Posting Your First Skin? *Read This*

I have seen countless times people who submit there first skin, get negative comments, and give up. I thought this was an important topic to discuss since it happens daily. This is not only about beginner skinners, but proper etiquette when commenting.

Criticism is how you improve. If we all praised you, but in reality the skin is horrible, what would you learn? Absolutely nothing. That aside, there's constructive criticism, and destructive criticism. (Constructive: is a compassionate attitude towards the person qualified for criticism. Having higher experience, gifts, respect, knowledge in specific field and being able to verbally convince at the same time.) *cough* Hawkwing (great example) *cough* (Destructive: is intended to harm someone, derogate and destroy someone’s creation, prestige, reputation and self-esteem on whatever level it might be. This may be done intentionally or out of sheer ignorance and foolishness.)

That said, destructive criticism I constantly see. Someone for example, will say the skins good, but not my style. Is that not how you rate or criticize something, on how good it is? The other thing I hate, is when someone says this just plain sucks. How can someone take your advice if you do not offer any? If your going to take the time and effort to actually look at the skins, give positive and negative points, and how to actually IMPROVE it. That is the difference between constructive and destructive, you want the person to improve in constructive, while in destructive you are determined for the person to fail. Back to the topic of beginner skinners out there....

Skinning, like in everything else, you gradually get better, and you do that by listening to constructive criticism, and looking at tutorials. Remember the comments aren't there to discourage you, but rather help you improve. Some people are artistic, and can whip out skins, and you say holy crap. For the rest of us its like Misha's sig says, you have to work hard, and instead of simply defending your skin, constantly improve it. You can only get better through practice, do not simply give up, because you never know, you could have hidden potential. Side Note: I highly recommend Hawkwing's Tutorial, for those skinners just starting out. And I'll say this last thing, I am far from a pro as it come's to critiquing, all skins I have posted have failed miserably. That said, I hope this is helpful for some, and not think of it as rant by some lunatic. ;)

By giving criticism you are helping them. For example; "This is a recolour". That means do freehand, and I think that's quite obvious. It's not to hurt their feelings, it's to help them improve.

Sounds like you are emo crying from experience. JK, lol. This is a pretty useful post and I hope some people that give shitty criticism will look at it, as well as people who have gotten shitty criticism. But quite frankly anyone who just gives up because someone said it sucks is a l00z3er.

My very first "skins" were retarded, and I put no effort into them, and although I didn't just recolor them, I went over them in another color which basically looked like recoloring, just done the hard way.

I didn't really learn by tutorials (same with terraining...) I just picked it up after messing around in photoshop.

Well there is my semi-related post.