Skin Character Creation

Approach

A more recent option.

1. Create a skeleton with vertices and edges, but not faces.
2. Add the Mirror, Skin, and Subdivision Surface modifiers in that order.
3. Select vertices and use Mesh - Transform - Resize (Control-A) to control the skin size
4. Subdivide edges and repeat step 3 to refine the silhouette

Notes

The size of the skin at each vertex is based on the "Radius X" and "Radius Y" vertex data.

Scripting

MeshSkinVertex class and skin_vertices property are the keys to accessing skin vertex data.

The goal is to turn Grease Pencil strokes into character outlines.

Tutorials

Demonstration video: Fast Character Modeling with the Skin Modifier in Blender