How do you break it to someone that they’re just not good enough?

Artists realize it sooner or later, no need to say anything.

I have a degree in animation, and I see college as not advertised correctly. By the time you are in college you should be able to draw. You are around 18-20 years old. The basics should be learned already. College is to further your education. Now in college there were lots of kids who couldn't draw a circle and they soon enough got left behind. Most dropped out after spending a TON of money. Most couldn't take critiques at all. Anything less than "that was awesome" was seen as an attack. But everyone knew. Specially if an instructor said not to draw "anime style"... Those were fighting words. But they weren't really fooling anyone. The instructors knew, the Dean knew, everyone. The classes soon divided to those that did good work and those that were just there.

My biggest problem is college recruiters themselves lie to kids for loan money. They string them along for a year, maybe two, giving them courtesy C's so they pass and take the next set of classes. They should have set them aside and explained this is beyond their ability right now.

Finally, here is the really bad part. Of my graduation class of about 15 people, none do art anymore. They all moved on to other stuff. After spending 200k+ on an animation degree. So I'm pretty down on how colleges act and aren't honest with students.

Wait your college didn't have an aptitude test before you were allowed to roll into the course?

I also have a degree in animation and the college I attended wouldn't even allow you to enroll before you demonstrated you at the very least had the basics of drawing already (as well as a certain level of learning skills). Iirc more than half the group I did the test with was flat out rejected.

They did but it was pretty basic. You had to bring in a portfolio and show it. But you can cheat on that far too easy, specially in digital. The proof comes out in your first life drawing class.

Heh, it's always those things about ourselves that are extremely obvious to anyone who's met us that are hardest to see about ourselves.

My day job is military intelligence analysis, and I can tell you that 70% of the guys I trained with weren't capable of doing it in more than a rote or basic capacity. A third of those couldn't analyze their way out of their own museum, if you take my meaning. Fortunately, after their initial contract, none of those people who were unsuited continued to do it, they all found some other career specialty.

Art school can be similar, although it's a pricey way of doing it. When I went to college for an art degree (before the military), the main thing I learned was that I lacked both the technical and social skills to hack it as an artist professionally. It took me the full 4 years to come to terms with it, despite it being immediately obvious in our first critique that the students who had a parent or relative in the industry already were way more skilled and capable. There were other students in my boat as well, though I don't know whether they saw the writing on the wall the way I did (a couple of them I know did not!). I worked my tail off to try to catch up, but I honestly didn't succeed.

If I'd had the technical and social skills I have now (10+ years later), perhaps I could have been successful at it. Ah, well.

All that is to say that eventually we figure it out and find some other career (I'm great at my day job, wish I'd known it was a career field when I was in HS/college) more suitable, or else keep failing at it for ages like Tom Preston. The first category will hear your critique, the second won't listen. Either way, it is painful.

It has been remarkably difficult to get good critiques online. I know my work isn't yet where I want it to be, and I'm past the point where well-known solutions and basic analysis can get me on my own.

I remember someone 5 years junior to me who I tried to let down gently like that. It didn't work, and they managed to make a real wreck out of their life in the process. It was hard to watch.

Usually the people who ask me are looking to enter my old school straight out of highschool, so they're 16-18 mostly (I got told I wasn't up to par at 16, worked hard and got in at 17 having substantially upped my game).

Meanwhile I graduated in 2021 so they're nearly 10 years my junior at this point and I no longer have any direct ties to the school, even the teachers I still have contact with left for better pay in video game studios (to give an idea of how bad the pay at that school was). I've not had anyone fully go off the rails yet to my knowledge because a lot of them are still with their parents and have help, or they can do what I did and keep practicing through the last years of highschool and get good enough. I have however seen a couple of older people in the "you're not really that good" category go completely off the rails for minor criticism of one drawing (that they asked for explicitly) because they felt they were being unfairly judged for not having gone to artschool (also going on a weird rant about "being discriminated for not being a queer woman who went to artschool" specifically for one of them, because he believed that only queer women who went to artschool get comic book deals these days), rather than not having basic understanding of 3D shapes... Which they didn't... And was the topic of the criticism.

Honestly, unless a person specifically is asking for feedback or you're in a position where you are required to give feedback (teacher, judge, etc.) - keep your mouth shut. And if you do give feedback, it should be in a positive way that will help them improve. For everything else, don't spend your time or income on it.

I say this because 9 times out of 10, when people are wanting to show off their "art", they are looking for support. They might dance because it makes them happy. They may sing because it's how they worship or they enjoy the community that comes with singing in a choir. Everyone has a different reason for wanting to be creative, but as soon as someone tells them that they're not good enough - they'll stop doing it.

I've seen this happen a lot in my daily life. I stopped drawing for a few years because I showed a portrait I was really proud of to an art girl, who then proceeded to critique/criticize my work. Heck! I was at a networking event the other day and a guy started to criticize the examples I was using to show how a digital art tool worked to newer/inexperienced artists. I wasn't asking for critiques, I was just showing off some of my work.

Art is really subjective. I don't see a point in ruining someone else's happiness because I personally don't like a piece. I find it better to keep my opinions to myself.

Why would you even have to tell someone they aren't good enough unless you are trying to hire them for a job.

There are a lot of people who aren't good enough to be professional but should have to freedom to be creative. That's how a lot of people get better and get to a pro status, they practice and keep at it. But there are people who just like the joy of creating stuff.

This is something artists downplay because a paining is supposed to be above something as pedestrian as carpentry, but both fields of education are teaching a trade. In fine arts that trade is selling tax evasion methods for rich people.

This.

My local art school, (NSCAD) used to require a portfolio and I assume they still do. Not to show how well you could draw something, but to show how willing and able you are to try and make all sorts of art. Obviously because one of those art forms could eventually make them a living.

I will say, if kids think "anime style" is unwelcome now, their application would have been binned immediately back in the day no matter how nice their watercolour of a big tiddy anime girl was.

In fine arts that trade is selling tax evasion methods for rich people.

Realizing that was what made me give up the art career goal!

I'm only half joking about this, but you wrote a really long post with hypothetical scenarios and imagined backstories about a video maker you don't seem to know personally. And then went on a diatribe about "art schooling", which you seem to have not personally experienced. All that text to...I guess ask if and how we would tell someone if their skills suck? I wouldn't have pointed this out in any other post, but since the title is what it is...I'm wondering how to break it to you that you should be more succinct in the point of your discussion

On to the topic of discussion - If they ask me directly, then I will be honest about it, and provide my advice on how I think it can be improved, or if it's in a skill I'm not well-versed in, provide my critique clearly on specific parts that I think looks/sounds bad to me. Maybe it's because I've attended many art critique sessions where it's always made a point that a good critique is one that is specific and clear, highlighting parts of the art piece, and I personally do not find this critique exercise very hard. And I've used this principle in every critique I give out in both art and non-art related discord servers without having experienced any big grief or drama from the artist.

There's no "agonizing" on my part either as I just use the base minimum politeness of no insults or mocking. I guess the most I do to try to avoid hurt feelings is that I try to find some part of the piece that I like and also point it out to them as a compliment, but this isn't really me trying to avoid hurt feelings so much as I feel it is also important to point out the good parts as much as the bad parts. I think it gives them "guidance" on what their strengths are and can build upon them. If they are not aware of their current strengths, there is a good possibility that they might end up leaving it behind.

Obviously, if the critiques handed out are just a very vague "this looks bad", then no matter how polite you deliver that sentiment, it is not productive at all, dare I say it's a waste of time for you and the person asking for the critique. On the other hand, if the critique is clear and specific, then the base minimum amount of politeness is all that's needed.

It would be like going to college to learn to read then using that skill of reading to learn your major. It's a lot easier if you show up knowing how to read.