Do you take any requests for drawings? Your sig is amazing!
The inspiration thing is a tricky question, there isn't really a method or anything to it. I don't try to come up with ideas so I can draw, I draw because I have ideas that need to go somewhere, if that makes sense.
I hope this all doesn't sound painfully pretentious but I dunno how else to explain it
Not to me, anyway. I am totally the same way! Except, unfortunately, I am terrible at drawing. Sometimes with advice my drawings get good, but then life catches up to me and I am right back to square one terrible drawings. I wouldn't say that I am visually-oriented, but it sure comes quickly after an inspiration.
To me, inspirations spark almost as arrangements of previous ideas. Hard to describe, but shortly after I get a picture.
For example, I might be thinking about the fact that there need to be more good fox adventures out there. Then when I think of what one might want in one, the personality of the character and plot events that would be most awesome come next.
On FH it is different though, there I usually just mess around with the design until I see a character that looks cool, then give a personality.