Creating characters is excellent writing practice, because you'll find that your character-creation skills help you in all your writing: you're learning to show, rather than tell.
You can create your characters in any way that works for you. Some writers write long character bios, with everything listed, from a character's hair and eye colour to favourite flavour of ice cream. Here's a bio tool.
Other writers don’t do any preliminary work at all, they just start writing.
I prefer working with images as a character-development tool.
I grab a magazine or newspaper and muse over the ads. If the ad is for clothing, I ask my self questions like: Who would wear this? When? Why? Where did she buy it? Etc. Whatever the ad is that's caught my attention, I use the image as a gateway to discovering character.
You can use paintings in exactly the same way. Muse over a painting, and see whether you start to get the impression of a character.
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