Location
Summary
In order for you to design a charater you will need to have a good understanding of where that character will be spending most of his or her time. Local is important, becuse it helps you understand what your character may where, or how they ineracte with their surrroundings in the enviorment. If your making a visual novel,animation,or draft sketch knowing the local will make the process for your design.
Example
The locations I drew out in two of the example images above are all church related. I am not particularly good with land scape drawing but this is one of the best ways to figure out what a character will end up looking like in the design process. Thats why for the 3rd image I drew a church nun for asociation. This also allows to have an idea of who will be ocupping this location.
Culture
Summary
Similar to locals, culture and clothing also factor in the character desgin process.In order for your character to ineract with the local the character will need some kind of culture to connect to the world. What about the character design screems they belong, or don't belong are questions you need to ask yourself. This will lead to crafting the style of the character your creating physical clothing.
Example
These three drawings represent three diffrenet cultures and clothing in some fashion.For my first image I went with a women as my charater.As you can see her clothing is based on what Muslim women wear in countries like Iraq and its usally worn for religous reasons.This piece of clothing is called a hijab. Keeping things like that in mind is important when looking at the diffrent cultral aspects will help you decide on visual depiction. While not every women you see in Iraq will be wearing this it still a fairly common custom.If you where drawing a local in Iraq and need to fill the page with charaters its good to know what those people wear and the resoning behind it. Knowing aspects of culture make things feel more realistic.
The same could be said for the other two examples I used in this section. For image number two I wanted to draw character with a city like feel that looks modern,casual, and relaxed. Which is why I focused on the clothing being more free flowing. I did this by emphasizing small thing like the unbottuned shirts and making the cloths drift freely.
Expression
Summary
Expression and traits are what finalize your character design. Expression for example can be as simple drawing posture or mood face Expressions. Finally Traits are why the first to sections are important these can be connect to both the character and the world.
Example
These three images are examples of face expression and body language. Its good to draw a layout of face expressions, and then think about how those charaters move with their poster and draw it out. Also small traits or features that are visiable. This can range from scars to making a character look older.