I usually draw my inspiration from poetry. Give people similes and comparisons between the person and items, animals, and familiar imagery, to help them get a vivid picture. I do personally like describing settings and people but it's not always easy.
(From my novel "Damsel in the Red Dress")
For as long as I can remember Kattar has been popular with ‘the ladies,’ like some sort of Mex-asian teen pop idol, if that was even possible in the early 2000s. He looked like he should have been part of a Disney Channel Original - dark dark eyes, slanted in sharp-edged half moons, and a complexion the color of peanut butter candy. His mom used to say he was “Adonis, take two,” and I was Venus. I’m not sure she knew they had a twisted love affair.
The eyes are what get me. They’re like nothing I’ve ever seen - so vivid and bright - and out of place in his brown face, like emeralds set in amber, or buried in cinnamon - but he attributes my dumbness to his not being a woman.
One of my best tips would be not to put all the descriptions back to back but to let readers learn more and more about what the characters look like throughout the course of the story or scene. It takes quite a few chapters for the readers to even know what my female lead looks like, but bits and pieces of her physical appearance are described over time. she has dark hair, it's very very long. She has cinnamon-colored skin. by the number of times she's referred to as being like a doll or modeling mannequin, we can assume he has very pristine, almost stiff-looking small features, and is probably pretty cute. Or you could give all the descriptions in one scene, but still spaced out.
At first, I’m not even sure who or what I’m looking at - vaguely conscious of a young-ish woman, even shorter than me, speaking a million miles an hour.
She’s wearing a plaid dress that’s designed to look like a long button-up in an ambiguous shade of lavender plum and a name tag that says “Melissa X.”
So this is Mrs. Xochitl?
Considering her name, I'm caught off guard by the strong Jewish accent, as she practically squeals, clapping my cheeks in both of her ice-cold hands-
“Oh my goish!” she laughs shrilly - her jaw dropping and eyes wide - “So this is the doll face everyone has been talking about! You're even prettier than you were in the video! I love your shoes! Huh! I love your hair! I'm so glad I finally get to meet you in person! I wasn't able to make it to the ceremony cuz my son had the worst cough you ever saw in your life and he gets to be such a baby whenever he's sick - You and me have the exact same taste in footwear. I'm going to be hitting you up for the rest of your life to talk about shoes, just you count on it-"
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Mrs. King leaning against the back of her office chair, one velveteen elbow cradled in the palm of her left hand, a pen swaying exasperatedly in her right.
The expression on her face tells me that this is a common occurrence, and she rolls her eyes at this last comment on ‘footwear,’ prying the giddy ‘munchkin’ away from me with one very stern, ‘mommish’ cough.
"Alright Melissa, if you're done with your meet and greet, we have to discuss a certain, very important meeting..."
At the emphasized word ‘very’ Melissa forces herself to relinquish my face, with a jut of her lip like a child forced to put a doll back at the toy store.