Quandry regarding older, but popular work.

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Deviation Actions

dalgoda7's avatar
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Between 10-15 years ago, I used to draw comic page commissions where I would offer to illustrate a page of script by the commissioner.  The idea was that this would set me apart from all of the artists doing mostly pinup work, and it also sounded like a fun project.  It *was* pretty fun for a while, although the kind of jobs that would come my way quickly transitioned (so to speak) into mostly fetish or transformation pieces. 

I was OK with this for a while, and did them for a couple of years.  I felt an ego boost from having folks enjoy my work and be willing to pay for it, but eventually wasn't real happy with the subject matter and ceased doing fetish-style work about ten years ago.

At the same time, I would post the work here on DA, and they would get a *ton* of views and faves.. which is also gratitifying.  As years went by, I found that I wasn't super proud of a lot of the work I had posted due to the subject matter, and I'd also improved as an artist/inker to the point of disliking my earlier work because it wasn't as well done.

I removed a goodly chunk of the more risque pieces from my gallery, but left a few milder ones... which still get a few favorites a month, many years later.  These faves still feed my ego, but the work is so far removed from the quality of work I do now, that even the more innocuous ones make me cringe when I see them.

Also, those faves mean people are seeing that work, enjoying it, and might even enjoy my more recent work, which is pretty mild in comparison.

Anyway, I think I've convinced myself while writing this into doing another purge of the rest of that stuff from my gallery... it's just not 'me' anymore.   Even though a few of them have tens of thousands of views. :D
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cluedog's avatar
It saddens me when an artist clips down his or her gallery and more so when it's yours.  You've got so many splendid things to look at.

I've thought about shedding some of the work in my gallery but I rarely do so because I like people to see how far I've come (or haven't!) as an artist.   Plus, you never know when a certain drawing might tickle somebody's fancy.  I also have a lot of fetish art in my gallery but I figure people would find out about it one way or the other, so I let that part of my art stick out.

I respect your decision but I just think it would be awesome to view your art as a whole.