"An actual art student"
Cool, I'm one too. Learning Graphic Design right now. In case I didn't mention it, I took all of the criticisms that would help in what were doing and added them to a list to work on.
Well, as an art student, it's very important to listen to all criticism and critiques, no matter how harsh it is. One of the best critiques I ever gotten was when someone trashed my webcomic I did three years ago. Like, absolutely trashed it. I remember tearing up a little bit because I put in two years worth of work into that. I spent days in my room working on pages and I missed out on events with family and friends. I even spent money on advertisement. It was very painful, especially when I received more critiques like that very harsh review I got. I took the advice to heart and continued to work on the comic anyways.
I wanted to improve it. I wanted it to get better. And it did...kinda.
As I went on...I realized the reviewer was right. A lot of the complaints was that the story didn't make any sense, the characters were terrible people (AND THEY WERE!), and I couldn't draw backgrounds. And it was true. And I knew it was true. I didn't spend enough time developing the world, I didn't know how to differentiate my characters from each other, and I used close up shots of my characters to avoid backgrounds.
A year after getting that critique, I ended up axing the comic to practice drawing and develop my writing skills. And I'm glad that I did. My work has improved tremendously, and I'm confident in my storytelling and art skills now.
Even though I'm better than I was then, I still actively ask for critiques from my peers and teachers. Another good piece of advice I got from teachers was that my poses were too stiff and I wasn't expressing myself enough through my art (as an animation student, this is important). Instead of complaining about it, I decided to change
For reference, here's are some old comic pages compared to the illustrations I'm doing now. I still plan on rebooting the comic but I set it aside because I still need to practice art, writing, and etc. I am working on other short stories though.
So, yeah. I'm not at the quality where I want to be now, but I improved so much from listening to what others have to say, even if it hurts my feelings. Even today, I still feel awful when I work hard on something and a teacher tells me that it's bad. Because at the end of the crit, they tell me they I can do better than what I turn in. They see my potential, it's just up to me if I want to reach it.
I mean, if you want to stay stagnate, go ahead. I don't want to see anyone FAIL AND NEVER GET BACK UP, trust me. But it's a good idea to step back and look at what you're doing. It's for the best, even if you don't realize it now.
