TIPS =) -CH, PS and ILL at the same time, working efficient with all of them.
Hi everyone,
Looooove this program! Just a quick tips to other newbies from me, how to speed up the design process if you fiddle around alot with small changes to your character constantly.. (as I do)..
1. Its easiest to create the character in Illustrator. (My personal opinion..) -But Illustrator doesnt have groups.. 
- And if you havent tried it allready importing an Ill artwork into PS is no great success...
2. So when you have constructed your character in illustrator, take each layer and copy it into your creative suit Library. That means each element of your character becomes an artwork in your library. If you are smart you will name them appropriately as you copy them over to the library. Fex. right eyeball, left pupil etc. (Because the thumbs in Library are small and not always so easy to see what is what if you didnt name them)
3. In photoshop, new document (make sure the canvas is big enough for any changes you might want to add to your character later and big enough so it will work well later in CH and AE, and then open cs Library and add all the elements one by one onto your canvas and place them. Now you can organize them in the correct hierachical groups and sub groups. Save the doc with your puppet name and import it into CH.
4. The great thing now, is that you can open your PS doc in Character, go back and make changes and fiddle around with stuff in photoshop, AND - double click the different layers in photoshop and they will open that library instance in Illustrator and you can edit, change them etc in Illustrator. After editing them within illustrator, save, and the changes will show up in Photoshop. Where you can continue to edit if you want. And back and forth. To see changes in Character, just save the current PS file and they will show up.
5. In addition, you now have a library with basic working parts that you can change over and over and over...
6. The only thing to remember is that if you make changes in PS, and open in illustrator, Ill will ask if you should disregard the changes or keep them before continuing to edit. Answer Keep ps changes, other wise you will loose them in the new edit. (No problem if you accidentally said yes to discard them, just close that doc in Ill without saving. ). 😃
Win, win, win! 
PS. If any one have found a good way to implement a shadow that moves with the character, Im very interested in knowing how.. 
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