Daily Doodle #16: suit up

more daily doodles, just practicing making digital art and doodling whatever I want. Here we have the amazing Mistress Madeline: the hourglass girl, being laced in for her nights performance. She is one of the performers (or attractions perhaps) for the Violet Rose traveling circus, a small time circus group around the turn of the 19th century. They are not a very popular or well known circus group, but they make ends meet... most of the time. Madeline's skill, as obvious from the pic, is her incredibly small corseted waist size. She also does some minor performance acts such as low tight rope walking, sleight of hand, and being lifted by the strongman like a human barbell.

Her small waist size was not entirely intentional though, she was raised in an orphanage, and she had a degenerative spinal disorder that required her to wear a brace almost twenty four hours a day. However the orphanage could not afford to buy her a new brace when she outgrew the old one, so quite accidentally her waste was restricted like a tightlacer/waist-trainer as she grew up. One day when the circus was in town, she snuck into the tent to marvel at the bright colors and wonderful acts of the circus. One of the performers noticed her hiding near the edge of the tent, and was astonished to see the little orphan girl's incredibly small waist. She was brought to the ring master after the show and he too was impressed by her waistline, and offered to let her join the circus. Madeline readily accepted the offer, after all what kid didn't dream of joining the circus?

However life as a circus performer was not all it was cracked up to be. She enjoyed the bright lights, and all of pizzaz of the circus for a while, but she soon realized that it was a lot of traveling, tiring strings of performances, and barely making enough money to live. It was not a terrible life by any means most of her fellow performers were quite friendly, but the ring master is not especially kind to his crew, and due to the unguided nature of her waist restriction, she has chronic stomach and bowel pain, as well as shortness of breath. Her stomach/bowel irritation is also exacerbated by the low quality food they can afford, and the fact that the ring master makes her eat too much so she gains weight to increase the dramatic contrast between her waist and hips.

Madeline has been with the circus for many years now, she has become more than just a side show attraction. She has learned sleight of hand, animal handling, and some tumbling tricks,at least the ones she can perform with her limited flexibility.The woman helping her lace up is their harlequin/contortionist Tammy, she is not bad at heart, but she is very teasing and can be manipulative towards Madeline, using her emotions and anxiety to coerce her. Madeline's life isn't perfect but for the most part she's content, every time she thinks she might want to quit, she remember's the smiles on the children's faces, their eyes filled with wonder, and she remembers why she loves to be a circus performer.