Tell us the inspiration for your comic!

[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.

[Aspie_Gamer]

Excellent topic for discussion and good question btw OP

As a male reader of shoujo growing up (and yes, I'm a straight male with a healthy libido thanks for asking.), Life of an Aspie initially came from a desire to make my own shoujo manga, but with a few things to help set it apart from its contemporaries. Similar to @zetina I wanted to take certain aspects of other peoples work I read and make em better. I also wanted to give value to the autistic community for it tends to be the subject of much mockery and the butt of many jokes by unfunny assholes on the internet. Making the female protagonist an aspie AND making her the foreigner of the group over time became a must implement idea for me. In addition to deconstructing and reconstructing the various tropes of shoujo, I also wanted to give a "warts and all" depiction of Japanese society for I feel that some animes and mangas tend to be a bit idealistic if not gloss over certain aspects of Japanese society. Mainly, I feel that too many anime/manga fans have it in their heads that Japan is this haven for them where everything is kawaii desu desu all day every day.

Having done some research, I know that not to be true. Otakus tend to be outcasts in many a school and in society over there for example. I also know that Japan is a bit behind the times as a society (its only in the past couple of decades for example that women are now being empowered and choosing not to adhere to the stereotype of being lovey dovey cute looking housewives who hold down the fort while the man goes out and earns money and instead are choosing to focus more on their careers than getting married after high school) Namely, I've read up on how autistic people are treated over there and the best way I can put is that its like 50's America's understanding of autism where being autistic equates to being mentally retarded. (for the most part that is. I've also heard that how you are treated by society in Japan depends on where you live. More urban/city places tend to be liberal while rural/country places tend to be more conservative to put it one way)

Anyway, enough rambling on my end. I'm not aiming to be the "Attack on Titan" of shoujo or anything like that, but I do hope that my work will at least breath new life into shoujo and maybe influence future writers in that genre.

[rodrigomush]

Wow, i think you have a lot of interesting ground here.

[UrMom]

Lol, my comics are definitely not very original, they were both inspired by how I hate romantcized abuse in the romance genre. This is ironic because while my main project on SJ originally started as a male x male romance, it just evolved into this totally platonic... thing, where the main two just hate eachother. Then I created Void for basically the same reason, although it'll turn out to be more about the non-kawaii aspects of abuse, and will also have no romance.
Apparently I'm physically incapable of doing romance, and I'm okay with that.

With visuals, my inspiration will always be the world around me (I would specify it being the National Geographic, but then it got ruined by the greed of 'Fox'), as well as artists like Mucha and James Jean.

As far as borrowing ideas, it depends on how much is borrowed, technically all ideas and designs are borrowed since there's no such thing as something 100% original. I certainly don't mind, but if someone is copying work that isn't theirs I'd rather it be for learning purposes, and that it isn't posted as their own work. When I first started out drawing more seriously I had to copy off clothing magazines, and other people's work because I didn't have the creative capabilities to pull ideas from my own head, it really helped me get some basic stuff down and I was the proudest kid ever when I was able to totally pull stuff from my brain without reference; but since that eyeball/reference work wasn't mine I never showed it off as such.

[Tentakustar]

I guess I'll answer here too since some people have been asking what were the inspirations for my comics!:)

Umm... Spiral of Nightmares was inspired through a nightmare I had that dealt with a Spiral creature that would have a glowing light at the tip of it's tail and by looking into it, you would be sent to other worlds having to solve whatever 'puzzle' was put out for you there. I forgot to mention that the dream was also in relation to Starfox 64. during the not so puzzle parts, you would be in a space fighter shooting out bosses and what not before the puzzles haha. it was strange dream.

the concept of Spiral of Nightmares is nothing like the dream though. All I did was take the Spiral creature from it, and formed a story around it.

Ephemeral Happiness was inspired by various things... mainly Jrpgs however. I love playing them a lot( I also love Nintendo games like Zelda, Mario and Kirby)! the story though isn't really JRPG driven. It comes from something a bit more deeper than how a traditional JRPG story flows. it's bit more personal too. which I hope those who are reading will be okay with. I won't say much about it. just you reading it makes me happy...:)

[demthorshie]

My primary inspiration for creating Cosmos Song was primarily sparked by games from the Final Fantasy series along with various ideas I would come up with during my previous job xD. There wasn't a lot to do there so I spent a lot of the time running away with my imagination.

[monotone_ink]

I can't really pinpoint exact inspirations, but I can give a few things that are clearly influencing my work.
Most of these inspirations apply to a current re-working for one of my comics, Shade, so I can't show any work to compare to the masterpieces I'm about to share. Though, you may still be able to find a few hints of the inspiration here and there (this entire thing is honestly just a post to show you some cool stuff you should read):

Tokyo Ghoul:

I always wanted to write a dark, gritty, and insane story. Finding Tokyo Ghoul was one of the luckiest things to happen. It's a tragic story, and it covers a lot of complex themes, such as the coexistence of a species whose only choice is to kill each other. For me, it's a good reference for making really violent stories without making them seem so try hard. I also admire the fight scenes in this manga a lot, so it affects my own action scenes too.

Bakemono Recchan
(and Asano Inio's other work, Dead Dead Demon's Dedededestruction.)

The art style is really charming, relying mostly on lines for texture and shading. Not only is it pleasing visually with really good composition, panel pacing, and backgrounds, but the author also tackles social issues in a very direct (and sometimes harsh) manner. I usually use his works as reference for visual presentation and framing panels in attractive ways.

Bloodborne (a really damn good game)

Bloodborne, despite its lack of narrative, has a really deep lore behind its world. This one inspired me with world-building and connecting everything in my comic's world in a subtle way. It's also a giant pool of great ideas I can steal from.

[Damatris]

It's hard to pinpoint what all has inspired Fallacy as I consume a lot of books, comics and other sort of entertainment so there's a huge blend of things floating around my brain.

But the most obvious to me are Kingkiller series by Patrick Rothfuss (hella good fantasy book series), Norse mythology and historical viking times.

I really love Rothfuss' writing and the way he weaves his world and all the subplots into the main plot. It's just so well done that it has left a huge mark on how I want to write. And the fact that while it's definitely high fantasy, it doesn't follow the exact same formula that dozens and dozens do in that genre. And I've read so much fantasy that I didn't personally want to write "let's save a world with a magical quest and trinket" plot. Btw, I'm not hating on that, I just like the variation after having read a lot of books with that premise.

As for Norse mythology, I have always loved mythology no matter the origin but Norse has always been one of the most familiar to me. It's really fascinating to read and I like the way things are far from black and white (which is so in most other myths too). I was reading through Edda and things just kinda clicked that viking times and Norse mythology are the things I want to base my milieu on. Being a big history geek, I was already very familiar with the history part so it was easy to decide how closely I wanted to use the irl things and where to deviate for the sake of fantasy.

As for the art inspiration... Uh, umm... I guess at least Saga and Kaoru Mori's Bride's story have had impact although I don't think it's very visible.

[Mane]

People generally say that my style resembles that of Bleach a little . Makes sense since it was the manga that made me decide that I want to do this for a living. Also I did a lot of fan art for it and I guess trying to mimic the style so much started to influence my own. I would love for me to slowly develop a personal style that people will recognize but I guess that will come with time.

As for the plot: Time and deadline related frustration

For Against mythos: I wanted to enter a manga contest and I had only so much time , so I ended up making a 19 page one shot with an open ending. No, I did not make it, I finished the whole thing about half an hour after the submission site closed.

For my current project Custode: It's based on a old, kinda childish and simplistic idea I had yeeeaaaaars ago that I decided to use instead of all the other more complicated onea, because I was tired of wasting time trying to perfect the plot of those, and just wanted to publich SOMETHING ALREADY.

[foxowl]

For A Town Called Mort, I've had the town thought up since I was 15, but the storyline kept changing. I took a lot of inspiration from Soul Eater (Mostly death city), Noragami (The characters and how they deal with the afterlife) and Kagerou Daze (Atmosphere and some of the characters). I've may have also taken some inspiration from Over the Garden Wall too. A lot of my characters are loosley based of my favourite characters as well. Some less obvious then others.

Also I think it's good to 'borrow' ideas from your favourite series and characters, as long as you're making it in your own way and again, only taking inspiration. Plus fans of your favourite series may also like your comic because of the similarities.

[legendriders96]

Well, a lot of things influenced ours. XD The artstyle is an unholy child of Yugioh and Shingeki-no Kyojin and the storyline is a base of Fifth Element mashed with God of War and Supernatural, pinch of Tomb Raider, a bit of Ghost Rider and Berserk, and a whole lot of Trapt. That epic stuff. There's more, but these are major ingredients for LR.

I don't really think there's such a thing as "completely original", to be honest. Everything has a base somewhere, or might resemble something else by accident. It happens all the time.