What Makes a Character Compelling?

How do our appearances tell our stories? What we wear, how we stand, the books poking out of our bags — everything alludes to an inner world that is uniquely our own. Like the words that make up a poem, every choice of our presentation is intentional. Our crafted, fictional characters are no different. In my character art, I am actively practicing that intentionality to go beyond the depictive and illustrative, and instead allude to stories.