Back in October 2020, Japan’s largest online artwork community, Pixiv, rolled out a request system to its users. As its name implies, this functionality allows any artist on the service to begin accepting paid requests from the community, and should they like a concept, accept it, and produce it within a 60-day deadline. As of writing, more than 20,000 requests have been sent to artists, although it isn’t known exactly how many of these have been accepted by artists.
With this still being a relatively new service implemented into a pre-existing website, features have slowly been added month by month. We to this day await for support for some of the more interesting aspects of Pixiv such as VRoid and sensei to be incorporated into the request system, but a few new features have been rolled out in recent months. In their sixth monthly update (for the month of March 2021), Pixiv has confirmed the following features and improvements are available to clients and artists:
■ A creator’s request status is now visible on multiple pages. An icon stating “Accepting requests” also displays next to their username.
■ The image that displays when sharing a request page on social media has been changed.
■ A congratulatory page now pops up when a request is in progress and when it has been completed.
■ The review time for a posted request has now been shortened. (The time will vary depending on the requested work.)
■ The creator can now also download gift files.
■ Hints on how to write a request now display in the requests window.
Want to know more about the Pixiv Request Service? You can read more about it in my previous review.
