Forums » RP Discussion » What inspires/inspired your character creation?

Hi, again! A quick question: do you all have anything that inspired you to create your characters? This can be other charas, concepts, styles, ideas... literally anything. I thought I'd ask after remembering (to my chagrin) the amount of OUaT's Gold (<- SPOILERS!!) vibes that I get from Sol. Loved that show as a teen... guess it inspired me, haha! Another reason that nobody should give my guy magical powers. Oof. Definitely not the only thing that inspired him, but the realisation made me chuckle.

Anywho: feel free to discuss any inspirations/anything your chars are based off here, or even just anything that your characters remind you of/vice versa!

My ideas usually come all at once, sparked by something small, and build up from there. It's a very natural, gradual process hopping from one idea to another. Video games can be a pretty big influence.

For example, my current newest character Pony was inspired by Ghost from Call of Duty. I took only two things, the idea of wearing a mask more often than not, and the concept that the character is in the army. From that it was just a task of extrapolation: why might someone wear a mask all the time? I determined that it was for anxiety reasons and deep insecurity. What sort of person would be that insecure, but would also be a lieutenant in the US Army? Additionally, I'd been wanting to use "Pony" as a name for someone or something for a while. Being that nicknames are common in the Army, I chose to use Pony as a nickname, and then I had to come up with a reason why someone would earn such a name. Those questions helped me build his character, and now we have the gentle giant known as Pony. :V I tend to be inspired by idiosyncratic contrasts (i.e the idea of a big buff army guy called Pony, as an obvious example).

Harte was originally my character in the browser game Fallen London, and his personality developed because of the actions he took in the game. Once I took him out of that setting, I was inspired by the idea of selkies, but didn't want to go a traditional route, so I chose swans instead because I was also inspired by the story of swan maidens. From there, I built his character gradually, just kind of connecting the dots between his various influences.

This is generally how all my characters are developed. There's some small trigger, or I think "what if there was an [x] person who [y]?" and go from there, adding on more ideas as I see fit.

I'm also often inspired by aesthetics. I've made two characters based off of moodboards I made, but generally I go with an aesthetic that exists in my mind rather than actually creating one visually.

Often times my characters are just made from what I think is cool. (Which means most of my characters are some kind of knight or soldier.)

I like knights, I like bees. Bee knight, give him a gun and apart of a Genoese like mercenary group.

You know what's also cool? Fire, and robots. Fire robot, call it a liquidator and make it use its fire to burn away corruption.

Jellybeans are cool, so is alchemy. Jellybean the candy alchemist, what's a candy alchemist? They make magical and medicinal candy while living a live of whimsy and silliness.

This is the kind of logic I tend to operate on when making characters.

Fairly a lot things from other characters, music, video games, and my own imagination.

Achan is inspired from Jafar from Aladdin.

Brock was inspired by typical salary man.

Keiko was the evolution of my old OC of mine I made when I was 8.

Noros was initially inspired by Frieza and Madara since he was originally supposed to be a villain. Then now, he is inspired from Zhongli from Genshin Impact.

Robin was inspired from Amber from Genshin Impact.

Well lets see...

Maki new iteration is based off of luffy And of course sanji as she mimics his fighting style

Alia was just an idea, based off an old oc but if anything else she's slightly based off whis

Folo was originally based off the time Dr.strange solved his own murder, but she just turned into a joke rather quickly

Honey is mostly an old character of mine, she takes influences from a few animes such as bleach and black clover, no specific answer

I try to reflect Noel off myself, just without all the muck-

Pango is actually based off of course a pangolin, and enemies who can steal skills/powers

Quincy is based off of the amazing Trafalgar Law, with a feminine touch and of course im stealing Sanji's body type

Ruin is mostly just an idea the rolled out of my head, she's nothing too cool but she's based off an old OC of mine, Zero and Black or something like that, just a dude with a another person in his head

Tora is my favorite other than Maki and honey of course, she takes references from captain smoker personality wise and of course the prince of all sayians, when it comes to her attacks

For me, most of the time, I write my characters based on my own experiences nowadays.

For example, my main character, Moritz, and his companion, Pankraz, are based on my experiences with life. Moritz represents my aimlessness, jadedness, cynicism, self-loathing and depression, and optimism for the future. Pankraz represents my ambitions, my dreams, my hopes, my kindness, and my dysfunctional childhood.

Another example I can give is my character, Cyril, is based on talking and interacting with my friend, whom I consider to be a kind, understanding, empathetic, and loyal individual, but still smart enough to call out on a person's bullshittery.

From those traits, I form the characters in my head and write them out in a character page. It's fun and the characters become personal and something I cherish and wish to use in stories of mine someday. I know not everyone has to write like this, but I think characters are better for it if you base them off of your experiences, but not to the point that they become a self-insert power fantasy character. People will know when it becomes a self-insert, since self-inserts are... most of the time, poorly made, unrelatable, or greatly hated in general. I see a lot of those self-inserts nowadays like in High Guardian Spice and She-Hulk.

^ Torag1000, I totally agree with you there! I would say my charas are based too, in part, off of my own experiences and traits. I know that's very common, but I do very much also try to keep away from self inserts! I'd say that balancing it with traits from other sources works well; I can happily say that none of my characters are really "me", but they have bits that my friends point to and go, "hey, is that a trait of you/us" haha! I think it definitely lends to realism.

For example, bits of Sab came from my bestie and I meeting our partners and slowly getting to know them. That, and discovering my favourite place in the world. Jack's whole M.O is from people in my life who have been constant cheerleaders for me and others; genuinely lovely and selfless folk. I digress- there's a lot to be found in observing the world and people in it, for sure ☺️

Quick edit but yeeaahh, if you're talking about She-Hulk the show - I got the same vibe. Mind you, I haven't read the comics so I'm unsure ☺️ the ending, though? No spoilers for anyone but... what an ending... I was gutted! Like, what even was that!

Oooh, I enjoyed reading everyone's inspirations!! You're all so thoughtful with your inspirations!

Skylark, do you mind me adding on to your post?

This is a meme that was passed around on twitter that anyone can use if they want!



An example of how it can be used is as below, and I'll explain the characters that gave inspiration to my character, in this case was Zubairad.



Bits of inspiration that gave rise to Zubairad:
Ardeth Bay - He was very cool. ;w; [will smith poses] I just took from his vibes.
Provenance Watcher - Do I have to say even more? Crystal Dragon?
Fray Myste - Do not seek forgiveness, for it will not ease the burden. It weighs as it should. Listen to my voice. Listen to our heartbeat. Listen... I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you. In your darkest hour, in the blackest night… think of me… and I will be with you. Always. For where else could I go? Who else could I love but you?
Lahabrea - Literally, SE took the aesthetics I had sitting around in my mind since 2020 and turned it into a major NPC. I couldn't ask for more.
Hubert von Vestra - A man who would do literally anything.
Midgardsormr - Dragon dad testing mankind.

Ooo cool topic

Yangin - I wanted something that was yiff proof in furcadia (it wasn’t foolproof) turned into a curious lava elemental. Does have cute animal traits thrown in there

Rene - He was actually supposed to be a type of demon initially but after talking to the DM of his game turned into an anxiety driven hangry mess. Inspiration? Some feral gremlin mostly.

Zreek - all parrot memes

Kiran - My love of all things medical and especially anatomy and physiology combined with magic.

Yaaz - I wanted a weird mythological creature that was uncommonly used

Amu - body horror, one sphinx drawing I saw on DA and fell in love with. Again, I didn’t want a pretty kitty, I like monsters

I watched too much beauty and the beast as a kid and I think it shows in my OCs

Nice, another writer that creates characters similarly to how I make mine yeah, I find creating characters from our own experiences tend to be very much genuine since we actually experienced those things and know what we are talking about.

Huh, Sab and Jack sounds similar to how I created Cyril. Cyril came about because of my interactions with my coworker, who became a good friend of mine, whom I consider to be a loyal, kind, and steadfast kind of friend.

The comics She-Hulk... is vastly different compared to the one in Mahvel today. She... really wasn't as cringy and boomer-y as she is on display today. When I saw that twerk scene of hers, I wanted to pour bleach into my eyes, just to forget what I saw.