Slight relevance to topic #38844 as I go rambling about how posts are approved

This sounds insane, and it is, but is there a way to do this? It may or may not help with the approval queue.

Because art is, well, art, and not a 1:1 copy of subjects which aren't real to begin with, it does sound a little silly to judge, say, anatomy, and there are artstyles with noodle limbs and they've got *that charm* to them, which makes this whole question just impossible to tackle.
So since some "errors" can be excused, then we are acknowledging any art can hold some merit to an extent. Suppose it's down to the people with the different likes and tastes, and there probably isn't an universal set of properties and so it's why we just accept the fate of posts being in the moderation staff's hands...

...which is fine, nothing wrong with, but then we also have the oddly clinical tagging system, no "cool_art" or "garbage_anatomy" tags, it's all neutral (except for the loltags such as "where_is_your_god_now") and so I'm still wondering, if tagging is purely objective, could we somehow figure out how to apply this and do some comparative method to see how close the art resembles the tag definitions? Sure, people will probably tag things wrong, but as I think about this, if there isn't anyone who'd fix the tags, then we probably have a hard-to-figure-out art at hands, not complex, but perplexing, as in, we spend time figuring out what the 3 scribble lines represent, not even in an abstract sense, just that what we see is clearly not what can be unbiasedly called cat or dog, and thankfully, e621 makes this easier in a way as it should be hosting furry art and nothing else, so there's still posts to reject, don't worry, I'm not trying to inspire anarchy.

Just that this has me inconclusive still, how "bad" must something be to fall out of definition? Where do you actually draw the line? Should breasts allow for other shapes than round? Would square breasts be considered invalid or would we have to check how round or square, down to the mathematical expression, they are? I'll let you think about this.

As it stands, most of what's described under "Low quality submissions" in Uploading Guidelines is down to technical properties, resolution, compression, and it does leave me guessing a little about what it truly means when a post doesn't meet "minimum quality standards", but oddly enough, sometimes, it does help me realize and see errors in my art, so yes, most of what I had rejected, I wouldn't upload if I had the hindsight. There's a big BUT to this however, even if I don't really regret uploading anything, there are couple of pieces that I swear have the same issues as the deleted posts, but were approved, which, finally, is what prompted me to write this incoherent mess; consistency of approvals.

As it feels there's not much of consistency to approving, I am sat here, trying to set clear unbiased definitions that would remedy it, but if you're still reading this, you're probably hoping for me to atleast sketch out a plan, since I'm all so vocal, yet do pretty much nothing about it; I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, I still want you to do the thinking for me.

That being said, hearing some posts are brought up in the staff chat, as professional as it can be, I can't help but to imagine the human element having someone walking from a verdict disappointed as there was just one "against" vote more than "for" (please don't vouch for me) so yeah, if there is a way to make everything objective, *surely* it will make more people happy? (right guys? ...guys??)

If you're not interested in reading, and want something to do; here, look at my pending art, and tell me if you want anything to stay or not.

Not read it all yet, but there's no such thing as a non-biased critique of art. XD

*reading it*
If you were posting part of a series by same artist, it might make sense to just flag it for some fast queue because it's unlikely the artist suddenly got a case of MS Paint, but this sounds abusable as hell. This is why unlimited uploads for some artists uploading their own stuff is for.
A lot of those "low quality" things you mention sound like they could be automatically tagged as suspicious?

I wonder if there's some mechanism going on where only one person has to approve it, but edge cases get left forever on the queue until they age out at 30 days. I'd assume it's like anything of this sort, where 90% of the effort goes into 10% of the posts that eventually get approved. Meh...

Terrible suggestion:
Have the community decide on edge cases

y'see it's terrible because I would've actually gotten some bad art approved that way because for some reason there are atleast 4 posts with score ≥10 (for my uploads that's alot)

But alas, moving on, I'll keep uploading and ask for my quota to be reset if anything. Just don't know if I should care about my OCD at that point and still upload 3 at a time (because on mobile it shows 3 posts per row)

Anyhow, let's pay respects or don't to the "somehow people put the up arrow on" posts that are no longer with us.

post #4067127
post #3362485
post #3338964
post #3156593

why is it all pokémon, WHY IS IT ALL-
Huh. Maybe the quality standards are higher for those, if again, I've had other slop approved without an issue.

Anyway, actual garbage nobody will miss:

post #2548972 - fuck you for you got mirrored to rule34.xxx
post #2633903 - fuck you for conflicting me
post #2684052 - fuck you for getting approved
post #2679590 - fuck you for uhh... just fuck you

Other art by me was just mid, nothing too noteworthy, if you dig them up, I won't care.

As someone who uploads a lot of very controversial art, I firmly believe that art is inherently subjective and attempting to nail down a hard definition of it is a project doomed to failure. Language and culture is constantly shifting, and despite attempts by some, it's impossible to proscribe any particular example. An AI determining what art is and isn't sounds like an absolute nightmare scenario, but that's likely what we're headed towards. Having competent humans (e.g. Janitors) is very much a preferable alternative, even if it's incredibly subjective.

A lot of my uploads have also been mirrored to rule34.xxx. Commenters there aren't exactly happy about it, but I have nothing to do with it and no control over it.

There is an objective standard for judging art which I think the janitors try to go by when judging whether art does or doesn't meet minimum quality standards. As far as I can tell, to meet the standard your art needs to at least show a good grasp on anatomy, perspective, and other basic elements of art. You art seems to kinda ride the line in that it meets this for the most part but they usually do look a little weird. As far as I can tell your recent upload is the only one where the anatomy isn't a little off. Most of these should get in but post #4107965 and post #4107967 might get rejected due to the anatomy having very obvious mistakes. I'm not a janitor though so my word doesn't mean that much.

Btw in case anyone is wondering, it's totally ok to enjoy art that is considered objectively bad. It's fine to subjectively judge art but do understand that there is an objective standard and art can be objectively critiqued.

just_lurking said:
There is an objective standard for judging art which I think the janitors try to go by when judging whether art does or doesn't meet minimum quality standards. As far as I can tell, to meet the standard your art needs to at least show a good grasp on anatomy, perspective, and other basic elements of art. You art seems to kinda ride the line in that it meets this for the most part but they usually do look a little weird. As far as I can tell your recent upload is the only one where the anatomy isn't a little off. Most of these should get in but post #4107965 and post #4107967 might get rejected due to the anatomy having very obvious mistakes. I'm not a janitor though so my word doesn't mean that much.

Btw in case anyone is wondering, it's totally ok to enjoy art that is considered objectively bad. It's fine to subjectively judge art but do understand that there is an objective standard and art can be objectively critiqued.

Hmm, I thought anatomy wasn't always that important if the image shows a lot of detail? I mean not everything is human-shaped or *name real species*-shaped. I'm actually concerned that there might be a reason that the comic pages I uploaded didn't get approved. The art looks decent enough, but very few up or downvotes. I guess it's just not a popular comic, yet. :(

alphamule said:
Hmm, I thought anatomy wasn't always that important if the image shows a lot of detail? I mean not everything is human-shaped or *name real species*-shaped. I'm actually concerned that there might be a reason that the comic pages I uploaded didn't get approved. The art looks decent enough, but very few up or downvotes. I guess it's just not a popular comic, yet. :(

Anatomy is pretty much always important. Super-detailed artwork with anatomy that makes the characters look like they’re made out of bags of rocks (unless they’re supposed to be made out of bags of rocks) isn’t going to look good regardless of the amount of detail.
Now, this does not mean the anatomy has to be realistic, per se. It can be deliberately distorted or exaggerated for artistic effect, such as in hyper art or toony styles. That’s not the issue. But there is a marked difference between artwork done by an artist who understands anatomy and deliberately distorts it, and artwork done by an artist whose anatomy is distorted because they don’t actually understand anatomy. The latter is what we delete for, not the former.

That said, the comics you uploaded are perfectly fine artistically. I’m not sure why they’re being downvoted. Perhaps the story sucks, or maybe the characters are unlikable. I haven’t actually read it, so I can’t say. The artwork itself isn’t the issue, though.

gusta_cz said:
[OP]

Basically, I think just lurking has the right idea. I’ve reviewed so much artwork by now that I feel like I have a pretty solid grasp on what’s good enough to pass and what isn’t. It’s not so much a personal opinion of the artwork as it is identifying the markers of amateur artwork. However, there is still a blurry line between the two where personal opinion can play a role, and a lot of your artwork seems to like to straddle that line.

If I may point out what I think are the biggest issues you could try to improve upon…

- anatomy is a bit wrong in places. Not usually catastrophically wrong, but enough so that it just doesn’t exactly look right. I would use references, and lots of them. Get a hand reference every time you draw a hand, get a head reference every time you draw a head, and so on. This helps immensely.

- line quality. Your artwork would look substantially nicer if you learn about and apply the concept of “Line weight” - that is, the varying thickness of lines throughout the piece. Currently, your linework is all very uniform, which is a step better than complete inconsistency, but still lacks the variation that professional artists use to bring life and character to their artwork.

- coloring and shading. This is probably the most difficult to teach since so much of it is just about “looking nice.” It’s hard to point to any specific way of doing it since a lot of different artists use very different techniques to come to their own unique and equally impressive results. My best advice would be to just pick an artist that you like and look at how they handle coloring and shading. Try to emulate their shading, if you can. A lot of yours just feel kinda flat. I like to use a multiply layer with a dark saturated color for the shadows, and an overlay layer for the lighting. It helps if your lighting and shading aren’t all just the same color, or just some kind of grey. Some contrast is nice. Your shading is probably a bit too soft. Working with cel shading with real hard edges first might help with that. You can then soften the edges with a blur or blending brush or something afterwards, if that makes it look nicer, but shading that’s overly soft is more likely to make your characters look like paper cutouts than actual three-dimensional objects.

So, hopefully that helps. Honestly, I think you’re right on the cusp of being consistently approved, but something needs a little extra push to get you over that edge. Even improving just one of the things I listed would probably do it. Good luck!

scaliespe said:
- anatomy is a bit wrong in places. Not usually catastrophically wrong, but enough so that it just doesn’t exactly look right. I would use references, and lots of them. Get a hand reference every time you draw a hand, get a head reference every time you draw a head, and so on. This helps immensely.

There are some that I was well aware of while doing the lineart, and I like goofy stuff, so I decided "yeah, have that ass look like one of those memes", and some I just don't really care about getting right, you will see this pattern in every other aspect because frankly, I get lazy quick.

- line quality. Your artwork would look substantially nicer if you learn about and apply the concept of “Line weight” - that is, the varying thickness of lines throughout the piece. Currently, your linework is all very uniform, which is a step better than complete inconsistency, but still lacks the variation that professional artists use to bring life and character to their artwork.

I did pick a textured pen a looong time ago since I did hate how uniform, even with some pressure here and there, it looked, but honestly speaking, I'd have to make my lineart thicker for stuff to stand out, not what I really prefer, but it's not that I leave everything as is, when I get a shape right, but don't press hard enough, I will try to thicken it, I did try leaving these pressure inconsistencies in, but it didn't look good. Maybe one day I'll get my patience in place to not just wave my hand about and do the little extra I can with this 40$ tablet.

- coloring and shading. This is probably the most difficult to teach since so much of it is just about “looking nice.” It’s hard to point to any specific way of doing it since a lot of different artists use very different techniques to come to their own unique and equally impressive results. My best advice would be to just pick an artist that you like and look at how they handle coloring and shading. Try to emulate their shading, if you can. A lot of yours just feel kinda flat. I like to use a multiply layer with a dark saturated color for the shadows, and an overlay layer for the lighting. It helps if your lighting and shading aren’t all just the same color, or just some kind of grey. Some contrast is nice. Your shading is probably a bit too soft. Working with cel shading with real hard edges first might help with that. You can then soften the edges with a blur or blending brush or something afterwards, if that makes it look nicer, but shading that’s overly soft is more likely to make your characters look like paper cutouts than actual three-dimensional objects.

Either I add cheesy orange lighting™ or I actually turn my multiply layer way down, I don't do hard shading, I blur any hand selection edges, and that's that. But if you want something less generic-shaded, I do use fA for quick jank-ified alts, where I use posterize filters so it does kinda look like cel-shading, but not really? Regardless, my e6 uploads are usually the most boring ones, as I thought it would do less harm than blasting a million glow layers to the max.

So, hopefully that helps. Honestly, I think you’re right on the cusp of being consistently approved, but something needs a little extra push to get you over that edge. Even improving just one of the things I listed would probably do it. Good luck!

I'm glad you've found the time to write this, but only time will tell if my stubborn brain decides to do something, or maybe I just love "intentionally" being mid as possible. But alas, all I know is that I haven't given myself the goal to become a realism artist, it's not my cup of tea anyway. Thanks though.

The Name of the game to get you approved is:

Fundamentals. ╹‿╹)

From my personal exp of doodling for a hot sec,

A great foundation is KEY to improving, Dood!

While a non-biased description of artistic merit is impos',
Art is subjective by nature, every peep can appreciate a
great foundation for your version of it. Doesn't matter
if your art is realistic or cartoony, solid rules of your
making like what you do with proportions and perspective
are always awesome. Dood!
◠‿◠)~★

scaliespe said:
- I would use references, and lots of them. Get a hand reference every time you draw a hand, get a head reference every time you draw a head, and so on. This helps immensely.

Peeps right!
References would be awesome too, Just make sure when
you look for some, Don't Copy Them, Understand Them!

Just like with homework, If you copy you learn nothing and will
be stumped again when tackling the same problem asked a bit
differently. But if you understand how they got their answer,
not only will you be able to give an answer but that answer
will be uniquely yours! And that's how styles are made, Dood!
◠‿╹)~★

wait, who's doing this. who's approving my posts.

Such a lust for revenge!

WHOOO?

please- I was just asking about how approvals go, I wasn't begging for mercy, I prepared for the -1 in upload quota, I accepted my fate and you-

thanks, but uh...
I just wanted post #4088986 to get in, since I was gifted that.

gusta_cz said:
wait, who's doing this. who's approving my posts.

Such a lust for revenge!

WHOOO?

please- I was just asking about how approvals go, I wasn't begging for mercy, I prepared for the -1 in upload quota, I accepted my fate and you-

thanks, but uh...
I just wanted post #4088986 to get in, since I was gifted that.

Big, haha. Great example for some of those tags, actually.