I believe in design rising out of context, which for characters means paying attention to the world they come out of, understanding the constraints and concepts undergirding it and the relevant references from our own world available. The goal, in the end, is to create people, personalities and visages to tickle the audience’s curiosity and fascination.

If the characters rise out of the world, then it pays dividend to spend some time defining and composing it to serve the creative purposes you are about. Here understanding is everything; The more of the real world you know about, the more aspects of the fictional you can stipulate on.

Though there is an obvious interface difference, every media is ultimately different aspects of the same language. Understand the rules specific to the media in question and speak. As with any form of communication, variety is good, precision and expression is key, so when it comes to choosing; Find what you enjoy and then do yourself a favor of becoming obsessed for a bit. Then reassess, test some other things, see what you like, obsess some more.