#Jay gushes about character design and likely misses the point of the question

[ne0nwithazero]

How do you come up with concepts/find Inspiration for projects like your ch3?

Warning - I got overexcited and started info-dumping and ended writing a LOT and I don't ever know if it's helpful so uhhhh sorry about that! This is long...

Thank you for the question :) Creating original characters has been my passion for way over a decade so tbh I don't really think about it too much, it kind of just happens

Characters end up living in my head and doing their own thing and I have no choice but to watch and document it LOL jkjk

But yeah, for chapter 3 I've literally only made Mike and Host and have hardly developed anything around the TV World aside from the stuff that I have shared and the backstory of those two

I guess I could share my thought process when I was first making them? I don't know if that would help, but I do enjoy sharing stuff like that ^^

I'll start by saying that I never wanted to make a Mike design because I knew from the start that I'd become extremely attached, and lo and behold, that's exactly what happened hahaha

Host was never a character in the earlier concepts, I'm writing my fic "To Give You Heaven", and while "Mike" has been mentioned in my other fics as kind of like a vague evil entity that torments Spamton's memories, for the Heaven fic, I wanted to focus more on the relationship between the two.

And in order to have that, "Mike" needed to actually be a character rather than just an evil voice just so their relationship actually had anything to it.

I've never been good at writing villains, every time I write a mean villain-esce thing, it never feels natural to me, and I do admit that that is the reason why Mike (And Host) turned out to be a lot more morally grey than most other interpretations I've seen ;;

aNYWAY, THE DESIGN UHHH

Host was never meant to be a character I actually started writing Mike in the fic before I tried to draw him, and initially him and Host were the same entity.

I was mixed about it because everything in the game points to Mike being the TV character but I kept thinking about how "Mike" is most likely a pun for "Mic/Microphone" and I had seen some fan designs already that interpreted him as a microphone so I was really into that idea, but I also liked the TV Head idea so I started with them being the same character, so it was just Mike commanding this empty husk of a TV Head, who was also him???

Or he was a microphone built into the TV Head's body?? They both had the pink and yellow eyes at some point, and they'd move in sync, but that kind of went nowhere.

Then that whole thing kind of started developing into the whole parasite/host idea, and the TV Head got the placeholder name of "TV Host" (Because haha pun) and then just "Host" and then slowly became their own entity so that's how they came into the picture.

But having not one but two characters talking to Spamton at the same time would kind of felt weird and the relationship Host originally had with Mike was also a lot more hostile, so I ended up making them mute.

Host's connection with Gaster also came from their whole sign language thing and how it hints at that "Beware of the man who speaks in hands" phrase. Host's initial concept also had holes on the hands, but that got scrapped because it felt a bit too on the nose LOL

Side-note, but Host's concept of the floating sign language hands is actually a recycled idea from an AU version of another unrelated OC of mine, I wasn't doing anything with said AU OC, but I liked that part of the design so I wanted to reuse that.

My thought process is all over the place rn, but yeah the main idea for them was just me being stubborn and not wanting to make a TV Head Mike, but still wanting to have fun with that expectation.

Basically I just wanted people to go "Wait, Mike's the microphone???" Which I think is really funny I kind of expected people to not really care much about Host because of this, but the reception to them has been so positive, I'm really surprised ^^

I'm a sucker for characters who are "opposites attract", so you'll probably find a lot of that in them Talks a lot vs Can't talk at all, Extrovert vs Introvert, Short vs Tall, Aggressive vs Calm

But I also wanted to have parallels with Spamton! And I really liked the idea of Spamton being "manipulated" by Mike, who ironically is not only smaller than he is, but physically powerless to do anything on his own.

I think I mentioned it on Twitter but I'm not sure if I did here, Mike and Host are also inspired on the Swatch/Spamton and Seam/Jevil dynamics, where it's just "weird little guy" and "emotional support non-binary shopkeeper" LOL whichhhhh built the expectation of Mike being a secret boss, but I wanted to be stubborn so I said "Uhm actually it's Host" because they're the one with the Gaster connection and between them and Mike, they're the one who's more prone to getting manipulated by someone with bad intentions, Mike kind of ends up protecting them in that aspect

Hosts' Design hmm Their design was based on the TV Sprite from the end of Chapter 2, and their blue tone was originally colour picked from the sprite itself, I couldn't decide what their eyes would look like so I didn't give them any, and even though it's not present on the sprite, I gave them the colour bar mouth anyway (Omega Host has the normal non-coloured teeth similar to the sprite, because that inconsistency bothers me a lot haha)

As I mentioned above, the floaty hand idea is recycled from an older OC, and also because I couldn't figure out what their arms looked like so I didn't give them any.

Their shoulders are inspired on those bulky square camera heads, with the green part being the camera len, but they're so stylized so I'm not sure that part of the design actually translates too well. I based their body on a TV remote, couldn't decide on a leg design so I just made them solid blue as well.

Tailcoats are kind of a weird staple of my designs so the addition of it is just a design clutch, but also an excuse for me to repeat the colour bar pattern haha

I should have mention that the green on their design is the same green from the Spamton NEO's strings, I kind of wanted the green to kind of symbolize "connection" of some sort, which is why I added it to the shoulders and wrists, but also Mike's cord.

Mike's Design He's literally a microphone with eyes and funny face, what do you want me to say LOL He was inspired on the smiling face that you see when you go to the basement, but at some point I inverted the order of his eye colour and I forgot to fix it so his eyes are the same as Spamton's glasses Back on the opposites talk, while Host has no eyes, Mike is literally a goofy face slapped on a mic, he's so tiny that I had to make his eyes and mouth huge to make up for it

He's inspired on one of those metal retro microphones because I wanted to imply that he was older with a vintage ish look (He's like on his 50s), and I think his silver colour ended up adding to that because I personally associate the silver with older people, but also him being shiny kind of helped give him an important look I guess?? I'm not sure if that comparison makes any sense.

Him and Host also have the cute matching bowties because of the TV presenter vibes, Mike's green cord is because of the Spamton/Sneo connection and hhhhh Yeah that's all there is to it really On his own, he's literally just a microphone so he looks best when together with Host,,

I don't know what I say about Mike's design with the body, he's very simple. Asymmetric suit to match his eyes, pink and white because I felt like the yellow would be too much, and the cord actually being his tail is kind of a funny gag,,, Because I imagine he tries to act very intimidating when he's just a mic, but then when he gets his body fixed, others find out that the cord was a tail and paired with how tiny he is, it just makes him weirdly cute and I don't know, it's just a cute interaction hahaha

But yeah, I'm not sure if this helped in anyway or if I completely missed the point of the question ;v; My process is just throwing stuff at the wall until it sticks and just work from there, and also not worry too much about getting characters perfect in one go because the development is gradual??? Most of my inspiration comes from Deltarune/Undertale itself, as well as reading people's theories on the game I've been making characters for a while, it kind of just happens so I don't know what advice to give other than "This is how I did things, so if any of what I said helps, uhh go for it??" qwq