Ooo I'd be down for some of these. I got a few size queens in my OC roster. ^^

That's cool!
But help me understand the attraction here. It seems to me that the only attraction a YCH offers is as help to folks who can't/have a hard time deciding what kind of piece/angle/pose they want.
Or if it's the only way to commission an artist, then that'd be another thing.
All the more else i can think of is it's just an effective visual prompt for people. May do better than a blank slot on a commission list?

My position on YCH is essentially this https://inkbunny.net/submissionview.php?id=593831 but then I've never had problems coming up with picture ideas. If you want to sketch out poses and let people buy them I can hardly stop you, but I do think it should be a supplement to just offering commissions rather than a replacement.

I agree on how silly it seems. That's why i'm so confused by them. BUT it seems to work for some folks.
Yes, as a supplement or a curiosity, never a replacement.

YCH over custom pieces always seemed odd aswell. Though if someone likes a prethought idea/pose then hey, enjoy.

I think the main appeals aside from the "people who can't come up with a pose idea" thing are:

A) Cheaper than usual commissions, and therefore open an artist to people who would otherwise not be able to afford their work.

B) seeing the pose gives the commissioner a confidence that they'll look good in it because they already like what they see. It gives a level of confidence they might not have otherwise.

there's also

C) some artists/people have characters that others really want to bang, and when they come up in a YCH, it opens that possibility.

Personally, I'm not a fan of them most of the time, because I generally want to get art of my character with friends' characters. I might change my mind for a male slot in the right C), but generally I'd rather just get a traditional commission.

Now, I'll add an appeal for the -Artist-:

A) more artistic control. You get to decide ahead of time the basics of what you're drawing.

and the corollary,

B) less wrangling with a commissioner over pose details and the like. Some artists like working with commissioners, some not so much, and even those that do have been stuck with commissioners who are just a pain in the ass to work with on poses. This sidesteps some of that process.

and that means

C) the pic is probably done faster in most cases, and therefore requires less effort and allows higher output which means more income in a given amount of time

A: That's what i wonder about, since i can't offer that, and i see some artists auctioning their pieces off for hundreds of dollars. but theses artists are much better and more popular than I
B: We can all get behind that. plus it saves me a whole LOT of time fussing with 'which way is better'
C: just a nudge, it helps. especially if fans aren't as familiar with X character

A: yup
B: YUP!
C: generally a big yup

My impression is that the YCH auctions like that are ones where the artist, for their own reasons, very rarely opens up for traditional commissions anymore, so the limited supply plus the value of their "brand" drives the price up.

And in many cases, those 100-200+ YCH ones are still somewhat cheaper than the same artist's traditional commissions. I can think of at least three or four such artists, and all are on my "I'd love to get art from them, but their prices exceed what I'm willing to pay for art unless/until my disposable income at least triples" list.

I'll never begrudge someone charging what the market will bear for their work, even if it can be discouraging for those of us unable to shell out that kind of money for a single pic.

Understandable. An artists value is based on what people are willing to pay vs what their time is worth + expenses etc etc
And i think i should hold some kind of auction at some point to see what happens.
But when my average commissions tally between 50-100$ most folks call me a bargain.
Which to be honest, is probably a good indicator that I should bump prices up, but there is that balance between frequency and cost. and I haven't seemed to find it yet.