Well I am by no means a great GFX guy but I can say that the criticism I received when I first started here in S25 has helped me to improve an incredible amount from the garbage I started with. I had the same initial reaction when I started here, and was even a little intimidated by some of the GFX I was seeing on the board, and thinking "shit, these guys are amazing and my stuff looks like shit...why bother?"...but you can take that feeling/criticism in two ways. You can stop and try doing something else(or give up completely like I did with 0 TPE superstar Uzi Thundakowski) or use it as motivation to improve your GFX abilities. I started trying different things, reading about how the different components and tools of PS worked and how to blend them together to get better/different results. It was difficult and took time but I honestly believe it was well worth it. If you are more comfortable getting your weekly TPE by another method, that's great, but don't let the feedback or a poor grade stop you from trying something entirely. Like I said, there's a bunch of better GFX guys then myself in this league, but without the reality checks and feedback from the graders when I started out, it's doubtful that Boomchenko or Tordahl would have ever been either half decent, or created at all.
#VHL4EVA