Okay, so I've been on Deviantart for well over 7 years now, and please let me just put something out there when it comes to seeing comments on works.
I'm sure we all get comments such as: "Wow amazing! Reminds me of X or Y or potato!"
That awkward moment when you have no idea what that was, so you bust out google and search it up, only to find out that it looks NOTHING like what people said.
Now, please don't get me wrong. I have no problem with comments or feedback such as ones above. I truly appreciate how viewers are trying to relate your piece in their own ways.
What I CANNOT STAND (and I know there are many of you out there who feel the same), are comments like these:
When you make an image of something such as a practical robot or a futuristic (but not too futuristic) car that still uses wheels.
"Um, your image looks too much like Z, X, Y,...."
That moment when what they described, was the most generic design for a robot or any ordinary car done by another present day artist.
A great example would be a painting I did almost 4 years ago, which was a class assignment that required us to read a piece of literature, and translate what we read into an environmental painting. I chose Ring World by Larry Niven, a highly popular science fiction during the 1970s, with a hint of Miyazaki's influence on the side.
![Lost Worlds]()
How a LOT of people responded: OMGAFHASIAHASIFAH HALO HALO HALO IS THAT HALO???? THATS HALO I LOVE HALO WHERES MASTER CHEF FROM BMX??????????
Lemme put it this way. While I truly appreciate having everyone taking in an image with their own thoughts, how they use what we artists created in order to relate to a certain emotion. Yet when we come across comments like that.....
Here's another example. A lot of you probably recognize this image:
![The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp]()
by Rembrandt .................................Bet most of you said to yourselves: oh it's the Deus Ex painting, or The Adam Jensen painting! (because I've had many people say that around me, true story)
Again, I believe that it's fantastic how video games are incorporating a lot of traditional influences. However, I get annoyed when people start to compare an artist's work solely to that of video games, and blatantly tell the artist to try being more original. That's just plain ignorant. Sure, video games a a HUGE inspiration for a lot of designs we see today, no doubt there are fantastic things that an aspiring artist can learn from looking, and playing these games. However, it's all been done before, pick up a science fiction\ fantasy literature that was published before 1985 and see what you get
Thoughts? Comments? Feel free to share!
`anmari has been spreading her infectious positivity throughout our community for over 6 years. Throughout this time Ana has been at the core of all things devious, passionately developing an eclectic gallery, helping organise devmeets, participating in chat events and also recently completed dedicating her time as a Community Volunteer. We are absolutely delighted to bestow the Deviousness Award for May 2013 to `anmari, congratulations! Read More
Sta.sh
Dear members, in order to bring more 'usability' to our group, there were some changes in the approach, namely:
The open challenges are:
Redo Your Very First Deviation - http://kickyourownass.deviantart.com/gallery/33807333
Delve.. but she really needs a new owner. `PurpelBlur will b
Prompt-It-Up Summer Challenge 2011 will begin. This contest will be running for the whole summer 
This is a contest geared to get people motivated to respond to prompts more frequently.
Anyway, regarding the Anatomy lesson... I've heard worse - Bieber fans claming that Queen copied his songs *facepalm*
Where's my semi-automatic...
For the most part I would love to see artists not feeling this way also. We should not feel the need to defend our art to anyone except dA Administration (in terms of copyright issues or other infractions as setup by the dA user agreement policies). All in all art is very subjective and I think we possibly have to take criticism a little less personal , and be able to sift past the lesser critiques and get to the real critiques that help us grow as artists.
That's one of the tougher problems with dA (and the internet in general), the technology has opened the doors for communication between genres, cultures and age groups so much, but we have not informed everyone how to communicate politely or respectfully with these tools. This can cause a rift at times, and I think your post identifies one of these rifts.