Ursula Labelle

Model

When I was drafting the Curly’s Carnival arc I needed Timmy and Alicia to separate while adding an action beat to the story, so Ursula and Cole were born from that concept. There are all kinds of really neat characters you can use from the circus theme, and since Timmy and Luna have animal forms I thought it would be fun to have an animal tamer as one of the enemies.

Around the time I decided on an animal tamer a friend told me that Timmy doesn’t seem all that awkward anymore, so the theme for Ursula became centered around the gag of Timmy being having an awkward battle against an attractive grown woman. Specifically I had the fight between Namu and Fuan from Dragonball in mind.

Considering that I created her to fill a niche in the arc I found myself surprised that Ursula became my favorite new character of the arc. Of the villains I felt that she had an interesting motivation for her deeds: She really enjoys her job taming animals and audiences, and relished the presented opportunity to tame monsters. She’s a character I want to use again, and already have really fun plans for her return.

Design

Since I was working with the idea of an attractive older woman, I gave her a very skimpy outfit to make fun of sexualization in comics in a parody that fell very flat. For that I apologize. When she returns her appearance will be toned down; although sexuality is a part of her character and the humor centered around her, so it will remain part of her character. Just not as overt.

She is named after, and mostly designed based on Ursula Bottcher, a circus performing animal trainer I discovered while researching for this story. I found her short statue next to her polar bear particularly striking. I was playing Catherine while drafting Episode 3, so the sultry Catherine with her blonde hair and curly pigtails left an impression on Ursula’s design. From there I added large pupil-less eyes that I felt were off-putting to help her look creepy.

 

Carl Curly Jr.

Model

The term “ringleader” is often associated with masterminds of great plans. Therefore I Curly Jr. would be incredibly incompetent. Even though I was planning on the clown demons to be good people I still wanted Timmy and friends to confront a demon in the final act, and it just could not be the ringleader of the circus because … that’s just too easy. Curly’s incompetence would leave Mammon to take more control of the amusement park’s affairs, and lead to her eventually feeding on the greed of the human amusement park workers. He also got loaded with an incredibly plot convenient ability. Considering how incompetent he is his crazy hypnosis ability is probably in the best possible hands.

 

Design

Artist Salvador Dali served as the design model. He’s trademark look felt like the right basis for a whimsical and slightly spooking looking circus performer design. You can probably tell from Lawrence that I like the character silhouettes you can get out of a blazer with a double tail. Curly Jr. was made scrawnier to separate him from Lawrence’s silhouette, and the exaggerated top hat helped.

 

Cole Curly

Model

Just like Ursula he was created to fit an action beat into the story. Originally he was going to have a creepy flamboyant and jovial personality, but I felt that was too much like Mr. Smilin and Grinny, so Cole became aggressive and quick to anger. That change helped to establish the plot point of Mammon feeding and tempting on the greed that already existed from the amusement park workers.

When deciding on what kind of Circus performers to pit Alicia against I liked the idea of drawing acrobatic skills, and the danger a fire spinner could present, so I combined the two. Other ideas that came to mind were strongmen, contortionist, and sword eaters. You can see them represented In the crowd that attacks Alicia. In fact there are so many fun ways I can use circus performers in action that I want to find an excuse to revisit Curly’s Carnival to draw others!

Unlike Ursula, Cole remained a bit of a throw away character specifically meant to serve a role to me, but I did have fun with his fight scene against Alicia.

Design

When I was designing Cole both musician Anthony Kiedis and a co-worker at the time were wearing hairstyles similar what Cole has, and I simply wanted to draw it. The rest of his design is just generic acrobat garb. Cole was going to be lankier in build, but when I saw how muscular and large the typical male acrobat was in my reference were I felt it made for a more imposing look, and buffed him up accordingly.