Actually, when I checked out the site, for some reason I kept getting "Can not find site." I'll take a look sometime later. As for the beads, I'm going to give it a try first. I can already think of a nice bead shop nearby.
As for the popular vs. unknown question, it's hard to say. Sometimes when there are a lot of one character, they kinda blend in and don't stand out as much. Maybe wearing certain outfits (the many versions of Chii) would help a little. If you were to pick a non-main character from a popular series, chances are you're not going to find very many of them and stand out more (like if you picked Plum).
If this didn't make any sense, ignore it. I only got 5 hours of sleep last night. @_@