Tell us the inspiration for your comic!

[jerreaudriessen]

Is it a total ripoff from something else or is it tottaly original?

My comic Trinity borrows some concepts and design thingy from This

And what are you opinions on ''borrowing'' ideas and designs?

[Doubtcent]

Well my main inspiration was from One Piece, Attack on Titan, and several other manga out there. I read a lot of manga.
But I also drive inspiration from other types of media as well. From webcomics, from cartoons... everywhere.
And after a long time creating, my style has developed into its own thing, nigh uncomparable to anything else. Or at least, it's pretty hard to compare it to anything proper.

My comics are:
English Project Shorts
Tapastic 101

[mappypaint]

For my comic U-Speed, here's my reply from an old inspiration thread.

[zetina]

don't laugh
but
my inspiration comes from Twilight
ok, let me explain--
I'm competitive by nature so when something that falls short or has flawed ideas, I tend to get driven to take them and use them better, make them work. So, back when the books were the big talk among teens and internet, there were many lovely reviews to read. So I got various ideas while reading those that have stuck with me until now :'D

There are other things, of course, but I'm sleepy.

[AnnaLandin]

Grassblades is pretty much everything I love thrown in a blender. It's the wandering swordsmen of Blade of the Immortal, Vagabond, 365 Samurai and a Few Bowls of Rice and half a hundred samurai movies I've watched, it's the parent-child relationship borrowed from Lone Wolf and Cub and Usagi Yojimbo. It's the somewhat-episodic structure and supernatural elements and lone-hero-motif of Hellboy. It's Toshiro Mifune. It's all the things.

(of course all of that is just to distract you from the fact that it's really the story of someone recovering from trauma. pay no attention to the lady behind the curtain.)

[Sanz]

For Los Esmeraldas Short and simple I've always loved Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw star and Trigun. plus i'm a major fan of sailor moon and god of war. so i suppose those are where my inspiration comes from. as for borrowing ideas. I don't mind it. as long as it's not 100% the same. i loved the ships concept in outlaw star, one idea in my story comes from that.

For NARCOTICS which is still in the making and i plan on releasing it maybe in a few months. the inspiration is based off of a true story, of a friend of mine who is struggling with a heroine addiction. along with a few other drugs. its an extreme remix of my friends current situation.

For GODTOWN which i also plan on coming out maybe within this year. its inspired by cliche magic girl animes and manga. like i said i was always a fan of Sailormoon. and i always wanted my own magic girl tale. just never thought i could xecute the beauty. but i'm gonna give it shot.

[R.n.P]

Mine is totally original when it comes to characters and story line but I'm sure that people who watched bleach might notice some similarities in power background since it was Bleach that inspired my comic.

[alaingrey]

Most my inspiration for paneling/pacing/aesthetic is bad erotic exploitation films from Italy ca. 1975. They're good in that so-bad-they're-good way and I can't get enough.

As for plot, sometimes you find a weird gem on the world wide web, and about a year ago I found a small article about a musician that had the greatest love story I'd ever seen. (Link not included because it's lengthy and a bit nsfw)

"he was a not-so-sweet 16 and I was 18 (and we) became involved in a love affair that lasted three years. Ours was a volatile relationship that revolved around music, art and monstrous public personas. We were true punk romantics — he pierced my nipple, I tattooed his name on my wrist and slashed his palms open with a straight razor."

So naturally I've had to make a comic based on that line because some things are too good to pass up....

[SirHellsir]

Bite Madness is
25% the insanity of Invader zim
25% the death scenarios of lenore the cute little dead girl
25% the action of shonen mangas
25% oh shit moments
and 100% of my personal touch

[Shanny8]

My inspiration for Ray Thunder was from a Superboy comic I used to read back in the mid-90's when he had a bad haircut, a leather jacket, and an attitude. I kinda patterned Ray in that same sense with the cocky attitude- but I then created his mother who(in earlier incarnations) had the appearance of a June Cleaver type housewife, but would come down hard on Ray and bring his ego back down to earth; since then I've changed her character to where she's still snarky and comes down on Ray, but it's more for their protection(she's now a former scientist/current corporate office drone). Ray is still cocky and has a bit of an attitude, but I've made him a little angsty.

[SirHellsir]

I can understand, I also have a project that I feel is always aproached poorly so I want to make it right

[JeanGuillet]

My comic Chateau Grief is set in and inspired by the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live. I suppose that's why I've got a cthulu-octopus guy actually, now that I think about it. And a guild that calls themselves "Dentists Advocating Reasonable Parental Accountability" who are opposed politically to the "Parent Advocates Trying to Rigorously Instruct Our Tots Under Significant Adversity". Gee, if I came up with any sillier group names, I'd have to be a member of Congress.

Synopsis: Evil Overlord Xander has fallen in love. And it's technically only kidnapping if she tries to leave.

[joannekwan]

In short

Demon House: shizz I saw on tumblr
Heavy Horns: BL and yaoi, but I wanna do it better
Erie Waters: a comic anthology submission prompt

[Ringarune]

My comic Star Pace is inspired by in general 2000s anime, but specifically two series, Kirarin Revolution and skip beat.

I always really liked anime about the entertainment business or singing, but there never were too many released (not really counting ones that include huge girl groups like love live or idolmaster, those shows have a very different vibe to them). Because of that, I decided to make my own ^^

[HVOICE]

Ripping off a style and being inspired by another are completely different things.
Studying the masters is always a great way to improve yourself!

The idea for my comic Love Metal came to me from listening to heavy metal and incorporating it with characters I already had, but my art style really developed by studying comic/manga artists that were a great inspiration for me.
Takeshi Obata is definitely the biggest one. His character's expressions and movement are so dynamic (and not to mention his page layouts are beautiful!)

Doing Obata studies have really helped me improve my own style

As for color, I'm inspired by the amazing artist Marc Ulloa. You can find him on giname.deviantart.com
He's one of the reason's I stuck with traditional art. His marker artwork is breath taking.

After studying his work (and getting more markers) my coloring improved so much!
It went from this

To this

[Kelty]

the inspiration for the original incarnation of my comic Nightlight was Homestar Runner and probably would not exist without it. also Castle of Nations, Dinosaur Comics, Today Nothing Happened, and a handful of cartoons from Newgrounds.

but then it... mutated into whatever it is now over the course of 7 years. i think it only became what it is now to help myself cope with depression and homesickness and isolation. it seemed easier to figure out my own problems if i had characters talking about them in depth from different perspectives. mix in a bit of an obsession with Weekly World News, classic horror movies, and Sam Keith's The Maxx. i think that's what did it.

sorry about the weird rambly reply, hrghk

[lyon]

I think it's pretty obvious where the inspiration for Bent Pins comes from haha

As far as Undecayed, it's sort of a conglomeration of a lot of ideas I had when I was around 14/15 which I kind of sat on for about a decade, ideas which were inspired a lot by Edgar Wright's movies (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), so you might wind up noticing some literary devices that I learned from those down the road there.

Pretty much every comic I drew as a kid surrounded the idea of some sort of cartoony interpretation of the afterlife, probably also inspired a lot by movies like Beetlejuice, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, etc. That's another thing that's being pulled into Undecayed.

Now that I've written it out, I'm realizing just how much I'm inspired by movies more than anything else haha

[BraveHeartTatsumaki]

Probably for Final Light it was FF games, and in addition the animes I've watched since a little with recent ones, I'd say Nanoha, Mai-Hime, Magi, SnS, Munto, Kaito Jeanne, Fate, FMA, HXH (both versions), Higurashi, Symphogear... and even Pokemon, and I'd dare to say that probably Macross series is or will inspire me at some point xD. All of them gave me inspiration to create my own fantasy world where my characters would develop and live their adventures, though, it has changed a lot through the years and the name also changed to what's currently nowadays.

[hushicho]

I was inspired to do OCCULTIS from a number of series. It is, in part, a satire/parody, but it's also a straightforward narrative at the same time. Essentially it's distilled americana in a way, examining elements that have been persistent throughout recent history: The Hardy Boys, Route 66, Supernatural, Night Gallery, Scooby Doo, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and plenty more led me to crafting OCCULTIS into what it has become.

I'm hoping that all my ambition with it will lead to something great. I'm doing my best to make it happen!

[rodrigomush]

I don't have a exact inspiration for TV kids, i'm finishing college, and tought if i didn't started a comic right now, i never would... So my biggest inspiration in the moment is my fear of doing nothing.

But if i think about influence in my work, i would say ryotrips here on tapastic is a big one, and some humor manga like gintama and assination classroom.