[warning: from this point on some kinda undiagnosed hyperfixation kicked in & we're pushing wayyy past my bedtime so brace yourself for typos, rambling, jibber-jabbering and even more general verbosity than usual Alice-posting, sorry! (good news! I've gone back & edited things!)]
Update: I made a tl:dr if ya just wanted a direct (me? direct?!?!) answer to your request for suggestions about how to format & to what level of detail:
ID: Summary paragraph: [Medium] fanart of People (from Show), doing (Action/pose) with (Other People), while saying "Quote". (1-3ish sentences)
Extra info paragraph(s): [general conveyance of the emotional tone], [any details about the background/composition that affects the situation in the fanart], [description of each character's appearance, with clothes described simply.]
/End ID
After the ID: [any other details you wanted to infodump about] (i.e reduce distance between the image & the ID - no putting IDs under Read More post cuts!)
my advice is to consider what the purpose/focus/context of the art is & write the ID with that in mind. Otherwise you'll end up doing what I've often done & getting verbose about every detail ever. So Travis is bang on the money here :)
tip #0 (you seem to already be aware of 😊) any ID is better than none - don't let perfection & impostor syndrome be the enemy of improvement. Practice makes Progress. And if ya can't ID atm for whatever reason, tagging it "no ID" or "undescribed" "pls someone halp with the ID", and seeking the help of others (check out the People’s Accessibilty Discord) is a solid plan B.
tip #1 Match the level of intricacy
If it's a rough sketch that conveys Blorba and Blorbu cuddling, with the allusion of them being slumped against the end of a bed, that's all ya really need to say. If Blorbu is topless or in uncharacteristically cute pyjamas e.g, add that as bonus info, but otherwise don't even bother describing clothes & background - the sketch is Blorbo & Blorba cuddling and that's that.
If it's an intricately rendered full-coloured, artfully posed, interesting composition piece with an intricate background, do the summary paragraph of 1-3 sentences, and mention that it's highly detailed. Then when you start a new paragraph and going absolutely ham on the detailed description, it's because it matches how the art comes across visually to someone who can see the image, and it gives a heads up to someone using an e-reader that many details are incoming.
If you want an excuse to gush about all the finer details ya put in, that's extremely understandable. Consider if they need to be in the ID, or if they could be after the ID in a thought-process-infodump section.
An example of some intricate art that's been given a detailed ID that's not overly verbose is the following post by @mothfishing (via @blindbeta )
still hung up on this attitude i've see claiming that all art should have image descriptions that are as bare as absolutely possible and con
The description does a solid job of conveying what is an unusual and complex piece of art, without falling into the trap (that I regularly do) of trying to identify the species of butterfly, snake & flowers, or the type of serif font used.
I think I'm getting off-track from your original question, my apologies - hopefully the deluge of things I'm throwing at ya is more helpful than frustrating to sort through! :')
Tip #2 Try & have the first few sentences act as an adequate big picture summary, and then minutiae after a paragraph break, possibly with paragraph breaks per character. That way someone have the option to exit the ID once they've got the amount of detail they want, and can also skip paragraphs to navigate if there's lotsa text. Think of the opening paragraph as what you'd put in an ALT text - like 1-3 sentences. (I now have XKit rewritten so longer ALT texts are actually readable, but for ALT text generally the shorter the better).
I think in terms of people descriptions generally, try to introduce the person in the opening paragraph like so
"Blorbo (My shows)", or
"a re-interpretation/redesign of Blorbo from My Shows"
"Blorbo from my shows, drawn as [insert the main few things that make your design different]".
In the first option folks can seek out more info on that Blorbo/Show even if they immediately move on from the ID, and in using the other two options, they can know that your fanart is diverging bigly from canon & so sticking around for the character description paragraphs will be giving them new info.
And To answer your question: (defo the case for DnDads for example, where y'all who're caught up with season 2 may have some solid ideas of character appearances, but lil baby newbie me stuck in early season 1 still is relying on my own imagination for characters, & hasn't yet met many of s2's main cast) here's my suggested format:
Summary paragraph: [medium - digital paint? fresco? pencil sketch?] fanart of People (from show), doing (action) with (other People), while saying "quote".
Extra info paragraph: [general conveyance of the emotional tone], [any details about the background that affect the situation unfolding in the fanart], [description of each character's appearance, with clothes described simply. e.g "pink mittens" will do, "baby-pink cashmere mittens knitted with a fine rib stitch and mauve bordering" is too much]
After the ID: [any other details you wanted to infodump about] (i.e reduce distance between the image & the ID - no putting IDs under Read More post cuts!)
tip #2b If the fanart takes on comic-strip format (in the sense that it had panels/sections) have a read of @thequeerwithoutfear's advice.
tl;dr (do read it tho! I've done a sh*t job compared to Auden, and ey really seem to know what ey're doing) if separating panels makes dialogue or a series of actions/interactions confusing to read, consider writing the ID more alike the style of a ttrpg game master narrating a cut scene between those characters. E.g grouping each person's actions & speech together when possible while still being accurate. Only referencing details like clothing, movement & backgrounds when it directly impacts the action or tone, otherwise putting it in extraneous info paragraphs. E.g for extra-info-paragraphs: "throughout this exchange, Blorbo wears [clothes]; "the camera zooms in on Blorbos face as she monologues"; "this conversation takes place viewed from a high angle as they walk along the pavement, trees regularly casting shadows on their faces as the evening sun shines on out-of-focus orange and yellow leaves in the foreground".
hey, do you have any tips on how to make comics accessible? I'm working on 2 comics with blind characters and I feel really sh*tty that I, a
Source for all this: I "know" how to do IDs in that I've been bumbling my way through them for a few months - fanart IDs I find hardest tho :'D I'll also tag some groovy folks here either for them to weigh in* or for you to navigate their blogs in search of more wisdom.
*only if they're free and able and willing to - lotta folks doing it in their free time simply for accessibility's sake, so they ain't obliged to - from each according to their ability yadda yadda ;) lotta good pinned FAQ posts tho - check out their blogs!
from @accessibility-babey 's pinned post, here's a link to an active discord server of volunteers for making & fulfilling image/video/audio description requests: https://discord.gg/FrFKb953 (edit: seems the server/link has expired?)
welp plan A prime: from @keplercryptids' and @a-captions-blog's pinned posts here is another link to another server than does the same thing: People’s Accessibility Discord (this one I know works & the discord is active & excellent :D)
Generally you're best placed to ID your own art since you're starting from the place of knowing the art best. But from hanging out the the People's Accessibility homies you'll be able to get advice & more wisdom & generally a knack for how to verbalize things :)
I've run out of steam & braincells & blood circulation in my right arm, so I stop now. I leave you with some more tumblr peeps who've got bangin' pinned posts/FAQs for you to peruse at your leisure:
@a-captions-blog (joint best Pinned post of all time)
@can-i-make-image-descriptions (joint best Pinned post of all time)
@accessibletweets (a blog of many peeps of whom I'm one (I've not helped out there at all lately, sorry!). This blog's pinned post has two juicy links for transcribing:
https://ocr.space can transcribe text from images for you
https://convertcase.net/ can change blocks of text that are in all caps to sentence case, all lower case, or title case
(both not strictly related to your request, but I'll spam these links whenever the topic of accessibility comes up because while they're not perfect, they allow one to tweak edit 500 wrong characters rather than painstakingly type out 5000 characters from scratch!)
