When i do it i picture in my head of how they should look, an di biuld up on the personality, and more detailed discription. But i think if you know their personality or have an idia the apperence should be easy.

-------Well-------
1. I start with my characters personalilty; will they be Flirtatious, Attention-seeking and use that for their own evil doings? Or will they be shy, good and don't understand the oppisite Gender?

2. What Gender will they be?

3. Then I go to their History. What type of up-bringing would they have? Are their parents warm and caring or cold and cruel? Are they an only-child? Or do they have siblings who are younger or older than they are? Do they live with their parents? Or are they like Harry and live with their aunt and uncle? Don't go too into detail about it mainly because your RPing will build it up even more!

4. Their Appearance would always come next. Short hair or long hair? Brown, Blonde or Black hair? Or do you feel creative and give them bubblegum Blue Hair? Curly or Straight? Neat and tidy or Scraggly and thin? Big bug eyes or small beady eyes? Blue coloured, Green coloured, brown coluored or even Purple coloured eyes? Or would you go with 'The Eliza'; Blood Red eyes?
Small or Tall? Thin or Well-built? Strong or Weak?

5: Their name. I usually leave through a History book or through a Dictionary to find some humouress Last names. Then I use my favourite name and their we go!

Well, I always picture my character in my mind first. Sex, hair colour, eye colour, basic personality. Then I add. Is my charrie's hair curled? Do s/he have any specific abilities. Good at Quidditch? Flunking Arithmancy? Brave? Nasty? Proud?

After that, of course, comes the bloodline and history. Pureblood? Rich? Poor? Do super-awesome hair dyed every day go well with a poor family? That's the sort of questions I ask and, above all, I just try to make sure nothing's "over." Everything must fit, go well with the plotline. I try not to be over-dramatic. It isn't necessary for my charrie to be Harry Potter's favourite grandson [or granddaughter], and it isn't necessary for my charrie to have a Veela mother, a Minister of Magic father, and a brother who own a ninety feet tall dragon.

For me, the "naming" can come anytime. You could decide a name, and then base your personality off it, or you could just pick a suitable name in the end. Usually, I try to find unique and realistic names. I mean, "Star Sun Stone Moon" doesn't sound like a very, uhhh, "real" name, if you get what I mean. So yeah.

Plus, I never stop adding. You've got to add to your charrie's personality with each new unfurling event, give your character new qualities [and drawbacks] with every new conversation you have, every new happening. And, most of all, you're supposed to have fun with it. Your charrie can't always be perfect and all-knowing. A first year should act like a first year and, correspondindly, a seventh year like a seventh year.

I don't even know how I created my characters.

My advise is to just get a basic idea of what your character will be like: name, physical description, general personality ideas, and a vague background. Then, build the rest while you RP. I found that putting too much thought into the history or personality right away either hindered my RPing or I ended up having to edit my character profile too much because the character had a mind of his/her own and ended up developing quite differently from what I originally envisioned once they started interacting with other characters ad whatnot.

The advice I would give would be to not go overboard. Make your character realistic. Like, how many students at Hogwarts are registered animangi? Not that many. So that is one personality trait you should probably stray away from. I also try and make realistic names, like Jackie. Occasionally I go for something a little less common, like Rochelle (I don't know about you, but I don't here that name much) I made up my characters bloodtype and background right away, but her history kind of just formed itself.

I generally create my character's name, physical appearance, and manner straight away. I think, in RPGing, a character's appearance and name should really say something about the way they act, and the way they act should say something about their history. It isn't like real life, because the people you're interacting with don't get to see your expression or talk with others about you. You're given a limited amount of space and media to convey what you want to get across, so you have to use every bit that you have to tell the world who your character is.

Once I have the name, the looks, and their characteristics, I delve into the history. This is something that, for me, usually develops itself over multiple posts - I'm still not sure exactly what I want to have happened to my character now to get her to where she is in her life. I know she has overcome many obstacles, does not have much support from her family when going to Hogwarts, and is looking for some sort of stability and peace. But I add specifics to that when the time seems right - I never, ever force anything to come out when it doesn't seem to fit into the story.

But of course, your process will be different! I think it depends on your style of writing as well. If you're descriptive and wordy (like me, lol), you would probably feel the need to describe details of your character at length while enjoying the surprise and the spontaneity of creating new things as you go along. If you're more concise, you might rather iron all of your details out ahead of time so that you're free to just address the issue/class/conversation/situation at hand.

Either way, you really can't make any wrong choices about your character. It is yours, after all! If you make a decision that your character is shy and find later that you wish him/her to be outgoing, you're free to make that change. You're the author!

I create my characters based on another side of my personality. Like the side that's confident, or the side thats angry, or any other side that isn't getting enough attention. From there I base an appearance on the traits of the personality. I wouldn't have the depressed side wearing hot pink and having bright bleach blonde hair.

To give you an idea how I create a character I am going to tell you how I cheated Mystie Blackbourne. First I choose what nationality she was going to be. Then I went to my favorite name sites, and made a list of first name and surnames I liked. Then I wrote them out to see what name I thought that went best together. Then I did what she looked like, what her personality is like..etc.

:spam2: Here is the sites I get my names from.
[URL="http://www.behindthename.com/"] [URL="http://www.surname.behindthename.com/"]

I create my characters in a few different steps, e.g. I'll show you how I created Cora.

1) First of all, I decided what gender my character would be. I think the gender has a big impact on everything else.

2) Next, I created her personality. I had to decided whether she would be the sweet, shy, understanding kind. Perhaps she would be aggresive, Dark Arts loving, evil and nasty. But finally, I decided that she would be kind, loveable, funny, unique and dramatic.

3) After personality, I ALWAYS decide the characters looks. Will they be tall or short? Fat or thin? Blonde hair? Black hair? PINK hair? Will their hair be curly or straight? Short or long? I decided I wanted my character to be a metamorphmagus, which gave me a few options. I started her off with changing her hair all the time. Then she went blonde, then brown, and now Cora is sticking with pink. I decided that her family traight would be her eyes. Big, blue and sparkling.

4) History. Will your character have any siblings? Will their parents be dead or alive? I decided I wanted Cora to have a tough life, which is why she is so brave, because she has to be! I also wanted one of her parents to be dead (her father) and I wanted her to be an outsider. And so, I made Ryan, Alexa and Jacqueline treat her badly.

5) Name. I don't think that the name is exceedingly important. Yes, you want an interesting name, but not one that is so out of the ordinary that it's unoriginal. I have two cousin, one called Cora-Lily and one called Carson-Blue. I fell in love with the name Cora, but I loved th 'Blue' part of Carson's name. Therefore, I named my character Cora-Blue. I wanted a different sirname, not one like Weasley or Malfoy. Latiffa came to me randomly!

Well this is my first term here and I've only created one charecter for roleplaying.
1) I start by choosing a gender.
2) Then comes the appearance such as hair colour, eye colour, build etc.
3) After that comes the personality such as shy, outgoing, nice, vindictive etc but its never so simple. My charecters personality depends on his background and growing up atmosphere. For example if he/she never had a good relationship with his/her mother he/she would be a reserved and closed person. And the personality also depends on which house I want him/her to get into.
4)Then comes the name. Well I usually get my names out of books such as eragon or eldest. But for my school charecter I just gave him my own first name (Ameer) and since his father is a wealthy businessman like Donald Trump, so his last name is Krump.

The way I create a character is by modeling them after my close family members. It's a little silly I know, but it works out really nice for me. The only thing I really change is the name.

I create characters in much the same way that I write. I don't start out saying, "I'm going to create a character for SS today." Instead I let something inspire me. Often times, its a name that inspires me, it doesn't have to be wickedly cool, so far my character names have been rejected pseudonims for my branch writing. Josephine Hazel was a combination of one of my middlenames and the name of my best friend's cat. Faye Guidry was something I came up with for a semi-autobiographical story that dealt with the origins of my name and trouble people had pronouncing French names with a silent "U".

Josephine Hazel was inspiring to me because I thought that it was interesting that she was a Witch, and Hazel... witch hazel... hah? so then i gave her a big background with a cursed family line, and an affinity for healing - witch hazel. then i got around to what she looked like. hazel eyes. and then i worked from there.

the thing my uncle taught me about writing, and the same goes with character making, is you can have a few broad lines to follow, but don't start with a goal in mind. don't start to GO somewhere, start FROM somewhere, and see what you come up with.

When i make a Caricter it's normally for an RP i'm playing in, and if that is indeed the case i think about how i want my caricter to act,
For example if i were playing in an RP where i had to be a Death eater i would first decide which Gender to be and then wheather the caricter was good or evil and depending on that i would deveolop (SP) a history to accomidate them.

As for my School Carrie? while, Jesse has been around for a while but i hadn't used him in years so i had to do a bit of tweaking, The advice i give to people just starting is to give your caricters real names that a normal person wouldn't be ashamed of and to not make them like yourself,
And also i suggest trying out the role-playing forums first and learn how to Rp and also to learn more about your caricter's personaility.

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.

For me, the easiest way to do it was to let my character (Excelsior) flow as an extensive of my personality. I decided what I wanted him to look like ahead of time, then I looked for photos that fit my idea of him on the internet and had a siggy made up. This helps me visualize him and make him more real to me, also. But as far as the RP goes, I RP him much as I would myself. He's a very polite, well spoken person who doesn't want to offend but, well, you know he's probably just looking out for himself in the end. It's fun to interact with the other characters, just let the conversation flow and imagine yourself as reallly being a student at Hogwarts and it comes easy.

I think, for those of you who are new, it's easiest to play your first character as if it were actually you (with a different name, usually). At least, that's what I did. It's a nice, easy, smooth transition into the RP world.

So, I suppose this'll sound weird, but. My characters kind of... come to me. I don't spend a lot of time forming them in my mind because I just kind of... see them there, if you can understand that? I'll use for example, Jamie. He came to me originally as an adult character to be used in a post-Hogwarts RP with Ama, who created a character akin to Bucky.

Pretty much, I saw this tall, dark, curly haired male. And from then on, I developed him. I don't take much control of him, the kind of develops on his own. I knew from the beginning that he'd be a nice, sweet boy, kind of dopey in the beginning, a little daft, definetely foreign to his emotions and as time went on, I became more and more aware of his personality. Playing him, I could feel what he was like. If there was resistance, I knew it wasn't part of his personality.

Basically, my characters become real to me =/ Haha.

I usually create my character on how i really wanna be. Or how i am.
Usually starting on the personallity, then you can go to the physical appearance after. The questions i ask myself are, do i want them to be good with others, do i want them to be the outgoing/crazy type? Stuff like that, things that create the person you want.
Then i move onto the physical appearance. Do i want them to be really pretty/ handsome. A ladies man/ a guy getter (hehe)
Things like that should help a bit
Whatever you want your character to be like, (maybe just not too over the top(unless you want that)) make him/her that way

I, like Ashlie, do the same thing. I don't really think of them to be honest. My characters come to me when they're ready. I know that they're in there in my head. It's just the pick a good time to get out.

My character, Leo Moretti, showed himself to me when I ditched a character that had failed to amuse me. She was a portrait of myself, so I wasn't amused much. Though Leo changed everything. After he came to me, he started to develop by himself. Characters develop by their own.

Like I said at the beginning. I am like Ashlie. My charries become real to me. I get too attached to them, it's hard to leave them.

It's hard to not RP Leo, to be honest. I'm really mourning the fact I won't RP him next term.

So yeah...

My characters are real to me.

My characters are usually based elsewhere. I literally have a pool of characters to choose from these days. But they've often evolved elsewhere.

My first character ever, Rachel, was based on me. The Star Trek version of her merged with a character from the book Kahless, Kellein. That character wound up with Q from Star Trek, and she adopted Trelane due to events in the book Q Squared. I revamped Trelane and brought him over here to SS. You know, his father's name was John Quincy. Q was played by John DeLancie. Get it?

Yeah, anyway...

My previous character here on SS was Kaida Ryu, who was the daughter of Zellanna, who was the daughter of Xellos and Carabella, which all happened back in the same chat system that I raised Kellein in.

A lot of my characters come from that chat, actually. Or, again, from other sources. Carabella was the daughter of Merlin and Coral from the Amber Chronicles. Xellos was someone else's character from Slayers.

Armand is one of the oddities in my character pool. His first creation was to be an NPC that was more powerful than the current NPC in our larp (live action role play), so he was completely designed around being a bored elder, and extremely powerful, vampire. And a lot of him was centered around the other NPC, Slade, who was played by my partner in storytelling in the larp. So the character became defined by another character, rather than a matter of actual character building. And of course, beyond that he was defined by his clan, his powers, his age, etc. And I just sorta had to let him figure the rest of himself out.

Funny, though. Without talking with each other, the other ST and I designed Armand and Slade to look very nearly like twins.

In larp, if I'm not 'borrowing' a character concept, I think about what I want to do, or play off of something on my mind (I had two characters based around songs) then build it.

Even now, I have a few things in mind from hard-rule roleplaying so much. Nature, demeanor, virtue, vice, traits, abilities... Armand, for instance, would be a nature of visionary, demeanor of celebrant, virtue of patience, vice of (censored. )... Traits, he'd be mainly mental with a lot of knowledge based traits. Seconded by being social, mainly appearance traits, and a little intimidation. And physically he'd be focused on strength. However he's not quite as graceful. He can be. On a flat surface. Abilities and such... well, I think most of that's classified for now.

Usually by the time all that's figured out, there's simply an image of that person in my mind. I know their hair, hair color, eye color, build, etc. Like everything I've figured out has already defined their appearance.

I tend to favor black hair.

Zellanna, you make my head spin.

If you get stuck and cant think of anything then start with the house you want your character in, through that you can get a personality and finally a appearance. After that a name should come to you, just think of people you know and pick a name (thats what i did) Lastly dont develope too much of a history cause it can get in the way of RPing.

Au contraire... A history is the backbone of rping. If it's getting in the way of your rping, then there are other problems. That's like saying your history gets in the way of life. Do you ever go to school and think, "man, I have too much history. My past is really gonna get in the way of living my life here at school."?

Touche. What an excellent point.

I just realized that I start out with what nationality I want my character to be. Followed by gender, family(siblings, no siblings, parents alive or dead). Then personality and appearance.

I tend to go with strange names. I really like them. But I do pick names that I wouldn't mind being called.

They're like my children