On Handling Criticism

Let’s say that you are fairly new to the online drawing community, and you decide to post a piece that you’re incredibly proud of. You’ve spent hours on it. You make sure to tag it properly to optimize the amount of people who see it.


You come back a few days later to view the feedback and awesome! You see comments of people liking your work. But among those comments, you see comments you are less than excited about.


“The shadows seem random, where is the light source?”

“Lol, I can’t draw hands either!”


“The legs on the woman seem abnormally long, you could do with shortening the bottom half of the legs.”

You are a little hurt, though the comments definitely could have been a lot worse. What’s a person to do?

I frequent art communities and it’s always a little disheartening seeing artists disparage constructive criticism, especially those who work off commissions! I understand how the comments sometimes come off as rude when they are unsolicited, but are always worth listening to.*


*Keep in mind I only mean constructive criticism given in a polite way; rude and offensive comments should be ignored.


It’s best to keep in mind not to take the criticism personally. The commenter is coming from a good place and to them, they are only trying to help.


Let’s take a look at one of my pieces for an example:

I would definitely want to come back and improve upon this piece, or recycle the idea completely. There's a lot to work on here, barring aspects I'm incapable of improving due to lack of skill.

• The hands. Proportionately, they are too small. Also, they could use some dynamic posing, instead of a boring open palm.
• Detailing the face. I could do a lot more with this. If I gave her colored lips, I could do without the thick line outlining her mouth. I could also add detail to the eyes. Thinning the lines would help with adding more detail.
• The coloring of the fishnet stockings. I colored outside the lines in some areas and instead of using black for the netting, I could use a dark grey to make it look more realistic.
• The heart? The plain heart is supposed to be symbolic, but I could probably make it look realistic, adding a darker tone overall.

Well, I hope picking apart my own drawing eases the pain of analyzing your own art once in awhile. Be open, and you don't have to agree with every criticism, but just be able to take it into consideration.