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Got told my digital paintings looked "too much like photos" and it stung at first
A guy in a critique group told me my portraits were technically good but had no soul. Said I relied too much on photo reference and didn't push colors enough. I was mad for a week but then I started looking at my work next to the reference photos and yeah, he was right. So I started doing studies where I limit myself to 3 colors and try to capture the mood instead of the exact match. It's been 4 months now and my style finally looks like mine. Has anyone else gotten feedback that felt like an insult but turned out to be a gift?
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taylorcarr22d ago
Oh great, so you're telling me I wasted four years of my life obsessing over perfect skin texture and lighting just to get called out by one guy with a color wheel. Classic. It's like getting told your favorite sweater actually makes you look like a potato but then realizing potatoes are versatile and delicious. I had a similar moment when someone told me my digital art looked like I just ran a photoshop filter over a photo. Felt like getting slapped with a wet paintbrush for a solid month. Then I actually tried manually painting without tracing or color picking and surprise surprise, my stuff started looking like a human made it instead of a printer with anxiety. Sometimes the harshest feedback is just someone handing you a mirror while you're not ready to look.
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wells.morgan22d ago
Color wheel guy" is gonna live rent free in my head for a while now. Brutal but probably true.
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