Funnily enough, the main characters in Edible green Tea are partially based off of me, my friend, my pets, and family. Though modified and exaggerated to work more with the the surreal comedy. (I call it "Semi-autobiographical" because some strips were partially based off of strange things that had happened in my life.) I also have some characters that are parodies of celebrities or just are real people (namely Richard Nixon.) My family and friends have actually embraced this whole-heartedly and love the fact that we're all technically comic stars now.
For DRGN, I not only based Flare off of myself (namely as a guy to vent annoyances through.) But also loosely based him off of a few guys I knew at a game design college I took some classes at in high school as part of a program my star offers to high school students. Also loosely based Fubuki Grey off of this one girl I knew from that college as well. Also partially based some of the DRGN characters off of real people as well. (E.I. Zephyr was partially modeled after Andy Warhol and David Tennant among other british actors while King Gufuu was loosely modeled after David Bowie.)
I think it's nigh impossible to fully disconnect a character from real-life inspirations to create a truly original character seeing as I believe everything comes from something. The "Nothing new under the sun" principle, I guess you could call it.