I know there's no explicit guidelines for the minimum quality standards, which has been the source of a lot of controversy both on- and off-site. The policy is not what I'm talking about here.

What I am talking about is, surely an overwhelming number of images deleted under said policy have some traits in common?

I want to know the observations here, not the rules. The difference being, to quote my favorite book on writing (How Not To Write a Novel), "'No right on red' is a rule. 'Driving at high speed toward a brick wall usually ends badly' is an observation."

Why am I asking? In no small part because I want to improve. Right now, my ultimate goal as an artist is to become skilled enough to where I don't have to worry about the minimum quality standards anymore; a goal which I am very, very far from.

"Paint like" pictures
Traced art
"First thing I have drawn" pictures
Photographs of traditional art, if they are not well cut out or with shadows on it.
Pictures with a very smoll resolution

That's what comes into my mind right now

lendrimujina said:
Why am I asking? In no small part because I want to improve. Right now, my ultimate goal as an artist is to become skilled enough to where I don't have to worry about the minimum quality standards anymore; a goal which I am very, very far from.

In that case, you should not have any problem uploading onto proper art galleries then, such as FurAffinity or DeviantArt where their quality standards are more lax.
Don't treat e621 as a personal art gallery, it is more of a public imageboard where you present your works to the world.
You have very limited control over your content. E.g., Not being able to hide the score/votes on your posts, changing the submission file to something else, hiding comments on your posts, or deleting an artwork immediately. You would have to go through the usual takedown process like everybody else to delete your works.

As to the quality standards here, you shouldn't use it as your sole judgment on how good (or bad) your artworks are. The mods who approve them (i.e., Janitor+ members) have very different ideas of what's good and what's bad, so they use the best of their judgment to see if your content fits here.
Some may get approved one day by one mod, while others may get deleted on another day by another mod. That would often lead to arguments of "Why A is approved but not B?" and cause unnecessary stress on yourself.

For common deletion reasons, you can refer to forum #235851.
Check under Q: What does the deletion reason mean? -> Does not meet minimum quality standards.

thegreatwolfgang said:
As to the quality standards here, you shouldn't use it as your sole judgment on how good (or bad) your artworks are.

I know it shouldn't be the sole judgement that I consider, but it's usually the only judgement I can get.

As for posting my work on other sites... I do. FurAffinity, Reddit (sometimes, when there's a sub for it), and Twitter (formerly; had to leave that place for my health). Usually (though admittedly not always) to zero response.

thegreatwolfgang said:
The mods who approve them (i.e., Janitor+ members) have very different ideas of what's good and what's bad, so they use the best of their judgment to see if your content fits here.
Some may get approved one day by one mod, while others may get deleted on another day by another mod. That would often lead to arguments of "Why A is approved but not B?" and cause unnecessary stress on yourself.

I suspected as much... I've seen things like two images taking place right next to each other have one approved and one rejected. And one thing of mine stayed up for over a year before a different mod deleted it. By "hoping I won't have to worry about the quality standards someday", I meant "hoping that someday I'll be skilled enough to where I can be fairly confident that the mods will be in agreement about whether it should remain up." It's not a good measuring stick because it's pretty much an all-or-nothing condition, but if I actually manage to achieve that, I'll know for sure that I'm not a lost cause and haven't wasted my time trying... that said, it's sort of like saying "if I can manage to run a marathon, I'll know for sure that I'll be able to jog for a couple miles". Very flawed logic on my part.

And you're very, very right about that thought process of "why is A approved but not B" causing unnecessary stress. Like, I was sure the last image I did would at least be considered, as I was way more proud of it than some of the things I've done that HAVE been approved — especially since it's one of the ones that had actually gotten comments on Reddit. I thought that meant it would be not-viscerally-terrible-to-the-point-where-4chan-will-gang-up-on-me-over-it* enough to post here for once, but it, too, was deleted. That gave me the impression that my skills had deteriorated with practice, not improved. Really goes to show how much negativity bias sucks — one rejection shoves all that built-up confidence right to the dirt. Though admittedly a lot of that is just anxiety/paranoia.

Thank you for the link, at any rate.

DubsTheFox said:
Photographs of traditional art, if they are not well cut out or with shadows on it.

Whenever I see one of these, I try to point them to apps that can correct photos of paper, such as CamScanner. Served me well in the past.

As for JPEG artifacts — years ago, all of my pics were being automatically bitcrushed beyond my control, and I didn't realize at the time. Nobody told me, and I racked up a bunch of deleted posts early on with me just scratching my head why. That was really embarrassing when I finally found out much, much later...

...speaking of racking up deleted posts, is it possible to have enough deleted posts where your daily limit becomes zero? Major part of the reason I've been nervous about trying to post anything else. I don't know how many "strikes" I have left before I'm essentially soft-banned.

lendrimujina said:

...speaking of racking up deleted posts, is it possible to have enough deleted posts where your daily limit becomes zero? Major part of the reason I've been nervous about trying to post anything else. I don't know how many "strikes" I have left before I'm essentially soft-banned.

e621.net runs an algorithm that determines your upload limit: 10 + (submissions_approved/10) - (submissions_deleted/4) - pending_submissions. Assuming that you never get an approval, you would have to get 40 submissions deleted before your upload limit becomes 0. You can see this algorithm on your profile.

lendrimujina said:

...speaking of racking up deleted posts, is it possible to have enough deleted posts where your daily limit becomes zero? Major part of the reason I've been nervous about trying to post anything else. I don't know how many "strikes" I have left before I'm essentially soft-banned.

Your Upload Limit is calculated taking into account both approvals and deletions. If your upload limit goes to 0, you can ask an admin to raise it manually and they will consider doing so based on the deletion reasons.

Regarding the quality of your work, I would recommend studying references for anatomy, which helped me a lot. For example, the way the mount's legs bend in post #3098248 does not appear very natural. Something like this might be useful.

Regarding your feelings towards this situation, everyone has to start somewhere. Your favorite artists were not born knowing how to draw well or at all. Don't give up, keep practicing and in a few months to years you could reach a relatively high level of technical skill if you put in the necessary effort.

gattonero2001 said:
I would recommend studying references for anatomy, which helped me a lot. For example, the way the mount's legs bend in post #3098248 does not appear very natural. Something like this might be useful.

Thank you. Thank you. This is exactly the type of feedback I've been wanting for so long. This is the kind of thing I can fix. (For the record, that particular drawing is the one I was proud of I was talking about in my last post, though admittedly I was more proud of how the Gek character herself turned out.)

Also, I had no idea janitors we're still able to view deleted posts. I always thought they were wiped from the server entirely.

At any rate, over the years I have noticed some problems with several of the deleted images on my own as well, most of which I have either locally saved or are still on my FurAffinity.

• 2560595: I should have known better than to try to upload something this rough-sketch-y. There's a lot of misplaced things that probably could have been adjusted before I started coloring. Also, I have no idea why I gave the rodents horsecocks...
• 1891407/1891410/1891411: I'm betting it was the surroundings that did me in here, as well as the nearer leg which kinda just deflates at the hoof.
• 1817842: This one faded through the waiting period rather than being outright rejected. The things I noticed here were smaller, like the wrong curve at the farther shin.
• 1696873/1696885: Oh god, this one, it's just obvious I did it in one night, trying to beat the clock to do something before Halloween was over... (shudder)
• 1639327: This is the one that was up for over a full year before being taken down without warning. Actually ended up getting in an argument over that one, not so much about the image itself as how deceived I felt at the time... I was not a stable badgerm'n at that time and I don't really think I can look at this one objectively,
• 1643058: ...forgot all about that one... pretty much disowned it because of how crap IT turned out.

And all the ones deleted before 1643058 were before someone told me my work had been getting bitcrushed without my noticing. Along with being very early in my art pursuits...

...that said, I'm a bit surprised to see what I consider my all time best work had never been uploaded. Could have sworn I tried that one years ago, but apparently not.

lendrimujina said:
I know it shouldn't be the sole judgement that I consider, but it's usually the only judgement I can get.

It wouldn't be wise to upload here anyways just to receive judgement by the mods in the approval process.
My personal rule of thumb for uploading here on e6 is "If I have to ask whether or not my artwork is good enough to upload here, it probably isn't."
Some say this is bad advice, but I believe it combats the confirmation bias within you (i.e., seeking second opinions that support your belief).
The more conventional way of determining if you're good enough is to see how well your artwork compares to existing/approved posts here, but again, it is subjective to the mods' standards.

It is more practical, however, to consider joining the many art servers/communities out there that can help support you in your journey for improving your art skills.
You can also choose an ideal image of how you good you want to become and view self-help materials online (i.e., Google or YouTube) on drawing.

It is also important to know that drawing should not be a "trying to please everybody" endeavour. It should be a hobby for your own enjoyment and self-interest.
If you are trying to compete or do it professionally, then it would become as such, alongside with all the stresses associated with pursuing down that path.
Everybody works on their own pace for improvement and development. You start out from the bottom and slowly work your way up to the top. Don't immediately strive to be the best when you don't have your basics covered.

Whenever I see one of these, I try to point them to apps that can correct photos of paper, such as CamScanner. Served me well in the past.

As for JPEG artifacts — years ago, all of my pics were being automatically bitcrushed beyond my control, and I didn't realize at the time. Nobody told me, and I racked up a bunch of deleted posts early on with me just scratching my head why. That was really embarrassing when I finally found out much, much later...

Normally, photographed images of traditionally drawn artworks look terrible as opposed to actual scans made using a printer, since it is not as high resolution and/or has a lot of image artefacts. Thus, the reason why it is considered a bad thing to upload as per the uploading guidelines.

...speaking of racking up deleted posts, is it possible to have enough deleted posts where your daily limit becomes zero? Major part of the reason I've been nervous about trying to post anything else. I don't know how many "strikes" I have left before I'm essentially soft-banned.

To build on what the others have said, you can request for a "top up" from the admins if your upload limit reaches zero.
However, this is normally reserved for extreme circumstances that are outside your control, such as experiencing mass deletions from artist takedowns.
Consistently posting "bad" uploads will result in your limit being permanently locked off since it can be seen as failing to adhere to the uploading guidelines.