Every now and then, especially at this time of year, it comes up that people want me to draw pictures of their friends' characters or whatnot. There is always a lingering concern of if this is okay. Since I don't draw porn or even really nudity, it's never been an issue for me. But recently, another round of beware tweets have been making the rounds on twitter of people who get commissions of another person's character against their will. Often these characters are used in sexual displays, which some people do not want anything to do with.

In general, I have a policy that I won't draw other people's characters unless I know it is okay with them. But for strangers, I honestly have no idea what their policy is. Whenever I get one of these requests, the first thing I do is look up both the commissioner and the owner/creator of the character they want drawn. If I see a lot of gift art, I usually suspect it's okay. Most of the time, I can't find anything that would tell me one way or another, so I have to go by the request (Is it just a portrait? Is the character doing something that might be offensive).

Surely, there has to be a way to alleviate this issue both for the Artists who are commissioned and the Owners of characters that are getting done. In addition, if someone in good faith wants to get a piece of gift art for a friend, especially for Christmas or Birthdays, we don't want to contact them to ask for permission - that would ruin the surprise.

Here's what I'm thinking to help with this problem: We can make some kind of symbol, or icon, or whatever that a person can put in their social media/gallery profiles, something we, as Artists, can easily see and recognize. The symbols could be: "Gifts are Fine" or "Gifts are Fine with restrictions" or "No gifts, please."
The person can then link to some rules or requirements for their characters that the artist could then use. This would have really come in handy for me, earlier this month. And this way people can get gift art and make sure their friends know what's ok, and what isn't. This might also help stop an unsure Artist from ending up making someone's revenge porn or something that they thought would just be a gift.

I have not sat down and done any icons for it yet. I might make some later tonight, but does anyone have any input on this kind of thing? Anything I'm missing, or not considering? Has anything like this been done before and just isn't being used as much as it should?