Heya gang. Sorry, the chapter on simple and complex characters was so long for being one of the first pages of this new book. I'm a bit of a talkative girl and the subject matter is something fairly important.

Anyway, now is not the time to dwell on past chapters too much. As stated, I will discuss a common place to start when trying to make a character; the inspiration.

According to Google, quote, inspiration is "the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative." This is very much how I feel when I get inspired.

Usually, when I make a character or try to plan out a story idea, I tend to draw inspiration from things I've seen or heard. Sometimes a song I have on my playlist will play or a new song from a YouTuber I like will be released and I'll realize that it fits the situations in my stories or even become the blueprint of a new character. Sometimes I find bits of art or watch videos that give me ideas for shenanigans and events, or otherwise, make me rethink a character I love in a whole new light. Sometimes I read a thing in a book or a magazine and it gives me bits of useful information for my characters.

Really anything can be an inspiration for your characters or stories. Honestly, anything. Real-life events, personal experiences, rumors, and myths you heard, the food you eat, the fanart made about a favorite fandom you like- really anything.

Remember Caroline from my last chapter on simple and complex characters? The Coraline one.

It wasn't just Coraline and the many mysteries and horrors of it that inspired me to originally make Caroline. It was a video on Coraline that inspired me. And not even just that. It was the thumbnail art of the video specifically that drew me in and made me try a knack at drawing the uncanny tinkerdoll Caroline.

No really, a thumbnail inspired me. I even went out of my way today to look for the video that I watched that Caroline spawned from. I think the school wifi here didn't want me watching it for some reason so I couldn't get a link, but I have the thumbnail for it right here to prove the resemblance Caroline has to it.

The video and the thumbnail are by a YouTuber named abitfrank btw. If you like things like Coraline and Nightmare Before Christmas and the like, maybe give her a watch. She's really nice to listen to. I'll try to get a link to this video ASAP assuming it's not actually taken down or anything.

This thumbnail affected me when I saw it. Sure, not at first, but it came crawling at me eventually. The artstyle was something quite off and yet, kinda darling. Something creepy, yet innocent. I decided, with my newfound interest in Coraline lore fueling me, to try a hand at giving this face a body. And thus Caroline eventually came into being. And like the style she drew inspiration from, she was certainly off-putting and yet sort of a joyful little thing. Coraline in a nutshell borders the alluring and the off-putting to the point of questioning what's real and what's not. Caroline aligns in this sense quite well, much better than I thought at first.

Sometimes it's songs that inspire me. I'm an emotional type as well as a creative type while also being something of a believer in the phrase "the devil is in the details", so when I hear songs, I tend to hear emotions from them. I imagine characters singing them, not just with voices, but with heart and soul and experience. And sometimes, a song is so moving, so gripping, so awakening... I make deities from them.

Ahriman here is one I introduced not too long ago in my artbook, and my friends seem to collectively agree he's a dear Lil fellow. Ahriman is the Deity of Plagues, much like how Orichal from my previous chapter is the Deity of Madness, and like Ori, he isn't nearly as malicious as his title might make you think. Yes, he has the power of disease and can infect even other deities with said power. But that's if he wants to. He doesn't carry disease around nor does he cause it (not directly anyway), he just wants to live life and forget the pain. He's too fragile to want to fight at all, and he often finds himself straining to remember even simple obvious things due to his sleep-deprived and hunger-ridden habits. And you best heed warning bells whenever Ahriman coughs blood, for that signals that somewhere a plague of something will occur (anything from pox and flu to werewolves and wendigos), and Ahriman has little control over it once his blood comes out.

What song could've possibly inspired such a paranoid little deity as Ahriman?

Perhaps a song regarding Bloodborne?

The song pretty much explains anything and everything about my Lil BrittleBones Ahriman, even the stuff I haven't mentioned here.

The song, Outside, was made by Aviators and is a tribute to an NPC character in Bloodborne known as Gilbert. Gilbert, despite his best efforts, is slowly but surely losing his fight against a blood infecting disease he once contracted some time ago. Now he's forced to wait as the disease takes over, leaving him off his humanity and any hope for a cure. Ahriman isn't exactly this, but the similarities are still there. I explain it more in my artbook on my Wattpad profile, plus the lyrics of this awesomely haunting song kinda speaks for Ahriman.

The song is so good to me. So unlike most of the things you hear on the radio nowadays. It's long and haunting, and the lyrics and the singing just cry out in the horror of the situation. I don't know much about Bloodborne other than that it's the last game in the Souls games' timeline and that apparently it's more focused on disease while Dark Souls talked about a lack of fiery warmth and Demon's Souls (my favorite of the games) took the theme of the power of the soul and its effects on people. But this song made me look into it a bit, and it gives you much information to assume the issue; plague. Pure dread and paranoia over what the plague will do. And that's Ahriman down to the letter.

I also mentioned that characters and story events could very easily be inspired by real-life people or events. Many characters in fiction do this, such as Soul Eater's Excalibur and his outrageous personality being somewhat based on the creator's own father. And while I don't really have a character that's based on a specific person or event, I do have a character based on something I'm doing with one of my Wattpad friends right now.

See, I'm doing an RP (roleplay for those who don't know the lingo) with a friend of mine, and I've been doing this RP with my friend for... let's see (mumbles a bit)... almost two years I reckon? At least a year now for sure. And it seems like it's not gonna end anytime soon. Not that that's a bad thing, after all, it's given me a chance to try out characters I just discovered to see how well I can pull them off. And, well, one of those characters I play as in this RP (I won't say which one in case my friend is reading this, although I suspect he might know who it is anyway) is currently using another name for whenever they're dealing with the bad guys. That name being Nagini.

For those who have looked in my artbook, you may be having collective gasps at this revaluation. Yes, Nagini- an OC I introduced to you just this Valentine's- is based on something going on in an RP. I told you inspiration could come from anywhere and I meant anywhere.

This is Nagini- as in the OC- and yes, my original inspiration for her came while one of my characters disguised themselves as Nagini in my and my friend's RP. Nagini in the RP display themselves as something of a stealth master as well as a slight on the old side type of criminal of some kind. And while OC Nagini above isn't "old" in the conventional sense, she shares the stealth master and slight criminal "profession" as my RP Nagini, as well as many of the base traits of the character disguising themselves as Nagini. Just to be clear, this Nagini and the RP Nagini are NOT the same people. Not at all. I just sort of based OC Nagini off of RP Nagini.

Books, games, shows, events, art styles- really anything can be your inspiration for your characters. And as you've seen from some of my characters, that inspiration can be used to help fill in some of the details of your characters' personalities, abilities, etc etc. Just as long as you're not copying every single detail of the original inspiration, you should be good to go.

And it's perfectly fine to have one rush of inspiration and then have it followed by another completely different rush. One minute I'm just looking at a scrapped Hat in Time character to see if their outfit would be good for a minor character I have in mind, the next a completely different scrapped character inspires me to make a whole new OC with *unintentional* Phantom of the Opera vibes. No joke. If you can figure out how to put the details of the multiple inspirations together, you can use that to make a new OC. I mean, how do you think the creator of Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion made as many monsters as they did?

Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion is a good way to see how inspiration can affect your characters. Specimen 2, the green glob monster, is based on a similar glob monster from Adventure Time, and Adventure Time isn't even horror-themed like most of the other monsters' inspirations. Specimen 4 is based on Japanese spirits like the Grudge or the Ring as well as Corpse Party. Specimen 9 is possibly based on Creepypasta figure RED from the Godzilla NES Creepypasta, and it also has shades of it being derived from one of the most horrific of human experiments ever (one that shall remain unnamed here because 1) it's honestly that horrible, and 2) I can't remember the specific number it's labeled as so deal with it). One of the Unknown Specimens from Endless Mode is based on the unreleased Silent Hill PT game, and one of the Kalamari Hospital monsters is literally just a female spirit version of Specimen 9 with her inspiration being a literal music artist and their song about not doing something on Friday or whatever.

Honestly, every specimen/monster in Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion was inspired to some extent by something no matter how original it looks. H*ll, Specimen 1- the bunches of cardboard cutout jumpscares- has a ton of references to horror things. The files of the game call the pumpkin cutout variety "Sam" as a reference to the Halloween horror movie Trick 'r Treat. One of the cutouts that can pop out is literally a Xenomorph (an adorable one actually). One cutout is literally also just a cute Jeff the Killer lookalike. Honestly, the only monster that isn't based on anything in Spooky's Mansion is White Face in Endless Mode, and he's a guest star from his own game Imscared (he's also a sweetheart despite the horror moniker but I could be here forever trying to tell you why he is a sweetie).

My point is, if Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion can make such unique monsters from what already is out there, you can make just as original characters from whatever give you ideas to make them. You don't have to give that much in terms of how alike they are to their inspiration. You don't have to make it obvious. Or you can make it as obvious as you want. Just as long as you're not copying and taking the credit for the original thing, you can make it into a completely original thing of your own.

But inspiration doesn't always cut. Next time we'll speak of another good place to go when figuring out the details of your new character(s); themes! Cheers! 🐉