This article is a submission for ENGL 596 at Eastern Washington University. All art and text is © the author. Introduction This is a digital narrative about character ideation and design. I’m going to walk you through how I dream up a fictional character, the decisions I make about the character and how I make them, and the process of illustrating the character from rough sketch to fully realized drawing. I don’t do this alone, the character usually steps in and helps. For my purposes here, ideation is the process through which a concept or idea originates and is refined. This, initially, is a mental exercise supported by influences that can include experiences, influential books, movies, people in my life, etc. Some ideas can come out of nowhere and others might originate while sitting in a coffee shop surrounded by interesting strangers.   The character I’m about to introduce you to is heavily influenced by books and movies and tropes of the fantasy genre. Like many nerds that have