I'm looking for a community that offers brutally honest feedback on icons with an eye towards helping a person improve. I've reached a plateau and a sameness to my icons; I'd like to go further. I ask for constructive criticism on my icon posts, but I think people are too afraid I'll get pissy or that they'll hurt my feelings or something. The comments I get are the, "These are great!/I like ## and am snagging!" variety. I'm not complaining - they're certainly good for the ego - but I need critical feedback to fuel improvement.

Anyone know of any communities like this? Have you gotten similar help? Or is this more like writing and one gets an "icon beta" to help? jalabert is my current icon beta but she limits her input (mostly) to the icons I make for her. More Voices = More Viewpoints To Consider.

Any other suggestions? I've friended people whose icons I like and stuck them in a filter, "Inspiration," to make it easier to look at examples I like. I spend time trawling fandoms, looking for interesting icons. I have gone through innumerable tutorials, etc. If you've got another cool idea for spurring creativity, please feel free to share. I feel as if text and cropping are especially weak points for me. Maybe I have others I'm blind to? I won't know until someone points it out to me. :)

And yeah, I should be writing up a "here's what I did on vacation" post. That's on my To Do List, as well.