How alike are you and your characters?

[jackieuy127]

I know a lot of authors incorporate traits that they have into their characters like Tennesee Williams, F. Scott Fitzgerald, etc.

For me, I definitely incorporate part of myself into my characters. I don't usually make them look like me, but I sure do make them act like me. Well...I give them my sass.

Does anybody else do this?

[AnnaLandin]

Not very, I'd say. I might put aspects of myself into my characters sometimes, but I also put aspects of people I know into them - to make them feel more real, and less like a collection of lines on paper - so there is no one character who is very similar to me, at least not in Grassblades.

... I'll get back to you if I ever do a comic about a history-nerdy bibliophile artist, though. >.>

[zelkats]

I suppose I do..? I incorporate a lot of myself in my private RP characters but as for my comic characters, I don't necessarily insert a lot of me in there unless I think it might add some substance to the story. Their personalities are mostly made up of people I see and know, like friends, siblings and memorable fictional characters.

When Naomi from Undying Happiness is a mom in one chapter, I made her quite similar to my busy sister-in-law to add some form of realism... Like her
harried look and how she's all no-nonsense because of all the things and family she has to take care of.
http://tapastic.com/episode/96899

[heterodont]

Well one of my characters used to be my persona, and then two characters branched off of HIM so...

But, I love slapping on my own negative aspects and undoings on my characters, it helps with helping me work on my own weaknesses. I've learned a lot about myself this way! As for its therapeutic effect, I'm not quite sure if its very effective as other methods.

Nowadays I dont do it as much now (partially because I've run out of my own traits) but more because my thought process regarding ocs has gone from "This trait might be interesting to build off of" to "lol i feel like making an oc who's x'

[noctuidae]

if i need to draw from my own experiences to help develop the character, then i will -- the oldest protagonist of my current comic takes from some of my own feelings about being an older sibling -- but the characters of my stories are not very much like me. they're more similar to other people.

i think a character based heavily on me would be boring. :B i'm not an interesting person.

[igneriss]

I used to have a character that looked like me, acted like a better version of me, and was kinda Mary Sue-ish : p Let's face it, we all had this one character, haha CX

In my comic, I suppose some of my characters have parts of me- you cannot really avoid that. Though it's not on purpose. It's just that we know own reactions and way of acting the best, right? : o

[zelkats]

I used to have a character that looked like me, acted like a better version of me, and was kinda Mary Sue-ish : p Let's face it, we all had this one character, haha CX

Haha, that's too true. Thank God that phase happened to me before I knew how to upload drawings to the internet.

[gateofselidor]

I don't think I have any single character who is like me (or at least, I hope I don't) but they often share a trait or two with me. One of the characters in my current comic has a relationship with his sexuality that is a lot like my own, another enjoys studying languages like I do. I think it's inevitable when creating characters.

[igneriss]

I used her when role-playing CX but back then my English was really, really poor, so couldn't embarrass myself THAT much XD

[SandraMJ]

Well other than a handful of them being bisexual, each of my main characters ttend to have a defining trait of me, given without noticing so. My favorite character of my own has my grumpiness cranked up to eleven. Coyote has my wits (this is a very modest thing to say yes) and my arrogance. Bison has my will to be good despite everything and my stubborness. Lisa from Prozaic has my social awkwardness and is just generally a bad person.

And the list goes on.

[GlanceReviver]

One of my characters, I gave him some of the same flaws as what I have, because that's really what I wanted to make the story about. But his interests and goals are very different from mine. I'm an artist, he is a scientist. But, the way we pursue things and get frustrated at setbacks is similar.

[elixiadragmire]

I'm nothing like Teb, at all. I've roleplayed her so I know her rather well

[masterstylezero]

My main character have some traits of mine (it was faster that way to write the behaviour of the character) that i have exaggerated on purpose.

[ORO8ORO]

Actually my character (in my Tapastic comic) is my alter ego (but I think that "he's" a bit more extroverted xD).
However, I think that every character I create can bring some traits of mine, even that just one.

[winglesscomic]

I can be a big fat baby like my protag and I can have a temper but other than that we don't share any other traits... she is really adventurous and extroverted, and I'm cowardly and introverted. Oh wait, we're both really prideful - I think that's about it though.

And of course there was that one self-insert character we all had a long time ago when we were young teenagers, and we thought it was the best character ever. Yuck...

[ekocak]

My OC is basically me with zero inhibitions. enter link description here

[UzukiCheverie]

Very much so. Not just Uzuki, but almost everyone in Time Gate so far. The only characters I can recall right now that have shown up so far that AREN'T based on a person in real life are Mitsuhiro, Solomon, and Clavinova. There are more characters than that of course who aren't based on real people, but they haven't made their appearances yet so I'm not gonna spill the beans

There are a lot of characters I have though that are based on friends and family members. It really makes it for an interesting writing process, seeing how they interact on paper.

[Eve]

I've always based characters mildly on people I know, not so much on me. That being said, all of my main characters are gay women, and I am a gay woman. However, I've done that more because I want to see more LGBT main characters without it being a main plot point, so that's just how my comics tend to go.

That being said, I've always wanted to be as brutally honest as Sam from BATAOB in my day to day work life. The customer service industry will do that to you...

[allenthomas]

Other than the fact that they both have both odd fetishes for wearing hoodies, I guess I don't really have much in common with my main characters in Shadosassins. I guess I'm close to the quiet and laid back attitude of one of my characters, but his brother, we share nothing in common LOL.

[punkarsenic]

ultimately, i write what i know, and what i know is myself. i always end up putting small bits of me in a character, or otherwise changing myself to become more like them.

one of the main characters in my comic breakout looks an awful lot like me, because of the origins as a movie idea, and its hard to write a hugely differing character when youre drawing the spitting image of yourself. but hey, theyre different in many ways i think, and the more they grow the more theyre naturally different from me because they experience things ill never experience, what with living in the real world.

my other characters are less like me, although i find myself putting little bits of me in all of them, usually linking to music taste or film taste etc