Are any of your characters inspired by pre-existing ones?

My main character Cate was inspired by Sydney Bristow, I just stuck her in a different environment (Stargate) and made her Aussie. She is much the same as Syd (I do use Jen Garner for her), but I've also made her my own as well. Most of my other characters are different though, many of them being as adversely different to one another as I can make them.

 

I actually have two characters that were based on old FFVII characters back in my teenage years; their appearances differed but not by much, and I'd written them pretty close to their inspirations, haha! But now, the stories that they've gone through and the building I've done with them have turned both into much different and spectacular characters that I enjoy the hell out of writing. <3

One, Ram'r, started off as a clone of Vincent Valentine. Now, he has an arm made of enchanted metal because we tore it off (oops), a bright son who wants to become a bard, wears clothes off elven design, has been given the spirit of a wolf, and has a love interest of a spiritwalker drowess who's as fiery as they come. It's awesome. XD

The second is a man named Shyun, who was based on Zack. He's got an incurable disease that makes his own aura attack him; has two daughters and a beautiful wife (pairbond); has a talking sword who turns into a tiny dragon; and has probably taken the biggest turn in personality from a happy go lucky swordsman to a rather quick-to-act and depressed man who just wants quiet time with his family. <3

It's really neat to see my old inspirations grow and become something else entirely. I'm sure others have similar stories as well! :D

 

When I was younger I used to do this, taking aspects from my favorite shows, books, movies, etc. But now that I'm older I create my characters to their own mold, almost thinking of them as a friend. They have a unique personality and I have fun getting to know them.

 

I feel like most characters, even ones we've "made up" are ultimately just conglomerate snapshots of our experience as humans so far. :P But as far as taking a pre-existing character as inspiration, sure. I absolutely love the White Witch from the Narnia books, and I feel like if I am writing a proud, strong, and ruthless female character, they all sort of wind up like her in attitude. x3

As far as taking the physical aspects of a design or the whole character (i.e. fan-fic type characters), no. I understand the allure of playing a character that already exists, but it's not personally something I think I would enjoy. I like making characters that feel unique to me :D

 

My characters are all original. I often use a picture and develop their history and personality from there. I have played some canon genres, like Babylon 5 or Star Wars, but always with original characters.

 

One of my current favorite characters I've created from the ground up has powers loosely based on me watching a friend play sengoku basara. Specifically, the hands of darkness aspect of Oichi. Beyond using the power as inspiration I can say with confidence that the character is very different though.

 

To a degree. I don't think that anyone can make an original character with out at least some influence coming from somewhere else.

 

My characters tend to be original but I base them off of all sorts of things meshed together and I like to put them in my fandom world so of course not all aspects are original.. Honestly when I go to create a new one lately my go-to thing to do is pick a MBTI personality type and start there. It's been a fun challenge to see how my characters of different types might react to similar situations and have vastly different outcomes.

 

I love reuse characters that I love from my favorite tv show

 

Yeah and actually when I role play I can be really descriptive

 

I typically loosely base characters off of old characters of mine and not off of other characters that people have had elsewhere.

 

My character is an original that I created when I started playing D&D and after a few years I started rp change his background and come up with a story for him. I still work on him to this day changing a few details here or there to improve him in my own way.

 

I've been role-playing for over 20 years. Characters have died off for various reasons in that time. I can think of three instances where the characters have "Evolved" into newer ones. I definitely see the influence of the past incarnations. There is also cases of the need to create a character to help out a pre existing one. I have a character named Dalia. When she started out, she was a loner and a villain. I intended to kill her off, for the storyline. However, she needed someone to relate to and someone to care about her, so I made her a brother who was very patient. Dalia ended up deciding to live, and he was there for her.

 

All my characters are original as well.

 

I think, even if you base your characters off of an existing character, by the sheer virtue of moving them into a new scene and describing them, over time, your characters stop being "like" the character they were based off of, and become their own. Especially if you play them for a long time. If you take one of your existing characters and move them to a new setting, they, too, stop being who they were and become someone new. You essentially recreate them each time.

actually now that I think of it, that would be a pretty cool thing to RP out...

That said, I prefer to work with original characters, and when I make them I generally try to focus on a theme when I make them, or a general "facade" that they give off. Then I work through their thought processes. Even if I'm playing animals, I tend to make them as complex as people, just because that makes for more interesting roleplay for everyone involved.

 

I actually find that using an existing character as a base is a really good way to develop a character, as you can look back to the other character's powers/characteristics/etc. for guidance if you are falling short if ideas. Of course, this is also restrictive to a degree, but the restrictiveness sort of influences creativity by making players think outside the box to find ways around their weaknesses or limitations to achieve what they envision.

 

I feel like all my characters are based on two personalities I like to play. I just find new face claims girl or boy, and mix it up a smidge. So in essence they're all based off each other lol.

 

Most of my characters have some inspiration, but even if they were heavily inspired by an existing character initially they tend to take on a life of their own over time!

 

Most of my characters start with a kernel of inspiration taken from a character in some other form of media, but they very quickly become their own thing as I write the bio and they go from skeleton idea to fully fleshed out idea. It's kinda funny to go back and look at my inspiration and see how far the character has grown away from it.

 

tbh I started off on a horse RPG so some of mine have made the wild transition from equine to human.

Mostly though I start off with super trope ideas from TV shows (Marco, from the netflix Marco Polo for one), and then throw them into situations to let them develop into more properly formed characters. I find if I start them out too rounded out it doesn't leave enough room for growth so I tend to give them one or two really strong traits and let the rest fall where they may depending on context.