Commenting isn't necessary, but it lets me know what's popular and what's not, in terms of technique and whatever. I'm not going to change who I make icons of, but if a colouring style is too dark or whatever, there's room for improvement, clearly.
Credit is not optional. Don't be an asshat, it takes two seconds to put "clez" or "seethesoldiers" (this journal, please, not the short-lived LiveJournal version ♥ thanks) in the icon comment area somehow. I don't even care if it's a link; it's just so people know where to go.
Don't hotlink. Wtf. If you're using them for a journal's icons, then that's not hotlinking, but displaying them somewhere else and hogging my bandwidth? Yeah, don't do that.
Don't edit what you find here. One of my biggest peeves, seriously. They're not bases, so don't alter/recolour/add brushes or borders. If you want something like that, I suggest dont_be_so_base or hollow_art on livejournal.
I make icons of a select few people, but I am trying to branch out. Either you like them or you don't, but they're here for other people to get some use out of, so whatever. I don't put borders on my icons, and I don't do that horrible glow or over-softened stuff. That's the way the cookie crumbles, or something, right? You take what you can get XD
Please don't look at my icons and then go into a rage about spoilers. If I can, I icon entire movies, for one person's role, so yes, there are potential spoilers in my icons. Consider this the only warning, my friends.