I love creating characters, playing with poses and expressions, experimenting with how they interact with and react to the world of the story and the other characters in it.
I've found that character scribbles and experiments are always useful even if they’re not used in any of the final work. I get to know my characters, learn how they would react and behave in different situations and build a personality for them as I draw.
I learn to love them as they develop and become fully rounded characters and work to make that translate into the pencil roughs and then in the final colour artwork.