You guys need some follow-thru. I would totally participate in that!

the group thayne is referring to was called.

Captain Critique and the amazing review crew

it was started around when the site was about one year old and people started saying they did not get enough comments and a thread like this was started.

the basic idea was that when a member of the group would post a picture all the other members of the group promised to comment. well it started off good. the first 2 images that were posted got comments from all the members of the group.

then they started to petter off, and the members said that it was too much work and they couldn't keep up to the posting of some members. a couple said that it wasn't fair because they posted 1 or 2 images per month and some people posted 5 or 6 images.

in the end it ended up being only 2 or 3 people commenting out of 12. then it just went away since it was obviously not working as we can not make people post comments if they do not want to.

Suck it Marshal!!!!!!!

hey, What the hell?

Hey Marsha... what you wearing?

Who's Marsha? I wrote Marshal. Here is a comment for you... Ya bunch of "not able to read" hacks. But you can still suck it... Marsha.

Hey, WTF?!?!?!?!?!

Hey Marshal... what you wearing?

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Yeah I remember that. I signed up but was never told whether or not I was accepted. The bottom line here is that like many fanart sites, people have their favorites who they always comment on either because of friendship or the fact that the artwork is so good you can't help but say something. Don't get discouraged about it and don't let it stop you from posting your work. I'll admit that it's always nice to have someone comment on your work, but to be honest HM has gotten so big with so many different genre of art and so many different posts per day that it's almost impossible to keep up with both new posts and old. Here's a tip though: The fanbase here is at least 95% male! What catches a man's attention more than perhaps sports and money? HOT BABES!! Now you take that info and use it however you want!

I need to apologize to people for some of the comments I have made, mostly in the Adult Gallery. It has been pointed out to me that when I state that a piece of art is "not my thing" (even though it is only my opinion) that it can have a negative effect on the artist. That was not my intent and I will refrain from that type of comment from now on.

I have tried lately to comment on as many of the posted images as I can and in doing so I may have made some comments that bother or offend some of the people. If this is the case I am truely sorry.

I enjoy looking at all of the posted images including those in the Members Gallery. Some of the best artist post their work in that gallery and even though I may be a little bit of a prude when it comes to some subjects I will not impose that on anyone else anymore.

Once again I am sorry for the "not my thing" comments on anybody's art.

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actually, I would like to continue this conversation further.
Personally I think that any comment as long as it isn't someone being insulting or just being an ass is perfectly fine and acceptable. I can't see BHM1954 doing either of those things. In fact I would encourage him and it. "excellent image, I just find the content not to my taste". I can't see how that is damaging.

HM has been getting less and less people actively commenting on images year after year. We have been getting more and more active members over the years and less and less comments on images. there was a time were it wasn't uncommon to post a image and less then a day later have 10 comments on the picture before you had to "comment whore" no it seem that you are lucky to get more then 3 comments and it is extremely rare to get more then 5. Part of the problem are a few assholes that have been here over the years. Some artists really do think they are gods gift to the world and everything they do is perfect, so when they hear otherwise they freak out. These are the minority. I say that those that say they want to get critiques ussually also say they want to give critiques. I say start doing it. Send any complaints to me via PM if you don't like it. if you critique and ass and they blast you in a PM, please tell me, I'll take care of them, in my own special way (play banjo deliverance music here). because I would rather have the majority of the site free to comment without fear from the ego-maniacs attacking you. the qualifications to give a critique is having a pair of eyes that can see. Part of making comments is about improving the community as a whole. bringing us together as a group. Just because a person might not like the content of the image doesn't mean his comments on the other factors of the image do not mean anything. now remember the proper way to critique a work is to tell the artist both the possitive and the negative but when you tell the negative do so in a possitive way. tell a persona that their image sucks ass because it is dark. isn't possitive. but telling someone that the lighting is off on a 3d image and because of the amount of darkness and the inability to see the central figure it would be greatly improved it would enhance the image. is very different.

I get good and bad comments all the time. I have a number of people here and at other sites that downright hate me to the core of my being and actively seek me out to make bad comments on my stuff. When they are here, if they are just the weird personal attacks I just delete them and the user, on other sites depending on the site I will not approve the comment or get an admin to remove it. if a comment on your art is so bad that it makes your blood boil PM a mod to have them remove it, if it is extremely bad, the user will also be dealt with. no one here should have to put up with attacks from asses (unless the ass is a mod, then whadda do?)

time is another main concern, I know as time passes I seem to have less and less time to spend on the pc and computer in general. others are also in the same boat. but you would think that now that we have well over 5000 members we would get more comments on the images then when we only had 250 members but the opposite is true.

what does everyone else think?

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I have to agree with 'Hawk when He states that not too many people are posting comments anymore. I also agree ( and then some!) on His comment on not having all that much time anymore. (teaching sunday school, dating Judy, helping Her with Joey, work, etc.) I try to comment on different mediums ( 3-d, 2-d, etc ) when I can. And I do stop by at least once a day to see what's new around here.

But, I do want to take a minute and reply to something that Chillyplasma said earlier in this thread:

"One thing I don't like seeing is criticism (constructive or otherwise) from people who have not put in the effort to create and post their own stuff. Their criticism/opinion might be valid but it just seems rude."

I am not an artist. I have all the skills of a Venusian Loony (Fireball XL-5) when it come to a place like this. On the other hand, I'm da*n good in the kitchen...I always end up getting 'volunteered' at church for bake sales. It got to a point where I took myself 'out of here', because I felt I was not really contributing to Heromorph. After a couple of months, I sent BikerBot a notice about coming back...He told me that I WAS a contributer...artists need someone with the "Non-Artistic" eye to look at a work of art, and give it an honest apprasial. So, let me ask this question to one and all: How can do I do anymore to help out this website? I'm going to try and become a finanncial contributer very soon...I've reviewed a lot of artwork here...and I thought I was posting helpful critiques.

Is there anything else I can do?

I don't know.

Just keep going, and hope to be here when we hit the 10th year party. ( Maybe by that time me and Judy will have made it legal...)

This is an interesting subject and I for one, agree with what is said before...
Comments bad or good are what make us, wanna be artist or part-time art improve, sometimes we think something is finished and we post and then someone says "It's good but..." and we go back and look at that piece again through that person eyes and try to fix it.
bhm is one of the persons here I admire and speaking for myself, most of you know that I'm not an expert and only started doing manips or any other digital art about a year ago with no previous knowlegde of any computer program so my early pieces were mostly crap ( I still think a lot of them are even now...), and for those beginners like I was, bhm comments sometimes made all the diference about forgeting the all thing or try again and again. I like almost all kind of art we have here ( Manips, Drawings, 3D, fan fiction) and I like to spend some time leaving a comment to the artist since he/she spend some time doing it. I think it's only fair...
As for people might get offended by some comments, I can only understand if it's a personal attack to the artist itself not if it's a constructive criticism...
Personally, I like comments on my work, good or bad. The only comments I don't like are when someone makes a comment on any of my images that have nothing to do with it.
Other thing I noticed: we are mainly an english speaking site but we have grown so much more than that in the present days and we have a lot of people here enjoying this place from all over the world. I know from experience that some of these people don't comment because their knowledge of english is very little, to those I say: don't be afraid of commenting in your own language if you like something... It will be nice if commenting in both languanges : their own and english too but Babelfish exists for something...
I know there are already some members doing that when they know we can understand them or when they comment on a fellow from their own country... so, don't stop and at least on my stuff feel free to do it too.
As for the non-artist of the site, I'd like to say to them: You're a very important part of Heromorph as it's your comments in the forum, on the images and so on that let us know that we are doing something good and sometimes it's one comment from one of the non-artist that gives us the inspiratition we lack to finish something or gives us an idea for something. So, don't think you're not part of the site or that you guys are not important because that's wrong.
Now...speaking as someone who like to comment on others works, I like to leave a nice comment, sometimes I like to say a lot more than "Awesome work" and I don't do that because I lack words to proper praise some masterpieces but I think the artists can understand that. Sometimes I have a critic to say, even write it in the comment but erase when posting, I do that mostly because I only give a critic when I know the person can take it and understand it as a constructive criticism and that I'm trying to help... If I don't know the person then a "Great job!" will be enough and sometimes makes all the difference to the artist.
If like bhm said some art is really awesome but the subject of it is something I don't like much, I leave a good job and that's it.
Of course, I know we have prima-donas here as most artist are but I also know a few of them and I also know they are not so bad as they want us to think.
Basically what I want to say to all is: YOU (yes, YOU!) are an important part of this site and we appreciatte having you around.

As one of the assholes I think I sould give a different opinion.
I think Winterhawk's points are totally valid, but I don't think it's the way to go.


BHM, wanting to comment is good, but don't comment for the sake of commenting. Dragondack is someone who comments on everything, and as a result a comment from DD is not special, you know he is just chasing a high post count. You could post a piece of garbage and sooner or later a comment will appear from DD, with a graphic and emoticon.
The ironic thing is that every so often, maybe once every couple of hundred messages, DD will post something insightful on an image. But because all his other posts are throwaway comments his decent comment will probably be overlooked.
The thing that gives me a buzz is the comment from someone that rarely posts. To me it's worth a bit more.

As for the 'not my thing' it seems a bit weird. It's like going into a chick-flick movie then standing up and announcing to the whole audience 'I really like the cinematography, but chick-flicks aren't my thing!' You just wouldn't do it.
So yeah, don't beat yourself up over commenting or not commenting... a lot of my pics haven't been getting many comments lately, but the hit counts are good so I know people are enjoying them (maybe not, but they're looking).

As for WH's comment about giving a critique I still disagree. I once got a comment that the skirt I painted looked wrong. This really got me pissed because 1) I had spent almost an hour on that skirt, 2) the skirt was based on a real skirt so I knew it looked right and 3) this person has never made their own images so they don't understand the effort put into it. This person didn't spend the hours learning the skills, they just take seconds to criticise. And without the skills their criticism means nothing, they can't tell me how to make it look better. And I do this for fun, if there is lots of criticism it won't be fun anymore.

By the same token I stopped myself making a comment the other day. This artist does something to their pics that (IMO) make them look terrible. I was going to point this out and ways to improve when I stopped myself... this person knows where the tutorials are or who to ask for help. They are just having fun and who am I to shit on that?

I also need to say that comments like 'Wow' or 'cool' or 'great job' are good comments. Often when a picture astounds me that's all I can think of to write.

The other thing WH brought up is the recent lack of participation at Heromorph. I think it was bound to happen as the site has been around a long time (in Internet years). Mainstays who were here when it started have left. Some beginners have been here, started to learn and also left. It's not that they don't like it here, just that they started doing other things.
When the site was younger the galleries were much smaller. A new image was a Big Deal. You would log on at the weekend to see what everyone had worked on this week. Now each gallery has thousands of images, a new member would take days to go through the back catalogue. And everything gets rated a 10! (or not at all).

Maybe there's not as much interaction because this stuff isn't scarce anymore, there's a lot of it here (and out there).
As for helping HM, I try to do my bit. There are some people who say they like my stuff (crazy, I don't get it either) so I put some of it in the Gold area and encourage people to get Gold. Not just for my stuff, but all the other cool things in the gold areas.

good posts guys. lets here some more thoughts on this topic.

I can identify with Chilly somewhat. There was a member here awhile ago. He was a cop. Sometimes he'd leave comments that would piss me off and I'd think "What the f^%k does being a cop have to do with the 3 weeks worth of work I did on this manip?" So, I had a funny idea and I left him a lil message IN the next drawing I did.

I've told some face to face that I respect opinions like Jr, Winterhawk, and Bio because they've all gone to art school and can back their mouth up with proof and evidence. And I've always been taught you don't argue with someone who knows what they're talking about.

I comment on 2D because that's what I know something about. I comment on manips because I took the time to learn something about it and I gave it a shot 6 different times. But when it comes to 3D........ I actually tried out Daz and a few free 3D programs. It was enough for me to understand there's alot of work involved in "movie quality" images. And I still feel like I'm in a movie theatre bitching at a movie screen that the director doesn't know s**t. Basically I feel 3d is where I should keep my mouth shut. I still try to comment though because either I've been asked or because something nags at me till I finally comment about it.

You have nothing to appologize for BHM! You are one of the few people that I know here that takes great care in posting comments. Even when my work is way out there, and I know it isn't your thing or that you don't understand the concept of the subject matter, you STILL take the time to post a comment. That means more to me than getting a 10 or getting a render in the top 10 for the week. It tells me that YOU took the time to say good job, or welcome back after I have been out of touch for a while. To me, when you say "It isn't my thing" and you still took the time to post a comment is a badge of honor for me. It means you felt that my work was worth your time for a comment. Everyone has their own path they have to walk and sometimes others don't understand the why a piece of art is made or what inspires it. You are one of the rarities here at HM, you give not art but words of meaning that build confidence in artist who may be struggling or thinking of quiting because they feel they are not good enough. Like Thayne and Chilly I tend to stay in within the 3D boundries becuase that is what "I know", but you span all galleries and will be a bigger part of HM than you will ever imagine.

Ok, lets see whom I can piss off without wanting to piss anyone off. First off, opinions are just that.. opinions. They have no more or less power over you than what you let them. That said these are my opinions.

Leaving comments are important if you can?t tell that person directly, such as through an email, chat boxes, or ideally in person. Even the simple ?It?s great!? lets the artist know who was looking and that it is well thought of?.. if and only if it is genuine. I don?t care if ?Dack leaves a million emoticons, if it is what he really thinks. If anything when he does not leave a message, I wonder what the malfunction was.

As far as 3d vs. manips vs. 2d, once the picture is made, the medium used is irrelevant. It is a visual image and as such there are certain universal qualities that the image can be judged on. Composition, use of color and light, and many other things an educated artist would know about. Those things are universal and anyone? ANYONE... can discuss and have an opinion on. I bug Thayne for his opinion because he is not 3D because I want the perspective of 2D artist. I study manip tutorials to see how they do things because I can adapt the techniques to what I do. I would call these artistic opinions because they relate to art in a universal sense.

I learned a lot from people, Android for one. He is not 3D, but he pointed things out to me and really got me interested in Photoshop. If only there was two of me, so I could learn 3D and Photoshop at the same time. Maybe I would need 3 of me? so I can learn 3d modeling also. But Android is Aces in my book.

There have been times when I have gotten comments on things that from a manip point of view does not work. There was a picture I did where the boots were not as shiny as the lady?s outfit. I knew I used the same material settings on both and it was a rendering or lighting difference. It made me giggle because it showed the difference between the two mediums, manip/3D. To me that is fun and I still appreciated the comments.

I leave technical opinions at times, because there is just something about the picture that really just bugs the holy hell out of me, or someone asks. Rosepab did a picture of Batgirl. I had nothing against the picture, but the leather texture of the bodysuit to me was technically not right. The bump or displacement was too strong or the jpeg used for it was too small so when the program stretched the picture to cover the suit, the texture looked like rhino skin because the pebbly leather bumps were enlarged and stretched. I attempted to suggest a remedy for it. It was not to be mean or nasty. It was meant to be helpful. I figure that I got the same kind of help and would want someone to give it to me. In my warped mind it a responsibility and a ?debt of karma? to pass on knowledge and experience as I am able to repay the help I received. Tart asks opinions at times and I throw out what I think or I would do. I don?t know if he listens, cares, or gets totally pissed at me. I figure don?t ask if you don?t want it. I hope he and Rosepab knows where I am coming from and takes it in that spirit.

I do not leave many posts because if I know the person, I will tell them in a chat box. If I not, I will see if I can find a way to PM or e-mail them. I try to be respectful and polite when I do. I first did this with Sturk and he was a great stand-up guy. Showed me how to do some stuff and sent me a sample of a commercial product he was working on. I learned a lot and I still go back to look at the e-mails. Poor guy, I think I annoyed him to no end though.

What isn?t helpful is when an opinion is asked for and someone chooses to insult rather than help. Imagine working long and hard on a picture of Supergirl, posting it, and someone says ?Oh no, that isn?t the 1970?s Supergirl with the disco era headband. That is how you should have done it.? I had something similar happen. I modeled the goggles that ?Hawk has in the freebie section (check it out.. the model may not be good, but ?Hawk did the textures and those are worth the effort to get to use). I wanted to make them in the style of Cabwoman?s, but not so close that they would be useless for other characters. I studied what pictures I could find of Catwoman and every artist had their take on them. Some had multiple takes in the same comic book.

In the end, I came up with something 40-50 percentish close enough to look like hers. I spend 3-4 months off and on working and learning how to make them. When I finally posted a picture of them on a Catwomanish character, I asked how folks thought they looked. I got a few of the usual, but JoeQuick posted something to the affect that they were not like what Jim Lee drew and left a link to a nice big picture on the net. I admit it would have been nice to have a set of goggles like that and I copied the picture to my harddrive into a folder of things I want to do (big folder?.it?s an 250gig external drive that is filling quickly). I was pissed though. To do that to someone is insulting. Maybe he did not explain it well. Maybe I took it wrong. I tried to be civil about it, thanked him for the link and about trying to do another version in the future. I asked him to comment on what I did do though. I figured no use doing a Jim Lee version if what I am doing sucks. The reply Joe left was doubly insulting and I was ready to fight.

Luckily a couple of the mods talked me down and I haven?t seen anything out of joequick for a while. In a way I find it sad situation, because he does some things in Zbrush that are not bad and I would have liked to talked with him about how he does it and maybe traded some knowledge. Lesson here is that sometimes we do not communicate well at times and if someone does piss you off or you piss them off, remain civil and try to see the other guys point of view.

Finally if you cannot find it in you to be able to look critically and objectively at something, then do not do it at all. At this point, Pete take a chill pill or skip the next bit. PeterCotton does some incredible textures, great renders, and I am assuming postwork. But I will not look at his pictures. I know he is working developing a style inspired by the Japanese manga. I do not know the correct name, but it a type of innocent ?cutie girl? look. I actually spent an entire evening reading online trying to pick-up something so I could appreciate Pete?s work. Try as hard as I might, the girls in his pictures look like my daughters but with huge boobs. Near every year one or the other will go out on Halloween as a superhero, starting with my oldest when she was 3. She was Supergirl. For me it is a 7.0 on the old creepie meter.

This is my problem. Would I like to see Pete do a more mature lady, a kind of innocent ?cutie woman?? Oh hell yes, though I like more mature looking ladies. I think he would do a superb job and if he intends on doing graphic arts for a living someday it would be good practice. Even if not, expanding ones range is always good. But I am not going to denigrate his pictures because of my problem. Will I at times, voice my concerns that it dances on the borderline. Yeah, but not to be mean or make him stop. I will acknowledge he has a lot of talent and hope he has great success.

In short, if it is honest and/or meant to be helpful then a comment should be left and appreciated by the artist. If it pisses you off, take it in stride. If you piss someone off, be willing to say ?whoa hold on, I meant to say?? and try to explain better and a honest ?sorry? goes a long way. Then if you just cannot, because of any reason, keep your mouth shut.

I am done, please form an orderly line and wait your turn to beat the hell out of me.

this is a great conversation so far everyone, thank you for sharing your thoughts on the subject. I done some thinking on all the posts in this thread including my own.

I understand Chilly and Thayne's thoughts and they both make good points. The person Thayne is talking about was banned a couple of years ago from HM, but it doesn't make Thayne's point any less valid. Also that person was one of the assholes I was specifically thinking about when I posted last time. When we have a member like that we get problems on both sides both their comments and their response to comments.

I also have to agree that I personally do not like comments on my images that have nothing to do with the image in question. DD was a big one for this. I once got a post with a three stooges picture, 6 smileys, and copy and paste WIKI facts about the pacific ocean on a 3d picture I did of of a hot chick at a beach. I remember when I saw it and thought, what the hell is that, and I deleted the comment.

But with all that said I am not really talking about those types of comments or those types of commentors. I have been told by a number of members that they do not comment anymore because of fear of what the artist will say in retort unless all they have to say is good job or well done and there is only some many times and ways that they have to say those things, so they simply stop saying it.

Another issue is that the site itself has developed a bug somewhere in it's code that we have tried to nail down, have tried to implement multiple hacks and fixes but it still keeps comming back, sometimes it is worse then others but is still a huge pain. I am talking about the "taking you back to where you were bug" that eats hundreds of posts and comments a week. many users have figured out work arounds for this bug, but also a number of them have just stopped commenting due to fustration with this bug.

Also since we seperated the galleries from just the heromorph gallery and the members gallery into the way they are arranged now a lot of users just go to the gallery that they are most interested in. Maybe merging non-members galleries would increase comments and help build the community again as we have too many places for the new user to go this would simplify things and it would also expose the art created to more members. on the downside, the new art posted would fly off of the front page of the gallery faster then ever. The main reason these were seperated was due to the number of posts we were getting per day and a number of the artists here asked for us to do something about it. So to bring them back together would it be worth the effort or would it make things worse.

I would like to make HM a more open and exciting fun community. Where commenting is encouraged by all the members. Where both artists and fans can have discussions about art and how they did it regularly. I would like to see more discussions started. This site means a lot to me personally. Although I did not start it (The great Hubcap did) I have been at the helm of it for most of the time that it has been around. I have put in countless hours coding, hacking, preparing, organizeing and just plain working on this site. I think of it as my home. We have a great bunch of moderators, heralds, artists and members here at the site and we have a huge number of "lurkers" I would love for the lurkers to feel like this place is easy to get involved in and are welcome to do so. I would like to see a community that not only has fan commenting but also fosters their abilty to start to try into the fun and start creating some sort of digital or traditional art to share with all of us here. Heromorph is a great site, but it could be so much more then it is now.

What do you guys think? How do you all want to get there? I would really like to hear from anyone and everyone here.

My first thought. Keep the top 10. I know we get tons of images a day, but having your image up for an extra week means your hit counter climbs higher. That and it's bragging rights to shoot for. Hell, I still brag that my Assassin's Creed drawing made top 100 of the year.