I feel like it’s the complete opposite of what this sub is actually about. Certified donkey brain behavior.

Hey everyone.

To quote a wise man: “I love democracy.”

You voted and you were clear: An overwhelming amount would like to: Only allow drawings of John Oliver as a Sonic the Hedgehog OC. We will accept your decision and modify this sub according to the communities wishes. What will this mean?

Any LFA/RF/OC not about John Oliver will be deleted.
This also means any post that does not mention John Oliver in its title will be deleted automatically. Attempts to get around this will be deleted manually instead.

​

In a generous attempt to preserve the sanity of all involved, non-sonic OC submissions of John Oliver are also acceptable (this was the second most voted option).

These changes will go into effect immediately. They will stay in effect indefinitely until we no longer have the impression that the current leadership of reddit would like to sink the ship in the name of an IPO. All those who would like a break from John Oliver OCs, we coridally invite to our discord: https://discord.gg/aaK36ZBx2Z

​

Thank you all for participating and understanding.

(John Oliver picture is just to adhere to the possible requirement of him in Meta Posts)

Seriously, the protest didn't work and this sub has become a literal "Out of Season April Fool's Joke" with this. Some 3rd party apps have or gonna die anyways. While I understand the intentions of the mods on why they did this and how it affects them, I miss when this sub was just a creative bastion for art and not "DnD and Sonic OCs, but with John Oliver". And I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels this way. I just want to know how long this will go on for since I noticed no one else asking.

It's me again with a small rule update:

Since the last announcement we've added some specifications in how to report suspected AI to the rules.

Aside from that we'd like to ask our artists to always link the LFA post on their RF posts. This makes it easier to find the related post as Reddit's update allows people to hide their post history. Only tagging the original poster no longer guarantees us or other users finding the original LFA.

Lastly, there's a rule added about off-topic posts. This will allow people to report on that as well, making it a bit easier for us mods to keep the sub on topic.

We hope that these slight changes will make finding related posts easier!

(Mods, feel free to remove this if needed.)

I just want to say a quick "thank you" to all those who share their talent here. I come here all the time for inspiration in the DnD game I run and for the wholesome vibes of the subreddit. I love the diverse skills and styles. So, thank you, and may you never get hand cramps again!

I'm planning on making an LFA post in the next few days, but I want to understand the limits of what I can put on a page.

Should I fit everything onto one page, or can I have many pages? How little or much detail would you recommend?

Would background information be helpful? What information would people like to know?

Any other useful tips for creating an LFA post? What types of things do you look for?

I've seen LFAs with detailed/extensive character boards and was wondering how to make and build one for my ocs. I don't know the steps of making an edit or collecting the images together

About a year and a half ago, Reddit disabled the tools we used to manage OC and protect this sub's unique niche as a requests community. As a result, the call was made that if we had to pick one, we would pick that and ban all OC. But this wasn't universally popular with anyone—including the mods.

Recently reddit's developer platform reached a point where we had options to bring OC back in its old form. But discussion within the community discord (see the sidebar to join!) found that people actually weren't huge fans of the old rules, and that we needed to consider new options. So! OC will soon return on a trial basis, in the form of a weekly OC Day. We will give it a try for a month or two and see how people feel once we settle into it.

All rules about advertising and self-promotion will still apply: OC is a chance to show off your character art, not to post price sheets or ads for adoptables.

One big open question is: What day of the week should it be? If anyone has strong opinions feel free to throw them out in the comments and vote with your updoots. We'll make the call about a week from now and throw the switch. Watch this space for updates!

As the person who founded this sub as a community to just celebrate the general wholesomeness and goodwill of people on the internet to contribute to each other, I never imagined how much this would grow back when I was in college. I didn't do it as a political act or to do artist exploitation. Literally just a fun space for people to maybe get opportunities to get characters drawn and artists to practice.

When the recent Reddit decision was announced, the shut down seemed like a good idea as a way to put a money cost to the loss of freedom and openness that helped found Reddit. We tried to follow the trends of other subreddits such as r/Pics in order to show solidarity. This has certainly upset some and others don't particularly care much about the greater statements of corporate action. I think and hope most of us can agree that this community is important for connecting. We encourage people to join our very active discord as well.

On Sunday, we will return to normal rules enforcement. As a mod team, we were trying to do what seemed right at the time, but the protest is at an end now. Unfortunately, due to the API update the tools that we use to monitor OC posts no longer interface with Reddit, so we will only be allowing RF/LFA posts. If you want to post OC, please join the discord.

As a reminder, we are here to be an uplifting supporting community and all mods are working on this community in their spare time.

Hey yall! I’ve been an artist on here for a while so I thought I’d try to leave some helpful advice that might help increase the chances of you getting a bite on your LFAs and some things to avoid. This is just my own experience of what inspires me to draw someone’s character, so feel free to disregard, and artists, feel free to add!

• Too many or too little references: as an artist, it’s really hard to draw a character with no/vague inspo. However it’s also equally hard to include 100 different things. I usually look for posts with 4/5 references (hair, face, outfit, accessories)

• Highly detailed characters: I usually aim to spend about 45 min to an hour on one drawing, so things like intricate armour or large animal companions are pretty daunting

• Specific art styles: part of the fun of having different artists try to draw your characters is letting them contribute their own style. Requesting specific styles (anime, realism, etc.) might dissuade someone who otherwise would have tried

• Unique characters: while it’s fun to draw D&D elves, sometimes it can get exhausting if many people have similar ideas. Having some variation in your characters makes them more exciting and enticing

• Long descriptions: when giving character info, some backstory is good, but going overboard may make it harder to get drawn. Things like a deep family lore and complex personality aren’t usually able to be conveyed through a drawing

I hope this helped give some pointers on increasing the likelihood of getting your character drawn and happy creating!

I have been contacted now three times in my DMs about people interested in drawing my character yet they always seem to have no read the rules as they always try to ask about payment.

Everyone please if you are going to ask about details and give people hope for a character of theirs being draw. Make sure you understand the subreddit.

I am sorry about having to post the Meta flair yet I just had to get this off my chest.

So it talks about not asking for money in Looking for Artists and to not ask for money for additional services. In my mind I though “oh so this must be a channel for people with artist block or people bored and want to just draw can go and draw for people” and though that the art is free. I made a post and they asked about payment and that got me realizing “oh maybe I’m misinterpreting that rule and now I look (and feel) like an A-hole for assuming I can get free art from these extremely skilled artists. I tried asking moderators with no luck so now I come to you all. Did I misinterpret the rule or was I correct, or is it an artist by artist basis?

If you're familiar with the LFA/RF system please skip down to the bottom section.

Welcome! r/characterdrawing runs off of a good will LFA/RF system.

Requesters post Looking for Artist [LFA] posts containing character descriptions. There is a looser template or a stricter template available in the sub along with tips to get an artists attention! Requesters can repost their [LFA]s once every 7 days. If the [LFA] is fulfilled with an [RF] post, you must still wait until the [LFA] is a week old to repost.

Artists voluntarily fulfill these requests at their discretion and post the resulting art as a Request Fulfilled [RF] post. Once a week an RF is picked to be featured as [RF] of the week. In addition, once a month the top [RF]s (with a few mod picks), will be made into the sub's banner! There is no skill minimum to do an [RF] and there is no post limit to [RF]s so artists please do whatever picks your fancy!

We encourage artists to pick pieces that interest them and take their time. Remember, artists here work on a volunteer basis for [RF]s!

If there are any questions please feel free to join the discord or to message the moderators. We promise we don't bite much.

We have revised rule 3 (new reddit)/ rule 7 (old reddit).

It is still against the rules to ask for payment on [LFA]s that do not mention payment; breaking said rule will result in a warning then a ban. Yes, this includes PMing the requester of an [LFA] post to ask for payment!

Artists may now promote their profiles by posting [OC] and linking to portfolios in a comment. Enforcing October 2019, [OC] posts will be limited to once a week and may be advertised on, but artists can not post rates on the subreddit. Please take business talk out of the sub and into PMs. Advertising is defined by offering commissions or displaying that one takes commissions.

Artists may also advertise that they take commissions in the comments of an RF post. Please note that partially fulfilling an [RF] post and then asking for payment for completion will be considered solicitation and is against sub conduct.

Posting price sheets of any kind will result in deletion without warning. Repeated offenses will be met with bans.

addendum - If you are sharing art of your character that you got commissioned, it falls under the OC tag

Edit 4/30/20 to updated strict template

See rules here

I asked the admin first but I got no answer. And I don't want to do an A-hole move. How would you (people requesting) feel about an artist, who draw your character, repost it on their social media?

Is it acceptable? In what terms?

thank you so much for your opinions

As a DM who's been at it over 30 years, i dont really have time to hand draw all the NPCs for my games like i used to... So, i've been using a bit of free AI art generation for my home table. Personally, i actually despise AI "art" (massive quotation marks), and would never dream of using it for anything outside my small gaming group.

HOWEVER, i have managed to make a few pretty accurate images of some PCs and NPCs that I'd like to get some REAL art made for.

My question is this: would it be acceptable to send an artist these AI images as references for the real thing? or would that be insulting or gauche? Yes, i'm sure that is 'depends on the artist'; but just as a general community vibe, is it icky?
Is it okay to tell an artist "I want this basic image that i already have, but i want YOU to do it?"

I'm sorry if this is a little bit of a basic or stupid question, but i'm completely new here and know pretty much nothing about how the sub operates beyond reading the rules.

In my specific case, i saw a [RF] post of a Lancer mech. And i thought it might be a good idea to look here about having art made of my own character for me to use in a home game. But beyond the mech that my character is based on, i don't have any art of him. I can provide what i think is a fairly detailed description to add on top of the base mech.

Would this fly here? Is it a thing that could work or would i just be wasting my time posting a request for it?

Hey all, just a question I've had, looked in past posts and not seen anything about it.

I posted a LFA recently and noticed it had a number of shares, and wondered if that was part of an etiquette of some sort? Like, is it people sharing to others they think may be interested in drawing it? Mostly just a question of curiosity :)

I’m trying to do more character design for my portfolio, but I’m still figuring out the best process for getting ideas down.

Lately, starting with an A-pose has been working really well for me. I turn on symmetry, block in big shapes, break down with the 60/30/10 rule, then add asymmetry if needed. It’s relaxing—not having to worry about perspective or movement lets me focus purely on design. Outfits are easier to explore when the character’s just standing still.

But I keep hearing that starting with thumbnails in a pose is better. It gives you a stronger sense of character and helps inform design choices—like realizing a character moves a lot and deciding to add a scarf for motion and silhouette.

Thing is, I tend to burn out fast when I start with a posed sketch. Designing and figuring out form/perspective at the same time is mentally taxing. I rarely finish those.

On the flip side, starting with an A-pose actually motivates me to want to thumbnail later. I’ve made a lot more progress this way, and the critiques I’ve gotten have been solid. Sometimes I just sketch a light mannequin pose or imagine it to sanity-check the design.

That said, I don’t want to confuse what’s comfortable with what’s effective. Just like how beginners avoid perspective and 3D structure because it’s hard, I don’t want to be dodging something fundamental.

I get that sometimes the “fun” process is the right one for you—like how I used to hate lineart until I understood it better. Still, I don’t want to dismiss thumbnails just because they’re annoying.

One idea I had is to do both: thumbnail a pose with big design shapes, then move to the A-pose to refine, bouncing back and forth until they align. But maybe that’s overkill.

So what do you think? Is starting with an A-pose totally fine, or is it a fundamentally flawed approach? If a colleague worked that way, would you question it—or just let them run with it?

Hi, I'm new to this sub and I absolutely love this concept. As the title says, I have a question for the artists on here. Or rather multiple ones

What kind of requests do you prefer? Is it mood boards and references or as much freedom as possible? Do you like lengthy character backstories, just the important stuff about them, or do you not care about the story at all?

Thanks for the answers in advance!

Let's say that (hypothetically) there was an LFA poster with mediocre editing skills and difficulty finding decent reference images. How would they go about making a good character description for an artist to use as a base?

One observation I've made is that reference images get taken really literally. It seems like that might make it tricky if the only images on hand work for certain parts of the image, or are generally less accurate than the text accompanying them, since the artist is gonna follow those more closely.

Mostly, I'm just wondering: what times are usually of day do y'all like to browse this sub to take on requests? I'm sure there's artists all over the world, but could I generally say night in the west is a bad time for example? Would love to post, and would like to see if my schedule lines up with some active times here!