Old work that ... you're proud of?

[TheLemmaLlama]

Also even if they're old and kinda fugly I still put a lot of time and effort into them, it wouldn't feel right to dump them

Not just that, but people who are invested in your current work often have an interest in your history as a developing artist (and writer!) (I totally did not have any ulterior motives for making this thread )

So ...

My first draft of 'The Herald's Soul' on the other hand... oof. That will never see daylight again.

... are you ... are you sure? T_T

(I for one have left every single piece of work I've uploaded on the internet exactly where they are, and never plan to delete them >:D)

[nekocoa]

This piece is almost 3 years old and it's still one of my favorites

[Mar_Sadeh]

Some years ago I wrote a Vocaloids fanfiction, in which Hatsune Miku discovers the wonders of heavy metal. I think I was 15. The crux of the joke is that everything I knew about the Vocaloids I gathered from watching two music videos and doing about an hour of online searches, so I basically just made it up as I went along having no context except for character names. At some point a dragon woman attacked Hatsune Miku mid-concert, a heavy metal vocaloid I made up named after a Japanese rifle turned into a shotgun, and there was an epic battle while Miku sang Through the Fire and Flames by Dragonforce. With some work I could probably track it down - right now I think the only copy is lost in the annals of Deviantart.

The result was not exactly phenomenal, but honestly I think it overall still holds up as an absurd, goofy sort of way. It was my first love letter to heavy metal, a genre that became very important to me over the years, and so it holds a special place in my heart.

[TheLemmaLlama]

Bold move! What kind of reactions did you get from Vocaloid fans who actually knew Vocaloid? XD (And do you still at least remember your deviantART username? :P)

I also have and old piece of writing on the goofier side I'm still quite proud of, but I've already posted quite a bit of stuff in the OP and I was more interested in hearing about works with a blend of story and visuals so I kept this one out

[SpavVy]

Here's some of my old art that I'm still happy with. Anything before 2019 I usually hate looking at with a burning passion but around 2019 or so I had a huge jump in improvement because I was experimenting a lot more with styles along with honing my main style. The art I did of Haru from Beastars ended up becoming my second style though I don't use it a whole lot unless a commissioner requests it.

[Mar_Sadeh]

It remained very obscure, so I didn't get much reaction from the community writ large. However, one Vocaloid fan did find it, about 6 months after its initial publishing. Their response - and no, this is not a joke - was to congratulate me on my impressively deep knowledge of the Vocaloids because I knew of obscure characters.

A bit of asking later, I gathered this is because of a single line that offhandedly referenced Calne Ca, a Vocaloid who looks like Hatsune Miku mixed with a giant spider. I just happened to stumble across her while doing my hour of online searches, and having already decided on the dragon woman as the main antagonist but thinking that Miku but a spider sounded metal and I wanted that, I just threw in a reference that the dragon was sent by Calne Ca. This doubled as potential sequel fodder, so I could go through other characters sent by Calne Ca as Miku learns about more and different subtypes of metal with her new friend, perhaps culminating in a fight against Calne Ca herself. Those sequels never materialized, though I have considered going back just for fun, or rewriting it to be original characters only. Whatever the case, the irony of someone finding my knowledge of the characters to be particularly extensive was not lost on me.

I do remember my DeviantArt username! In fact, with knowing it I just found the story inside a few seconds. I'm... nervous to put a link to it, since that would enable looking at other parts of my DeviantArt account and I don't want that to happen. If you are super interested, let me know and I will DM you a file (not that that makes it especially hard to find the original document by doing a text search but it makes me feel better XD).

[TheLemmaLlama]

That's hilarious, yet something I'd totally do when encountering fan content for stuff I'm into XD

I'm not a Vocaloid fan so I probably won't get it, though it'll be cool to contribute any quotes you're particularly proud of that you feel like anyone could appreciate

[AlydaB]

... are you ... are you sure? T_T

Luckily, I never uploaded them anywhere in the first place, so yup

I might share snips of it someday just for the fun at laughing at an old, crappy original and seeing how much it's grown, but it really is pretty bad haha

[UrMom]

Hahah I forget people can be into that sort of thing. I had a friend in high school who was obsessed with keeping everything I drew, I sent all my old stuff to her when it piled up, and she would post them on Tumblr as a sort of archive. She loved seeing my stuff go from young teen garbage to whatever I got going on now. We don't talk anymore because we're adults with our own lives, living in towns 2 hours apart, but she still has my old stuff and that blog is still up (Although inactive.) as far as I know.

[powerplantanimations]

I've said this before but Unbeatable Q, a comic that I cancelled, will forever be the work I'm proud of. I would go on and salvage ideas for that for my Red Giant/That Stick Figure Isekai comic. That story walked so those stories could run.

Q's been with me for the longest time :3

Read That Stick Figure Isekai | Tapas Web Comics

F my other work. For real.

[Mar_Sadeh]

Not a Vocaloid fan? Not a problem! I'm not either - that was the whole point after all, that I was writing it with no actual foreknowledge of the source material. I'll go quote hunting tomorrow, I think - expect an update from me with the next 24 hours or so!

[MeltingCORE]

Well, this piece is from when I was 14. I'm 27 now and I still like it despite the flaws.

[LostKelp]

I made a comic 2 years ago about a social hermit with anxiety giving advice about how to survive a pandemic while he gradually went insane, the jokes still hold up in my opinion but the art is messy and the handwriting is illegible (mostly because I usually did like nine panels in 1 day because I was 14 and out of my mind)

I think I should go back and redo the art and lettering but keep the jokes because overall I think it holds up and most of my Ideas were cool, I just didn't know enough to execute them properly.

[TheLemmaLlama]

Ha, love it! I actually like how it looks (I might be biased since my own style is messy, but your drawings had a certain expressiveness and fluidity to them which I find really impressive if you were 14 O_O (my art was stiff AF when I was 14 XD))

[LostKelp]

Thanks! I don't think the messyness is bad per se it's just the artstyle did interfere with the legibility of the comic sometimes. (I went through my stiff art phase off camera thankfully lol)

[liaroger]

I just thought back to these little guys that i drew back in 2020 and boy do I still love them ...
I should preface this by saying I love neuroscience and am planning to get at least two neuroscience related tattoos so this is tame. XD

In the morning:

After the first cup of coffee:

An accurate representation of my Nucleus accumbens:

Amy has no chill:

I also have a mini comic with them and actually wanted to do a lot more.
The anatomy is wonky, the linework is messy, and the lighting makes no sense, but I love them. I think I'll redraw all of them at some point. and make more mini comics because I need more chibi neurons in my life.

[TheLemmaLlama]

I love it! Fun, accessible depictions of technical subject matter is always cool

[GumshoeComix]

one I cringe at and am simultaneously proud of would be the first project i worked on with my partner in 2015

I hate the art so much. But its not only the first comic we worked on together but the first one I did in any actual structure, with a script and thumbnails
But oh god I can hardly look at it the text is so small it hurts to read
My bf still loves it though, the storys FINE he plans on rebooting it after our current project

[lizardlullabye]

Ah. . . I don't hate my old work, but being proud is a different thing. Here's some old artwork starting from oldest to youngest.

(1) Doodle for physic notes, and I still remember voltage (volts) = current (amps) x resistance (ohms, which sound like the umb in umbreon).

(2) mini manga, I don't typically start or finish stories.

(3) I made negative money trying to sell tee shirts with these designs, but I like the little pun of the shortest distance from stomach to heart.

[LouisWinter]

During all of 2020 to early 2021, I had a need to create a Peppa Pig lore short centered around Peppa's dad. I abandoned it and now I have a bunch of segments. I occasionally look at them and feel proud.