Oh, there's definitely still a strong preference for fanart, that is true my original characters tend to get between 3 and 6 likes, with my tarot card designs being slightly more successful... but only because of the "tarot card" theme, certainly NOT because of my characters themselves XD
However, I found that stuff like my landscapes tend to be pretty successful... probably because they fit more into a generic "aesthetic" theme rather than featuring any specific character? Either way yes, getting traction with 100% original stuff (as in, original characters, comics, character illustrations that are not your generic "Instagram girl" and so on) is still pretty hard. But I've got this feeling that if you can somehow squeeze your original character into some wider theme that might interest a bunch of people (tarot card designs, zodiac card designs, "aesthetic" illustrations), there's a better chance of getting noticed. Or at least, that's what seemed to work for me!