I'm going to look backwards in this thread to my Alien Fiction series. A human is the protagonist, but he's really not important (because he's a filthy human). The aliens are the important characters. My trinity of alien characters Odin, Isis, and Shiva. I like how easy they are for me. They are easy to draw. They are ridiculously easy to write. I've knocked out two books with these guys now, and they have not yet given me even one moment of writer's block nor uncertainty about my plans with them.
Odin is my Charlie Brown/Daffy Duck/Eyore. He mirrors all of my own grumpy and cynical tendencies. He's powerful enough that he gets to say exactly what he wants to say all of the time.
Isis foils Odin is that she is outgoing, positive, and perpetually excited. She has a lot of very positive character traits (not to say that she isn't evil to the core). I've sort of made her into my imaginary friend.
Shiva is just a hoot. I get to write a lot of over-the-top lines of dialog from Shiva like, "My dreams taste habanero peppers and napalm." <--That crazy jumble of words right there? That made perfect sense in context.
Moral of the story: Design characters specifically to be easy to write.
