Making your character

[Tearless]

For animal characters, I generally start with a colour scheme I like, and then markings/details of appearance until I like the look of it and it all seems balanced and harmonious because I'm slightly obsessive about that. Then I work out backstory and personality, then go back and if necessary tweak the appearance again (in case I need to add or remove any markings/scars/accesories to match up).

[Kona]

I go for realistic, and manage to spend forever on them. xD I have to have the pelt color perfect, and everything...I usually go online, and look at real pictures of what I'm making and go from there, and change it up a bit to my liking...

[Bawfle]

These are awesome responses guise! I loved reading them!

[Warrior4ever]

I don't make new characters often anymore (mostly because I already have around 30 x.x), but when I decide I want a new one I'll either have an idea already in my head or I'll just expirament with the colors on a basic model until I find some that look good. If I use the more random way, after I find the colors I'll think of a personality and scale the rest off of that. The problem for me is I don't want to delete my dozens of characters ._.

[jazminj323]

when im making a character i try to think of something unusual like a border collie chihuahua mix or a white lion. then i think of what this would make my character look like lets say im doing a border collie chihuahua mix and i wanted the bodie and size of a chihuahua and the coloring of a border collie. i would make my canine small with largepointy ears and a small nose and muzzle. then i would find markings that are fit for a border collie and use them. afterwards i would choose the colors

[SteampunkWolfdog]

Mostly I make realistic looking characters, sometimes semi-realistic. So I tend to go for neutral colours like browns, blacks, whites and greys, occasionally throwing something a bit brighter in there just to add a bit of colour, like green or red. With some characters, mostly the semi-realistic ones, I add markings or colours that help to reflect their personalities or background. But the colours have to go well together. I hate it when people have a mixture of colours that clash, like bright blue and red. That hurts my eyes. >.<
I can spend ages reviewing a characters appearance, tweaking the colours or dimensions, if I notice that something isn't quite perfect or I change my mind about something. I remember spending about an hour making a character and going back and changing things before I thought it was ready to be seen by everyone. XD
Generally, I'd use a photo as reference for the basics of my character like body shape, muzzle length, ear shape and typical colouration.
One thing I avoid doing is if part of my character is black, I don't make it so the RGB sliders are all on 0. I'll put them on 5 so that it looks really black but the fur texture is still visible.