Bayani

*frowns a little, then casts an Isiah Thomas curse on Pogo!*

Shocking. =P

I don't see the collector/artist relationship as a simple customer/business relationship. In my view, it's a collaboration, where the collector is an editor, working with the artist on a project. As such, I think it's important for a collector to be educated/aware of the technical aspects and composition of a piece. Most artists are too close to a particular piece and often times don't spot the weaker aspects of the drawing unless they take time to step away from the paper for awhile. Of course deadlines can make that difficult. A collector who's playing a more active role can spot and have them addressed, which in the end making a stronger looking piece. I think it's good for collectors to share critiques as well, as it's an exercise to sharpen observation and communication skills, which make a pretty significant difference in the turnaround time and quality of future commissions. Collectors are pretty attached to the original characters they collect art of (I know I am) and can miss some mistakes as well.

*shrugs*My goal is to build the best gallery/collection of original character art around focusing more on quality than quantity. If I see someone commission something nice, I do my best to collaborate with an artist to come up with a piece even more eye-catching. It may be a competition of one, but whatever.

I'm not saying that my criticism/opinion is more valid than a professionally trained artist's but I have studied art history and have gleaned alot of knowledge about art from the professionals I've commissioned and be friended. I have been collecting original character art for over four years now. Do I have more resources to commission art now than I did when I started? Yeah, I do. However, the turnround, consistency, and quality of the art I've collected has improved while the cost of the art has decreased. Alot of that has to do with the greater amount of experience in commissioning art that I'm working with. I'm not the "throw money at an artist and tell them to do whatever" type. I play an active role in the composition of the piece.

I'd say that the nitpicky, challenging criticism on these boards is far outweighed by what is in my opinion, overly exuberant praise for art. Seems like everything that passes through here is of "super-awesome" or "incredibly wonderful" quality. While encouraging, it doesn't lead to a whole lot of discussion about the composition of the art or process itself or collectors learning from what the results of their collaboration with artists and coming up with progressively better quality commissions as they continue to indulge the hobby. It's been like that for the past few years around here. I welcome Frost's input on the stuff I commission and I regularly seek constructive criticism from other artists and collectors that I have good relationships with on art I draw myself and art that I collect. It's the only way I'm going to learn more about the technical aspects of art/design and improve communication/collaborations between myself and the artists I chose to work with. I think overall these forums are going to be stuck in the current status quo in terms of constructive criticism vs. praise parades.

I stopped posting any sort of criticisms or observations primarily because I had received PMs from folks here and on dA who basically said that my opinions and criticism aren't valid or welcome because I'm not a working professional in the art/design industry and that I only have good art because I have more resources than others to hire published professionals.

*shrugs* So whatever. There are a few people who ask me for my opinion on a particular artist's work, and there are some artists who I'm close with that will show me what they're working on and I'm willing to give my input when I'm personally asked. These days though, I'm feeling more peripheral around the collector/artist community in CoH. My approach to collecting is different from most...it's picky and suffice to say, competitive. I also don't volunteer my characters for free art and have made it clear on my dA gallery that I prefer that my character is not used in any art without permission first.