LOL. At least you have a sense of humor. Posting is great for feedback and it looks llike some people gave some good points. There are two sides of art I guess. I have good work and can sell it commercially. However, it is rarely worthy of CGTalk. None the less, I have supported myself and family for over 20 years creating art. So, success can be defined in several ways.
I look at everything in life as a game, probably why I have done well in litigation graphics. So if CGTalk and getting acceptance in the gallery is a game, then it would be helpful to understand the rules of play so you can succeed. I would just warn not to judge yourself harshly or lose self confidence by not having a piece accepted on a forum.
I always tell other artists, if you want a good dose of humble, go check out some of the work on CGTalk.
As far as exposure to Art Directors and Art Buyers or prospective employers, I look through CGTalk first as well. I also cross check posts to see if I am dealing with a psycho or communicate with certain moderators for input. I have had great success with contracting artists participating on CGTalk. Sometimes they just may have an intelligent post and then I’ll look up their work.
I think he is right to question this piece not getting into the showcase gallery, the OP understands that it may not be CG choice award quality but I agree with him in thinking that it is more than sufficient for the showcase gallery Mods are rushing here to defend what I believe and I think a large proportion of members here agree, amounts to nit picking at the approval end.
I think Everlite’s crits are a bit extreme, his comments hark back to the European academies, not everyone tries to render their figures like Ingre. This is an impressionistic fantasy illustration, the guy is trying to create a mood, he isn’t taking the piss submitting this image. It’s not my cup of tea it may not be yours but I can tell from the image that the hands are quite deftly rendered, there’s a bit of character in the face, there is certainly more than enough skill on display for the artist to question why his work would suffer outright rejection.
To make matters worse, the CG society has given him the news with a horrible, condescending note which seems to have been crafted purely with the intention to kick him when he is already down.
I think Everlite’s crits are a bit extreme, his comments hark back to the European academies, not everyone tries to render their figures like Ingre. This is an impressionistic fantasy illustration, the guy is trying to create a mood, he isn’t taking the piss submitting this image.
Well i didn’t suggest he’s; “taking the piss”, neither did i judge the piece as a photo realistic masterpiece. To repeat again, the piece is … ok. its not great, its not that bad, its just ok. And when i look at the work, my instincts are instantly drawn to the areas that i feel stand out as immediately poor in quality. As a professional concept artist myself I do understand and appreciate work that is intentionally impressionistic in style.
There you have it then, if it’s ok why not let it have a place in the standard gallery with a lot of the other ok stuff. The artist might get some constructive feedback there, if he gets no feedback, he’ll get a constructive message, i.e. must improve. My point is it’s better than leaving him just plain confused.
It’s the nature of things that people tend not to go to such places very often on a large site like this. I think that you guys at the cgtalk have made an unnecessary issue of this or at least let it become one. Do what other sites do, let it all through aside from the most ridiculous (it’s not that fine a line) and anything that stands out as above average put it across the top row bit. Everyone is happy.
After reading your first post I would have not spent time replying to you because you totally missed the point of my question.
Anyway since you’re insisting posting in a thread you think it’s useless i must ask: since the piece is not a work in progress why should I post it in the thread you suggested? This is just a rhetoric question, I don’t need an answer back. Thanks
Yeah! I can always do the Clown in a circus if my path in art won’t go well
I agree about the fact of knowing the rules, that’s one of the reasons I made this post too. In fact from what I’ve read here from moderators I understood that hyper rendered images even if poor in composition, anatomy, etc. are showcased more easily. You do a poor piece, add tons of textures to it and life is easier for you. The fact is that I’m going in the opposite direction. I want to use brushes that leave their strokes and do not want to cover everything with photographic textures in all areas of the picture, like painting every blade of grass, bird’s feather and so on just to show I can copy a photo or recreate perfectly an object. For what I want to create mood is more important and what’s not painted in detail or not over rendered has been left this way to let the viewer interact with the piece and to help the flow of the piece.
Thank you again for your suggestions!
Thank you very much, this is exactly what I think. About the generic message I received I think that has been what frustrated me more. “try again in the future when you feel you have significantly surpassed your current level of skill and knowledge”
At first I thought: oh, maybe the level of skills to be included in the Showcase has been set higher than last time I posted to CGTalk but then I looked at the gallery and I didn’t resist writing this post in order to hear other artists and moderators opinion…
I am not suggesting you post this piece at this point in time in the WIP threads if you consider it done. It seems you have missed the point of my post, did you see who it was replying too and what they said?
I was suggesting to the other poster that there is a place on this site that lets anyone post anything to get constructive criticism.
And if you looked at the outcome of the 100 other threads exactly like this you would see it is useless, I did get the point of your question because it has been asked numerous other times just with a different image they are asking about. I was making light of the fact that it has been asked so many times and it is such pointless thing to care about.
Just let me say that if this happens frequently than it’s not so good for the website… having different tastes is a thing, but not being able to recognize the value of a piece because it’s not in the style you like is something different (I’m speaking generally, it’s not referred to you).
I don’t take it personally, but I would at least suggest to moderators to not write generic messages like “try again in the future when you feel you have significantly surpassed your current level of skill and knowledge” when it’s not the case.
Again, this is not intended to be polemic and I’m glad you spent time replying to my post, so please read it in a constructive way. Thank you.
I don’t know about past posts like this but I don’t think this post is useless, at least for me because I’ve understood something I ignored from moderators’s replies. And it can be useful to moderators too because almost everyone who replied here think the image should have been approved for the showcase. Of course they can ignore it all but as a forum leader I think it’s important to read people’s thought, and since they spent time replying to me I think they’re go the same opinion.
Interesting, I haven’t been paying super close attention but how many of these threads have popped up now that we know Leigh is not the sole judge anymore? Comments like “All of my other pieces have been accepted” is what got me thinking as such.
Sorry, I shouldn’t stir that pot.
I know it’s tough for me to try and go back and improve a piece once my mind has decided it’s done. I suppose you could just let it ride but it would be a good exercise to work on what people have suggested.
That’s actually not true. Both Leigh and I, as well as a few others who do the judging are HUGE fans of impressionistic work, and we often prefer more painterly pieces to ones that are rendered to death with all life snuffed out of them.
Just to cleared up this point. The rejection message you got is an obsolete version that should have not been used. It was taken out of context from a much longer rejection form letter by whoever the IT person is that’s maintaining the website and implemented into the judging panel as the default rejection form letter. I have already contacted the CGSociety staff about this and it should be swapped out soon (I hope).
The current version of the rejection form letter should be this one:
[B]* Your image currently does not meet the general quality level of the Showcase Gallery. The following are a list of possible reasons:
-There might be noticeable artistic or technical problems in your image.
-The context of your image may need a more creative presentation.
-The image might contain elements that could be offensive to some.
We suggest you post your work in the WIP forums so that other members can help critique your image and troubleshoot elements like composition, perspective, lighting/values, colors, anatomy/figure, as well as line quality, brushwork, modeling, textures, lighting…etc. They might also help you think of a more creative presentation, such as using a more interesting background for your subject, or choose more interesting camera angles, expressive poses and facial expressions.
Once you have spent some time improving your image, please feel free to submit it again, and we will be glad to reconsider your submission.[/B]
Just a suggestion since I know it’s possible. Add the ability for a judge to add a short comment to the rejection explaining what it was that resulted in it that would then be automatically forwarded to the submitter instead of a generic form letter that doesn’t really tell the person anything.
Even a short incomplete sentence would be better than a bot I would think.
That’s not realistic, because we have to go through tons of entries everyday, nonstop stream, 24 hours from all around the world. If we were to provide even a one-sentence critique, we would be spending too many hours of our free time doing it. It’s not just the typing of the sentence, but the critical thinking and useful artistic/technical advice, which requires the additional process to translate into words. That is why we ask the person to post the work in the WIP sections for critique. We have a focused critique section just for in-depth critiques. People ought to use it more often.
In case some of you haven’t noticed, ever since I started helping out with the judging, I’ve been proving in-depth critiques in the WIP sections just about everyday. I take precious hours out of my time to do it because I want give back to the community and help those who are less experienced and need guidance. When I was younger, I grew and improved as an artist because of the helpful critiques, feedback, and discussion from guys like Craig Mullins–he literally changed my life as an artist back then (when he was still socializing publicly). I’m just paying it forward in ways I know how.
This could be a real issue. The impressionistic stuff gets away with more because it uses clever brush tricks to make it look like a fine art painting (even non artists admire what a fine artist does suggesting a face with two flicks of a brush) yet what of the concept art that strives for the best outcome in a given time period and a cleaner look? Is a drybrushed smear more “cred” worthy than a more descriptive form done fast in linework?
I’d hate to see it devolve into two checkboxes for submission: “laborious photoreal illustration” or “impressionist”. This is where it gets hard for judges though, as sometimes it’s hard to tell if the person is being loose for “free artist reasons” or incapable of accuracy.
Accepting the art should never be about motivation, or what the artist was going for.
If it works it shouldn’t need a check box.
There are plenty of impressionist, loose paintings in the gallery. I’m not sure why this was rejected, but having the artist say it was meant to be loose wouldn’t (in my opinion) help its cause.
