Inspiration for a Character?

I do not buy a doll that I do not love. Right now I have 27 dolls and 2 heads either purchased, ordered, or on their way. Many of them will fit together into a story they wrote, not me. But all of them will aslo stand on their own, just being the lovely doll I bought to admire.
For example, my DOD Shall – in my Horde she is the Khan's wife, but I will dress her in punk clothes or Lolita or evening gowns, none of these belong in the Horde.. My mnf Shiwoo twins are part of the magical elements in the Horde, but also two little boys that like to play pirates in my pond, or dress up in jeans and get dirty. My Dollmore Dry is the General's lover in the Horde, but has worn everything from Rococo to Medieval archer. And yes, he still plays the Time Lord too.
I don't think it possible that they not have a personality, they have multiple personalities and don't have to see a shrink They are perfect people.

 

I thought of something interesting earlier, while i was busily drawing concept sketches for my incoming Aru's character design and listening to Miyavi's Kabuki Danshi on endless repeat. I had started listening to the song while i was thinking of different designs for her, and for her personality and all, when i was hit with inspiration and took to my sketchbook.

Really now,i dont know if thats just purely awesome, or something akin to crack XD i'm thinking its the crack.

ANyway, enough about me. Everyones got some sort of inspiration for what they do, right? If its music, looking at art, watching tv, readnig, anything else you can possibnly think of...what is it for you? Were you staring out into space one day and got smacked upside the head with an idea? XD

How did you come up with your dolls character(s)?

//sorry if this has been done before, i havent seen any like it around here

 

With dolls, it's more looking at the face and recognizing something familiar that was already within. (Hmm, thanks more making me think about this!)

But yeah, I've had inspiration for creativity ... here and there, even at work. I just try to make sure it's beneficial creativity and work from there. (Not all inspiration is beneficial )

 

Truthfully, I never know where ideas are going to come from. My dolls' characters just pop into my head generally while I'm just relaxing. I know they've undoubtably been influenced by things I've read, seen or listened to but, other than a few names, I can't trace their origins to anything in particular. It's rather like the dolls "talk" to me & tell me about themselves & the details of their world. I once read that when asked what her book characters would do next, Katherine Kurtz replied, "I don't know, they haven't told me yet." That's sort of the same way it is with my dolls.

 

Heather just happened , I took one look at her pic,and she told who she was, who her family was,and her history. Iduna took a little longer, she sort of evolved from a background character to one who had her own story.I'm still wiating on Hireadd ,to tell me her story,but Maximilliana still has yet to me what her story is,all I know is that she is of Russian descent, born ,and raised in Canada.

 

Heather just happened , I took one look at her pic,and she told who she was, who her family was,and her history. Iduna took a little longer, she sort of evolved from a background character to one who had her own story.I'm still wiating on Hireadd ,to tell me her story,but Maximilliana still has yet to me what her story is,all I know is that she is of Russian descent, born ,and raised in Canada.

 

Music is more for developing characters I've already got. x3

On occasion, I'll just want to draw, and I end up with a doodle and go, "Ah, I like this person. Their name is _____." just like that. xD

Or I'll be doing something, and get hit with an idea. My college's library sells books they can't loan out anymore for a dime each, so I'm there every other week or so to see what they have. xD This week, I left with four books, and was lugging them across the street when I went, "I want a scholar character."

So it's pretty random. xD

 

I don't have any dolls yet, so I will answer this for characters in general because it's an interesting question!

For me it's probably movies and books (but more movies). I don't outright copy a character, obviously. I combine different aspects that I find interesting from different characters. Then I can make them more unique by coming up with backstories, why they are the way they are etc.

I'm also influenced by themes/ideas in movies. Sometimes I recognise a theme I like, and create a story which reflects that theme in a different way. When I think about themes though, it's more like I think about the location where the theme could exist, then I think of characters that would live in that location. Well, whatever! It sounds weird, but it makes sense in my mind.

 

I don't have any dolls yet, so I will answer this for characters in general because it's an interesting question!

For me it's probably movies and books (but more movies). I don't outright copy a character, obviously. I combine different aspects that I find interesting from different characters. Then I can make them more unique by coming up with backstories, why they are the way they are etc.

I'm also influenced by themes/ideas in movies. Sometimes I recognise a theme I like, and create a story which reflects that theme in a different way. When I think about themes though, it's more like I think about the location where the theme could exist, then I think of characters that would live in that location. Well, whatever! It sounds weird, but it makes sense in my mind.

 

I usually get the ideas from my stories, those are all characters that I`m emotionally connected with! Or from my favorite books! Gabriel`s story was quite unusual, he was born more or less from a RPG, there I`m a vampire with the same name as here and somehow he just popped up into the scene as her lover, it was all just for fun and I had no serious intentions of expanding the character, he was just an informative background if you can put it so. When I was bored I started writing a background story of her and found myself dragged in a world that was different from the original setting and Gabriel tured out to be a complicated character, he was hard to understand, hard to write, nothing but trouble, but I guess that`s why I truly fell for him, that`s why Lilith loved him! I never wanted to make this character a BJD, but somehow it just happened ... I have no explanation why him of all the characters I`ve created! I guess it was Lilith`s choice as she`s almost like my alter-ego! LOL Now you probably think I`m a total weirdo and I won`t deny it!

 

Mine come to me while I'm driving. For the first four I have planned, I was driving down the highway listening to a Clan of Xymox album and Marburg and Neisseria crawled into my head. They were followed within minutes by Lassa and 'Nema (last to show up, first to be bought, ironically enough). I figured four was more than enough and didn't think about anything other than fleshing out their stories. But something seemed missing--some impetus to make them something other than very weird people who hang out and do stuff.

I got hit with the character stick again a few days ago while driving my roommate to work. I drive past a road every day called "Nicodemus Road" and that day it occurred to me, "Man, Nicodemus Road would make a good name for a character. Some manly dude, like a policeman or a detec--" And literally midthought, Detective Nicodemus "Nick" Road slouched into my head and asked for some aspirin and a stiff drink to wash it down with. I spent the rest of my hour-long drive listening to him talk about his story.

This is how people wind up with fifty dolls, methinks.

 

The dolls came up with it themselves

Honestly, I don't put much thought into the character at all. I save that for after the doll arrives. So I guess the doll itself is the inspiration. Given that I do have an inkling of that the attitude will be and have names in mind, I generally choose a doll on the way it looks not because it would match a preconceived character or anything. I choose wigs/eyes/etc. based on what I think would look good for the mold then try to build the personality after that. I suppose this doesn't make them as "deep" as they could be but it works for me. The longer I've had them the more their personality seems to come out as I change and refine small aspects about the way they look and such.

 

My doll character comes to me in its first incarnation when I see the doll. Then after talking to friends about it, and thinking about how it will fit with my other dolls, it gets shaped a bit. Lastly, once I get the doll, it becomes complete, when I see if the doll "agrees" with my original idea.
I don't generally get divine inspiration before I get a doll, and I never know the character until I see the doll itself in pictures. The doll and the doll's face usually count for a lot of it.

 

I don't usually have preconceived ideas for my dolls until they're physically in my hands - often not until I'm doing their face-up. I'd had some ideas for a tan DZ Demi I'd planned to buy - she was going t be a Greek girl called Matresca, and be something of a "modern miss". About the same time, I bought a BW VDES head which sat around on my desk for a couple of months before I could get around to doing anything with her - during which time she became Matresca, and made it clear she was Russian, not Greek!

The dolls themselves suggest the characters.

 

Most of my boys 'evolved' naturally over a period of 13-7 years (depending on the character and how long they've been around) My very first character in my fictional universe, Sharakti, first popped up in my head out of the blue one day when I was around ten years old: he was eight at the time, and as I've grown he has too (to become Ilú's grandfather, amongst other things, and head of a whole clan of other characters) As such, they've all got stupidly long and involved backstories from me spending almost every day thinking about them for over a decade, and I'm quite proud of them to say the least

On the other hand, my two Yo-SDs are the only dolls for whom I didn't have pre-existing characters, and they don't come from my other boys' world. Though characters popped up for them quite naturally when they arrived (in Ikikuna's case) or when they were on their way (in Ellan's case) neither of them have voices - I think in some way that reflects that they aren't really 'mine' in the same way as my big boys are: though I love them and their little characters are growing more developed the more I think about them, they'll never have huge demanding voices tugging at my imagination like my Kaliaethi boys, and accordingly their characters remain silent.

 

I have always thought of myself as a creative person, even as a child would make up fantastic stories and tell others it was really going on in my life, yes I lied a lot as a child. But I was told once finally caught I should write these down as stories and did, but hardly published. In any case that is what I do now with my BJD I get inspired to write again using them as the characters of the stories I wish could be.

 

Everyone's got some nice inspirations going on =D


Its funny, with the character i've got now for my Aru...she's SO different from waht i thought she'd be, and i still dont know any details about her. I dont even know *what* she is. I'm pretty sure there are no humans in this world, so i know she isnt human...but she isnt an elf, either.

right now i think its the world thats intriguing me most, since i've never seen anything like it...and again, not enough details about it yet, so i dont know much about it. Guess i have to find a few more songs and make a playlist of inspiration, so i can learn more about the characters and the world. I'm intrigued by it all XD

--of course, this means i'll have ANOTHER story i'll want to write. I've got this insane dream of eventually finishing a story and getting it published....i cant keep things going for long enough to that to be possible yet ^^;

 

hhmmm.. I'd say that it depends on my moods and on the music I put on. I get really inspired when I listen to Gackt/Malice Mizer , Evanescence (they're first album), Rammstein and Cradle of Filth. Anime Music also helps!

For any Characters,it's mostly when I daydream (I have ADHD XD I daydream alot!) so I imagine a story and then the character just shows up,with a face,name and personality. I usualy write my ideas down also

For dolls,I'd have to say that for my incoming Bobobie Pixie,I have something already thought for her,but not the name yet.

 

Haha, i do the smae thing, almost. I used to be able to daydream and keep going with stories in my head for a while, but i cant hold the thoughs anymore. Funny, you say you do it because your ADHD, but i figure i'm slightly ADD because i CANT XD

edit: got merged with a different thread o.0; i'm confused XD But yes, this is deffintly the right topic ^^;;;; didnt realize it was a repeat. Sorry!