@[member="Eddie"]
Here's a tip that I follow:
Don't use popular media/characters/themes/etc as a basis of your character that you will write as a "main" character. These characters need to be organic, almost like a transposition of a real person into a fictional realm. Don't watch a movie and go: "Oh, that would be so cool if I were them! I'll write them on [insert website], with some changes to make it my own!" - it doesn't work. In the end you know less about your character than you should, and just like when you date someone you rushed into a relationship with before actually knowing them, you end up bored, confused, and leave them after slowly distancing yourself from them.
This isn't to say you need to know every last detail about your character - I still haven't decided if the people I killed in one of my flashbacks were my real parents or not, but I like to think that because my characters believes it to be true, I should at least acknowledge the chance that it is - but you should know more about your character than anyone else. If you make a character that pays homage to some character in another fictional franchise, you're essentially trying to put yourself in their writer's shoes and it really won't work well. You don't need to sit here and think for hours on end or brainstorm a character, you just need to find something that inspires you beyond superficial ideas. Some people don't take their characters seriously, or personally; try it. Make yourself your character.
