HTFYA: Lets share our positive experiences!

Fey Realme

Hey yall! I thought it would be cool if we all shared a bit of what we learned and our individual experiences in the HTFYA live streams (the ones with prompts specifically). The Guys are working hard to reach each of us at our different levels and facilitate the prompts--and they tried something new because they listen to us. They don't seem to get a lot of positive feedback, so let's all share some positive experiences we've had because of all their hard work on these livestreams.

The poll is in response to the sentiment Will shared on the live stream that He thinks we would be upset if they only spent 30-60 seconds on a person because that's "just enough time to piss them off." I'm interested to see if he is right or not.
The real ones know that chuffed means delighted and it is Lee's favorite British word.

Reb Erlik

@R-Fey-Realme
Hi R. Fey,
I was one of the people who got a critique that was under a minute this time and I didn't mind at all! I was very grateful and it was so exciting to be included on my first try of submitting artwork.

However, I think we should consider how it feels for our instructors to do a marathon critique session. Maybe it's draining to do an hour and 40 minute livestream? I imagine that it might be hard to concentrate on giving critique, responding to the chat, and keeping the slides organized simultaneously while being on camera.

It takes a lot of mental alertness to come up with critique suggestions and ideas on the spot.

On the other hand, it take a lot of effort to prepare a draw-over ahead of time.

Ultimately we should leave the format decisions up to the instructors, based on what they have time and energy for that week.

I will say that HTFYA is one of the reasons that I became an SVS student.
The other being that my incredibly talented friend Braden Hallett was making some pretty stellar work here, pun intended and sharing it in our scbwi critique group.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CWyAvVHFQ2F/?hl=en

I found a huge amount of value in the HTFYA videos, especially the ones with mini-lessons and the detailed draw-overs.

It was pretty awesome being included in a critique by artists I admire and seeing my work on youtube! Hoping for that was a huge motivator when I was working on the piece.
I gotta say, this was one of the coolest experiences ever!

Jeremy Ross

I’m grateful to Lee and Will for their candid feedback on both my pieces!

I’ve written in this forum many times how much I love HTFYA sessions.

Also, I do miss Critique Arena very much and had my eye on winning the top 2 eventually. The closest I got to winning was top 4, very exciting!

I think the guys do a great job giving each piece the critique sandwich approach, which is both positive and constructive.

I think the draw overs are really good, too! For example, when Jake did a draw over on my Cinderella piece, it blew my mind how much he could see that I was blind to! I have a separate post in the forum about it.

I guess what I’m trying to say here, is that I appreciate the guys always changing it up and trying to improve and offer the best value for us rabbits.

The only thing constant is the change.

Cheers!

Lee White

@R-Fey-Realme I am chuffed you remembered my favorite word is "chuffed"! : )

Tash

@R-Fey-Realme

I had to dip out of the stream early to go to work, but finished watching afterwards. I was really grateful to receive critique on my piece and even with the short period of time I think I received really valueable feedback on how to improve my art.

That being said I can definitely see how critiquing every single submission could become difficult and impractical depending on the number of submissions.

Although I'll be the first to admit I would have been a little disappointed if my submission wasn't chosen for critique, I think I'd be able to accept that they couldn't include every submission. The feedback that they are giving to my peers is just as valuable to me, and learning how to use the information they share and be self critical is the skill that I am most interested in learning. That being said it's always exciting and motivating to have artists you admire give you specific feedback!

The only solution I could think of to include the most submissions possible while being able to cover each subject more in depth would be to group artworks with the similar problems and/or strengths together and talk about them as a group?

But in any case I trust that the hosts of HTFYA are trying to provide the most value to everyone in the audience, and I will continue watch and submit whether my art is picked for critique or not!

MarcRobinson

I think it is great that the guys did a little bit on each of the submissions. I know where they are coming from when they say that it'd be best to do a deep dive on one or two, but even a small bit of advice or encouragement can mean so much to an artist. I've been lucking that they've picked mine a couple of times to look at in depth, but I do feel it's more value to more people to do the quicker critiques. It's nice for more of the people who took the time to submit to get something out of it. Sometimes it's hard to apply an in depth critique on one person's work onto your own. Especially if you're a beginner. That being said, it must be exhausting for the guys to blast through so many! I appreciate their work no matter what.

Fey Realme

@Lee-White I messed up, I was going to say “i’nt it” at the end, but I forgot! Come to think of it, I'm not sure how that should be spelled actually…

@MarcRobinson Yeah, even the slightest bit of of encouragement and praise means so much when you're a new growing artist!

@reberlik I feel the same way! It doesn't take long to feel included and motivated! I imagine doing a lot of crits is tiring, but I think long crits are more tiring than short-to-the-point ones like the one they gave your piece! I would be ecstatic for a 30-second crit

@R-Fey-Realme
I did some analysis of the critiques, there were about 25 in 1hr 20 min.

The longest ones (8) were 5 minutes, in which they spent most of the time speculating on what the story might be and generating lots of suggestions for how to make a different story. They also did some quick draw-overs and discussed interesting things that were very insightful.
The shortest ones were between 30-60 seconds (3) in which Lee (deciding to cruise through them) mentioned a few strengths, and what was making the submission muddy (technically or story-wise).
The rest were about 2-3 minutes (14) and the time over 60 seconds was usually because of speculation on confusing stories, suggestions on additional story elements to change the meaning, a crop suggestion, and helpful thoughts that they referenced from the HTFYA class.

It's just food for thought. Being professors I imagine they are used to longer critiques because of 3-hour classes where you have to fill the time and everyone falls asleep--but it doesn't have to be that way

Fey Realme

@R-Fey-Realme Something I love about HTFYA is that every month the focus is a little different because they are always asking themselves “What is the most appropriate and important thing to share with this engaged group right now?” Since they started with the prompts this has been even more apparent. I learn something to apply every time! Whether from a draw over, personal story, or little rant, there are nuggets of gold everywhere and I am a confirmed prospector (aka someone who pans for gold full time).

I have submitted for a prompt three times (flight, rock fortress, trapped). It was one of the most thrilling moments of my life when they stopped in the slideshow of flight submissions and said my people had great storytelling poses. In the 5 seconds that it took them to say that shot me straight to the moon. In the feb livestream they took a few moments to say my linework was beautiful! Again, on the moon. That was exactly what I was really focusing on in that piece! I know objectively that I'm making progress!

I’m glad they didn't spend a lot of time trying to get the story –they couldn’t know where I was trying to go with the piece and it was perfect of them to say "I'm confused, it doesn’t say trapped to me” and move on.

I was really uplifted by how they complemented each piece and even said where different illustrations could live (trapped whale–early reader, dragon and tower trapped princess–middle grade , linework garden scene–BW interior illustration for example). It trained my taste to hear pros call simple illustrations perfect for what they were trying to do and say where they could live. I had been thinking there was nothing they could teach me and maybe feeling a bit superior for being so hard on myself all the time. I was wrong and I’m glad they showed me that.
I also am really grateful for Lee’s story at the end where the girl showed him he wasn't working hard enough. I saw myself in that story. I tend to have the same mentality as student Lee, the “it’s alright, it's pretty good.” And I sure feel reproved. Maybe I don’t have the resources to do 20 thumbnails like my school professors wanted, but I can think up three different ways to communicate my concept. Three is reachable! So I’m correcting my course. I will come up with three versions of my concept because there are at least two other interesting ways to show it, and I can find them.

To the guys: I'm simply chuffed that you tried something so similar to what I was talking about in the submission thread. I know it's not my place to dictate how you do your livestream, I just really love what you are doing. It is so amazing and powerful and unique, and I’m too much of a problem solver to keep a possible solution to myself. Sometimes we are too close to our creations to see user-end problems and what simple solutions could accomplish. In the process of sharing I have endeavored to bring only the most positive of all energy. Thank you for reading, thinking about, and trying my idea. Thank you Jake Parker for giving it a chance. I hope you try it again, 30 second feedback-per-sub version with whatever you want at the end!

skeletortoise

I think I prefer the in-depth critiques, even if that means they can't talk about everyone's. There may be a middle ground wherein they do give a second to scrolling through the submissions and briefly mentioning strengths and whether the story makes sense. That could add lots of time if it weren't truly a brief reaction though.

In the past, Jake has scrolled through the submissions and stopped on ones he thought were interesting, and then after about 5 minutes they got into the critiques. I think I liked it that way best.

makekong

Thank you for everything!
Also: this post is great!

For me the important part of this series is the opportunity and guidance to improve my editorial eye

They give us a prompt so we can have a direction and go into production mode. But we should use everything we have learned and apply it with the level of skill we have. Yhe work we present can be of any level of skill, but the editorial eye should include everything we have been hearing from the guys over the years.
I love when they choose three different areas of discussion because makes for a great class.
Now, the moment the first image goes up for review we should have at least a hint of what they will review because we have been studying along them, and if you dont then pause the screen and test yourself improve your editorial eye, ok what will they mention about this illistration, and then followup with t=what the issue was and how can it be corrected.

Its like a pie baking contest, we have to do everything ourselves to have a functional edible pie. If we just blend everything together and bake it to say “done fix it” there is just too much to fix. But if we are diligently paying attention and follow the instructions we know we will have something that will be very close to a tasty pie. And there is where we can benefit from a class they already developed called “How to fix your art”. This comtest is just a quick review of how our editorial eye is developing while we work on our skills. Once you are ready to jump to the next level, the guys have a great class waiting for us.

Erin Hawkins

I didn't submit -- just watched. I really enjoyed it and learned so much. Thank you to everyone who submitted and put your work out there. I'm early in my journey so I don't feel ready to submit work yet, but it is really is wonderful to see other work. Lee, Will, and Jake gave incredible feedback. Thanks for recording it because making the time live is a challenge for some of us.

Erin Hawkins

@Erin-Hawkins oops sorry for my typo -- Jake wasn't there -- great feedback from Lee and Will!

Katherine

No matter what these guys do I enjoy it. I happily listen to their tangents just as much as their expertise. I've actually been lucky enough to have Will do an in-depth critique of one of my illustrations! Obviously, if you're lucky enough to score an in-depth critique there's nothing better than that. I think second best is an in-depth critique of another's work. I hope they don't do a repeat of the last format where they tried to get to everyone's work as that I found to be the least educational and also least entertaining. But if they do I'll probably still watch it

Enni Heikura

Both approaches seem very useful to me. The best scenario, although not realistic, would be if both methods could be utilized every month. That is, a separate live session for in-depth analysis of a couple of works and another session for a more superficial review of each work (I would be willing to pay for this ). If I had to choose, I would prefer that each work receives feedback, even if it's not as in-depth.

Personally, I like that if I invest in a task, I know I'll receive some feedback. In the last two live sessions, I received a few comments that I've been really happy about, and they have propelled me forward and, most importantly, built confidence.

The idea of a critique arena sounds really motivating. I'm relatively new here, so I've never participated in one, but I would definitely join if they were offered in the future!

In any case, Jake, Will, and Lee are doing an incredibly great job doing these live sessions, and I'm so glad I've found this community!

Jeanne.M.Bowman

This was the first critique that I watched and I thought it was informative. However, it was extremely fast. I understand how hard it is for them to get everyone the critique they need. I wonder if there was a kind of lottery system they could implement where three or so people would be chosen at random for each episode and get the in-depth critique and then they could give a faster critique to the others at a different time? That said, I learned from the faster critiques as well so I don't think either way is bad. These poor guys have to walk a tight rope to make everyone happy! Maybe they could hire some other team mates to help with the critiques and take some of it off their backs? Who knows- trying to please everyone is impossible. They are doing a great job with the limited time they have and whatever the form I'm enjoying it.