I remembered I had some art that's nearly 5+ years old on here that's just utter garbage.
I'm considering getting rid of it (actually I'm not sure I can/am allowed to if it's not a serious takedown request) but then thought "what if people wanna see the artists' progress?"

Actually, yes. I do enjoy seeing older works.
You are allowed to request a takedown if you just don't want to see your old art: as the artist, you have reign over whether or not the art is allowed here regardless of the reasoning.

There's no real downside.

I really do.

There's no shame in bad art. Honestly, we all start somewhere and there is nothing more inspiring to me than to see someone's art and see who much they've changed over a few years. because if they can do that, I can do.

As an artist, we can be REALLY bad about judging our own artwork. so even if it's something you hate, there's probably someone who'll love it.

AnOddScot said:
actually I'm not sure I can/am allowed to if it's not a serious takedown request

That said, I am pretty sure that since you are the artist, you can make this request if you particularly want -- of one picture, of several, or of everything. A take down does not mean you need to take down EVERYTHING.

But I encourage you to leave it-- I'd rather see everything an artist's done-- even the stuff that isn't as good. :)

Often it's a matter of subject over quality.

I think it's pretty neat to see artist developmemt :3 If you're asking us, please don't remove it:) , but obviously it's up to you.

I personally love seeing artist's progress, especially in artists with incredibly unique styles! I really love quirky unique styles a ton

But yeah! You're the artist, so removal of old works is up to you

There's nothing bad about old work. I don't understand why artists have to hide it, its the same as people saying they hate kids and children and how stupid they are, when they were the same themselves.

Virtyalfobo goes to extreme measures to patrol imageboards and make sure his old art gets deleted from the internet and will take down every time someone posts his old art, so I guess they become so delusional and high up in their egos that they think they are the best artist in the world and try to whitewash their brain of the past.

It's just people that can't learn where they came from and handle the fact they used to be a beginner and think they were always this good, its a severe mental problem in their brain.

Naughtynose said:
There's nothing bad about old work. I don't understand why artists have to hide it, its the same as people saying they hate kids and children and how stupid they are, when they were the same themselves.

Virtyalfobo goes to extreme measures to patrol imageboards and make sure his old art gets deleted from the internet and will take down every time someone posts his old art, so I guess they become so delusional and high up in their egos that they think they are the best artist in the world and try to whitewash their brain of the past.

It's just people that can't learn where they came from and handle the fact they used to be a beginner and think they were always this good, its a severe mental problem in their brain.

Hey now... we all have differing views on art and progression and how we perceive out works over time, and that differing doesn't mean someone "has a severe mental problem". That's quite harsh!

Some people are ashamed of their old works and love their new stuff, some are the opposite. Sometimes extremely negative emotions can be attached to works in particular pieces of time, so you try and distance yourself from it to avoid these emotions... etc etc. There's so much that can form this opinion, and really either way of viewing old art is valid imho since it's the artist's work in the end.

It's all up to the artist's, and we all have varied life experiences to change these opinions. There is nothing wrong with that

IMO it's appropriate for the artist to view themselves like a carpenter or engineer. Your old work may be shitty, that doesn't mean nobody gets anything out of it, and it doesn't mean you know every kind of use that can be gotten out of it.
When curating a portfolio, obviously you remove all but the best work, but it should be equally obvious that e621 is nothing like a portfolio.

The act of removing something from an archive is, to some extent, an act of editing your personal history. So if you're gonna do it, have a good reason. What a good reason is, is a matter of judgement, but I'm pretty sure that 'people might not like it' and 'I'm embarrassed by this work, I look at it and then beat myself up about it' are quite vague and thus bad reasons. "people are constantly harassing me about this particular work" is an example of a less vague reason, which may be better.

Also you don't know how bad your work actually is, in all likelihood. In my case, as I've developed as an artist my opinion on a bunch of my old work actually flipped from 'bad' to 'good'.

Going beyond the original question.. Progress is best shown IMO by a timeline of process animations rather than a timeline of finished works. It's like, when you look at a house and see that it looks spiffy, that indicates mainly how much finishing work was done, not whether the thing as a whole was done well -- you'd have to go inside and check everything out in detail to figure that out. So as an artist, this is what I look for to really see evidence of progress.

You are allowed to request a takedown if you just don't want to see your old art

If you just don't want to see your old art, blacklisting your own artist tag is a simple and non-destructive measure.

savageorange said:
If you just don't want to see your old art, blacklisting your own artist tag is a simple and non-destructive measure.

Does the date metatag work in blacklist? If so, it can even be blacklisted to only exclude things from a certain date and ealier.

Furrin_Gok said:
Does the date metatag work in blacklist? If so, it can even be blacklisted to only exclude things from a certain date and ealier.

No you can't, even if you could you can't blacklist ranges. But we do have the year tags, you could just blacklist your artist tag along with each year you don't want to see.

I've left really old art up on other sites out of courtesy, though I usually don't like to look at it even 5 minutes after completion.

But for others I really don't mind either way. I've found plenty of good stuff under the 200* date tags, and also old stuff under the sketch tag.

savageorange said:
IMO it's appropriate for the artist to view themselves like a carpenter or engineer. Your old work may be shitty, that doesn't mean nobody gets anything out of it, and it doesn't mean you know every kind of use that can be gotten out of it.

Those sound like to words of someone who doesn't work on houses or cars for a living ;) If you haven't beaten an engineer to death in your imagination, you probably don't fix things that much.

I love seeing artists old artwork
Its a nice way of seeing their progression

Ijerk said:
Those sound like to words of someone who doesn't work on houses or cars for a living ;) If you haven't beaten an engineer to death in your imagination, you probably don't fix things that much.

Did you even read what I wrote?

The creator of an object or design doesn't know the extent of the uses it can, will, or should be put to, despite arranging this system in pursuit of some explicit or implicit goal. That's the central claim.

Pointing this out is not implying that systems are great; it's not even implying that systems are not terrible. Systems are usually at least partly broken , and I can easily bring up examples relating to cars or houses; so what?

One of my favorite things is going way back in an artist's gallery and seeing their earlier works!

That being said, I also understand looking at your own older art and feeling very negative about it. I've deleted a lot of older work from my online galleries over time and I'll probably continue to do it.

It's a really personal decision and there is no right or wrong answer!

Naughtynose said:
There's nothing bad about old work. I don't understand why artists have to hide it, its the same as people saying they hate kids and children and how stupid they are, when they were the same themselves.

Virtyalfobo goes to extreme measures to patrol imageboards and make sure his old art gets deleted from the internet and will take down every time someone posts his old art, so I guess they become so delusional and high up in their egos that they think they are the best artist in the world and try to whitewash their brain of the past.

It's just people that can't learn where they came from and handle the fact they used to be a beginner and think they were always this good, its a severe mental problem in their brain.

Dude. Dude.

Everyone has lived a different life than you.

Dude.

I am in my mid 30's. I have self described as an artist since 7th grade, and been posting my art online since then. I have had many artist friends, known many other artists, and even hated a few.

I think I can think of.... one? MAYBE two artists that think that they are the best.

I know many artists who are confident--which is GREAT, because the alternative is that you have people who continually feel as if they are failing.. and that's bad. Anyone who feels like they have never succeed at something eventually gives up. I've seen it happen SO many times.

Art isn't something where you black-or-white succeed or fail. You can do GREAT in some parts and fail horribly at others. Art is very much about learning "I did good with this part, but need to work harder here." You GOTTA learn to praise yourself where you can. Or else you decide you're awful, and that there's no reason for you to continue wasting your time making bad art.

Some artists feel "I am doing pretty good" or "I am happy where my art is right now" but no artist-- baring a few rare exceptions over my lifetime--thinks that they are perfect and have no room to improve.

What some artists experience is hatred for their old work. They see it and all they can feel is shame and embarrassment for what they created in the past. The look at the awful picture with bad anatomy, and bad perspective and coloring and stiff posing with their comment of "OMG I'm SO PROUD OF THIS I LOVE THIS" and comments from other people praising what they see to be an awful picture and .. well, they don't liek it.

and that's okay.

We're all different people with different feelings and emotions. Honestly.

But most people don't feel arrogant, aloof, or even antagonistic.

Please be nice to other people and don't assume the absolute worst of them, man. It's rarely true, and all it does it hurt feelings and make you look like a jerk. :/

I like seeing artist's old work. It's interesting and encouraging.

savageorange said:
and I can easily bring up examples relating to cars or houses; so what?

I just think those professions make for a bad metaphor, given the relative consequences of failure. Old art never really causes problems, on the other hand I wouldn't want anyone to be subjected to some of my improvised kludges from ten years ago.

yeah i agree too, its intresting to see how the artist was starting off and how they got better. And in a lot of cases, even old art is still good.

Ijerk said:
I just think those professions make for a bad metaphor, given the relative consequences of failure.

I didn't mean to imply professional work, so I should have said 'carpentry' and 'engineering'. My bad. Professionals don't get much opportunity to reuse, AFAICS.

I also kind of vaguely mixed in a different assertion, which is that engineering, drawing, and carpentry have different tools and standards but what they are trying to do is similar. I think that's important (you can only neglect workmanship / construction quality and physical conditioning in art if you don't care about being mediocre), but mixing it in obliquely like that was probably confusing.

Old art never really causes problems, on the other hand I wouldn't want anyone to be subjected to some of my improvised kludges from ten years ago.

Fair enough. However, a terrible kludge can still be a lot better than nothing.

It’s actually one of my favorite things to see a great artist’s earlier work and realize that they were once bad and had to work to get better. It’s easy to imagine that certain people just pick up a stylus/pencil/paintbrush and immediately start making amazing art, but that’s not how it happens. There is a bit of latent talent needed, but every skill has to be honed, and seeing that whole journey visualized is kind of great.