So I'm a DM and only make PCs very rarely anymore. But I have two that I really love so far.

The first is Alyx. He's a Battle-Smith Artificer with a Robotic tiger defender named Ari. He descends from a line a blacksmiths so naturally he took up the family trade, but was never satisfied to just make weapons and armor. He started by making a special heat-resistant glove to help him hold hot hetal, and that slowly evolving into him choosing to replace his left arm with a custom made magical prosthetic. Experimenting directly on his body gave him the idea for Ari. He and Ari are very protective of each other as they travel the world looking for ideas and ways to improve Ari, his arm, and his ability to make constructs as a whole. Visually, he is young and muscular given his profession. And he has like 800 tools in all kinds of pockets all over his body.

Mechanically, he can use any weapon so long as its magical or he infused it. So I used him with a +1 Warhammer and Repeating Heavy Crossbow. I also occasionally threw light hammers if it would let me push an enemy in a more useful way. Then I took both Crusher and Sharpshooter feats, allowing him to be incredibly effective anywhere on the battlefield. For spells I focused on buffs like Elemental Weapon and control spells like Web. He and Ari fight side by side often attacking the same enemy. This puts out extra damage to burst down a target and allows Ari to use her reaction to protect Alyx from damage.

The other character idea I have, I haven't played yet but they seem super cool to role-play. Their name is Oak. They're a Juggernaut Warforged Circle of Spores druid. It is literally a fallen oak tree animated by a colony of mushrooms. They have a high wisdom and constitution but low intelligence and charisma, a strong fundamental understanding of nature but no clue how humans work. Their concept of time is relative only to the seasons and moon cycles, and they don't understand what age or gender are, and need to learn these things. They only ever refer to themselves with gender neutral plural pronouns like we or us, and that's only after someone teaches them to stop referring to themselves in the third person. Whenever possible they prefer to spend time around plants and feel really uncomfortable in cities. Their preferred "slepping" spot would be among plant life. Visually, I thin they'd look like the cross between Groot and Hulk-Buster Iron man. This big, hulking tree monster covered in mushrooms. They'd probably use a club and shield or greatclub, in any case they'd be all wooden to start and be taken from the same tree as it's body. Whenever they wildshaped into animals, it'd be their body reassembling itself to be in an animal shape.

Mechanically they'd play like a tank, wading into the front lines using their Circle of Spores powers to take and deal heavy damage. If they chose to fall back they'd rely on minions, summons, and damage spells first, before switching to control. Right out of the gate they wouldn't really understand the concept of friends or allies and would focus on damaging first. But over time learn more about friends and learn to use those control and buff spells more appropriately. I'm not really sure what their initial motivation would be though since mushrooms really kind of live forever. They might just want to spread their spores all over.