Do you base your characters on people you know? If so, how many of them know?

[surenlicious]

My novel Jade Kingdoms is an ode to one of the most traumatic experience I've had in my life, and my desire to finally be able to let it go. Indeed, my characters are loosely based on those that have harmed me and those that helped me find my strength again, and the people I wished that were there for me. If nothing else, I hope my novel and their characters can offer some solace to someone else fighting one of the hardest battles this life might put in front of you.

Jade Kingdoms | Tapas

[unknown_user]

Thanks God, no.
My characters aggregate distinct features and elements of behaviour of people I met or saw somewhere, that's for sure. But I didn't base any one of them on concrete, particular person. At least, for now.

Cyber scrapyard | Tapas

[Kelheor]

I don't make the character's characters (ha-ha!) for the comics, but I do the visuals, so yeah, sometimes I take this or that detail. Mostly for Hexameron.
When we started, I was like "and how the hell does the usual 10-13 y.o. kid look like?". I guess that was the first thought that put me on a way of using the looks of some of my childhood friends (or just acquaintances), so I used at least 5 people for inspiration. The only person who knows the character based on their look is my younger brother

Hexameron | Tapas

[brilliiant]

Most of my characters are weird combos of my friends, me, and my family. Which is is kind of a nice way to take inventory of the qualities that my friends have that are really great or admirable, and the ones that I think would be good for pushing conflict and whatnot.

Although I recently had an IRL friend imply that because I have a redhead in the main cast who falls down drunk at the end of the first chapter that I'd based the character solely around her lol. Untrue! The character's an unholy chimera of her, my roommate, and me.

Artifakt | Tapas

[NickRowler]

Issac from Sugar Land is sort of based off my little sister. Sugar is very loosely based off of someone I had a giant crush on, but I doubt they would ever read it.

For the most part most of my characters off characters from other works or character traits that are amplified. The most common is anxiety due to that being something that effects me a lot.

[Cavechan]

My characters aren't based off people I know, but the places in my True Power comic are based off of my high school and my friend's house.

T.P. (True Power) | Tapas

That made drawing the places easy since I just drew them from memory.

[pilot-obvious]

I absolutely write personalities of people I know (and myself!) into my characters. I try not to design the characters around their appearance though. I don't want them to realize I've referenced them for my stories and creations. Sometimes I might take experiences and rework them to work with my stories too.

[Freemints30]

I don't base them off people I know but I do draw some inspiration like Adam and Hila's relationship(haven't appeared yet) and conversations were based off on me and my brother's relationship and conversations(thou heavily tone down in aggression around that age). Some of the adults and parents designs were based on a single mother in my neighbor hood, my older cousins, aunt's and uncles.

Frequency overload | Tapas

[k5rakitan]

Aw, thanks
My Chapter 10 title is even more clickbait!
That's really fun <3

[BradathonNu30]

Some of the stories that I'm working on are going to include characters directly based on those that I know, from their visual design to their personality, name, and the powers that they have. My friends all know about it and are pretty excited about it actually.

[k5rakitan]

Oh my, that brings back a memory I haven't thought of in a long time. I had a friend in high school who went around asking all of us if she could put us in her story. We agreed, and she shipped me with someone. I had a crush on that guy's younger brother, but I hadn't told anyone, and then her shipping me with the older brother got me thinking . . . oh, how I miss them!

[UrMom]

Yes and no. My comic is a really personal thing for me, a couple people have described it as a trauma comic because it's a vent of awful feelings and experiences I've had/seen over the years, so it's going to have bits of me and people I know in it. With that said I put traits, experiences and vices of people I know but never them in their entirety. A lot of MC stuff is mostly based on a mix of my experiences (first hand, second and third party experiences) and feelings, but I add a little of people I know in there. One character has the same vice as my mom's alcoholic ex, the second one has vices based on abused family members and smoking habits sooooo many people I know have.
Prominently I have a little of my mom, a couple of my coworkers, a couple cousins/uncles/aunts, some old friends on high school, people who's experiences and personalities have stuck in my mind in general.

The one most closely related to a full real person is one of my MC's partner, he's based off a mix of my dad and a certain serial killer who was known for being charismatic and popular before people found out what kind of "person" he was. The inclusion of the latter not being very loose and small, but take all that as you will.

Also I have a therapist character later on who's loosely based on a psychologist I had weekly sessions with a few years ago who was really nice.

I have not told anyone bits of themselves are in my comic, I've hardly told anyone I even have a comic, with the ones I do tell being really disinterested. If they did read it I doubt they would pick up on anything.

[indagold]

My two comics were sorta inspired by kids I knew in highschool, either acquaintances or from observations. None of them knew probably cause we weren't super close and it was just inspiration, not outright based off of them.

Welcome Back Series | Tapas

All Broken Gods | Tapas

[k5rakitan]

Cool, so kinda like bibliotherapy? I have a little of that in mine as well. Joan's agoraphobia is based on a work experience I had. Though I changed a few details, the urine in the coffee cup really happened to me, and so did the tapioca pudding in my shoes.

[Inspector_Spinda]

I do, but never on a specific person. Maybe a friend says something and I incorporate that into a character and a ton of other stuff too. Otherwise the character may come off as an offensive critique of the person.

[kitschensyngk]

The characters of NCC are mostly based on fictional influences, but the spirit in them comes from people I knew in junior high and high school, particularly everyone I ever shared a Spanish class with.

Nachos Con Carne | Tapas

[UrMom]

Yeah! I guess you can say it's a mix bibliotherapy and art therapy since comics involve both writing and visual art? Although probably significantly more upsetting since both of those prefer works that are on the uplifting side. Lol

Geez! I thought my work experience was bad, your's sounds like a straight up nightmare! I can see why you would want to vent about stuff like that.

[k5rakitan]

Yeah, I work from home these days, and so my protagonist does too!

[Carossmo]

Well some of the main cast is based on real people XD and some stories are based in true life experiences

LnR | Tapas

[Strontium]

One of the main characters of my webcomic is partially based on my mom. She knows this. It's funny because she acts more like my character all the time.
My sister wishes someone in the comic was based on her, but really there isn't XD