Giving Good Feedback
Geared towards online communities and real office interaction, tips to improving communication skills.
What catches your eye?
The best feedback comes from what we instantly see that could be improved. As artists, we often find ourselves not seeing a problem because we've been starring at it too long. Given that you can quickly articulate this feedback to the artist in a tactful manner, bring it up! The opposite to this is knowing there's room for improvement, but not knowing exactly what it is. Instead of taking the time to think about it or test the changes yourself, you feed the artist a line up "um" filled bullshit just to see if they'll figure out what you want. I've sure we've all been in that boat before where an art director keeps us running around a piece with this type of feedback. Save your studio some money and think before you speak.
The Paintover
One of the greatest pieces of feedback is the paintover. Words can't describe some changes, and on an artist to artist dialog often the best approach is a quick paintover.This can go sour real fast if you can't paint. That's really all that needs to be said here
Subjectivity vs Technical
The more these two can be separated the better. Pure technical feedback is extremely helpful. Optimization, edge flow, palette, you name it, the accuracy of this type of feedback usually isn't up for much debate. Subjectivity is what art is, an opinion. This is where it's good to know who's telling you what. This isn't to say some people are better at talking about art than creating it. Either way, know your bounds here.
Be Tactful!
Using good tact is an art itself, and not being direct isn't the answer. The basic method here is pointing out what and why you like a specific aspect before directing your attention to what needs work. The more advanced subject never states what they like, only targeting what needs improvement by stating direct correction methods they would implore. Long story short nothing ever "sucks". Always focus on the corrective technique as opposed to targeting what you don't like with scathing comments.
What's in Poor Form?
Insulting doesn't get anyone anywhere. An offhand comment because the art is bad or you don't personally care for the author isn't going to further this discussion to a positive outcome. Keep it to yourself.
The out of context small flaw is when someone says something like "that box should be blue" as opposed to seeing it within the big picture. For this example, it wouldn't really matter what color the box is in the full scene due to light, composition or what have you.
Critiquing the Critique;
In lue of focusing on the purpose of the topic, someone decided they don't agree with what someone else said, so they quote their feedback and pick it apart. There are apt cases where there is a technical flaw or simply bad feedback, but most of these are disagreeing opinions. This does nothing but derail a conversation. Always focus your attention to the original artist.
Blind praise;
Nothing really wrong with this, but it doesn't really serve to help anyone. I feel if you can take the time to reply, you can also take the time to explain what you like about it so much beyond "sweet pic, bro!"
Accepting Feedback
While spoke of a bit before, it's often worth the time to do a little research into who's telling you something. No point in putting your foot in your month to the art director at Epic, for example, or dragging anything through the mud with an art student.
Learn how to accept criticism. Getting good feedback is the key to furthering your skill set. You must learn to accept it with open arms. People taking the time to do this for you want to see you improve. They are the ones that are showing genuine concern for your future. All those blindly praising or telling you to stay the course are either unable to help you or subconsciously want you to fail. It's true that this is a big business with competition heavier than ever before, and you've got to learn to see things for what they are. That guy that you may perceive as a huge dick may be looked back upon as the one that helped you the most. There's a reason people are the way they are, and that might not be apparent at first glance.
Finally, you never know who's going to make it, so don't burn those bridges!
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