Hotel Blue Moon (Inspired by Hotel Del Luna)

A short detour to character designs

Hello!! This is your author, Lyla 😁! I want to take a moment to appreciate all of you for reading my work, even though I am not exactly updating regularly. I am preparing for entrance exams so it is quite hectic. Nevertheless, I wanna show who inspired which character in my story. 

I know, I know... y'all wanted to know Do Hwan's backstory but... All good things are for those who wait, is it not?

Also, this is my interpretation of how I started writing the characters, but I know human imagination is a powerful tool and all of you would have imagined the characters quite differently than me. And that's totally okay!
I am not someone who can express myself with writing and I lack skills to draw, so if my story had any shortcomings, I apologize 😭 

Kim Do Hwan

I started writing him based on Kim Soo Hyun (The one who made a cameo for Hotel Del Luna) but as I started writing, I didn't quite feel like it was him, you know?

This is the actor, by the way:

I KNOWW... Dreamy.. but I wasn't really feeling it. Maybe because he looks too much like a "Good boy"?  While I was looking through Pinterest and Google, I thought my vision of Kim Do Hwan looked like a drawing I came across, this one:

Jung Ae Ra

For Jung Ae Ra, I drew plenty of inspiration from Mamamoo's Wheein. (I love her with all my heart, not even kidding) And she kinda stayed the same for me till now. In my brain, every time I picture Ae Ra, I automatically think of Wheein. (Maybe I should have kept the name as Wheein but you know, too many shippers haha)

This is Wheein if you didn't know:

This was the image that kind of, "sealed the deal" for me like... This is Ae Ra.

Kim Yi Sook

Originally, I wanted Kim Yi Sook to be a villain, more like a rival to Do Hwan for Ae Ra's love. And then I remembered how much I hate love triangles 🤣🤣. So, now Yi Sook remains as Ae Ra's best friend.  
When I started writing this story, I had recently watched the Korean drama "Memorist". And I absolutely fell in love with Yoo Seung-Ho. He is sarcastic, witty, and brave, everything I wanted in Yi Sook. 

This is Yoo Seung-Ho :

In this vibe;

Aghui

For Aghui, I didn't really have a frame of reference. She was kinda like the last-minute villain, someone I kinda came up with on the fly when I was reading (Re: researching) about Ma Go. Ma Go does not have a third daughter as per mythology, so Aghui is someone I thought would bring balance to the world, in a good vs evil kind of way.
Aghui is a play on a word in Korean called 악마 (Aghma) which means "Evil". 

There were several artworks that greatly inspired me to write her, but if I had to choose,

These two might be my favorite, mainly because both beauty, wickedness, and pain are laced in these artworks, much like how I wanted Aghui's character to feel. 

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That's basically it! To see more of my inspiration, check out my Pinterest board @lylathenight!

Whom did you imagine as the characters when you read this story?