Personally, I have very poor artistic talents, yet I like to visualize characters and their weapons, battlesuits, and all manner of armor and weird facial features. Trying to draw them out is a pain and it's really difficult to find someone willing to draw them for me without paying.
So for the past few years, I've been using a program called Heromachine. A good, simple version of it exists here: http://www.ugo.com/channels/comics/heroMachine2/heromachine2.asp
You start by clicking on a pose. Click "complete" (not recommended to use if you have dial-up). On the right-hand side you'll see "Hair" and a drop-down arrow. If you click it, you'll see all of your available options, and the area that says "Standard" will include your sub-options. (Note, I often start by changing the background to a solid white wall.)
You can change the layers on any items, clear single item, clear everything, etc. There's no undo button. It isn't perfect, but it's a good way to at least see things and brainstorm for ideas. This is version 2.5.
If you're good at this type of thing, there's the more "free" version with a great deal more possibilities:
http://www.heromachine.com/heromachine-3-lab/
The same thing, only instead of forcing the items (and body parts) to be set, it allows a "free reign" on the position of the items and the number of items you can have. It will tend to freeze up once in a blue moon, and there's no undo option (yet), so saving the characters every once in awhile is a good idea. In this one, you can also change up the sizes and line colors of the items.
The only thing I don't like about it is that the creator is yet to upload rifles or big guns to the program, but other than that, you can make your characters for visual aid with these two programs.
Here's a few examples this guy did: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLjOJrgFuSQ
These examples are pretty geared towards superheroes/villains but you can create Sci-Fi or Fantasy stuff as well.
So for the past few years, I've been using a program called Heromachine. A good, simple version of it exists here: http://www.ugo.com/channels/comics/heroMachine2/heromachine2.asp
You start by clicking on a pose. Click "complete" (not recommended to use if you have dial-up). On the right-hand side you'll see "Hair" and a drop-down arrow. If you click it, you'll see all of your available options, and the area that says "Standard" will include your sub-options. (Note, I often start by changing the background to a solid white wall.)
You can change the layers on any items, clear single item, clear everything, etc. There's no undo button. It isn't perfect, but it's a good way to at least see things and brainstorm for ideas. This is version 2.5.
If you're good at this type of thing, there's the more "free" version with a great deal more possibilities:
http://www.heromachine.com/heromachine-3-lab/
The same thing, only instead of forcing the items (and body parts) to be set, it allows a "free reign" on the position of the items and the number of items you can have. It will tend to freeze up once in a blue moon, and there's no undo option (yet), so saving the characters every once in awhile is a good idea. In this one, you can also change up the sizes and line colors of the items.
The only thing I don't like about it is that the creator is yet to upload rifles or big guns to the program, but other than that, you can make your characters for visual aid with these two programs.
Here's a few examples this guy did: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLjOJrgFuSQ
These examples are pretty geared towards superheroes/villains but you can create Sci-Fi or Fantasy stuff as well.