Character Inspirations

[Angel of Light]

Yes, I realize that there is another thread hanging around for your inspirations, but this is very different. Indeed, this thread is to discuss the origin of your most wonderful characters! How did they get from your mind to the page? How did they get into your mind in the first place? What made you choose their nuances? The world must know!

Personally, for Adelia, my main inspiration came about by watching an anime named "Shakugan no Shana", specifically the main character Shana. Some aspects came from Ruroni Kenshin, namely her swordplay style, while others came from an image that I stumbled across, which also forms her current appearance.

That pretty much sums up how I make characters. I see an anime image or show and the idea just jumps into my head. Now, who's next? Don't be shy.

[Rok the Blade]

I make characters based off of extremes in my personality. Rokusho is my heroic side whereas Val'Rysn is my evil side. And as for Teddy, well, that's probably my silly side. Rok is also based off of Cloud Strife, only due to the fact that he uses a gigantic sword - and I'm a major FF fan.

[Reiko]

probably my biggest influence is the Manga Lone Wolf and Cub replacing sexism with furry, cuteness and a bad ass babe^^

[Corvus MacCallum]

Well for The Mime it was actually part of my development peice in the drama course along with a strange thought that hit me in London when I walked out from Saturday Night Fever on the west end and chatted with a tramp instead.

For the development peice the main topic we had to cover was drastic measures to garner attention and people that try to garner attention daily are buskers and street performers, the drastic aspect had to be something visually grabbing and simple so went with simple methods of killing, there was also a naming scheme that had to fit with the quartet. The Murderous Mime was one of them, with that done then came the London trip and the chat with the bum which got me thinking on just how different I act when around a complete stranger, its no earth shattering thought and not something unique but it inspired a brief bit of writing on masks and how they can be used to completely block being read.

As for The Mimes traits a little study on Homonculi along with a previous character I used to have, Kagen the Jester, he had something of the same grace and was a hopeless romantic of the sappiest calibre. I also wanted to have a character that looked at everything in a completely fresh way after having a plethora of fairly experianced characters.

Corvus is my archetype, my style of character, throughout all the projects I've pondered, created and developed a version of him is usually in the spot-light. The base characteristics are always present, colourful language, wily ways, side-ways thinking, doing good though not in the cleanest way and just plain friendly. He never winds up the same character, each one has a great difference from the others thanks to the situations and beginnings they have, there are two Highlander Cors, one for an RPG comic project I'm dabbling on and the other here and both are extremely different in their casual mentalities yet at the core are identical.

Goji in a way is one of my weakest characters for inspiration really, his physical body is based off Ryouma Nagares from Getter Armageddon and Violence Jack of the manga and OVA with the same name. His mentality is raw mecha hot bloodedness taken as far as it can go, a man that would smash his mech to bits just to get that one last punch in, someone who you can be glad to have around but is too bloody dangerous to make plans with. Hes also my only character that smokes but its purely victory trophies, while not a braggart he does enjoy showing off in almost ritualistic fashion that hes one of the best. His Mexican heritage came about because most old super robot mecha shows did very well in Spain and Mexico.

[Bullet Witch]

Bullet Witch (Leigh): Defenitely a throwback to a good Xbox 360 game, I also was influenced by the anime Witchblade a little, which will be evident in her future.

Whiteshadow (Eternium): Alot of good AMV's and the fact that Xemnas pwns. Plus that one night when Cameron and I just fough Xemnas for the hell of it and I realized how much he pwns. :)

Seth_Rahl (Ifrit): Originally a tribute to both Inuyasha and Dante, half demons extroirdinaire, his appearence change was influence by, of course, the mysterious protagonist of FF versus 13. However, I try to make him anything other than mysterious, although he brings that himself.

[Nirov]

Sexism is fun. I want a sandwich and unprotected sex now.

I'll go over my two most successful characters for my inspir-a-tion.

Vorin is an obvious mix between Anne Rice's Lestat, Dracula, and Kain. I've never stuck to one specific style, but tried to bop around amongst them. From the demon that hated himself, to the devil himself, Vorin is all this and more. Plus he's badass like Kain. Like when he beat Letho's ass.

Lucien is an "anime" me, i.e. a pretty boy anime character with my real world personality. (Or rather, the traits of me people seem to hate the most)

[Eyes of...]

All my characters are a product of too much time on Deviantart... where I see a picture and instantly form an entire storyline around them and their background... heh.

However, each one is also some aspect of myself... though how, not sure. Perhaps my RL schizophrenia comes out with the dozens of charrys, lol... who knows?

[Nirov]

... where I see a picture and instantly form an entire storyline around them and their background... heh. Hey, I do that with porn! It makes it ever so much hotter.

[Eyes of...]

Yeah, but porn's only there so you can get off... I don't bother with stories for a 20 min ride, lol.


Oh, and I love the name... lol

[Elijah_Morendale]

Elijah is pretty much a carbon copy of myself, right down to his physical appearance. Nadia is pretty much a combination of one of my ex girlfriends and one of my best friends.

[Stuffed Fury]

I'm based off of the dictionary definition of the following words:

"kick ass, awesome, sexy, pwn, m.i.l.f." etc. etc.

[Bullet Witch]

m.i.l.f. ?

I am soooooo spending the night again. ;)

[Typheus]

My main flagship character is Typheus. I don't remember how he came to be, but I do know that it took a few years for my mind to piece together his history, for it's something I've been working on for a long time.

At first, he was to be one in a group of six who were simply fighting the opposing army. This was scrapped because it was without a good plot.

The individuals in the group would all have a different element. Light, Darkness, Fire, Water, Air, Earth. The idea to have light and darkness as elements came from Shadow Hearts 1 where the elements are actually listed.

His clothing was somewhat inspired from typical Matrix clothing, except white, and I've recently come to say that it's white and silver for hoping for a brilliant shining future, one of his motos.

DBZ had a huge part to play at first, Star Wars was also an element. His ideals were of my own thought, though I'm sure they match someone else out there somewhere. His spiky hair is just something I always love in anime and can't seem to get away from.

Eventually it became what it is today and I'm sure that it will continue to evolve.

One other idea I've come up with stars a different character. Vincent Solen. He's the son of a mafia lord battling with three other families, but this isn't your typical Godfather scene. They all know their own various forms of magic. Eventually the families destroy eachother, leaving the rest of the world to know of the magic that they possess (they kept it a secret by killing anyone with a big mouth).

So then the government finds out, and it's sort of like X-Men until the very end when a rogue group rises up and tries to use the most advanced technology to try and kill every magical alive. This is when Vincent leads the last stand in magic vs. technology and fights the leader himself. The leader of course having a rediculous nano-suit, and Vincent having his magic abilities. Who wins...hell if I know, I haven't written it yet.

[Koran]

It's funny, all of my characters took me only about an hour or so to create. =/

Koran, as perhaps many people have guessed, is derived from T2. Some minor personality tweeks but all in all, he's pretty much the same. It's only through his personality that I make him a unique and diverse individual.

Eireann was born during the Furry Wars of about a year or so ago. I really had no premise for him and no real plans for his future. He's just kind of there. A character to fall back on from time to time, just to work those other creative muscles.

Komosatuo, I think, is perhaps my greatest creation. I've always been fascinated by the ninja like type character and only this year did I actually decide to try one out. So far, I'm finding him to be a large success.

My other three characters are random and have no real significance, or inspiration. Except maybe to work those particular creative muslces of mine, and to try something different I guess.

[Atzar]

I base my characters off of things that I'm interested in.

First, I wanted a pure magic character. That idea began as Ether long ago, and eventually was reincarnated as Atzar Kellon. I still need to sit down and give him a personality, though. Maybe he'll be more fun to write with when I do... I have one solo that I've given up on and another collaborative thread that I'm holding hostage simply because Atzar is hard to write.

Second, I wanted to use a ghost character. That idea began as Khariss Seerklath, who died on his first quest and was turned into a ghost (this was back when I was still using Ether). Althanas crashed then, and I was out of touch for awhile. Eventually when I came back and joined the moderator staff, I hooked up with Dirks. We had an idea for a PG, but I needed a character that was a little less inclined to walk the straight and narrow. Atzar was a little too good for the role I needed to fill, so Khariss came back around. Khariss was given the cooler-sounding last name Sevrath and now roams as a self-serving man who isn't afraid to do anything... for a price.

My third character is easily my oldest, beyond even Ether, but I never wrote with him too much because I never had an agreeable environment to put him in. Huacamon Axayotl, the jaguar warrior. He's based heavily on Aztec culture and religion, my favorite genre of 'ancient' history. He's a proud man who believes he can go toe to toe with anybody, but he's way out of his depth if he's shown something magical or technological in nature - he believes it to be the work of the Gods, the only beings of whom he is afraid.

And Atzar's pygmy dragon friends, well, they were the product of an idea that surfaced at one in the morning. After becoming rational the next day, I decided that the concept had room to grow. Zirkan, and later Ennai, were born. Both have way, way more personality than Atzar does, and it's a shame I elected to leave them out of the quest with Atzar that I mentioned earlier. Perhaps it would be much easier to find motivation with fun characters to write. Zirkan is a sarcastic dragon who is vastly intelligent but has a mouth that will get him into trouble more often that not. Ennai is a complete contrast: formal and proud to a fault. He and Zirkan are at each other's throats almost all the time, but a friendship is beginning to grow there.

[The Writing Writer]

Pictures and Songs.

If I see a picture that I really like, it inspires me to create a character. And whatever sort of song I'm listening to at the time sort of sets the mood for the character.

With this guy, I saw the picture and instantly thought " poet ". Then I hit random on my playlist and Dave Matthew's ' Halloween ' came on. And the rest is history.

Some of my characters are created based around abilities I thought would be really cool to play.

My problem is that most of the time I'll create a character on impulse, and then have no story or plot to back them, so they just kinda slip away into nothingness.

[Viola Darkstalker]

I know that feeling all too well. I've got somewhere close to thirty-forty characters that I've never used that were made on a whim (and by request as a sort of commission), but the same method I always used went into them. If I see an image like <this (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v400/tiger80272/fans.jpg)> and my mind immediately goes into overdrive. It has weapons, a personality, and all I have to do is add in a back-story that matches how she dresses. She's actually a character I use on another site, and even made on a whim, she is actually quite developed personality-wise.

One thing I forgot to mention is that I am quite like Eyes of... when it comes to personalities. Every character has a piece of my own personality in them, usually taken to more of an extreme than it is in me. Adelia is my cold, uncaring side. Monica is my hyper, playful, "just have fun" side. Viola is the embodiment of all the anger that I have against certain people and concepts. She's basically a release so I don't actually do those things I think about. Sasha is my more serene, contemplating side. I've never been accused of schizophrenia, and I know I don't have it, but playing one aspect of my personality is a great way to make sure it doesn't go haywire.

[Ataraxis]

My characters are little people who live inside my Word Documents. I feed on the worship of most, but few have been exalted to the rank of Pee-Cee. But it’s not like they thought it would be. IT NEVER IS!

Whenever I find a certain concept interesting, I let it stew in the ungodly filth of my head until I forget about it. After a while, lots of stuff gets thrown into the miasma until BAM! I hit my head on the sidewalk and get my pants stolen. The cold of the city mixed with my mild concussion then jumpstarts my neurons to make a character! That’s how I got an immortal janitor whose dry mop smells so strong that Pinesol IMPLODES near it.

Lily had a template, a songmistress named Lilith Nachstern. I did inspire myself from a picture for her, Nelicquele by Linda Bergkvist! After analyzing the picture, I imagined all kinds of stories that could fit in a specific world, and that's how she came to be. She was my main on another site, and I didn’t want to just put her aside when that forum vanished in a puff of inactivity. I recycled some stories and characters, but she’s quite different from who she used to be. Oh, and the librarian thing was because I wondered what kind of character I’ve never played before that seemed fun. ‘Kinky’ and ‘Librarian’ were the first things that popped in mah head! Though Lily isn’t kinky. Yet.

The Sarasvati Sisters, I used once on a forum where people lurked, spammed and spent all of their allowance/salary on pixellized articles of clothing. I think they have demonic thongs there, or other items that look like sex toys when you squint your eyes! In any case, yes, Gaia. It was a storyline in a wintry city, forsaken by the gods, and every PC somehow gained abilities that weren’t considered magical, in a Heroes-esque kind of way (though that was before the show was first aired). When that went inactive, I ported them here, too, mostly because I owed Letho a birthday gift, so I thought ‘Hey, what better gift than two hot possibly-lesbian redhead twins’?

So yes, most of the time, I look at the world where my characters are supposed to evolve, throw in required and/or random concepts together, shoot myself with a taser and voila! SPACECAKES!

[Artifex Felicis]

I made Leon on a bet with two others that I would make a Cat Boy on Althanas and keep him active for over a week.

Yep.

He has a lot of other stuff as well, but that was the original incarnation/thought process for the kitty boy. I'll post more when I write it.

[AdventWings]

...Myao.

This character is basically me. My kitty side. =^.^=

For The Asuka Twins, they're both inspired by the vastly-popular Evangelion Asuka. So I think you can see where my inspirations come from.

More often than not for me, inspirations strike me from human interactions. More from the fictional world than real, but I find them to be very interesting and insightful to the real human emotions. So, I guess I can also say that various Human Emotions lead to new characters.

Oh, yeah. Good rpg games also do that. But, by far, I have yet to see any game that inspires me more than Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War.

[Shell]

Ok, this is a funny one. I used to be into the Animorphs series of books. There was an alien race in there that was like a centaur with a long bladed tail and an extremely long name. I took the long name and bladed tail ideas, added them on to a Naga/Lamia body, gave my creation wings and the worst attitude ever, and came up with Shell.