Generally when I'm bored I find that I tend to go back and revise characters and concepts that I have laying around and thinking of new creative ways I can utilize them. I typically tend to focus on the characters I haven't used in a while or never really established to begin with but occasionally I'll go back to one I've spent a great deal of time developing and change a few details for creative purposes. This can range anywhere from picking out a new name or occupation, which tends to be the most common, to a complete overhaul of the character in question. Thus how one day Rush could go from being a pointless toonish knock-off of my cynicism to a dagger throwing private eye with his own detective agency.

This practice seems pretty standard as I tend to see it used in comics, games, movies, etc quite a bit. The sole member of an alien race suddenly finding himself surrounded by other members of his kind, the astronaut learning one of his parents was an alien, finding out the dead speedster didn't become one with the Force. The list goes on.

To me character development tends to be a bit more difficult since it implies not only a great deal more detail but devoting a certain of time deciding on what makes each individual character tick. I find that choosing interest and quirks can drastically influence what kind of personality I might be aiming for, either aiding or conflicting with the concept I have in mind until ultimate I either settle on a compromise or I just up and discard the concept altogether. I can't begin to go into how much time and effort I've put into revising Damian in a way that would satisfy me only to shelve whatever concept I have set aside and move on to another character.

That being said though I'm kinda curious to hear how other people have deal with the idea of character development and revisions?