I think this is an OK dead horse to beat. I often pause when I'm about to lay a crit on somebody who already has 8 gushing comments of extreme approval and impressedness. I figure I'm going to look like a jerk. Still, I usually give crits on technique, not the art, and only if I have a solution I'm sure about. If somebody posts an ugly fat guy in vinyl pants, okee dokee, I say nothing about the artistic choices. But if he has "nostril glow", then I usually say something like:

"Interesting render. I couldn't help noticing, though, that your character has Poser nostril glow. You can fix that, if you like. Here's a link where I explain how ..." followed by the link. Of course, by "interesting" I meant, "ewwww, why did you waste your time?"

Acadia wrote: "Art is a subjective experience unique to each individual and and who am I to say what is or isn't "right" when it comes to making art?"

I totally agree with that. However, if somebody is posting a render under the "Realism" category, and the render has a photo background with shadows going a different direction than the rendered ones, I say so. Or, here's another super pet peeve for me, somebody posts a Poser 6 picture with reflective water in it, and they didn't use refraction, and the figure standing in the water looks like they are standing in blue smoke, not water. Usually this is not the artists "artistic intention", so I try to help them find out how to use refraction.

My 2 cents.

Oh hell, while I'm whining :) Here's another gallery thing that drives me nuts. I see "constructive" crits like this "I think the spectacular light could be softened a bit." Jeez this drives me nuts! The word is SPECULAR not SPECTACULAR.

Write it down: S P E C U L A R

I'm no artist and never claimed to be. I'm a software engineer. I just enjoy the process of computer graphics - I got nothing to say with my renders other than "look at what I made my PC do, bwaahaahaa!".

Then one day, somebody posted a comment in my gallery, something like: "beautiful art"

And there you go, I'm now an artist. PFPFFPPFPFPPT

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)