Double-Edged Feature #16

ProjectComment is a group that provides Guaranteed & Constructive comments for the DeviantArt community. Our mission is to encourage the development of a culture of exchanging constructive comments within the DeviantArt community, for the benefit of all its members!

As many of our members have discovered, there is great opportunity for improvement in both giving and receiving comments: double-edged improvement, ahoy! This feature will spotlight one of the amazing members of ProjectComment every week to showcase their experience with how giving and receiving of comments has improved their experiences as artists and in the DeviantArt community in general.

Double-Edged - Ellofayne

- I am a 24 year old artist. GOD it feels good to say that. I went to college thinking I'm never going to be an artist. I'm not good enough, and I want a more stable career. So I majored in Archaeology. And you know what? I graduated with my BA and as soon as I'm out..... I want to be an artist. No matter how much I didn't listen, and didn't want to listen.... it is always there. So now I work full time and overtime in inspection and with whatever small hours I can I make art. I have to catch up to all the smart people who knew themselves well enough and knew their identity. I would say don't do what I did.... but I mean sometimes you have to make mistakes to learn. My hopes and dreams are to be able to have a career as an artist where I don't have to worry about having enough money for food and rent... success to me isn't numbers and money. It is the slim ability to be happy. Every day I struggle so much just to be happy. That's all I want... success is happiness.

I mainly use watercolor, however I am learning acrylic and oil. I also love tooling leather and making leathercrafts that I sell at Renaissance Faires, such as belts, bags, bracers, fairy books etc. This is a separate account DragonstoolLeather. Hopefully I can start selling prints of my work at faires as well, and start getting into anime expo and other conventions. I have too many ideas and not enough time.

What’s an example of a great, constructive feedback that you received? What specifically in that comment helped you to improve?

This is one of my favorite comments. I always love everything CameronKobe has to offer, it was actually really hard to pick! They are so supportive and it means the world to me. I thought of them immediately! Unfortunately I don't have any before and afters.... but I can tell you why I love this comment! It is personal. It's not just a "I like this, and you should fix this".... it has love and feeling and is perfectly from a person, a soul, not just something generic. Sometimes I wonder if you could write a "sample comment" that could apply to anything, they could be copy and pasted and it would be so easy! "I really like the colors and composition, but you could work on anatomy a bit". Now, how many deviations would THAT FIT?! haha. But not with Cameron. The quote from a book, how awesome is that? the way it actually makes them feel, using words like frozen and enticing and ambient.... But it's not just flowery fluff either, they aren't just using big words to write intelligently. And they still offer their honest opinion, in this case they didn't quite like the stag, it didn't work for them and thought it was an afterthought. That kind of feedback is also rare- not only did they say it nicely, but me knowing it didn't work is far more important than them wanting to spare my feelings and saying they liked 100% of it.

How has providing comments to others helped you to improve your own art? How has it changed your experience here at DeviantArt?

See an example of Ellofayne's commenting skills here!

I know so much more about art now. Practice makes perfect, and this group gives a lovely space for practicing LOOKING at art. I also have taken art classes at college, and the biggest thing I missed from them was critique. All my professors would say “you want to get better at art? GO OUT, and LOOK AT some art!!!! A museum, contemporary art, whatever. You just have to LOOK” And guess what projectcomment does..... provides you with art to look at! Sure, I could just at anything random on DA, but you run the risk of the person not being active and even seeing your comment, or not liking it, etc. etc. Here is a format that does the work for me, and I know the comment will be read and replied too rather quickly, the whole exchange is meaningful, and I know I will get comments and feedback in return. Commenting frequently this whole year has really taught me so much about looking at art. I almost have a kind of formula now, or checklist. Is this person doing this? Struggling with this? What can I think of in my personal experience that can help them? And the best part about it, is.... It has helped with my art. I feel like there is this giant feedback loop.

Someone once told me that a problem with one of my pieces was that it was mostly midtones, and I needed to add some highlights and shadows to really make it all pop. That explained to me what this kind of “look” was to this piece, and how to fix it. Later on when I was looking at someone else's piece, I was able to identify the same problem. AH HA! The issue with this piece is that its only midtones! Again, my eye figured out what the problem was. And then later when I was working on a new piece... something was just off with it.... and you know what? IT WAS ONLY MIDTONES! I was able to catch the mistake during the process, and only because I got good at identifying the mistake. There have been other times this has happened with me too, and it is so uncanny! I will tell people something like their head is kind of off, make sure the hair goes ON the head and isn't just covering it up, that will make it look more natural. And then what do I EXACTLY see myself doing??? Oh my gosh, why can't I just take my own advice?!?!?! XD

How can ProjectComment members improve the feedback they give?

This is a toughy because it is so hard to give general advice. Some I would say make the comment shorter and take out some "fluff" and some I would say make it longer..... it's kind of hard. I guess my personal advice is what kind of comments I like to get, which are personal and meaningful comments. how does this piece make you FEEL? What does it make you think of, remind you of? This is helpful for the artist because a) it lets them know you looked at the piece. you actually LOOKED, and thought about it, spent some time on it. and of course b) it lets them know if what they were trying to achieve actually worked. If you want your characters to be sad, sure they could be crying, lots of blue colors, etc. etc. But once you get out of those tacky and obvious symbols..... emotions can be a lot less obvious. What if you want your sad person to be sad even though they are in a beautiful sunny environment? Telling the artist "I think this piece is happy because of the environment and blabla" is so much more helpful than "work on anatomy"...... 100% I'm pretty sure EVERYONE wants to work on anatomy, even the masters, but knowing their piece actually DOES NOT LOOK SAD or evoke sadness will help for the next piece.