Back in the days I used to be my course's tutor for Animation (which is at my school, in the first semester: not so much Animation, more character design and 3Dmodelling) One of my juniors came to me asking for help with her awesome character, a withered fox lady from the woods. Here's the advice I gave her, ehhh sorry for the german ;A; Maybe you'll find it useful for your designs! It's mostly about shapes and variation. Also I liked her design very much from the start, which is maybe why I got into so much detail XD note: this is all stuff from my personal experience. Meaning: It's how I tackle things. None of this can or should be considered "official", some of it may even be wrong. Like I said, it's simply my way of doing things ;) I might post some of my other tutoring stuff, if you like. I've hold this position for quite some time and stuff just kept piling up XD