Travelling Circus - Blog Posts

This is Suzy, a gay silk cloth Acrobat (although in this original sketch, he is a tight rope walker) who dreams of becoming a ballerina but can’t because he’s a chubby cross-dressing drag queen. So instead he’s in a travelling circus, where he can be himself and be a “flying ballerina” all at the same time.

He is my entry for this month’s Character Design Challenge, this is my initial sketch of him as a tight rope walker.

Suzy was initially supposed to be a tight rope walker who would dance like the beautiful ballerina he dreamt of becoming, but I realised that as a silk cloth acrobat, the silk cloth could serve as his cape. Instead of wearing the cape himself if he were a tight rope walker, a symbolism for wings and flight, it is the silk cloth that gives him his wings and his ability to fly. This would serve as his connection with the Circus and how the Traveling Circus, his family who accepts him and loves him for who he is, is what helps him accept himself and inspires him to be more than just his initial dream of becoming a ballerina. So he happily chooses to stay in the Traveling Circus and performs his act “The Flying Ballerina.”