I really don't know many artists who don't appreciate receiving comments about their work. Feedback has always been the base from where artists can improve and step to the next level. It has been like that with me, and I can only thank the community for that.

On the other hand, very few people actually post comments, and even fewer of those comments could be considered constructive enough to help the artists in any way. Most of the (few) comments posted are not descriptive enough to be helpful. I assume 90% of people post comments because they liked the piece, and 5% because they want to complain about something on it. The remaining 5% comment on something completely unrelated to the artwork.

In my experience at dA, an average of 3% of people who see my deviations post comments. It is also interesting to note that only 10% of the people who +watch me ever see anything I post in my gallery. They are notified, but they just delete the notifications instead of checking what's new. Some of them told me they do this because they are watching more people than they can handle. They get overwhelmed by the notifications and just delete them all. Go figure.

That is actually the reason why I decided to never +watch more than 100 people at once. I am currently +watching 95 people, but I sometimes delete artists who are no longer active or something else. This guarantees I will always be able to keep up with the artists I admire. It may be tough to decide sometimes, but if I find somebody else I want to watch, I will probably have to delete somebody else - but that is a necessary evil.

Some artists I +watch have great talent, skills, and technique, but one common reason why I pick them for deletion from my watch list is that they keep posting alike art over and over again. I easily get tired of artists who always post the same things. Variety is important to me, and I have been putting special effort to add diversity to my own gallery for many years now.

As a matter of fact, I have been posting less comments on galleries I consider repetitive. It's like "aw gawd, more of the same again" feeling, and my mind goes blank when it's time to comment. I would just say the same I already said before, and I am sure that kind of comment would not be either constructive or helpful to the artist.

I also prefer NOT to comment on art if I see blatant issues I don't like about it. If I have nothing positive to say, I better not say anything. I come from the assumption that artists are extra-sensitive people and they will not respond well to purely negative comments. If I make an effort to find something good to say but find nothing, I just skip it, supposedly saving the artist from getting discouraged.

The MOST important thing I have in mind when I post any comments is to find the positive things about the piece. If I find issues at some point, I will first comment on the positive side, add the negative issues in a friendly manner, and then (if possible) end with another positive thing. This is what I call the PNP (positive-negative-positive) way of commenting, always ending with a positive. There is little chance this would ever discourage an artist. ^____^

Now when it comes to receiving comments, it can be hard sometimes when we get entirely negative comments from people, especially when it is always the same people who post them. There are ways to be negative (if you must) without feeling like you are attacking the artist with words. Some examples of common hurtful comments are:

- "Jeez, her face creeps me out, I will have nightmares tonight."
- "The pose is totally unrealistic, you have no sense of balance."
- "The animation is unrealistic, I am sure you can do better than that."

In those examples, the words are personally attacking the artist instead of commenting their art. I would rather refrain from commenting than to launch attacks against the artist. Nonetheless I have witnessed some quite cruel people here at dA, who repetitively come back for more hurtful attacks whenever they comment. These are the same people who claim we shouldn't post our art publicly if we can't stand being criticized. Aw well...

  The most common and notorious kind of comments are no longer than 4 letters (cute, nice, good, etc), and usually are meant to show appreciation for the piece, but add no constructive contents to it. Of course it is always great to receive comments, but even better would be to know what or why people liked it. In most cases they wouldn't know why or what anyways. Art is a very subjective thing and there is no specific (or scientific) reason why people like or hate something.

One curious kind of comment is when the person actually says nothing about the art itself, and instead comments on the title, the picture frame or the description text under it. Like I said, art is indeed very subjective, but this kind of comment is completely ignoring the art piece being exposed. It's like standing in front of the painting of Mona Lisa and commenting on the color of the wall behind it. You get the point.

Perhaps one of the most annoying kind of comment is when the artist had some technical problem with a piece in particular and had to leave alone something that could not be fixed for some reason. Some people are not good with drawing hands or perspective. And then there comes someone and puts their finger right where it hurts, pointing out that little thing you couldn't fix. Happens to me all the time, usually about something that is particular to limitations of the tools I use.

For example, Poser renders tend to produce aliasing artifacts (jagged edges), and Poser figures can produce unrealistic shoulder/hip deformations when posed. I later try to fix those in postwork, but that can do more damage than benefit. I know those are Poser limitations and I have to live with them. Last thing I need is people pointing them out, as if I didn't know them already. Most people are unfamiliar with the 3D tools I use, so it's probably unreasonable to expect them to know of such things.

For every tool people use to create their artwork, they might have their own limitations, like the ones I mentioned here, so I bet some of you will identify some of those painful comments we get sometimes that we have to live with. And after a few years of field experience, sometimes we find ways to overcome such limitations, or sometimes we find better ways of disguising them. Nonetheless, the occasional comments pointing them out are still a pain in the neck.

More recently I noticed there has been less and less meaningful comments posted on my gallery, and I wonder if that may be a sign that I might be doing something wrong. If on one hand I don't feel like commenting on artists who get repetitive with their art, there is also a chance that people who +watch me don't like me adding so much of variety all the time. Who knows?

One thing is for sure: the most depressing thing is when nobody comments a deviation. That is probably the lowest point on the artist's development, and I am sure they would appreciate ANY kinds of comments, except perhaps for the negative ones because they are already down enough as they are. Comments can either make or break an artist, and we know an artist is successful when they get a lot of page hits and comments.

It seems to me that feedback is essential to artists, even though some may deny it. But the ones who typically deny it are usually the ones who get a lot of feedback, and it is pretty much typical of human nature to only appreciate what we do NOT have.

So of course the ones who need more feedback are the ones who don't get any, and that is a major reason why I don't comment much on artists who are already hugely successful. They get so much feedback that I doubt they even have the time to read it - so why bother? Commenting on the works of the less accomplished artists makes more sense to me because at least it will have some impact after all.

But of course, this is just my personal opinion based on my personal experience. ^___^