A few people are unusually mad about them, in a way I kind of find amusing.

They don't really work for me as a buyer, since I have rather unusual characters that don't fit the usual templates.

But, they seem to be popular enough to be a lucrative endeavor for artists. And I certainly can't argue with that!

Hi! OMG! I haven't seen you in ages! How are you doing?

And yeah, I've seen some people getting very upset (and really condescending) about them. Like they're some blight upon the furry fandom. But that's kind of what happens whenever there's a new fad. People are the same about adoptables (which I'd say probably has an even worse rep than YCH). My stance on it is if someone wants to spend money on it, then it has value.

Yeah, the word "creativity" gets bandied around a lot, and it's pretty awful. Just because commissioners like or even prefer YCHs doesn't mean they're incapable of thinking up their own scenes, and the artist certainly isn't any less of one for skipping a step in the commissioning process.

I can certainly understand being tired of them, but, you're right, some people are just nasty about it.

I guess because I've been out of the loop and haven't been flooded with them yet I'm not to the point of saturation. I can see how they'd get old, though, especially if it's not something you're interested in.

Doing mostly ok!

"My stance on it is if someone wants to spend money on it, then it has value." This is pretty much the most rational takeaway from the whole thing.

It's my default whenever people are upset about things costing money that they think is stupid or worthless, hahaha.

It's basically the same old "artists are getting TOO MUCH MONEY RAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! I SHOULD BE GETTING ART FOR CHEAPER!"

Seems silly to me. :P

I find that mentality annoying, to be honest. I don't think a lot of people realize how time consuming it is...break it down, and a lot of artists are only making 2-3 dollars an hour for their work, if that.

But I've even see people say 'furry is a community, not a business. Artists shouldn't be charging for art at all' which just...ugh.

I find it annoying and I'm not even an artist XD

It honestly depends on the pose/scenario involved, but I'm definitely not opposed to them! Sometimes I just see a pose that I really like and have to go for it.

If more than one character is involved, I definitely prefer either the bid covering both slots or the other character being one of the artist's, that way I know what I'm getting. So I'd definitely take a peek with one involving Honey.

I agree, if I were buying, I personally wouldn't want to bid on a picture where I didn't know what the other character was going to look like. But I can see why others might like that.

But I can see why others might like that.

Definitely!

And sometimes you'll get a character bidding that others reeeally want to be with, and that'll beef up the other slot's bids nicely.

Oh, I hadn't thought of that. That's really interesting!

a lot of people seem to like them, but I have no opinion one way or another

I mean, I can see why someone would want one, I'm Really not all that creative so a "jumpstart" like that could help in some cases

I'm also high friggin opinionated, and if it's 'not exactly what I'm looking for' I just skip past them.

I'd say try it, and if your watchers don't buy them *shrugs* it was worth a shot, right?

I will probably try it at some point, but a bit down the line I think. I'm enjoying doing regular commissions a lot right now, and I have a few pictures for me that I'm working on and would like to finish. It's something to keep in mind, though.

I'm a frequent commission buyer, and I do sometimes bid on YCHs. I have a decently large cast, so there's a good chance of stumbling along a pose or situation that fits an existing character of mine very well. I also enjoy working with artists on more custom scenes, so it all just depends what's on offer.

Working with another person towards realizing a final product is my favorite part about commissions, even more than the money, I'd say, though I admit the money is nice.

I'm cool with YCH pictures. I've bought a few myself.

There's a few things to keep in mind, though.

Unless you're super popular to the point where people will throw ungodly amounts of money at you for any chance to get your art, you'll be relying on the serendipity of finding people who are interested in both the pose you're offering and the style of art you normally produce. That's naturally going to be a somewhat smaller market than for a regular commission slot, so you'll have to set your expectations accordingly.

If you're not comfortable with auctions, you can certainly put them up as a fixed price sale, or even as a multiple/mass-produced deal (ie: offering to use the same pose/sketch for multiple finished pictures with different characters, for different buyers). It's entirely up to you to pick whatever form of sale suits your personal taste and your intentions for the image.

You should also be very clear about what you will and won't change on the sketch to make the final image. Things like basic content and content rating, gender, limits on body type, limits on extra wings and limbs and things, and so on. Just as an example of how a YCH image can deviate from the original "theme" of the sketch, I got this http://www.furaffinity.net/view/12083195/ turned into this http://www.furaffinity.net/view/12192132/ (NSFW) recently. Of course I dropped the artist a note before bidding to make sure she'd be ok with it, but not everyone is going to think to do that.

Anyways, I'd definitely encourage you to give it a shot. It sounds like you have the right intentions (pushing yourself artistically) so I think you'll have fun with it.

I think I will! I've got some things I want to do first, but I think at some point in the future I will give this a go. Thanks for all of the advice!

Good luck! I hope it goes well.

It makes sense to me. The artist sets up a situation or a pose that's adaptable, with fairly small edits, to a wide variety of characters. This means that once they get the commission, it's quicker to finish, and requires very little discussion or redraws. Less hassle! And for the buyer, it's also convenient: they see what they're getting (in broad terms) before putting any money down, and most people aren't incredibly picky about poses and such anyway.

Yeah, it does seem to cut a lot of potential hassle, provided you have a pose/scenarios that people actually want.

Oh, sure. But while every potential individual customer might have pretty limited array of what they want, I think it's pretty easy to come up with poses and scenarios that will suit someone. (And it's not as if we commissioners are that creative always, either!)

Exactly! I know whenever I go to commission someone my mind just goes completely blank. I almost always wind up saying 'just do whatever you feel like', which is terrible of me.

Hah! Glad to see it's not just me.

I'd honestly say that the YCH's are actually good for the artist. With the way that some people are unsure of how to do a pose for what they want, they'll sometimes use things like references or just let the artist wing it.

The only thing that's "Bad" is how sometimes, a bid will be too high for others to go for, but, when you're dealing with any forms of auctions, it's all about taking a chance.

Yeah, those are all good points.

I'm neutral on them. I think the main reason they work is that it's almost like an advertisement. Here you are, perusing art and then you see a pose or situation that catches you're attention. "ooh..that's nice" you think to yourself and then you realize that it's a ych picture and that if you so choose, you could place your own character in that situation. That's the positive. The negative is that when everybody jumps on the bandwagon and your inbox gets flooded with them.

Yeah, pretty much exactly.

The way I see it, YCH offers are an excellent blend of the artist drawing what they want to draw while still drawing other peoples characters. I love the idea of that although I do have a preference for the fixed price format over the auction format entirely because my wallet doesn't run as deep as some others.

Personally, I'm objective when entering an auction. I look at the average cost of getting a commission from them, weighing it against the expected finished product, and sometimes figuring a little more if it's a pose or scenario I'm really interested in. The problem for me is when runaway bidding occurs and the closing bid exceeds what just regularly commissioning them would be. This is somewhat mitigated when the artist offers extra options if the auction exceeds certain amounts, however it then goes back to the issue of me not having enough money :p

So in short I think they're a great idea but having a fixed price for them would probably be better received than an auction while at the same time the auction could potentially be far more lucrative than fixed price.

Hmmm... Maybe both then, do an auction, then a fixed.

It depends with me. I can see why but I never saw any I was interested in enough to consider buying or bidding on. If I find one interesting then I'd bid on it but otherwise... eh, at least they're not adoptables.