For reference, here is my fic. Currently I have the protagonist's basic description shoehorned halfway into the first chapter.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5593724/1/TheDarkestOcean

I seem to be the opposite of Neshomeh. If I'm introducing a new character, I'll mention one or two major features just to give everyone (including myself) a visual grounding - usually hair colour, but sometimes clothing or height if it can help build the character's personality. For instance, if I want to introduce a stuffy, arrogant aristocrat, I may write something like:

Walking down the hall was a man in a heavily-embroidered and obviously very expensive waistcoat,

- and then continue with the dialogue or narration that tells the events of the story. If it's not so important to set the character's look from the start, or if it's a character we already know and I want to casually mention what they're wearing, then I'll find a way to slip it in later in the scene, like I did here in a chapter from my Wicked fanfic:

“Oh… fine,” said Glinda, a little startled as she took off her cherry-red overcoat. “It all went fine, really; just took forever.

Of course, it depends on how you write in the first place. I try to weave my narrative and dialogue together with a rather steady pace and flow, so I'll insert dialogue tags in the place of commas, and if the speaker is making a rather extended pause, make that tag longer in order to convey the time in the reader's head - like the above example. If you write very little description otherwise, that method probably won't work.

Of course, that's only if you want to be unobtrusive. If you want to make a point out of it, you can have a sentence or two about their appearance, but never go beyond that - actually, keep it to one sentence, if you can. You can be a very visual writer without drowning us in details.

I suppose it also depends on what character's point of view the story is being written from. I usually write in a fairly distant style, but if your story is told through the eyes of, say, an artist, they'll notice much more detail than a lawyer, and you'll have more leeway to describe it without making your readers feel bored.

So... all you can do is try, I guess. Was that any help?

What I do is focus on a few important details and leave the rest up to the reader's imagination. I almost always give basic eye and hair color with perhaps one adjective each, no more, but a lot of times you can just give the basic complexion, like swarthy or fair, and it's up to the reader to know that swarthy usually means dark eyes and dark hair, and that fair usually means a blue-eyed blond. I may offer the structure of a person's face if it's distinctive--square-jawed, round-faced, etc. I rarely if ever describe clothing unless it's important, as in a situation where the character is dressing for a certain effect or purpose, and then I'll stick to the one or two articles that specifically make the look. (Though if you have a particularly flamboyant character, they tend to break those rules for you.) The trick is to chose your words very carefully, and pick the one that means exactly what you want instead of a whole bunch that dance around the point.

Another thing is that all the details don't have to be given right away if they don't fit in with the moment, for any character. You can string out the description in bits and pieces for as long as it takes to do it gracefully. If you win the readers over with the character's personality, they'll wait for the details.

I hope that helps. I feel like I'm not being very clear, but so much of writing is subjective that it's hard.

~Neshomeh