how do you plan your characters?

[Bamboori]

most dcers plan their chars before they make them.
its easier to imagine the final version then and do sprites and data.
we all know that i guess.
but we don't know how the others do it

basically, you describe how you plan chars and eventually show us an example.

I'll start:

usually at least one uber awesome lf2 related idea comes into my mind and i ask myself which kind of char would fit it (normally i go through all normal chars first to know if i can take any as base). then the planning starts: i am doing at least one big sketch of the character's outlook and do stickman frames for the special moves.
like this:

example (Click to View)

[Lauli]

I do like... no planning at all.
If I plan something out, I always imagine it to be all awesome and cool, but when I make it it often disappoints me that it doesn't turn out that good then.
When I have a halfway nice idea, let's say a character, then I actually don't begin by making sketches or anything, but start spriting the char immediately. And I don't think about all moves, before I start creating them. I think about a "theme" he will have, like: ranged-energy attacks, melee ice attacks, etc.
Then, when I finished the basic sprites (or when just some are missing) then I usually begin making one move. I redo it as often as it turns out good. Then I start making the next one, and so on.

So yea.

[dubbleD]

i just go with the flow and keep it all in my head. just a bit of planning, but theyre more ideas.
i see what i make and if its good, i'll keep it.
it feels like i'm growing the character because i dont know whether or not it will turn out the same as i think of the final product to be.
...
but usually the stuff i make are peculiar ideas that i really have fun playing with so i kinda stop with the spriting and junk around with the data XD
thats how i work

[Taniaetc]

I just plan everything in my head.
Sometimes I write it on my diary, but it's very rare. I a lot more prefer to keep it in my head.
I watch something and see something good to get ideas.
And I also sprite in the "just for edit" file I have (it's for scrapping).

[Magnamancy]

I plan everything, from hair style to hitboxes for specials.

This is mainly because I won't leave a sprite/drawing/whatever alone
until satisfied, and they usually turn out pretty good.

So yeah, that's pretty much it.

[Alblaka]

I just think of a theme, then i plan all the moves the char should have.
As next step i think about which char has sprites fitting for these moves (since i only recolor sprites) and that was all the planning ^^