Throwing away old sketches?

Kayke 2015-10-11 15:15:46 UTC #10

Keeping every sketch can become really really daunting. I've gotten to a point where I throw out my sketches and only keep the inks.

I have one of these drawer things from ikea where I keep inks and prints. It also happens to be the perfect size to put my large format printer on, so I love it.

mg78 2015-10-11 15:23:39 UTC #11

i store everything in biners inside drawers so i can remeber while i learn ( :Xzibit_mode.jpg: )

AnnaLandin 2015-10-11 15:38:25 UTC #12

I keep everything. I stack loose sketches in boxes and hide them under the bed (or wherever they happen to fit), I line up old sketchbooks on my bookshelves, I've got folder upon folder of old art scattered on my computer and across multiple external HDs.

Heck, I've even got the very first story I ever illustrated, back when I was 7, sitting around in a drawer somewhere.

It does take up a bunch of space, and there ARE sketches I do throw away - basic sketches for watercolour paintings, for example, usually get tossed out once I've finished the painting - but I am a bit of a pack-rat most of the time.

A lot of my comic-ideas develop over a long time, and I've more than once gone back to old sketchbooks and lifted ideas for new projects. Just to name one example - I once got rid of an entire storyline and fictional universe because it just didn't work, but I kept the characters and transferred them into a new world/story, where they fit much better - and I never would have been able to do that if I hadn't kept the sketchbooks around as a reminder.

You can always cannibalise old ideas for parts to new ones!

whydocowsfall 2015-10-11 15:50:11 UTC #13

I keep... everything... I used to walk around school with my pockets filled with drawings that were up to five years old, as well as a bible (I'm not religious) and a handful of random junk (my pockets were magic). I still have them in a pile, but I don't really look at them ever so I should probably do something about them - but I kinda like knowing that if I want to I can always go look at badly-proportioned drawings of a superhero called Salmonella or attempts to draw manga-style girls with all their hair over one eye.

Also looking at drawings from when I was seven is my FAVOURITE thing and there is no way I'd ever get rid of those. My imagination was just... the best. One page of my sketchbook will be a princess and a fairy fishing or something, and the next will be a tracing of my hand that I've turned into an oddly shaped vampire torture-house. It's great! My personal favourite is a drawing of a Tyrannosaurus Rex wearing a tiara and pink nail varnish while eating a Diplodocus alive. All drawn by a tiny cute girl with plaits and pink hair bobbles. So yeah, not throwing away any old sketches. :')

AnnaLandin 2015-10-11 16:19:20 UTC #14

That sounds amazing!

My old stuff from when I was seven was this sprawling epic story, told across, like, six different notebooks, about these two trolls who lived in a cave together. One of them was tall and had a pointy hat and a huge nose - on which grew a toadstool - and the other one was literally a shrub with legs and a face, and they were best friends. It was a bromance before the word had been invented. They went on adventures together, and I went into LOTS of detail! The one I remember best is where they found a dragon egg and took it home to their cave, where they raised the baby dragon together until the shrub-troll said that it was better to let it live in the wild, because that's what dragons do and stuff.

They were the best adoptive-troll-dads/platonic lifepartners. XD

whydocowsfall 2015-10-11 16:23:17 UTC #15

You did all that when you were seven?? I can't say I'm surprised you ended up in comics then. d: (Seriously, that's pretty impressive - go seven year-old-you!)

AnnaLandin 2015-10-11 16:29:46 UTC #16

@whydocowsfall It was a school assignment, to help us practise writing! Our teacher handed out these notebooks where each page was half lined, and half blank, so we could draw something and write about what we drew - she encouraged us to make up a coherent story.

Most of my classmates finished maybe one notebook per term - I did six notebooks in two terms, and the only reason it wasn't more than that was because they actually had to tell me to stop every now and then. XD One of the best school assignments I've ever had!

whydocowsfall 2015-10-11 16:38:58 UTC #17

Wow, that sounds amazing! I would have loved to get an assignment like that. You should post it somewhere sometime! (If you haven't already...)

ToxicRamen 2015-10-11 18:44:13 UTC #20

I did when I was in middle school but it was only because my mom didn't like my sketches cluttering up my room. Now that I have a scanner, I'm able to keep a digital copy of them.

allenthomas 2015-10-11 20:34:22 UTC #21

It's difficult for me. I want to save EVERYTHING that I draw. However, realistically I just can't and it gets to the point where I'm on the verge of becoming a hoarder. There are some sketches that I just know I'm never going to use or touch. It's just so hard to throw that stuff away though.

Aetherwing 2015-10-11 20:44:09 UTC #22

I'm a bit of a pack rat and therefore want to save everything, but I'm going to have to go through all my old art and see what I want to keep/don't want to keep. I had to move recently and transporting everything was a real pain. I'll probably hang on to all my old sketchbooks, (I love looking at progress,) but I've recently graduated from college so there's a lot of old class drawings and projects that I've accumulated over the years ;A;

I think it's good to save some old stuff so you can compare it to your new stuff to show how far you've developed, or even revisit old drawings later. But if you keep everything, you need a place to put it and it becomes a pain. Digitally however, it doesn't really matter especially if you have a lot of storage space!

I guess semi- fortunately, I've only been drawing for like 5-6 years, so I don't have TOO much build up.

Luie 2015-10-11 22:03:29 UTC #23

Okay so this is a really bad crazy phenomenon that I have yet to crack. No joke, I turn my unwanted sketches into backyard bonfires. It smells really bad but it's cooler to watch than waiting for the trash man. Every round of fire papers, I always keep the ones I don't hate yet. This is a mere fraction of the paper I have used and the drawings I've drawn. Today, I have over 1500 of them lodged away in binders. These are all the sketches over the past 10 years that have survived my paper abuse. This is a fraction compared to the ones I've burned. Sometimes I wonder just how many drawings I've drawn so far, or what would happen if ?I kept them all.

I recommend scanning them into a digital album and throwing the physical paper away if you really want to keep everything. Keep just a few physicals, they add up. If you want to burn them, only burn a few at a time or they'll smell really bad (but they make cool flames) so do it in your backyard. It's fun n stuff.

Oh, also! After a few years, compile your old sketches into a progress video! =D

Aloredd 2015-10-11 23:29:35 UTC #24

That sounds like something my 7th grade teacher did, except for writing! He gave us a prompt and we had to write a story based on it, with a minimum of 15 pages, and no cap. He had to tell me to stop writing, even though he really liked the story (A friend and I competed to see who could write the longer story....I won)

akaCheezy 2015-10-11 23:45:43 UTC #25

I save all my sketches more so I can look over them for stupid, old ideas that didn't work at the time but could still have some promise. It becomes a good place to go for inspiration almost.

kazukitakamura126 2015-10-12 01:06:21 UTC #26

I cannibalized old ideas into new stories too many times. They became stagnant to me.

kazukitakamura126 2015-10-12 01:10:09 UTC #27

I have my old binders of comics dating back to 2006 in a storage unit. My brother and I have maybe 2 or 3 boxes worth of binders with comics in them. For my digital work, I usually delete them so I can save space for projects I will actually be working on.I only have one comic on my laptop that is discontinued and stashed away in a folder.

Chopythes 2015-10-12 14:11:16 UTC #28

@Luie: Yeah, when I lived back home at my parents house I burnt the ones I didn't like (only when mum wasn't around because she wanted to save ANYTHING I made and I wasn't happy with that, haha!) in the fire place.
But only the ones I really didn't like at all, and was ashamed of even looking at.

A progress video sounds really interesting tho! Thanks for the tip!

phoenixrenaissance 2015-10-12 15:06:31 UTC #29

It's kinda, impossible for me to throw away old art. Luckily most o it is in sketchbooks so it's not all that hard to keep things tidy. I've got a giant bin for my art school era things as well as a filing cabinet for all my comic pages.
I probably could just scan everything and keep it digitally, but there's just something about actively flipping through a sketchbook that feels so much more nostalgic and fun.

Doubtcent 2015-10-12 16:17:10 UTC #30

I don't throw any away, but some do get misplaced.
I still have my first sketchbook (which was just a regular notebook). I like to see how far I've gotten because I personally don't see my improvement from page to page unless I look back. Only when I look at monstrosities that at the time I thought were amazing do I really see how far I have walked down the road of art.
I mean, I got away with some really stupid looking stuff. Now I can say that I am an accomplished, greenhorned, ameteur.

I also like to look back and get inspiration from my older creations. Even though I didn't have the skill, I was dang imaginative.

ponytaponyboy 2015-10-12 17:08:03 UTC #31

Hmm.... I'm a hoarder, I tend to keep everything, be it digital files or traditional papers.
I keep real life and digital folders full of my drawings, and I try to keep it neat and organized, haha. I also have an external hard drive in which I store my scans, sketches, etc.

I do get rid of some of them though... ~~the ones I'm least proud of LOL~~