Hello, I am not sure if I am even qualified to talk about this, but this thing has been edging me for a while until I saw a video made by a Youtube artist talking about how sometimes critiques are not useful here.
I want to point out the trend that I interpret as : the more critiques you get the more useful it is for you. I do not agree with this action. This is an opinion coming from someone who is not brand new in this 'creative' world, you can always choose to disagree.
Being late in this whole digital art trend, when I started out as a newborn fawn, I did not even post my work online. Heck, I did not even show my work to other people. I was ignorantly, happily, thinking that my work consist of beautiful women and that it is very pretty. This happy ignorance pushed me on and on to keep continuing. No feedback = no chance of negative things = keep doing = get better and better. EVEN if I did get critiques down the road for my work, it was in a professional setting (Like school and workplace). It NEVER came from online. But here I am looking at many people seeking 'criticisms' in hopes to improve their work. And you know what? Those that did give those criticisms may not even necessarily be qualified for it. And don't tell me because they have more subs because subs does not give validity in this case. Why are you torturing yourselves?
You see, when you are starting out, what you need the most is actually the willpower to push on. And where do you get that from? The ignorant belief that you are really good in your work! AKA CONFIDENCE. Anybody who is starting out needs to feel this positivity so that you can keep pushing on and on.
Because do you know what is worse than a person who did not listen to people's feedbacks? IF you seek more feedbacks online, you have a higher chance of getting negative ones. Being a newbie, you have not yet developed a protection ego to protect yourself. This case can potentially lead to one terrible result : Stopping the whole thing altogether. 'Well, i just started out. i must of sucked, so i guess there is no point continuing anymore'. This is the worse.
Humans are not robot and nobody likes to be looked down on. Remember babies? Did anybody criticize them when they are starting to walk because it sucked? Of course not. It was the norm to praise so that they can keep continuing. Fortunately babies cannot talk but can you imagine what if would be if they talked? 'mummy, am i walking correct? not correct? no?' Hopefully this does not lead to micromanagement where mum say 'no, you must put left leg first then right leg, cannot be wobbly.' Doesn't that sound strange? So how come this concept has changed when we become older? Do give yourself time to experiment.
Even when you build up foundation and your own pride, one of the best critique is you yourself. Your eyes naturally develop to see how your drawing wasn't that great before. Although I am not considered very experienced, I have my fair share of receiving BS criticisms from qualified adults and I have to tell you that sometimes people simply do not have the reasoning to give you a true correct critique because they don't understand, or they have a different way of doing things, or they just dislike your style.
I think a common mistake is for someone to keep thinking that their work is not enough and thus they should get more feedback from other people to improve. The only answer here is to just quietly sit down and do your work. if you keep asking people to put more salt, you can end up not knowing what you are doing.
Remember, good performance requires confidence. Confidence pushes progress. Progress gives you improvement.
Edit : It is not that i think criticisms are bad, but that learning takes place in a more appropriate setting where the good criticisms (OR rather, i call it instructions) is being imparted by someone who knows how to help you improve without crushing your soul.
I do not merely improve by keeping my work hidden, but get my biggest learning from my art teacher who knows how to impart that knowledge. However, i personally feel the internet is not a good place to get the said learning where you get exposed on all sides when you are not even confident nor know what you seek as your artist style/direction.
Oh, I shall put in advertisement in hopes i get rewarded for writing this article. My comic.