Yes, this is unfortunate. This was one my favorite forums to post creations on. I myself have moved onto Twitter/X as it's definitely more active there.
Anyway, I usually start with creating the face texture in photoshop, which, usually ends up getting changed at least 4 times before I actually come up with something that I like. I then like to fix their name, name call, city, etc and choose their body.
Once the basics are all done I move onto the attires.
Like JustB, I base the attire off the face.