I tend to think up a story in my head. What I want them to do. I don't even choose the gender until later. I decide what I want them to experience, their personality, their history, and I usually base it off close friends, but not always, my current character was based off of my AP English teacher, though now she's nothing like her. Then, I attempt to draw out what I want them to look like, I take a pencil and paper and literally draw them. I create the gender from there, I usually decided the hair color after the gender, then I go from there. Last, I choose a name, but it's usually someone close or someone I admire. Rachel (my name, I know, I was vain) Mariko (from the Shogun series) Watanabe (from Mutsuhiro Watanabe, a WWII "criminal", that was my last character, but my current one is Carolyn (after my grandmother) Medaris (my ancestral name on my mother's side). Think it out, take some time on it, you can always change your character next term.