As a johnny come lately lurker to the renderosity creators creche, take this for what it's worth (sorry for the length)...

Disclaimer: I'm my own worst critic, I know when my work sucks, in fact I think all my work sucks, some of it just sucks less than others.

That being the case, from my perspective I would never post something in the Gallery section in hopes that I'd receive useful critiques. To me the gallery is simply a showroom/mutual appreciation society - or a place where horny netizens go for freebie online pseudo smut and cheesecake (hey let's be honest here). I sympathise with those who've been here for a while who have had a different experience in the past, but that's just what it looks like to me.

What I'm saying is, the galleries at this point seem to be just a place to look at pretty (or not so pretty) pictures - it doesn't really serve any more as a locus of craft development and perfection.

If/when I get to the point where a) I feel like I've soaked up enough of the VAST number of resources and information available out there to the extent that I truly am banging my head against the wall with some problem and can't find the solution with the handy search option above, or from googling for a tutorial, and b) actually have something worth going through the critique process - I would either come to this forum or the WIP forum and ASK for pointers/help/tomato slinging.

I don't think I'll ever post anything to the gallery - I doubt I'll ever feel I've done anything worth looking at outside a few specially interested parties, but I sure want to improve my skill,technique, craft and expand my awareness of the goodities and nicities possible with the tool. For that I'd say we're all better off comming to the forums here or elsewhere and posting for critique.

I realize this switches artists from behaving passively to behaving proactively when it comes to gleaning insight from others. I don't think the majority of people posting to the galleries at this point WANT to hear constructive critcism - they're not as bent on improving their craft, they are just in it for the attention, praise, expressive outlet, etc. And you know what - there's nothing wrong with that. But if you're wanting to take it to the next level, you'll do the legwork, you'll seek out advice, you'll find the appropriate forum in which to analyze your work. And honestly I think that's how it is in all artistic endeavors.

I'd hazard a guess that the people posting to/reading this thread already do plenty of self evaluation and criticism of their own work, even when you can't put your finger on it, you'll get a feel for when things are right and when they're not you'll seek out pointers. And at some point, some people who seem to be blithely posting up whatever it is they throw together will have an epiphone one day and realize the could be doing something "better." And at that point they'll find their way here or somewhere else where they can begin refining their work. You can beat someone over the head with "constructive criticism" until you're hoarse, but until they're actually ready to take it AND embark on the neverending pursuit of perfection, your message will go unheeded, or indeed will be rewarded with anger and contempt.

To the point of this thread - the galleries aren't what they once were, we should probably accept that and find a new way to get useful feedback in some other manner/forum.

I will now submerge back into my voracious lurker stealth mode of operation....