I start with checking out the world. What kind of character do I want to play? And then I create the rough drafts of the backstory. Yeah, what kind of past has this character had? After that, if the roleplay expects an image, I'll look for images that suits the rough personality and background which suits the character I want to create. This without having done any kind of work in how the individual looks physically, because the image will take care of that. After an image has been found, I let the image influence the fine-tuning of everything else, so people can look at the image and think "Yeah, that fits together". Yupp.

Then again, sometimes I find an absolutely wonderful image and is like "THIS ONE I WANT TO MAKE INTO A CHARACTER" and then it all starts with an image. That's only if I find the image first, though. This second version is especially common when I'm creating NPCs, because then I'm not as picky on what I want the character to be and simply search the net for inspiring images and let these images influence everything. Haha.