I tried the template thing for a while (you can see a bunch of similar elf icons on my site, for example)... I guess I didn't really like how it worked out, though:
1. Everyone looks the same
2. The work itself was monotonous and not fun!
So, I am mostly back to just drawing people singly, although I may reuse an icon once or twice (but not much more than that).
It is also tiring to do males AND females of everything so... nowadays just one or the other as I feel like it
