Thoughts on 'recycled' art?

I think I've only done something like this once, because a requester liked the lineart and wanted me to use it for their request.

Usually though I don't retrace or 'recycle' any previous art. I much prefer to create every piece by scratch. That way I'm gradually learning and improving each time. Re-using other artwork pieces just seems lazy. You won't improve that way.

 

I absolutely think recycling art is okay depending on what's being recycled. Since I recycle a lot of people's art in renders, I understand why. It's to give something more depth to it that it previously didn't have.

 

If you as an artist look at a previously made work, and you think "I can do this much better now", then of course it's great to recycle it! It makes you able to see exactly how much you've grown as an artist, and in which ways you have improved. Recycling someone else's art is a different story though, but that just has to do with art theft, and not with the recycling itself. If you have permission it's cool, but otherwise you shouldn't do it.

 

I don't think it's a big deal, as long as they're not doing it in a way that's just lazy because they don't want to do something properly. There's nothing wrong in reusing a pose that you liked, or taking an old sketch you had and using it for something else- it is their art, after all! I tend to reuse color schemes more than anything else, haha.