I followed Jenny Harder's course on Character Design and followed the steps here. I learned a lot from it, and definitely recommend checking it out: https://www.artstation.com/learning/courses/pDK/designing-characters-with-personality-and-expression/chapters/9r6/introduction
For my first try, I got the challenge to make a Russian Proletarian from the Soviet era. I immediately thought of Sharik, the stray dog protagonist from Heart of a dog.
I added most of the steps like explained in Jenny's course, apart from the repetitive ones and the moodboards, because intellectual property rights scare me.