Hey there! Guess what? I received my first piece of hate mail on 7-27-98. But guess what else? I learned long ago not to let mindless criticism like this bother me. Whatever moronic insults people have nothing better to do with than throw at me is of no concern. What does bother me is when the insulter has nothing to back up their ridicule. That is why I am going to make an example of this lame piece of email, so no one else makes the same mistakes. My apologies to the heckler for posting your email and for offending you with my atrocious artwork (heh), but I just want to educate others on some classic follies I see in email. The sender had this to say:
Subject: your artwork
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 16:04:46 EDT
From: [identity now protected]
To: trencher@earthlink.net [an old addy of mine]
holy hell, u suck!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i'm an artisit (if that's what u call
yourself)
too, an' i drew better than that when i was 4!!!!!!!! you suck cock!!!!!!
Now, first off, there is an obvious lack of regard for the most basic rules of writing: spelling and capitalization. I would add punctuation to this list, but the sender seems to have a hang of that. People, just because you are typing a quick email to someone is no excuse for slack of schooling! Of course, if you never went to school to learn about spelling and grammar, then I understand and sympathize for you. But it only takes a few moments or a spell checker to go through and proofread what you have written. And perhaps you will even think of some extra things to add while doing so.
Next, the sender uses a variety of slang insults to make their point. While this is okay in some circles, it has no place in the real world of civilized adults. I myself insulted the sender only because they insulted me. Unfortunately, this only serves to create a vicious circle. My bad! ;b
Most importantly however, the sender has nothing constructive to say or show. Perhaps if he/she had pointed out what it was about my art that they thought sucked, I could actually take steps to improve myself. The sender also mentions how good their art is, but neglects to show any examples. If the art is so good, why not show it off on a website or other means?
In short, this email did me no good and does not even rank a reply response.
************************ Now, let me make it clear that I fully realize that my artwork is not top notch. Neither are my computer skills, and yet I managed to receive a degree in Graphic Design and Illustration and am currently working full time on page layouts for a nationally distributed catalog. I need more training; I know this. But please realize that I only started trying to draw people in high school and I rarely ever drew anything before that. I am still lucky if I sketch even one drawing a month these days. Most of the drawings of characters I have are the only drawings of those characters. And only a few have ever been drawn more than twice. Seriously! For that reason, most of the drawings I have are frontal standing poses (often just of the character's head). I have not done much experimenting with action poses and even less of background shots and props, I still can't draw hands or feet worth a damn, and I'm horrible at drawing weapons. And the majority of my drawings are simply pencil sketches that never get completed. Even the colored ones are mostly scanned in pencil art where I then darken the lines and add the color in Photoshop.
The reason I put my drawings up on display is because I am proud of how much progress I feel I've made on such a part-time hobby of mine. That, and the fact that I finally joined the internet and wanted to have my own home page to say "Here I am!"
I don't mind criticism, but only if it has something worthwhile to say; something that I can benefit from. And I would gladly give you the same consideration. But there are others out there that don't take criticism well and may end up doing something drastic, either to themselves or to the sender. I simply don't want to see anyone get hurt. Please take care when writing letters of comment.
And please, take notes.
If you feel the same way, I give you full permission to link to this page.
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