Topic: Are likes an indicator of how good an artwork is?

Posted under General

I think they are.
I saw artworks on Twitter which don't look good (MS-Paint, no shading or simple airbrush shading) and they don't have many likes. The same thing on Deviantart.
There are artworks on Twitter which are well drawn and don't have many likes, but the posts also don't have any hashtags. So people who don't know the artist can't find the drawings.

I always add hashtags when I post my artworks on Twitter, but something seems to prevent people from liking.

Here are the Twitter links for some of my artworks (There are also here on e621 btw):

Perdita from 101 Dalmatians: https://twitter.com/Charlie43964134/status/1484614162277978116
Here on e621 it has 10 times more likes...

Doom Slayer and Marauder: https://twitter.com/Charlie43964134/status/1479161613529886727
I saw other drawings with the Marauder from Doom Eternal and they all have way more likes than my one. If I draw the Marauder, everyone hates it... (I actually did 3 Marauder drawings)

Susie and Ralsei: https://twitter.com/Charlie43964134/status/1469042214886125572
Deltarune fanart and only 2 likes...? Is it maybe Susie's long tongue that turns people off?

They all took me days to draw, but appearently something seems to turn people off. I'm not complaining, maybe it's good to be less popular... It's just odd: The last months I tried to improve the shading, so that the characters look now less flat and yet I have the same amount or should I say lack of likes.

Well, I think there are also other artists who have the same problem. But my main question and the main topic is: Does the amount of likes a drawing get (no matter which platform) shows how good it in it's art quality is?

Does the amount of likes a drawing get (no matter which platform) shows how good it in it's art quality is?

At least on e621, I like to think to think the favorite count is an indicator of how good the art is and the like-to-favorite ratio is somewhat related to how well dialogue is written. But I'm not sure.

demongirl_demoness said:
Does the amount of likes a drawing get (no matter which platform) shows how good it in it's art quality is?

No, the amount of likes one get on literally anything (from random Tweets, YouTube videos, to e621 posts) is indicative of how many people think it's in-line with their interests.
An artwork can have terrible artistic quality but people still like it for their reasons. Likewise, an artwork can have excellent artistic quality but don't get much likes because of the content they portray.

I'd say a little... but to be honest, on e621 it's more the question: "is it nsfw/has fetish". If not, it has to be: funny/a meme/insanely well drawn/etc

my ref for instance:
SFW, 5 Likes, 7 favs
post #2887656
NSFW, 21 Likes, 49 favs
post #2887655
It's by the same artist. The only difference, one with dick, the other one without.

Edit: And for people that are into extremer fetishes, they should look at the favs, and not on the likes.

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Ratte

Former Staff

I routinely delete bucketfilled, broken-tablet-driver-airbrushed colored bases with scores and fave counts higher than all of my content.

It's an indicator of how many people it motivated to push the like button. That's it. Anything beyond that is speculation.

lonelylupine said:
It's an indicator of how many people it motivated to push the like button. That's it. Anything beyond that is speculation.

This

There are so many factors that go into likes that it's not a good idea to look into it too much. Using your Perdita example, it probably has 10 more likes on e621 because people specifically go on e621 for furry art. The posts page and tagging system allows more exposure compared to twitter where you're sort of just there.

Personally, I use likes as a "favourites" button on sites that don't have anything else (like twitter) or as a secondary/lesser favourites button for sites that do (like youtube).
If it's purely a "this is good" type button, I don't bother. Come to think of it, the amount of times I've upvoted an image on e621 can probably be counted with two hands.

It's not inherently an indication of quality, it's first, an indication of how many people you're reaching, and then it's a measure of audience appeal, interest, and quality. Twitter is really not a good place for the beginner or new artist to network, get feedback, or get eyeballs on their work (and frankly, Twitter is an awful site for any artist for a mountain of reasons). Over here, since e621 has both favourites and sets, many don't bother hitting the "vote up" button.

a) stats never mean what you think they do.
b) trying to reason about stats will drive you mad.
..

That said, there are no obvious composition fuckups in the Perdita pic, whereas there is a tangent in the Deltarune pic.(teeth / horn).
The complexity of the Deltarune pic is also greater, which makes it more likely that any mistakes you do make will pile up in an obvious way.

popoto said:
This

There are so many factors that go into likes that it's not a good idea to look into it too much. Using your Perdita example, it probably has 10 more likes on e621 because people specifically go on e621 for furry art. The posts page and tagging system allows more exposure compared to twitter where you're sort of just there.

Personally, I use likes as a "favourites" button on sites that don't have anything else (like twitter) or as a secondary/lesser favourites button for sites that do (like youtube).
If it's purely a "this is good" type button, I don't bother. Come to think of it, the amount of times I've upvoted an image on e621 can probably be counted with two hands.

There is also the question of how the thumbnail looks on an array of other thumbnails. Simple, easy-to-read thumbnails will get more attention than muddy or blurry thumbnails.

lonelylupine said:
There is also the question of how the thumbnail looks on an array of other thumbnails. Simple, easy-to-read thumbnails will get more attention than muddy or blurry thumbnails.

I have noticed this as well, I have seen my fair share of highly detailed posts with favourable content (i.e., things that people would normally love) not get as much exposure than expected (low votes and favs).
I have also noticed that the thumbnails did not reveal much of the actual content, and people were just skimming past it.

Then, compared to posts with average quality but with a giant crudely-drawn cock, boobs, or butt being visibly attached to their thumbnails, it skyrockets.

hungrymaple said:
It's not inherently an indication of quality, it's first, an indication of how many people you're reaching, and then it's a measure of audience appeal, interest, and quality. Twitter is really not a good place for the beginner or new artist to network, get feedback, or get eyeballs on their work (and frankly, Twitter is an awful site for any artist for a mountain of reasons). Over here, since e621 has both favourites and sets, many don't bother hitting the "vote up" button.

It's an indicator of how many people I'm reaching? What if a post has 500 views and only 10 likes or if a post has 200 views and only 2 likes? On Pixiv I have this problem, especially with my Doom Slayer drawings: A lot of views, but for it's ratio not that much of likes/bookmarks.
I would say Twitter is a good site for art, since it allows NSFW art.

There is a correlation between upvotes, favs and artistic quality, but I think that here the correlation is very weak.

Many times It will be hard for an artist to see that its work receives less attention that other works perceived as of lower quality, specially if a lot of effort and passion was put on a piece of art.

There are many factors involved... it depends not only of the artists or the work, but also the public, that on average may have simple and plainly bad taste, althought that may sound "undemocratic". In other cases, is the work of the artist that have not enough "artistic quality", even if it tries to give what the public demands.

And then there is simply good and bad luck.

Maybe with a good theory and multivariate analysis we would be able to try to objectivize some of the factors, for a particular site.

I agree with the mayority of users in this thread, that said that many works of very good quality in E6 receive less attention that other works that most of us think are simply bad.

For an artists that may feel bad about it, there is the standard but healthy advice, many times given in this forum: "Don't let it go under your skin. Don't do art with the obsession of getting aclaim. Do it for yourself, and for people that you care and trust. And try to improve".

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demongirl_demoness said:
It's an indicator of how many people I'm reaching? What if a post has 500 views and only 10 likes or if a post has 200 views and only 2 likes? On Pixiv I have this problem, especially with my Doom Slayer drawings: A lot of views, but for it's ratio not that much of likes/bookmarks.
I would say Twitter is a good site for art, since it allows NSFW art.

Twitter is a good site for traffic, not for hosting art since the site compresses most media to a lower quality. You build an audience on Twitter and then direct them to your own pages when you have enough engagement.

As for the “number of likes = the quality of the art” correlation, I believe Newgrounds has the best way to explain it. Every month they let users vote for videos and posts to be frontpaged on their site but they specifically exclude any posts marked as Adult. Their reasoning is: “Adult stuff doesn’t need help to get noticed” which is mostly true. More often than not, NSFW will have more engagement than SFW stuff, and that is one of many reasons why you can’t make the correlation that the number of likes = how good/bad quality someone’s art is.

thehuskyk9 said:
Twitter is a good site for traffic, not for hosting art since the site compresses most media to a lower quality. You build an audience on Twitter and then direct them to your own pages when you have enough engagement.

As for the “number of likes = the quality of the art” correlation, I believe Newgrounds has the best way to explain it. Every month they let users vote for videos and posts to be frontpaged on their site but they specifically exclude any posts marked as Adult. Their reasoning is: “Adult stuff doesn’t need help to get noticed” which is mostly true. More often than not, NSFW will have more engagement than SFW stuff, and that is one of many reasons why you can’t make the correlation that the number of likes = how good/bad quality someone’s art is.

For some reason my NSFW art doesn't have more engagement than my SFW art. I also post my art on Newgrounds and people refuse to vote. My drawings get enough views, but for some reason most of them are still waiting for 5 votes.
This here post #3105883 has almost 500 views and is still waiting for 2 more votes.

demongirl_demoness said:
For some reason my NSFW art doesn't have more engagement than my SFW art. I also post my art on Newgrounds and people refuse to vote. My drawings get enough views, but for some reason most of them are still waiting for 5 votes.
This here post #3105883 has almost 500 views and is still waiting for 2 more votes.

People view your posts because they just so happen to think it looks interesting, those who fav'd your posts genuinely liked it. Don't beg for more engagement.

To quote your Newgrounds post description :
"Roxanne Wolf from FNAF Security Breach. Almost 500 views and still waiting for 2 votes? What the hell man?! I would expect it to have more than 5 votes and more than one favorite. Is it really that bad?"

The fact that you are complaining about not getting enough votes and expecting more viewers to vote for you on your posts is enough to drive people away for good.

thehuskyk9 said:
Twitter is a good site for traffic, not for hosting art since the site compresses most media to a lower quality. You build an audience on Twitter and then direct them to your own pages when you have enough engagement.

The reverse seems to be a better option to me: start posting your work to a gallery like on FA, NG, DA, etc. so you have your work so far collected and easily searchable, and then link to Twitter. And over on your Twitter, link to your gallery/galleries, that way you can do your social media interaction, post sketches or what ever else, and anyone that just wants to see your work can click on your gallery and avoid the frustration of scrolling through a timeline.

Every profession requires the proper attitude and even a good philosophy of it ... Including something like being a "furry artist".

I continue to recommend this...

carrot_(artist) rating:safe

"The Journey of Art"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfZUuVkE4vU (Self Reflection and Introspection).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRNzeidii9g (Realizing the Magniture).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An3c3hZDPpM (The Future you, Student for Life).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu8i53TfJ-s (Competition + Looking at others art).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25utTRZxER8 (Trust in the System, You have to Believe).

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Personal opinion Time: Being unpopular is awesome, Dood!
You are free to do whatever you want whenever you want
without being judged and picked apart. Not saying popularity
doesn't look sweet too but think of the pressure they must be
under to keep those looks up, m8.
Za Pressure!

As for Like and Favs saying how good a piece is, Dood-

Short Answer:
No.

Art is subjective, there is no better or worst since what
makes something good or bad varies from peep to peep.
Art is in the eye of the beholder and all that.
╹‿╹)

Dood-ish Answer:
Likes and Favs More so speaks to how many people have seen it and peep's general
impression of it on that particular platform. And even then each platform has its
own standards for what makes a good piece.

Like e6 being about the lewd biz and the funny Hahas
&
Newground being more of a hub for professional-ish ​freelance artist

And yada yada yada~

Though ultima-ly they're not points, they're pointless.
Nice to look at but pointless and distracting since putting stock into
them could have a peep chasing their own shadow. and Chasing
trends, losing sight of themselves just to see numbers go up and
a sec or two of fame.

Best not to put thought into it and just do what YOU want to do, Dood!
If it makes those numbers go up then cool, If not then whatever!
Don't do it for them, Do it for you!
◠‿╹)~★

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