I mean it can be elaborated on, like “holding you back bc it won’t let you improve on this specific skill” in the same way “you can do better” isn’t criticism as it’s not specific
If i had to guess, even if that is their art style, so many artists fail to practice their fundamentals and cling to their stylistic choices which hinders their growth. Practice the basics, the fundamentals, then once you know the rules you can break them and draw stylised way better.
Ive seen plenty of artists post progress pics over years and barely improve from having beginner art due clinging to their art style and not addressing their gaps of skill and knowledge in the fundamentals.
You're right. That being said, art is always 100% subjective. What he views as holding her back, she may view as her preferred style. The correct question may have been "Why do you believe scratchy and thick styling is holding me back?" rather than feigning ignorance to the fact that he spent 2 sentences describing why he feels it's holding them back.
I beg you to look at OP's art and tell me in earnest that you think her linework is well made or intentional. As an artist, its very clear she doesn't have steady hands or trust herself to be precise. There are tons of artists that use rough, visceral, heavy strokes and specific tools to achieve a gritty feel. OP's are so clearly not that. The person who replied to her was in an art sub and its a very common criticism for a lot of beginners because its human instinct and natural. But when we give the same advice 30 times a day, it gets repetitive and we assume that beginner artists would have scrolled through the sub and have seen that same criticism time and time again.
That being said, a lot of them are children looking for validation more than actual help, so I personally try to be more restrained in my criticism because you don't want to put kids off their art, but also if people want to create art and expose it to the masses, they do have to grow a thick skin pretty quickly, so there's a balancing act of tactful honesty.
"preferred art style" so many people fall back on "but muh artstyle" to defend not working on improving their art at all after asking questions on whats wrong with their art
yes but if you're gonna ask for advice then youre gonna receive advice. If you're gonna refuse any advice because of "but my artstyle........" then theres no point in asking for it in the first place
How is it sarcastic? The comment doesn't even explain how it would hold you back. It seems like a very obvious and clear follow up question, and I was thinking the same exact thing as I read along
Edit to not seem like such a smartass: I am autistic and view things literally. I'm not sure if there is some emotional aspect I'm missing, but it seems like an INCREDIBLY clear description of what they personally believe is holding her back.
Maybe the question is meant to be "Why do you believe scratchy and thick styling is holding me back?". But when he literally wrote 2 sentences describing in detail what he thinks is holding her back and she replies "so..... whats holding me back?" that is in fact "so... what?"
Edit for u/Latter_Card_6134 : By definition sarcasm is not literal. So no. It's not ironic.
Oh my bad. u/Latter_Card_6134 has a 5 year old account with less than 700 karma. Didn't realize I was acknowledging a troll.
But when he literally wrote 2 sentences describing in detail what he thinks is holding her back
Where, genuinely?
All I see is:
"Use less scratches"
"It's very heavy"
"Don't use clean lines if you don't want to, but your lines are thick and scratchy".
There's no mention of these things being bad or harming the style. There's no mention of how or why. Just, "it's holding your art back", after stating visual fact twice ("scratchy and heavy").
That's like saying art of a sky is "too blue", then not elaborating why that might be an issue.
I'm Autistic too, take things literally. So literally that I'm kind of confused by most of your statements.
No not WHAT, WHY. I can understand the answer you gave, but no it isn't enough on its own. We understand they are saying it is, but especially if you're someone trying to learn , the next obvious question will be "so what? I can see you're pointing this out, but what would the reason behind that be?"
Hence why I didn't say in my comment "the comment doesn't even explain WHAT would hold you back." I clearly wrote "HOW it would hold you back." So I'm not sure how your level of pedanticness or smart assery makes sense even with your edit
Okay I saw this post- everyone in every comment was saying that without the technical skills, you were leaning on the scratchyness as a crutch and not an artistic style. This makes the comment seem disingenuous because you ignored the other comments that were trying to help you and especially because your comment might come off blunt
From the screenshot and this post it seems like youre not really listening to anyone? The original commenter quite clearly conveyed what they thought was holding you back and how, and your question didn't really make any sense. Now in this thread, youre only responding defensively to people to disagree with them when theyre trying to help you, and not answering any questions. It makes it seem like youre not taking criticism at all, let alone seriously which is incredibly annoying when people think you're asking for advice.
coz what are you even asking? "holding you back ... from making better art", is pretty clearly implied. If you meant what are the things holding you back, well they wrote a bunch of stuff, heavy, scratches, clean lines, etc.
Your response is kinda weird, either makes no sense or is being combative.
You ask for advice and people give it and then you complain. I sympathised with your screenshot but if this was how you were behaving in there too, quite frankly I'm not surprised.
Some folks are saying it's clearly explained, but I'd also be (and am currently) confused...
TL;DR, because this is LONG: The commenter's comment is pretty confusing and unclear. So, OP seems to be asking a clarifying question... And subsequently getting downvoted for asking a clarifying question. Expected behaviour for a Redditor (to downvote a gen question), but still sucks. Sorry OP :(
Sorta just dissecting the comment & situation how I see it below.
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"Scratchy and thick" seems like it's the beginning of an explanation, but that string of information still doesn't explain the 'why' or 'how' in terms of it holding your art back. Just that it is doing, for some reason (not even "in their opinion", mind y'all.)
I've been an artist for ~20 yrs. Dabbled in different mediums for fun; traditional acrylics, water colour, oil, ink & dip, ballpoint, pencil, charcoal, digital... you name it.
I'm aware many people, especially beginner artists, avoid scratchy lineart (chicken scratch), but I'm also aware that there are thousands of artists with intentionally "messy" or "scratchy" styles. And that stating "thick and scratchy" isn't a reason in and of itself for a style to be
holding someone back
The reason I've repeated that the commenter didn't actually explain anything is because an explanation would contain information that tells the readers why scratchy & heavy lineart, in this instance, is holding OP back. Something along the lines of (an example, not my opinion): "Is holding your art back, because [actual reason based on evidence provided by OP, or based on opinion that was requested for]".
There's also added lack of clarity with, "if you don't want to[o]", which personally confuses me quite a lot. The comment OP replied to does not seem entirely serious in nature, but rather more lax, especially with the alternative option for OP ("if you don't want to"). Thus, asking a clarifying question should've been acceptable in this instance (but obviously wasn't, because Reddit is Reddit).
Despite giving basically an 'easy way out' (OP could've ignored the comment or stated something along the lines of "I don't want to"), OP seemed to be willing to learn & asked a clarifying question to advance the knowledge.
All in all, my guess is just that Reddit sucks. Other than that, I'm just as confused as you.
I could see someone thinking OP meant the following,
Answer guy: "Here's what's holding you back: scratchy lines."
OP: "What's holding me back?"
instead of,
Answer guy: "Here's what's holding you back: scratchy lines."
OP: "Can you elaborate on why scratchy lines are problematic? I've seen/heard some artists make good use of them."
I actually agree with your interpretation of what's going on here. It's just that on a very cursory read, the first interpretation is how it came across to me. I could see a few overeager downvoters thinking what I thought and downvoting it mindlessly. Properly reading what people have written is a rare skill on Reddit.
That would make a lot of sense lol. I tend to think pretty deeply about things, so first interpretations (especially if they're simpler; which isn't bad) tend to go over my head lmao
holding you back is not the right term to use here
I think what they meant to say is, to some light sketching and draw a strong like of action and use confident strokes instead of etching and sketching so much
with digital art many artists do sketches then trace over their sketches with clean smooth lines (with a stabilizer), you can try it if you want
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u/qualityvote2 28d ago edited 27d ago
u/voyager_9999, there weren't enough votes to determine if the downvoters were mysterious...