Rainbow Blight's Great Circus Adventure!

What do you do when your dreams shatter and your life crashes down around you? Rebuild and find a new dream! This blog is dedicated to my quest to follow my lifelong desire to run away and join the circus! Can I do it this late in my life or will I crash and burn? Only one way to find out!

[kathmachine]

Heyyyy, anybody like backstage comix process gifs?

This is approximately how I build a page — pencils, then ink, then color, then lettering & bubbles. I like to keep the pencils loose enough so there’s room to play around and bring ideas in at the other stages (and some pages end up changing a lot more than this one did!) My general philosophy, at least for this style, is keep them lines clean, shapes bold, colors solid, and the flow between positive and negative space super punchy, and don’t overwork it.

[rainbowblight-blog]

Yeah! personally I totally dig stuff like this, always fun to see the process!

[alwayssenpaineverkouhai]

Home from the Vampire Academy premiere showing. Verdict: bad as expected. Irony: got asked if i was in the movie because of how i dress. #complimentinsult #yumeninja #dyeddollies #makeup #illamasqua

[rainbowblight-blog]

that's because your style is awesome!

[rainbowblight-blog]

How to be a showgirl stiltwalker: Step 1- Do your makeup in the car on the way to the gig, if you're feelin' baller! (Thanks to Irene for being my makeup advisor and all around awesome chick!)  Step 2 - get that headdress on, with the help of some awesomely talented friends like mine, these are  the modern-gypsies   Step 3- Add several pounds of feathers and glitter and WORK!!

Super frickin fabulous costumes and concepts by The Modern Gypsies! check em out!  www.modern-gypsies.com

[rainbowblight-blog]

cuz you know you need a MONTAGE!!!  my awesome friend Hazel made a montage of shots from one of our shows at the Bindlestiff Variety show   We had a great time and we got to perform with some great talented circus artists! I like how this montage gives you a glimpse of some of the highlights and transitions from our act! up close shots coming soon.  

[rainbowblight-blog]

You are only the best insane there is !! I love your circus skills !

Thank you! sorry it took a while to write back!  Been working hard and have some great new pics to post soon!

[rainbowblight-blog]

Ballerina on the wire!  Literally jumping, spinning and walking through hoops on a wire at my second home Circus Warehouse in NYC!

[rainbowblight-blog]

flipping out over seeing shirts I designed at Forbidden Planet!  so cool to see them up there! They're almost sold out! Pick em up here http://www.fpnyc.com/Gang-Of-One-Womens-T-Shirt/TS5112/Apparel/678/Diamond and here http://www.fpnyc.com/Gang-of-One-Man-Shirt/TS19104/Apparel/99054/J.J.-Connelly

[rainbowblight-blog]

Handstand on knees! In preparation for our show we drilled all the skills for our act in segments, then in halves, then the entire thing. One memorable (and painful!) day we ran our act 9 times in a row!  This is an early video of us working on handstand on knees.  We do it so much cleaner now, wait till you see it with the rest of the act!

[rainbowblight-blog]

Me and my beloved walking and kneeling on the new 7 foot wire!  5 feet makes such a difference. You look down and see space around you and all you can think is Don't FALL Don't FALL. HOLY CRAP THIS IS AWESOME. DON'T FALL.  Note the look of intense concentration on both our faces.  Finally we just jumped off for the hell of it and it turned out to be not that bad at all. Special note: the brackets holding up this wire are the ones that the Flying Wallenda's used while they were in town not too long ago.  It was Nik Wallenda that recently crossed the niagara falls on the wire, in case you saw that in the news recently! I love using the same equipment as legendary circus stars.  Also, the rope I jump on the wire is the one used by the original wire walkers (The Navas brothers) from Zarkana when it made it's first run in NY.  Hopefully all those mad wire skills rub off on me through osmosis ;)

[rainbowblight-blog]

An animated progression of the bruise from my epic fall on the wire a few months ago.  Watch it blossom until it covers most of my thigh!  How did this happen? We were playing TAG! on the wire and I was IT...for like a month.  The wire is a harsh mistress but I love it so!  Nothing to do but dust yourself off and get back up again! 

[rainbowblight-blog]

Thought you might want to see the fails and bloopers that lead up to me pulling off these crazy risley tricks!  It takes a lot of falling down and getting back up again to make it in the circus! Thanks very much to Gino Farfan for pulling the lines and keeping me from breaking anything while I attempt to flip through the air and land on people! And to those of you had asked, YES, I did have a bruised bottom, but it does hurt less after a while. Buns of steel baby!  Circus girl for life!

[rainbowblight-blog]

Partner to partner Risley Action!  this is actually in reverse order because we did this over and over that day.  It's supposed to go, partner throws me to second partner, then that guy flips me backward back to the feet of the first partner. This took SO many tries. I'm going to use my  nonexistent editting skills to show you all a video of my fails, pretty hilarious.

[rainbowblight-blog]

Atlantic City Adventure!!!

Took a wee break from Circus madness for a fun and dare I say it? Romantic! trip to Atlantic City with my partner in circus and life Brian! Had fun cavorting with roman gods, eating yummy desserts, learning that I really don't like gambling under the watchful eyes of creepy automaton statues, generally causing a ruckus and picking up some hot new sunglasses on the boardwalk!  

[rainbowblight-blog]

More Risley action! My early and shaky attempt to go from sit to stand and back. SO HARD WHY? After this is a backflip from standing to sitting *sweatdrop* When did my life go from attempting one impossible thing to attempting something even more impossible? Guess that's #circuslife

[rainbowblight-blog]

Me practicing Risley (or Icarian Foot Juggling as they also call it)  It's almost a lost art, there are only a few circuses in the world still practice Risley, so I'm honored that my teacher Gino Farfan is passing down his family tradition to me! It involves all kinds of somersaults, twists and flips while you're balanced on someone's feet O_O  I'm still early in my training in this, super excited!  This is called a seat to seat! 

[rainbowblight-blog]

My first unassisted steps... on STILTS!  What's that lumbering on the horizon? Is it a bird?  Is it a plane?  Is it... GOJIRA?  No it's MECHA BLIGHT ON ROBO STILTS! You should have seen how many little kids surrounded us at the park with me on stilts and my friend Michael on a Cyre wheel.  Just another perk of #circuslife 

[rainbowblight-blog]

New Video!  Still not 100% but back in training and super happy that I can do this again!  This is a croc!  I can usually do one handed but still healing from back injury.  I'll post a new vid when I have it one handed.  Thanks Rich for letting me use your handbalancing canes!