Thomas.

As with Mel and Marie and Annette, every good carnival has a seal-boy.  Or seal-girl.  Whatever.  People love people with deformities because it makes us feel better about ourselves.  Well, I suppose that's the reason some people do, I think others just want the shock value of a guy with a huge hole in his face.
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Thomas W. Kavanagh

 Enter Thomas W. Kavanagh.  He was born with webbed feet and big flipper arms.  His father, a modestly successful day-trader with a huge degree of curiosity and acceptance, decided this was unusual and worth looking into.  He eventually discovered his quiet wife was actually a selkie and his own great grandmother was ALSO a selkie.  Now, common mythos says selkies are always female water spirits who wear a seal skin and can be tricked into living as a human if their skin is taken from them when they come onto the land.  Who's to say that a selkie might actually desire to live on land and take a human husband and have little seal-pup babies?  In my world, the combination of selkies within the family tree caused a short circuit.  Thomas wasn't born as human or selkie but a literal mix.  Because I like the idea of curses and what happens down the line if someone IS cursed.

Oh, and his middle name is Waits.  Because his father has a TERRIBLE sense of humor.  Also, he hates that joke.

And I realize I skipped a day in the posts.  But 26 is such a bad number!

Mythology is my dark mistress.

Melisandra.

Over the summer, I worked on a production of Master Peter's Puppet Show with the Puppet Kitchen.  One of the characters is called Melisandra, she's King Charlemagne's adopted daughter and the plot pusher for the tale.  Then, later that summer, I was starting to draw up the characters for Entropy Driven's Cirque du Deeskay and wanted to try drawing something outside of my usual designs (read: always the same size).

 

 

 

Melisandra

Like Marie and Annette, every good carnival has a sword-swallower or two.  Mel was fun to figure out.  Since she's really obviously Aryan (at least to me). She was born in Svalbard (my most favorite place that can KILL YOU).  Her dad studied arctic microorganisms and as a result, they eventually moved to Alaska.  Since her father raised her in a scientifically-minded environment, she was one hell of a book-worm.   Where her father passed away in 2007.  Mel moved south, eventually settling in New York City after reading about the freak show traditions of Coney Island.  She rarely wears more than the minimum of clothes, the most being a tank-top and shorts (she's in her performing gig up in the drawing) because after living in Svalbard, NOTHING IS COLD.

Entropy Driven.

I have too many stories in my head sometimes.

And several of them take place in the same vaguely fantastic place.  They converge at some point, but I've mentally filed them all under the title of Entropy Driven (because I love the gradual heat death of the universe).  Part of Entropy Driven is the Cirque du Deeskay (AKA the Dapper Cat Carnival), but specifically the iteration of it started in 2009 by Vladimir (yes, I have a back story; yes, it's longer than it needs to be; yes, it's not finished).  And in his travels, Vladimir and his assistant Meryl White pick up the usual assortment of carnival performers, rousties, workers, barkers and freaks.  Of course I had drawn a bunch of them before I wrote anything, but they still fit into this grander Entropy Driven universe.

Marie and Annette

Marie and Annette Jackson are thoraco-omphalopagus twins and are a lesson about listening to Evelyn Evelyn when designing a circus.
I love you so much Amanda Palmer...you too, Jason Webley.
Always having had a soft spot for divided characters (I blame you, Gargoyles)and knowing no respectable carnival goes without conjoined twins...this happened.  

Marie is the boisterous, she likes her music loud and BRUTAL and is fiercely defensive of Annette.  She prefers boots to shoes (because her leg is slightly shorter than the other two) and keeps her hair long and natural. Annette  really likes to jam out to symphonic stuff, ranging from techno-breakbeat to Nightwish.  She loves to experiment with hair colors and styles.  She's always been shy and usually lets Marie do the bulk of the talking.  They're brunettes but Annette has been dying her hair red for a while and they tend to disagree on which direction to go when asked.

Next time: Melisandra the sword swallower.

Oops.

NSFW lolololol

What, I gotta have a reason for everything?

Shun!

I love drawing monsters.  And I love absurdest literature.  So, Alice's adventures in wonderland is one of my favorite things ever.  Specifically, the Jabberwocky.  It is awesome.

Snickersnack

 This illustration was done by a gentleman named John Tenniel and is exceptional, at least for me, because he's wearing a vest.  HILARIOUS.

It also has the mention of two other creatures that have been embellished by other artists (who I totally stalk on twitter):  The jubjub bird and the bandersnatch.  Carol was always vague as to what these looked like.  So, I took a stab at the frumonious bandersnatch.

Shun the frumonious bandersnatch!

Because somehow the word "frumonious" makes me think poisonous.

Now, some may know, I work two jobs (have for almost a year) and one of them is at night at a school for medical and dental assistants.  People who aren't clever enough to be dentists or nurses.

They have, two or three times a year, a national phlebotomy (blood drawing) exam.  

I have to baby sit for it.

On a Saturday.

For regular pay.

It is one of many facts I hate the job.
BUT THEN I DREW THE JUBJUB BIRD AND EVERYTHING WAS OK!

I so loved the little detail of the Jabberwocky wearing a vest that Edwardian fashion came into my jubjub and bandersnatch.  The bandersnatch is wearing a bowler, the jubjub bird has a monocle and spats.
Spats=classy, it is a scientific fact.