[@Sep]!

Before the question of [i]"How do you build your characters"[/i] disappears forever into the RPGN archives, I should probably answer it:

[b]Primarily,[/b] the basis of my characters stem from my own life and the people I've encountered growing up in a middle-class family in South Boston, going through the trials of adolescence and gangs, moving from one dark corner of the US to another followed by yet another, selling anything I could to satisfy whatever vice got me by at the time, relationship hopping like it was going out of style, and then trying to raise two kids on my own who mean the world to me...

...all the while hoping upon hope that I lived to the next day.

I tend to draw from a sense of surviving in a world that doesn't really give two shits about who you are and is doing all it can to push you away unless you have the balls enough to push back even harder. To stare opposition in the face like the twisted bitch that it is, and shove your [insert favorite appendage here] down it's throat. 

Growing up in the 80s and 90s, music was a huge part of my creativity and I'd say is a significant part of my character development as it takes the framework I've mentioned above and thrusts it deep inside it's own fantastical landscape, fleshing out the rest of the character's background to allow for stepping stones into story ideas/arcs, and any future shit that can be vomited up.