on! >_< Where does time go then? Not where you'd want it to. You find even a few minutes in the day to work on your art, just enjoy the work you're doing, you may just forget about ratings because it feels so GOOD to be working on your art AND playing with it!

As for comments on your pieces, some people just aren't as serious about what is involved in the art piece, just what it looks like. If it makes them haaaapppy... ...yeah, they'll praise you well for it. That's all they need! You don't need to get a crit from everyone looking, I'm sure. ^_^ And hey, sometimes people who DO know what they're talking about don't even give good crits. I know this first-hand. Oh...the memory. As for the rest, it's always nice getting a thorough crit... Like a full meal or something.

Anyway, *hugs* for you, hopefully you'll be feeling very uplifted for a while after this thread. I agree with the fact that you've taken crits and comments here very well indeed!

[vayne108]

Vayne, even though all kinds of great advice has been said, I'll also mention time. If you have it, totally use it!! Improve on what you can, because when time isn't there and IF you have to focus on something other than art (for any reason), you might find yourself crying just to put pencil down to paper.

I know I do. >_< After working like mad in Computer Science courses and having to set aside drawing, I was desperate to even doodle! O_O And like you, I was actually looking at my own ratings and my progress. Not too good; I didn't do much artwork for some time now because there was no time to do it. Understandable, in my opinion, now that school is winding down and I see the kind of work that I was doing. Truthfully though, that's why I decided to start socializing with fellow artists more. Any way to feel like somehow I'm improving with my art, even just by talking.

Now if you're idle and worried about ratings and comments and such, turn your attention away from that! It is far too compelling to dwell on! >_< Where does time go then? Not where you'd want it to. You find even a few minutes in the day to work on your art, just enjoy the work you're doing, you may just forget about ratings because it feels so GOOD to be working on your art AND playing with it!

As for comments on your pieces, some people just aren't as serious about what is involved in the art piece, just what it looks like. If it makes them haaaapppy... ...yeah, they'll praise you well for it. That's all they need! You don't need to get a crit from everyone looking, I'm sure. ^_^ And hey, sometimes people who DO know what they're talking about don't even give good crits. I know this first-hand. Oh...the memory. As for the rest, it's always nice getting a thorough crit... Like a full meal or something.

Anyway, *hugs* for you, hopefully you'll be feeling very uplifted for a while after this thread. I agree with the fact that you've taken crits and comments here very well indeed!

Awww... thanks

[Max Challie]

Too late... I'm still offended, and now even more that I know you didn't even ready MY post. Good grief.

lol
I don't care if it's "too late", and I don't care if you're offended. I didn't read your post because I don't feel like reading a block of text like that. Whether or not a person takes offence from something depends completely on them; it's all about the interpetation. You don't have to be offended, you just choose to be. It's up to you man.

One day, I had my work critised. The critic in question said "the composition is disgusting, there's not enough dark tones add any depth to the painting, and that little plant doesn't really fit in there." She pointed to another watercolour I did which emphasised perspective. She said "this, is a painting. That other thing is a colouring-in. You need a center of interest."
And I was smiling the whole time. Because by being told that, I realised once again that my work is complete crap. But, I was being told exactly why it is crap. So obviously, I need to practise more.

I'd like to give credit/thanks to Lyon for posting this once. I love this quote so much.

"He who takes offense when no offense is intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool." - Confucius

[Chris Saksida]

vayne, I understand you... the problem is that you are doing this for the wrong reasons... I LOVE art, it gives meaning to my life, some times life gets me off art, and when I stop creating and getting far away from art, my life starts feeling empty, then I start to wonder why... and then I start painting again and I feel the energy, the fuel of my life; my veins refill with pure muse and I feel alive again (ok ok I`ll stop LOL)

The point is... why would I care for "stars" or "ratings" or whatever the fuck people thinks about my art if CREATING is what gives meaning to my life?

Stop making art for your ego and start LIVING art, ENJOYING every moment of it, it will make you feel complete and in total harmony with the universe... even if I like to draw horrible shit like putrid mutant zombies with fucking snakes coming out of their eyes LOL

Even THAT is a statement... lots of people feel DISGUSTED by what I do! if I cared for that, I would draw stuff that people liked... I don`t know, baby angels with unicorns and pegasus flying aroud rainbows or stuff like that, but no... that doesn`t make me happy.