Banana Scoop

If you’ve been visiting the blog lately, I’ve posted a number of pictures I’ve drawn all relating to original characters I created for a series I’ve titled The Black Carnival.  The Black Carnival is a series I’ve created and is a story about a carnival whose employees, acts, and managers are mythical creatures and beings, masquerading to blend in society.  I’ve created some character concepts of the main characters.  The descriptions I’ve included in the times I’ve posted these images have been vague, because I’ve recently been trying to get the outline and manuscript in order.

Above we have the lead of our story, Gillian Eliza Reily Akers.  Gillian, pronounced Gilly-an, is a timid and educated girl, who excelled at combative sports and fencing.  Gillian grew up a normal life  with her overprotective and conservative father and her wild and spontaneous mother.  She’s a spitting image of her father in both personality and appearance and often questions if she inherited anything from her extraverted and perplexing mother.  When tragedy strikes Gillian, she learns more about secrets her mother hid from her, which leads Gillian on an adventure to the Black Carnival where her mother’s mysterious legacy changes her life forever.

It’s at the Black Carnival where she meets a number of new friends and enemies, some of which I’ve listed below!

Anglen Flynt is one of the first people Gillian meets before entering the Black Carnival.  Enigmatic and mysterious, not much is known about Flynt, other than his ability to intimidate the soul out of most beings.  He’s been given the job to be Gillian’s “Guardian Angel”, whose primary tasks are to serve Gillian’s best interests and protect her at all costs. Being a relatively new recruit to the “Guardian Angels Corps”, Flynt is equipped for most scenarios: silver bullets, crucifixes, and the likes, though has only read up on proper ways to access situations.  But where he lacks in experience, he makes up for in heart and dedication.  Flynt himself has never been to the Black Carnival and has only read stories about how volatile the entire grounds can be.  Therefore, he takes his new job seriously, maybe too seriously sometimes inn Gillian’s mind.  Flynt doesn’t make new friends easily, whether it be his distrust for anyone and everyone or his cold and inhospitable personality.

Zaspara is a giant lizard from a near-extinct clan of hyper intelligent reptile beings.  Zaspara grew up as a runt of a clutch and was outcasted hours before his clan was wiped out.  Zaspara managed to survive on his own, scratching a living in dark caves and secluded areas over long periods of times.  He stumbled upon an orphanage of children whom he took into his protection when there were being hunted.  The pursuers were relentless and Zaspara fought his way to his near death protecting them, only to still lose them by the end of it.  The hunters took Zaspara alive, parading him around as a freak of nature for money.  He was rescued by Old Ben Reily, owner of the Black Carnival, and has since then served as a protector of the younger employees and attendees of the Black Carnival.

Symos has been a cursed doll for as long as he could remember.  His first memory was when his head was emptied by an evil witch, cursing him to be a wooden doll with a fragile ceramic head.  He awoke in a library of an abandoned town and immediately began to refill his head with books and knowledge.  Out of the numerous books he read, stories of valor and heroism were his favorites, perpetuating his dream of being a hero and getting the girl.  His opportunity arouse when a band of thieves used his library as a home base.  Though he had the jump on them, his brittle body landed his a crack in his head and a few broken limbs.  Old Ben Reily, the Black Carnival owner, found him battered and broken.  As he lay in his library barely able to turn a page in a book, sounds came from outside the library.  An enormous carnival opened up in his town, a carnival full of sounds, lights, and people.  Symos gathered the last of his will to repair himself and limp through the carnival gates.  He soon enough found himself in the carnival library, one with new knowledge to fill his cracked head with, so there he stayed hiding between the shelves of the books.  Security eventually found him, and Old Ben Reily, owner of the Black Carnival, chuckled and allowed him to stay, acting as his advisor when it came to matters that involved subjects Old Ben himself wasn’t caught up on.

Miko was a goblin orphan left behind during a dwarven raid in a goblin camp.  Too young and innocent, he was taken pity on by the dwarven lords and raised amongst his species’s mortal enemy.  As Miko grew, his innate tendency for mischief and mayhem caused trouble in the great dwarven city, though was pardoned when Miko showed great potential for metallurgy and forgemanship.  He built great and terrible war machines for the dwarven cause, unknowngst to him what they were to be used for.  When he pulled a particularly cruel prank on a fellow blacksmith, he was told irony and betrayal that he has caused his own people, sending Miko in a downward spiral of depression.  When he refused to continue to work for the dwarven lords, he was imprisoned and used a propaganda tool to enrage and demoralize the goblin forces.  The war raged on for many more months until a treaty was signed.  The goblin forces demanded the release of Miko and the dwarves declined, continuing the bickering as Miko himself rotted in a cell.  They settled on the idea that neither side should be able to use the genius goblin, so they outcasted him to the overworld, where Miko would be lucky to survive a week in this new world.  As if on queue, a representative from the Black Carnival arrived and took him to the grounds where his fate was decided to work at the local forge for housing and food.  He was skeptical at first with working at the forge again, his only condition was that he never make weapons ever again, but he somehow knew everything would be okay when Old Ben Reily arrived to visit the forge.  As Old Ben passed by, he asked a meek Miko what was on his shirt and as he looked down, Old Ben’s finger flipped up his nose.  Old Ben gave Miko a wink, and proceeded to continue to create brilliant craftsmanship at the Black Carnival forge.