Well, not all of them are, you’ll probably see a lot of background characters that are just animals or conventional myths with a little tweak, or even just objects! The thing with the market is that the characters are all in flux and all in different states of refinement, visually and psychologically, so it gave me an out in that regard- as for the ones I really spend time on (which I try to as much as possible even with the background characters, as it is good practice for me and fun for you!) I try to think about personality, not appearance. That’s how I made the matsu bros monsters- literal embodiments of aspects of their personality. It’s how I invented RGB in the first place, using negative aspects of my own personality; those who’ve been following me long enough know that it was me mucking about with inventing a persona shadow monster that led to him! If you feel like it, try it- just think about what makes up you, or a character you really like, and visualise it in a crazy way. It’s an interesting exercise, and can even make you look at your worst qualities in a new light. In the worst case scenario they’ll evolve into their own character and then you’ll have to draw their comic for the next twenty or so years but hey you know whatever. Taking an animal and altering it is fine and can lead to some awesome results! But if you want to go further think about who the character is, not what.