FAQ | Commissions | Characters
I came across a Tumblr post where someone (won't give names) gave tips on how to get people to "love" your character(s). Some of the points I agreed with fully while others I heavily disagreed with (and I can only go off of what they put down, so if they meant something different they should have clarified)
The main one I disagree with:
"Keep it canon if you ARE doing like storyish stuff. Always. Everything you do is canon. "
No. That takes some of the fun out of it. If you're ONLY doing story stuff, that's fine, but there's nothing wrong with doing some AU stuff. I am judging this by how it says it should always be canon. If I followed this rule, I wouldn't be able to do these pieces:
(slightly au since they don't have Christmas)
(extremely au at least for the kissing part. It's canon with how they react in the bubbles however)
(Flint doesn't have arms! I was playing around to see possibilities)
(the bottom right. She wouldn't use a phone.)These are all not canon in some form. But then it makes me question if they really meant everything has to be strictly canon. It is how it sounds anyways... or that whatever you do with the character makes it canon. No!
My response to it was, "make sure that canon stuff is the majority while au stuff is once in a while". (If EVERYTHING is au then it can be confusing)
Now another thing they mentioned was, "Fanservice heavily. Then feed some sappy picture to people like awwww"
This I disagree to a point. If someone mainly did fanservice of their character and rarely story/info stuff, I won't be as interested. If all I ever see are single pictures of a character but nothing actually about them, I lose interest quickly.
So this is where my biggest bit of advice is: VISUALLY SHOW INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER! Can be small things to really big things! I can understand some people don't want to give spoilers, but if you NEVER show anything about the character, people may not be as interested in reading about your character in the story to begin with! Show what they like to eat! Show what they like to do! Show their favorite hang out spot! Show how they'd react in a certain situation!
Now something I do that may not be the best...
I like to jump around with what happens to my characters. This can feel confusing for some, but I do this because it's what I am interested in the time, so I make sure I get it out there (and I am horrible with holding back with posting. I want to show what happens, dangit!)
So it's up to you if you want to jump around like me or you try to go in order, even if it's harder.
Just pleeeeeeaassseeeee show information about your character and their story! For me it doesn't matter if you're an amazing artist. I won't be interested in the character as much unless you show me how they are! Pinups can get boring after a while. I need the meat of them! Not just their looks!
In the end, however, these are all just my opinions and how I personally feel about it. If you personally don't feel strongly about story/character building stuff than that's fine! But I do feel like more people are interested in characters if they aren't just a pretty picture.
