Questions & Answers and a bit of rambling...

- What inspires you?

I think it would be easier to list what doesn't...haha. I bet it's the same for all creative people, inspiration is everywhere. Books, tv, the backyard, fairy tales and dreams. Sometimes I dream I am walking through a handmade arts and crafts store and see all kinds of characters, then wake up and realize, they don't exist! Those are MY ideas, I can make them....if I can remember them.
Some times ideas just pop into existence over morning coffee, anytime really. They often seem to just come from nowhere at all, it might be an invisible dragon whispering thoughts in my ear when I start squishing the clay for all I know...haha
I grew up in a very rural part of Nova Scotia, lots of pets around, gorgeous woods to wander through. The sort of place where fairies and elves just had to be lurking. I spent a lot of time out doors and find now that I'm an adult that I am often drawn towards creating characters that could have come from those woods and other magical places...lots of different mushroom folk, elven people and wild animals.
I think anywhere I've been I start imagining all the creatures and critters that could be lurking in the shadows. How much fun it would be if a house elf battled my cat in the kitchen, if a giraffe poked his face out from amongst the orange trees in California, if a dragon just went speeding across the desert where we now live.
Inspiration is everywhere in daily life, my husband, my cat, you can't walk 2 feet in this world without bumping into a great idea.

- What is your process for creating new characters?

Usually the idea of what I'm going to make comes first. I also usually have more ideas than hands (as soon as doppelganger technology is available I'm making copies of myself so I can explore simultaneous claying ideas at once!) and time so I keep a list to refer to when I'm ready to make something new and need a reminder.
I rarely sketch things out, unless I fear I'll forget a particular idea. Like the monster should have 8 eyes, or a candy corn head... Then I create foil and wire armatures and break out my clay. It's never far away, my computer desk is both my media center and my claying work station. Sometimes I gather images from the internet to use as inspiration, sometimes my husband sketches out posing possibilities, but mostly I just jump in and get sculpting. Too much thinking about it before hand means nothing will ever get made. I like to get the general idea in my head and then zone out with sitcoms as background noise and start creating. Once I've sculpted a character to my satisfaction it gets cured and then is ready for painting. Once I've started adding colour that's when the personality really starts to pop. That's when I can start imagining their world, their life....

- How do you select each character's name and create such imaginative back stories?

Pretty much every character I make has a story. They're not finished until I put some of it down, learn their name, essentially try to grab a little slice of their life to include along with them. So when the customer brings one of my jackos into their home it's not just any jacko, it's the jacko with a burning soul who wants revenge on people for turning it's kind into pie... That's a lot more fun then JUST a jacko.
When I'm making the character, painting it, photo-ing it for my website, I'm already picturing the world they live in. Little details start accumulating, snippets of their daily life, what their personality is like. Once I name them I dive into the story. Usually from their perspective or from my own as if I actually did stumble through a swamp in the dark to meet an abandoned jackolantern who has exiled himself there.
Most of the names my characters have are not meaningless, there are rare exceptions where a random name just POPS in my head and I just go with it. Usually however I take a good look at what I've made, see what elements stand out to me, a part of their personality, their colour, whether they have horns or wings or red eyes. Once I latch onto some aspect of the character like that I find their name by browsing through online name databases, looking at name meanings that match and then choosing the name that POPS from amongst all them.
Example of name meanings:
Nala the Jack O'Lantern, Nala means "stem", quite suitable for a jacko who's most noticeable feature is a stem nose.
Nyx the Demon Bat got her name because Nyx means "night", and Nyx besides being a bat is the bringer of night to the world..well..HER world.
Cerberus the Demon, one of my most favorite characters, got his name because Cerberus means "Demon of the Night", now see a name like that just fits so well.
Flog the monster's name is a little different than other characters. In his case it's not that Flog has a meaning but rather it's a combination of Frog and Dog and when I look at his crazy blue face with a big puppy nose and weird froggy legs, I hear Flog in my head.