Online critisism - Trolls, fauns, snarks, critics

When you're dealing with the public as an artist, you're putting your whole self out there. Sometimes the feedback you get is positive, other times it's horrible. You get comments that make sense, and others that just confuse the hell out of you. After reading something over at AFAE, and then over at an author's blog, I realised that in order to work out whether a critique is worth listening to, you have to try and identify who's giving you the critique and what their purpose is.

Trolls are, well trollish!

Trolls are easy to recognise. They're like Scrooge at a Christmas party. They feel that it's their right to be nasty to every person that disagrees with their own view on the world. In the fantasy art world we see them all the time. They're the ones who think warrior women should be encased in a full set of plate armour (no skin, Barbie bras, chain mail g-strings thank you very much!). Instead of steering clear of places where they will see this kind of art, or keeping their mouth shut if they dislike something, they thrive on attempting to make the artist feel bad (like the 'you will burn in hell if you don't stop this now' mentality).

If they make a comment, ignore them. They're not going to change their mind by any email you write back to them. They're allowed to have a different opinion, you just don't need to waste your precious time dealing with someone who's merely up for a 'flame war'.

Please note, trolls are not people who disagree with your views/ dislike your art/ post negative comments. Most people can be vocal if they dislike something. (Heck, I've said things that I often wish I could take back/ rewrite because they came out nastier than intended). Most people's intention is to express a point of view, NOT to hit the artist over the head with it, and beat them to a bloody pulp. Then kick them while they are lying down. Trolls have a different intention - they want to inflict pain, and they want to cause trouble.

Snarks are your A crowd wannabe

The problem with snarks are that they often have a point. It's a pity that that point is hidden under a mass of snide comments. They try to wrap criticism (sometimes valid, sometimes not) in amongst biting 'humour' or sarcasm. Remember at primary school that kid in school said "nice clothes, did your grandmother buy them for you?". They have now gone high tech, and found their voice on the internet. They say things to get noticed. They can often be like trolls - wanting to get a rise out of people.

They seem to want everyone to know how clever, witty and intelligent they are. They don't care if their comments make the person they are attacking feel 4 inches tall. In fact, some of them probably get a secret thrill out of knowing they've scored a direct hit. And if you react, look out! What better way to get popularity than by ripping an artist's work to shreds, and getting all of their fans and the artist themselves to respond. This then brings in more curious onlookers. Oh happy days! And the snark will still try to humiliate/ put down/ invalidate the artist... in public. Anyone remember the snarks giving grief to artists like Enayla?

Read their comments with a grain of salt. Don't respond to them. Tell other people to ignore them. If they have a valid point, then take that point and work with it. But don't take their comments to heart or you will feel bad, and it's just not worth your energy to give them that kind of power over you.

Critics are the ones you want to listen to

No one is going to like your work 100% of the time. No artist creates 100% perfect art all of the time. We all have bad days. Sometimes a sketch doesn't translate well to a painting, you overwork a face, you don't push the details far enough. Somewhere along the way the artwork gets lost and something looks 'off'.

Critics are the ones that can look at your work and say 'his eyes are too close together' or 'you need to work on your backgrounds'. Critics don't say 'Your painting sux', or 'You can't draw men'. They may offer to do paint-overs or link to tutorials, or even just give pointers on how to improve on your work. They can also justify their remarks.

Critics can help you grow, by pointing out what you can't see. When you work on a painting, there's an emotional investment, you've poured hours of hard slog into the piece. It represents something important to you. There's an old adage about "love being blind". Same can be applied to painting. You often can't see flaws until they are pointed out to you. In plain English :)

Two things to note:

Even though their comments are valid, critics are not always right. Just because your anatomy is off, doesn't mean that people aren't going to buy your paintings. A critic is often working from a different point of view. For example, a document at work was reviewed by two people. Person A, found every single spelling mistake, grammatical error, broken link and so on. Person B noted that the author had failed to mention two assumptions, and could remove the history of the project. Both 'reviews' were valid. But the critique was supposed to be on the structure of the document, so only Person B's review was of any use at that point in time.

Secondly, a critic doesn't have to be an expert. It's often tempting to ignore criticism from someone who doesn't paint, or is less talented (in your humble opinion), but if their critique is valid, then you should listen to them. Though I often find myself gritting teeth at critiques where the critic is making comments on something they themselves can't get right! Still, doesn't make their comments any less valid! If you want to improve, you will take advice from anyone that makes a valid point.

Fauns are nice people! In fact, I like fauns a lot!
Fauns are the lovely people that will like what you do, regardless of how crap you think your work is. They can be your own personal cheer squad when you seriously are down about your own art. They are the ones who love your new stuff, and tell you. Often their comments serve no purpose but to make you feel good - they often don't critique your work, or their comments can't really be used to help you improve your work. But, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this - as long as you recognise this fact.

So if you're looking for self improvement as an artist, take criticism on board


The image is from a gem of a site: http://www.pennyarcademerch.com/pat070381.html