I know folks who's taste I trust, from hard core comics nerds to normies, and run things past them. If they respond in a positive manner I know I'm on the right track. If they ask questions that means I left a hole in the story that needed to be filled in. If they're not feeling the character design it means I have to draw some more.
And because I know them, I also know what biases they may have that will colour what they think and I can more easily filter out their personality (ex- their preferences for cape comic tropes or big anime tiddies or their deep-seated nitpickery) from the information I can actually use (ex- The character I want coded a certain way didn't convey that coding.) Which I cannot do with internet randos which is another reason I rarely ask.
& how annoyed are they about it?
I have a long history of seeing eyes glaze over when I start saying stuff like, "In Kagoshima there's a series of statues across the city depicting the reactions of commoners and upper classes alike to the opening of Japan and the end of the Edo period leading to the Meiji Restoration and the founding of the Japanese Empire. The statues are rather short, which was an interesting choice, and you need to go on a long walk across the city to see the whole history play out. Meanwhile Sakurjima is constantly erupting blahblahblahblah..." And despite the fact that I have decades of interesting experiences to talk about not everyone agrees so I'm careful not to push it in most all cases.
