All of us doing stock are artists and creative people (whether their day job is artistic or not).  Recently I was looking at some of my old non-stock art.  This is stuff I did ages ago (OK, mid 90's) when I was still a young man, recently out of college and not sure what to do.  I eventually ended up in a very non-artistic career.  Stock for me is a way of expressing my artistic side.  However,  stock, if you are serious about making money, requires very serious constraints on your artistic vision.  You can't create what you want to draw (in my case super armored beast warriors), but what you think will sell.

Just thought I'd share my very old online portfolio:
http://www.elfwood.com/art/t/o/toh/toh.html

Everything was uploaded sometime in the mid-90's.  For me it's a nostalgic look back. 

I invite everyone else to share their own artistic visions, or have-been artistic visions, outside of stock.