For me, I prefer to have a text based appearance. I feel like the character is more of my design than of the person who made the costume or image. The most I feel comfortable with is linking to an image to an article of clothing or weapon etc. just to throw the point home. To me, it's somewhat lazy and feels like a cop-out to google image search something, link to it, and call it done. I've been in a couple RP's where a picture was required(Bad GM's tbh) Most recently, I've made a character who is a ninja, so under appearance I put an image of a stereotypical ninja, but still had the need to describe the character because it wasn't enough for me.
As a GM, I highly prefer text to images, simply because even when using an image, the RPer always has their own variation to how the character differs from what they present, and I want the characters to be their own. Clothing & accessories usually reflect the personality and history of their characters, so many times an image won't mesh well with the person, Most of the time I actually don't allow images in the SU, because if you can't describe what your character looks like then how can you describe action?
I have very strong feelings for appearances, haha.
Judgmental much? :P
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?