​How do you, personally, build characters?

Title, basically. I’ve talked with some friends about how I like to write new characters from the ground up, and my process typically goes something like this:

• Start with a basic concept. What is their theme, if they have one? Do they have powers? Are they good, evil, or something in between?

• What are their motivations in life? What are their goals? How do they plan to achieve those goals? What are they willing to do to get what they want?

• Next, I like to focus on finer details. Things like clothes, weapons, hair, etcetera.

• Finally, the name and gender comes last. For me, this coming last is the most crucial part.

I used to have a bad habit of picking a name first, and basing EVERYTHING else on that. I.e, naming a character Saker and then basing everything on a falcon theme, which made for a VERY boring character, one who I eventually completely scrapped because I just didn’t like him. Anyway, I just thought it would be interesting to hear other people’s thought processes on how they like to write their characters. 🙂