The most recent example I can tell where this happened to me is when I contributed some of my works to art communities.

Actually I don´t care if my work is accepted in the CGSociety/CGTalk* gallery, because otherwise I would have much to do ranting about what kind of "art" is accepted over there... I also know that most colleagues there have also just 50% of their works accepted. I guess they agree its funny to read their reasons for rejection and the suggestion that we might consider to submit a finished and printed image to the "work-in-progress forums".

Honestly, I have better things to do, but occasionally when this happens, I think about how others feel about such a reaction, artist who might not have the self-confidence might take this very personal.

When it comes to work, I have learned to take things never, ever personally!

I had submitted a piece once to the epilogue.net gallery which took me a long time to finish and it got rejected for some minor lighting issues, I thought that its not my problem if their eyes are hurt from looking at 10k images a day that cause severe eye injury and I tried again around 6 month later without changing the work at all, that time the image got an editors pick, how´s that possible?

Because the first attempt was most likely bad timing.

When it comes to rejections in our life there is one thing that counts, persistence, Randy Pausch said in his last lecture: "Find the best in everybody. Just keep waiting no matter how long it takes. No one is all evil. Everybody has a good side, just keep waiting, it will come out."
No comments about a work -can be a critique too, but only if you don´t know how to deal with it. The art communities, be it deviantArt, Artwanted, Artician, are all nice and fine, but they can give artists only a glimpse of a general opinion. A good portion of luck and sympathy also decides if your work gets featured or awarded, but if not, don´t blame yourself, it might be just bad timing.

Personally, I know that my commissioned work does only sometimes become the attention they deserve in these communities, but these works allow me to make a living as artist. Also these works help me to get better at painting and sharpening my skills on a daily basis to deliver quality work in return.

Personal versions of client based artworks are not necessary at all, so why do I make them?

Because it feels great to make a good artwork even better, to play the "Director´s-cut" and it shows very good that I don´t take my artistic self too serious.

Which brings me to a last important saying: "Never take yourself too serious, because no one else does."

*  For those not familiar with CGTalk: Its a professional platform for CG-artists,(http://cgsociety.org) every submitted image can be directly submitted to a user portfolio and is visible over there, (for example: http://fantasio.cgsociety.org) but along with the submission process it can be submitted to the cg-gallery for discussion / additional exposure and to take part in the regular cg-choice awards.