But doing request is not a way to demonstrate your family what you're capable of. Likes or followers don't feed you, having people praising your work doesn't mean they trully love what you do, just what you can provide to those few selected ones that obtained something from you for free, because following a few rules is not a big deal if that means they aren't paying you anything and yet can obtain something from you.
If you're having trouble regarding your family and your hobby, because I consider it by the fact that you may be still young and on top of that not living from this yet. I'll recommend you, as someone experienced and that already went through that phase, to understand your family struggles. What are you doing that is not providing them security? Most of parents will worry about two things:
- Are you growing up to be your own independent person, or are you still on the nest?
- Are you spending your time in something that would allow you to be your own independent person or is still something that doesn't have a shape yet?
- If you're not studying nor working, and in most cases drawing is not a real job unless you're making as much as the minimal wage for a part-time / normal job, then your family is going to consider you're wasting your time. So you need to be smarter about the image you're giving them, you need to provide them security, that you're not there just to warm a seat.
- Sadly, in latinamerica that's how things are, you can have as much heart as you want and be passionate but you need to balance that and be logical, you need to scheme your time, your goals, your focus, what can you do so your family doesn't doubt you (Or when I was a teen used to think, "annoy you" "what to do so they can finally understand you?" "leave you alone?"), ask yourself why you have pretty art yet you have few followers and probably one-two commissions a month.
- Promoting yourself takes time so you have to learn to take advantage of social platforms and of course, spend time on them when you promote, is like drinking water and being upset the glass is getting empty. Facebook requires exactly the same information as instagram or other social media (A name, phone number, birth date, e-mail and then to confirm the data through one of the communication devices, be it phone or mail), people make fake accounts all the time so you can make an art account or art page without trouble, so I'm not getting your problem, or maybe you're being selective (Which if you told me this instead of FB demanding too much info from you, I would consider it a more acceptable answer). You also need to know that you can actually vinculate certain accounts so even if you post in one place, it'll automatically post in the other platform and save you time from loading a file and then copy-pasting the content for the post or have to log into your other accounts and go to the posting page.
I honestly don't know many people who do free requests, most of those that do it are only for special ocassions, like a milestone of followers (Like 2K, 5K, etc). Even if you demand rules, like references for pose, character design, etc, it is still work and time that doesn't have any kind of compensation except for the emotional value of believing that that way you're "showing" someone that your art has value. But as I said, likes, reactions, and comments don't pay the bills nor provides to a home.
And regarding commissions, that's sadly the life, you are paid to do what your client wants, not the other way around. Commissions don't necessarily need to be public all the time, lots of clients want private commissions and artists are free to not be the ones advertising the finished job. Some artists don't have public portfolios and only when it comes to specific clients, specific artwork is shown. As I said, working and living out of your artwork is harder than it looks, your morals and pride don't matter at all if what you want is to have a stable income and independence, if you're desperate and know that a certain type of work comes your way, you don't care about the clients's behavior, the type or content of their commissions or whatever, because you're desperate, and when you're desperate you don't get to be picky, you have to choose the bread or the cake. Otherwise you'll end up with none of them and you're back to square one.
Back when I was still building my persona online, I was a student and going to school so I had to focus on my studies and once that was taken care of, I took the time to do my hobby. Eventually, when I started to get paid, first I bought a few little things for myself, the things that no longer required to ask for my parents or family, then I decided to munch a tiny bit more, paid for my own studies and plan B (I'm a hairdresser, makeup artist and manicurist) in case I didn't go anywhere with art. As I work harder and harder, I slowly increased my prices to eventually, I promoted myself too much that two years ago I had 5 commissions a week which I delivered on the same day and now I'm finally living on my own apartment, full time job as a webcomic artist but that comes with a price too. Burnout, sight and back problems, too tired to get out or studying something new. And I did all that without being much of a free requests person, my mindset was simple "I'll learn on the way / we'll see when we cross the bridge" it's risky but if you're creative you not only can improve your art but the way you can solve and approach situations as well.
I've also tried to say it in the nicest way possible because it's a big deal to understand that maybe you're being too prideful (Or at least that's what I get from the way you phrase your struggles) and as well that I personally accept that artist are egocentric and jealous of their own work but I'm willing to try to approach as many angles as possible in a gentler way. Of course, if you have too much personality and a temper like me then you'll need a few arguments with your family, a few "too harsh" fights, a few "shocks of reality" until you're paranoid at the point of becoming a workaholic that could pay the food, the rent, light, water, gas, etc of a family of 4. And while that's not entirely bad, try not to get into that extreme either.
