Three Ways to Find out What People Really Think of Your Art
Posted: Wednesday, August 22, 2007

The dolling community is uniquely supportive and encouraging. I'm not trying to imply that the people who give comments on pixel art forums don't mean it when they give compliments. But, since we try to be an encouraging, inclusive community, we can tend to sugar-coat comments and exaggerate praise. Everyone loves getting nice comments on something they've worked hard on, after all.

When you want to improve and don't know how, it can seem like the nice comments don't help, but they actually are very helpful, if you know how to read them right. After reading this article you'll be better able to understand just how much people really like your pixel art in comparison to other people's pixel art.

Read your comments, carefully
With every comment, there's a chance to read between the lines.

Think back to the last time when you posted a doll or pixel on your favorite pixel art forum.
You finish your masterpiece, upload it somewhere, post your thread, and the comments pour in (or trickle).
“Cute Doll,” someone says, “I like the way you shaded the hair.”

Just because a comment is short doesn't mean that it's not full of information.  Sometimes a person will post unhelpful, generic comments, but this isn't the norm. People on pixel art forums are usually very helpful and honest. But they are also very polite, choosing not to say anything when they can't say something nice with sincerity. So, they won't say “I like the way you shaded the hair, but I totally hate the way you shaded the skirt ”, but they also won't say that they like the way you shaded the skirt if they don't. So you have to read between the lines.

How can you read between the lines in these comments? Well, one good way is to look at who is making the comment, by looking up their latest posts and comparing the comments that they've recently made.

Look at the type of doll or pixel art that they usually comment on. People will usually only comment on things that they like, since it's easier to say something nice about it. What similarities do these pieces have to the one that you posted? Are they all very good? Very minimal? Very shiny? Find the similarities, and think about whether or not that's what you're going for.

Using this method, you may find that there are not many similarities between the pieces that the person comments on. That's OK. Sometimes a person will just comment on everything within a certain timeframe, and you might find a wide range of styles and levels of artistic aptitude. So you should look at what they say about all of the dolls and compare that with what they said about your's. If they often say that they enjoy a person's shading, but they don't mention your shading, than this might be a clue to watch other people's comments on your shading.

Ask for constructive criticism, a lot
People on dolling forums really don't want to appear harsh or mean, and no one likes giving Constructive Criticism that is not appreciated, so a lot of dollers will go easy on the C&C.

If you ask for Constructive Criticism then try to make sure that you follow all of these procedures to show that you're really open to C&C, so you'll get more of it:

• Correctly label your thread. Make sure that your thread uses the CC tag, if the pixel art forum that you're on provides it. There might be an artist who feels like giving Constructive Crits and only clicking on the threads that are correctly labeled.
• Ask for Constructive Criticism in the thread where you post the pixel, even if you use the C&C tag. Not everybody checks the C&C tag, or they might be worried that you used it by mistake.
• Thank your Critics. When someone gives you C&C, thank them, and try to write a thoughtful response to what they say, since they took the time to write thoughtful Constructive Criticism for you. Thanking the first person to give you CC also shows people who read your thread after that that you really are responsive to Constructive Criticism, and you won't get mad at them just for stating their opinions.
• Give C&C. This doesn't always mean that the person will C&C you back, but it can't hurt. Plus practicing giving comments and crits will give you some more insight into how you can improve your own work, as well as how you can read between the lines in other people's crits. Think about what you're not saying, what you're sugar coating, or why the doll does or doesn't appeal to you.

Count your comments, and your clicks
The number of comments that people leave on your pixel art threads can be as helpful of an indicator of your improvment as the content of those comments.

Do you remember the saying, “If you don't have something nice to say, don't say a thing.”? Chances are that you defiantly do.  Well, this old wooden spoon gets taken to heart on most pixel art forums, and people with nothing nice to say usually leave your thread without making a comment.

But this isn't bad news, it's another opportunity to compare your art against other people's, as well as your own older stuff.

You should not expect every viewer to leave a comment, and sometimes people view a thread twice or more before making a comment, so it's not realistic to expect a 1:1 ratio of views to comments, but a higher ratio of comments to views often indicates that people like your art more.

You can compare the ratio of views to comments on your thread to the same ratio on threads featuring art that you admire and see how it stacks up. You can also do the same with your own older threads, if you have any, to see if your appeal is improving.

Anything that you do to discourage comments means less comments. For example, telling people not to mention the anatomy because you're done with the doll, or specifying that you only want nice comments are ways to scare off potential comment-writers. You may be scaring off people who would have left nice comments, but are worried that you are super-easy to offend.

Even if you have a great piece of pixel art, not everyone is going to comment, even if they really like it. Here's another way to measure whether or not people like your newest work or not where they don't even have to comment: Put a link in your post to your homepage, indicating that if someone likes the pixel, they can see your newest ones here, or make the doll itself clickable. Using this method, you can count the clicks coming in from the forum by using your logging/hit counting software, to see who's interested in seeing more of your work. Usually people don't click on links that they know they'll hate, so counting these clicks is like counting votes for 'I like it'.

Take two of my bases that I shared with the dolling community at Eden Enchanted, for example. 
Kiki's and Starchild's thread showed the base as a clickable image that lead to my site.

When I posted my Kiki Base, I got about 20 hits from Eden Enchanted, the first day, and it went down from there, until I had 101 by the end of the month. 
When I posted my Starchild base, however, I got 100 hits from the same site in the first day, giving 279 by the end of that month.

I'm pretty sure that Starchild is nicer than Kiki, but

That's it!

By mastering these three methods, you'll never be in the dark about what people really think of your work, because they've been trying to tell you all along.

Read their comments carefully to see what they don't say, and compare their comments on your work to their comments on other work. This way you'll learn to read between the lines, and find out things that are wrong with your doll that might otherwise not be mentioned.

Aggressively solicit Constructive Criticism, because people want to give it, and know how to give it, but they hold back because they don't want to offend you. Well thought-out CC from a good artist is the very best way to improve.

Count your comments and clicks, and compare the ratios of views to comments on your latest thread to your older threads, and the threads of some art that you admire. This way you can tell how many people like your art.

If you try to use these methods suspiciously, thinking the worst of people, and trying to grasp at anything they might be hiding from you, then you will find negativity that's not really there.
If you try to use them to affirm that you're not as good as the most popular dollmakers, then you'll only make yourself depressed.

In order to improve, you have to want to. These methods are meant to give you another tool in your dolling kit that you can use to make yourself a better pixel artist, but they're only a way to measure what people think of your art. And good art doesn't always have to be popular. At the end of the day, you have to believe in it.

Good luck, and have fun dolling!