"Sexy aliens, ancient space mystery, big sci-fi battle, fantasy creatures, lots of eye candy!"

To begin with i'm going to start sketching lots of random ideas for character designs and anything that might appeal. I want all the designs to appear unique and alien to some degree, some will be very diverse, drawing inspiration from the most bizarre forms of life imaginable while others will be much more humanoid. It's usually a good idea to keep the lead characters close to human in appearance to allow the reader, who is typically human after all, to identify with, giving them facial components such as eyes and a mouth allow the reader to instantly interperate the expressions and motive. Adding sex appeal will only help to sell the character.

Composition and layout are equally as important as the characters featured in the artwork. In a poster design or book cover the layout of the characters instantly tell the reader who the protagonist is, the antagonist, the supporting characters, even the environment and locations. The composition should attempt to sell as much as possible while holding a balance that weighs towards the main characters. The main character should be the focal point of the composition usually taking up more space than the other characters, the supporting characters will usually hold space equal to their role in the story; characters who appear less frequent will be smaller and further back in the composition. Of course, good composition skills can often break these rules and still be successful.