I'd like to say you are somewhat unusual (compared to others I follow) in that you have a hard date on your adoptables from the get-go. Almost everyone else has a timer that doesn't start until the first bid is made. There could be a mismatch between when your adopts are available, and when interested persons have budgets available.

Also you adopts are lovely and I want em all. I can't afford em all, but still.

As for why the bottom 3 might be less popular, the top 4 are fairly "standard" dragons and might more easily slot directly into a person's personal world or identity.

I'm not really even concerned about the bidding right now. I'm just trying to understand what people like. I know people can't always buy, and a lot of folks don't like +faving adoptables, but there's a massive disconnect between me and what the folks +watching me seem to enjoy. If a ton of folks view an image, I know at least there was some visual interest vs an image that gets lots of vews and favs even if there are no bids. And by standard what do you mean? because it's got leather / scaled wings and no fur?

I don't buy adopts but even if I wanted to I couldn't because I can't afford to. I'm going to have like $40 in my account after my rent check goes through. Also I am getting kind of sick of adopts... I follow artists to see the art not to buy adopts or even commissions as I can't even afford them and if I did have money to spare I would be getting commissions of my own characters.

I understand that, which is why I mentioned it first in my post. I'm sorry you are sick of adopts. I'm sick of not being able to pay my bills. But i'm trying to survive and doing commissions became too hard to do regularly. I'm in considerable pain all day every day and I will be for the rest of my life. Lots of artists do original content and NO commissions and yet some how they manage to sell their art. I am just trying to figure out what the difference is between what I'm doing and what they are.

Guess I'm not a good person to ask, I like the bottom two on the left a lot, and only the one on the top left. All of these are unique designs, where the top left three are just generic dragon to me. I do have to admit the bottom center the head is not feminine enough for me. It seems to masculine for the body for me.

Not really a dragon person either. I do tend toward Cats and dogs more. I think I had four furry characters before I left the cat domain, and as you know I'm still playing with cat designs with the recent metal/gemstone tiger ideas.

I greatly appreciate your support. :) There's never going to be a complete consensus of what folks like but I'm having way to many misses lately and I just want to understand what I'm doing wrong vs what I see several other artists doing.

Might help if I didn't confuse my left and right, everything I liked was on the right, so if I can't tell you what I like(cats and boobs) I don't know how to tell you what others like. Maybe themes or references to culture?

As a colorist, I'm drawn to the top because they're simpler. One or two distinguishing features, clear profile, simpler palette without gradients or excessive blends.

The bottom has feathered wings with three tone. Long fur. A full body gradient abutting a regular belly transition. Fur meeting scales/plates without a clear indication where one starts and the other stops. To me, I see those and I like the designs, but they'd be an absolute pain to get more art of that's on-model.

Thank you for your very concise and specific critique and suggestions. This is exceptionally helpful. :) I'll add it to my list of things to look at in my next attempts.

My pleasure!

Generally when I see tight character designs, their palette is somewhere between 5 and 8 colors; a main primary, secondary, and tertiary, then between two and five secondary colors which covers horns, eyes, noses/pads, etc. The water dragon there has almost twenty.

I'll def try a minimal pallet next time, maybe do just flats and not have any shadow and highlight hues.

Well, shadow and highlight are their own thing and those would change with the lighting color. I wouldn't really count those.

To be honest, I do like the serpentine blue one on the left, but the other two aren't quite my particular style. For the middle one, I do like the jewelry, but think the body type and face don't quite gel with my preferences. The wolf-dragon does look cool, though personally I've never been a fan of the partially-furred, partially-dragon-scaled looks.

What is the style you like?

Most often the top row. They're much more uniform in design, and I like the aesthetics of their body shapes and faces.

So basically toony?

As far as facial features, I tend to gravitate towards tooniness, or at least stylized realism, but it's not necessarily an absolute.

They are all great in my opinion, could just be that the timing isn't good for some potential customers with the fact that you have a time limit on each auction.

I wish I could say where exactly the problem lies for you that you seem to lack views or interest on some adoptables, it's definitely not the designs in my opinion.

Thanks Blackwater I appreciate it. I know I could post things at more opportune times, but an auction time limit still wouldn't stop some one from looking at a design or +faving it.

I have this weird notion that adopting a character comes with a responsibility towards them so it's not something I do very frequently unless I have specific plans for them.
That said, of these ones, I actually prefer the blue one on the bottom left because I prefer the feral dragon look over the anthro ones.
Out of interest, have you considered doing more in the way of robotics?

I don't think it'd do well. 1 it's not what people were watching me for originally. When I have dipped my foot into that kinda thing it's gotten ignored.

Damn. Well, best of luck. I loved your art way back on DA and regret not finding your FA and Twitter accounts sooner.

The issue could be personal tastes. The top ones are fairly simple and get a good idea across. They're easy to add small designs to if someone wishes. Adding an outfit onto something with a simple body design is more appealing, especially for me.

Now where my personal choice comes in is the body type. Each person has their tastes. I don't really like furred dragons, feathered wings. And wings in general ups the cost to have that character drawn.
An example for me is the bottom middle. The designs of the character clash, the scaled head, fur cover body, feathered wings.

Ultimately adopts are a hard topic because you need to make them different and thus some will fail where others overwhelming succeed.

Another person suggested going more simple. I think that may be one of the main issues. Thank you for your insight. :)

There are some options for wingless dragons that are absolutely gorgeous. Sleek, fast, smooth. Although my personal choices lol. But I think simple is a good solid choice. It leave it open for more personality in a character. Rather than the design predeterming the personality

I don't think there is any clear answer to that. It is impossible to predict what people will go for. I've had adoptables that I thought people would be fighting over sitting unsold for years while adopts that I never thought I'd sell were ABed immediately. It really feels like correctly predicting what people will like is a lot like winning the lottery.

Personally, I prefer this weeks dragon over any of the ones in the top row. I find the color combination to be visually pleasing and the design much more unique. So in the end, I think it is down to everyone's personal tastes. The right design has to strike a chord with the right person.

I know, it's frustrating. This is something I know all too well.

Yeah I hit that so often. I think it'll go well because it hits A or B or C characteristics that I see commonly in oc's or other adopts and then I get crickets.

Trust me, if there is some magical formula to make adopts sell without fail, I'd really like to know that too. XD

so far it seems to be limit the color pallet, no more than 6 or so hues / shades, and don't do hybrids. Stick to generic established concepts. Which totally baffles me because when I do OC'S as commissions they are always deviants from the 'norm'. I just don't understand it. :D

My thought is that when you get deviations from the norm for OCs, they are deviations that the person who designed the character has picked. All the variations have meaning to them. For an adoptable, though, the variations no longer have personal meaning for the purchaser, so you're down to a crap-shoot of whether they'll like the disparate elements together or not.

As others have mentioned, the time limit on adopts might be a bit of a turnoff for some, but given it's usually on auctions, it isn't that odd.

That said, adoptables themselves are kind of a shaky market when it comes to reliable income. Between personal taste and the available funds of a potential buyer, it can be hard to keep income coming in with them.

Also, I found that adopts with a higher AB price can sometimes gain more traction if there's something of a bonus included if you AB the adopt (or if the bidding reaches a certain amount). Things like some extra artwork (a head bust or something) to be included if AB'd helps bring people in a bit more as they're not only getting a design but also another piece of artwork that includes that design.

Your style is lovely and the designs you post are really neat and fun, but in the end (unfortunately) it has a lot of do with taste and funds available to any potential buyers.
Money is tight for a lot of people given the economy in most parts of the world and with what's going on in the world as well.
Prices on daily goods are much higher than before so a lot of people are pinching their pennies a bit more and perhaps don't have much leeway on spending for things like art and adopts.

Just a little note here: You're not alone in this situation. A lot of people I know (myself included) have had a tough time keeping revenue and income coming in over the last couple years. It's just a sad shift of things based on current events going on.

I'd say keep trying and keep promoting! Don't be afraid to repost things to gain views either. Timing is weird on this website, so it can be hard to post around a time where there's a lot of users online to see your work. Boosting helps.

I apologise if this wasn't entirely helpful, but I thought I'd toss in my coin in with a bit of input.
All the best to you, and good luck!

I'm not even concerned about the buying issue right now. As I posted, I totally get that people don't always have money or even like favoring adopts. But it costs nothing but a few moments to just look at something. Views still help me figure out if it was at least interesting to my general audience. I don't really want to start offering 'upgrades' like extra head details or whatever until I can start getting a better handle on what makes something desirable in the first place. I actually even offered to add naughty bits to the adoptables but I only ever got 1 person to take that option. I'm not really sure the time limit is the issue, because I've had way too many items just totally get ignored. If it doesn't sell within the first few days, it rarely does at all and I just can't afford to let something linger. But I think you for your suggestions :) and I wish you good luck too.

I enjoyed your newest one, but I didn't bid on it out of money concerns. (Also, I just bought another character from you recently.)

It's all good. Like I said this isn't about just selling. I'm trying to understand why people like or don't like a design. I totally adore hundreds of adopt designs I've seen out there, but I can't afford even the cheapest of them. I just don't have that kind of disposable income. But there's just this huge disconnect between what other people seem to like and my own preferences which seem to be exceptionally wide, where others seem to have very, very narrow and niche interests.

How i see it .
The top row are your standart dragons while the lower ones are kind of special .
Special needs it needs some kind of person who loves it wich is maybe more rare ?

Actually would love to see some wolf dragon hybrid as Kali again , the eyes and wierd horns just feel off on her .

Thanks for letting me know :D

I would say that each of the lower designs have a specific turn-off effect:

Leftmost is a feral, they're going to be hit or miss unless you cater to a feral audience specifically.

Middle is too busy. Feathers + spots + fur tufts + spikes on tail + stripes + jewelry. Also, I tend to dislike spots on a design because it gets a mild Trypophobia response from me. Same reason I hate freckles on a design.

Rightmost has no pupils. Eyes are the windows to the soul, and a character lacking eye details instantly becomes far less approachable. There's a reason all-white eyes are reserved for gods and monsters. Horns are kind of ehhhh as well. I feel like she could work with horns, but those horn specifically break up her outline too much.

yeah folks have mentioned the eye thing to me before, so i've been careful not to do blank eyes since then. seems the common suggestion is to go more simple which i so don't understand seeing what's popular with other adopts but I'll give it a try. :) thank you for your insight!

I was thinking about this all last night, and I think a lot of this goes to flavour. Adding things like jewelry can really pigeon-hole a character into an aesthetic, which you don't want on an adopt. You're more likely to lose a sale from someone with a differing aesthetic than to secure a sale from someone with a matching one.

Out of curiosity, what are these other adopts you enjoy?

I was trying to make the adopts unique something that not everyone else was doing. Something to make it more worth the cost I'm asking for but I'll try some without the jewelry maybe. As for folks who make adopts I like? There are tons but here's a few  DeleteTheStars  Thalbachin  DaggerLeonelli  Blackraven-Adopts  Hamgirl  AlsaresNoLynx and those are just the ones here on fa.

If I were you, I would draw what you want, not what you think will sell. My adopts, when I offer them, I give little stories-- the kind of things I am thinking about when I draw the character. This helps folks connect. I would not put a time limit on these- or if you do make it short. People forget if t goes out several days.

I think going for balance in design is a good thing, and focusing on a general theme for the adopt. Like, your center bottom row dragon looks unbalanced. While some like the large muscles and chest, she looks like the breasts are add-ons so may consider rebalancing her. The adopt you drew takes a very specific clientelle who may LOVE this look but for whatever reason are not amongst your followers.

I know a lot of people can work off blanks and all, but for me I do all my adopts from scratch. I make them a someone that somebody can build a story for if they like or imagine fitting into their own cast of characters. Some folks make hundreds on their designs and some make $10 on a colored blank.

You could also doodle a design and paint it quick and do ladders for finishing the sketch. That way you are not investing more time into something that sits around and makes you feel like your ideas are meh.

Sorry for the delay in answer. I ran out of energy to interact :D The problem with drawing with what 'I like and want' is I've done that. I've done it a lot and when I do, it gets ignored. My personal preferences don't seem to resonate well. Which I understand is part of the issue here. You need to draw lots of the content so you can attract people who want that particular content, but I don't have the time or energy or luxury to only do that, because it takes years to curate a whole new audience base. I went from doing mostly commissions where people could dictate what I drew and how I drew it so right now my +watchers a huge mishmash of different preferences. I've seen that 'creating stories' can help, but frankly I just don't have the energy to do that. Fibro has robbed me of so much creative ability. That I can draw at all with the frequency I've managed the last year is a miracle in it self. As for the blanks, again my Fibro is why I don't go all origional all the time, but I do try to update and do new ones when I can manage it. But I just physically can't do new designs every adopt. And I've tried doing ladder like options. So far I've had very few people take me up on that, and again the fibro interfers, as I really really don't want to turn them into mini commissions. Commissions are largely just too stressful and stress= pain. But I do thank you for your advice. I appreciate ya taking the time to comment with your insight. :D

I think the primary thing is that the bottom ones are simply a bit too busy, where as the top are easily replicable (you wouldn't worry about being hit with a complexity charge from other artists) and generally they just nicely conform to the 'Less is More' rule.

I have also noticed that dragons and kobolds, as basic as they are, do exceedingly well when they are both very anthro and very scaley. Fur coated dragons, from my observations at least, generally do not fare as well.

The green one in particular is incredible. There's a ton of personality there, the pose is high energy and its something that tells you a lot about the character, or rather, who the character is... which can resonate with a lot of people. I know most of the gatox I bought from  Mooz, I did so because of that factor.

All of the above is advice purely for commercial purposes. I do massively agree with  caribou above, that you should mainly draw what you want to draw and what you're motivated to create.

I'm taking the less is more to heart here, I'm going to see if I can rework the dragon and see if that makes it more appealing as well as take some of these suggestions to use on my next piece. thanks so much for your suggestions!

Honestly? I like the ones that others don't seem to like as much. Those are the ones I prefer, but I'm also a more realistic artist and have always leaned toward that more realistic, detailed style. in the 23 years I've been in the fandom, I still cannot figure out what people actually like or don't like, to be honest. I think a lot of it also has to do with upload timing, who sees it, social media algorithms, and a lot of non-human factors.

Yeah it's zany and there are a lot of factors, but what can one do but ask now and again :) Personally i like both some anime-ish and highly realistic stuff. So part of the problem is I don't stick to any one style consistently. So I have a feeling my +watcher base is kind of a mishmash. I guess that's why some artists have different accounts for their different themes.

Multiple accounts may not be a bad idea, it may end up getting a wider, different fanbase and more exposure. The down side is that upkeeping a single account is a pain, so multiples is a real pain. I did that for a bit, and ended up combining them again in the end.