Throughout Howling Hollow are a variety of colorful and very specific characters that the tourists may meet during their stay. Some of them figure into the attractions, while others are found wandering around town.
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Torgo Character Sketch. In the past, Torgo has always been depicted with his satyr traits concealed (mainly due to budget reasons), but here, I wanted to accentuate these traits, while also exemplifying that he's a businessman now. His signature cane and hat remain, though.
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Torgo: The CEO and president of Torgo’s Atlantic Excursions, Torgo is a satyr with an entrepreneurism streak that stretches as far as his next cruise will go. He’s mostly in the business for the money, but does see the weighted benefit of offering courtesy tours, mainly for promotional purposes. He’s not one to let a good opportunity slip by and has discovered that working for himself is a lot more enjoyable than it sounds. He’s a fair employer, but is not above making hard business decisions in the best interest of his company. Torgo is far too busy to ever come to his company’s Howling Hollow office, so he’s never seen wandering the town itself.
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| Arthur Van Helbrick Character Sketch. Since this character wears two different costumes in Forest of Fear and Van Helbrick and the Monster Fighters, he also now dons an all-new costume just for the land. It pulls some inspiration from his previous appearances, but now also incorporates some traditional Transylvanian garb. This is most noticeable in his boots, which are heavily inspired by the Romanian working class of the 18th and 19 centuries. |
Arthur Van Helbrick: While unknown to anyone visiting Howling Hollow (and even to most living here), Arthur Van Helbrick is a Dhampyr who nonetheless makes a living out of hunting any malignant monsters in the forest, even killing vampires from time to time, ironically enough. He’s reclusive, somewhat cynical, and avoids attention, but nonetheless is dedicated to his craft, even deciding that maybe amongst the throngs of tourists is the one that could serve as his protégé.
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Prof. Billy Lugosi Character Sketch. How do you take a character from Forest of Fear that, until now, was just depicted as a LEGO Minifigure and translate that into a human character? I retained his established character traits, like his goggles, lab coat, and flat top, then thought about what kind of body type his personality would dictate. I made his body extra tall and lanky to emphasize his superiority over Igor (more on him in a moment) and his oversized ego.
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Prof. Billy Lugosi: A former scientist from the Bradford Rant Institute of Cosmic Kinesis, Billy Lugosi is the resident mad scientist who works out of his laboratory just outside of town. He’s vain, egotistical, and self-righteous, but won’t put up with anyone else who won’t give him the respect that he thinks he deserves. Ego aside, he is also a brilliant scientist that has accomplished feats that most would have deemed impossible, such as reanimating a dead corpse and genetically altering kudzu to absorb meat protein. It’s just that those experiments usually get out of hand and wreak havoc.
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Igor Character Sketch. Like Billy Lugosi, Igor was also translated from a LEGO minifigure from Forest of Fear. Unlike Billy Lugosi, this character needed to communicate that he's smarter than his master, playing into the land's idea that appearances can be deceiving. He's a hunchback, but I decided to play with his facial expression, mainly to show an Igor whose brain is constantly active. I depicted him here in a state of frustration, mainly to showcase his relationship with his master.
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Igor: While much smarter than Billy Lugosi, Igor serves as his assistant while he dreams of one day winning the Nobel Prize in science. He’s been hunch-backed his entire life, but his deformed exterior masks a wit, cunning, and intelligence that few have matched in town (though that’s not saying much). He feels pressured and weighed down by Billy’s ego and experienced what almost felt like solitude for a few months in 2021 when his master was briefly kidnapped by infamous hired gun Silencia Venomosa.
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Sheriff Bubba Barley Character Sketch. For such a small character role from the original Forest of Fear, this was a fun character to design. Not jumping into any controversy, I had a lot of reference to work with when it came time to take this one-off character and turn him into a fully-fleshed Southern sheriff. In the end, I gave him a cowboy hat, a beer belly, and a no-nonsense stature, while retaining many of the design features of the original character from Forest of Fear.
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Sheriff Bubba Barley: Dedicated to the law over the death of his adorable prize-winning sheep, Sheriff Bubba Barley is the head of all law enforcement in Howling Hollow. He’s usually not too busy, since most crimes in sleepy Howling Hollow amount to tractor speeding and spitting without a permit. He’s level-headed and keeps his cool because of this, but will break formation when an angry mob forms, mainly because he is leading said angry mob. On most days, however, he’s usually chatting over by his police car, which is almost always parked out in front of the police station.
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Chef Draco "Dracula" Yula Character Sketch. Of all of the characters in this land, this one was the easiest to design, since the character design has existed since 2013's A Bite of MyJobs. For the land, it was just a matter of putting him into a set of chef's whites and altering his expression to match his change in demeanor over the past decade. I especially love the way that the folds of fabric in the chef's hat turned out.
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Chef Draco “Dracula” Yula: The head chef for Bubba’s Garden Restaurant, Draco Yula, or rather the infamous Dracula, is a disagreeable vampire who used to loathe humans. But after completing a culinary arts internship from Valencia, California’s College of the Canyons, he has since come to tolerate them, especially since he delights in seeing them enjoy his culinary creations. One thing that he does not like, though, is the off-limits second floor of his restaurant, since that area is haunted by a very restless and very angry ghost. Since he no longer feeds on human blood, one raw steak is held in the refrigerator each week that he drains of its blood for nourishment.
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Edmund Eclair the Eighth, Esquire Character Sketch. Now we're moving on to the characters created just for the land. While a medicine show wasn't one of the first ideas that I had in mind for expanding the lore of Howling Hollow, I realized that this was a great way to elevate what was otherwise going to be a simple soft drink stand. This also meant that I had to justify the existence of a medicine show in 2023, so I intentionally played up the anachronisms by making this a throwback show that's not fooling anybody. On top of this, Edmund's design blends the look of a classic snake oil salesman with that of a used car salesman.
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Edmund Éclair the Eighth, Esquire: A man formerly named Edward Elbow, this eccentric character decided that he needed to make a quick buck over the tourists that have started pouring into town. Therefore, he legally changed his named to Edmund Éclair the Eighth, Esquire and took up the persona of a medicine man that would hawk his rebottled sodas as miracle cures. His business boomed quickly, not because anyone fell for his trickery, but because they wanted some cold soda on a hot and humid day. Regardless, he expanded his persona, turning himself into more of a street performer than a businessman.
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Baa Lak Creame Character Sketch. Generally speaking, bringing obscure cryptids like Fotsianondres into Howling Hollow was a big task, but a challenge that I was willing to take to create an inclusive story. For Baa Lak Creame, I also had the added challenge of communicating that the character is female without throwing long eyelashes onto the character. Since the character is also from Madagascar (where the tale of the Fotsianondre originated), I researched traditional Madagascar culture and clothing, then gave the character a thin head wrap, adjusted so that it fits around her large ears.
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Baa Lak Creame: Unlike Draco Yula’s general apathy towards humans, Baa Lak Creame is a Fotsianondre from Madagascar who absolutely loves children (and not for the wrong reasons – her body is covered in fluffy sheep wool, after all). She runs the Ghoul Eats Sweet Treats candy store in the heart of Howling Hollow, where she sometimes emerges to either greet guests and show them some of the shop’s influences from her home country or to engage in a banjo duel with another banjo player. While she’s entirely good-natured, she can sometimes snap at her employees on a bad day.
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Zella Wundre Character Sketch. In designing this character, I went in making sure that the design is as accurate to actual Romani clothing as possible, while also staying in the look of Howling Hollow. To differentiate her from the employees, I gave her long hair braids and a head wrap, two traditional Romani clothing pieces. I then posed her to showcase her stubborn side.
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Zella Wundre: A Romani fortune teller who also happens to play the banjo, Zella Wundre decided that her fortune-telling business needed an infusion of something new. When her own fortune told her to establish an ice cream parlor, she was surprised but figured that it was going to happen, anyway, so she went about converting her storefront for its new purpose. She speaks in very mysterious phrases, sometimes saying things that are too cryptic for her own employees. However, she absolutely refuses to scam her customers, insisting that would further harm the reputation of Romani people around the world. For that same reason, she refuses to allow the word Gypsy to be uttered in her store, for that will surely land you a fortune of doom.
Hughwellen Thistle-More XVII: Recently moving into town as the Howling Hollow Repertory House’s star actor, Hughwellen Thistle-More XVII is an Algerian actor who has trained for years in classical theater and opera, only to end up in Howling Hollow. He is an amazing actor who treats what he does as an art form that is to be taken very seriously. While he doesn’t look down on his fellow performers, he does have extremely high standards for his close friends and coworkers, sometimes making his stage presence very intimidating.
Matthew Ravencraft: A former actor at the Howling Hollow Repertory House, Matthew Ravencraft studied classical theater for decades, becoming a highly recognized and celebrated actor on the stage and bloating his own ego. However, tragedy struck in 2006 when, during a performance of Romeo and Juliet, Matthew ingested real poison accidentally during the play’s climax and died onstage. Now haunting the theater, Matthew is a restless spirit that feels robbed of his final curtain call, hoping to one day come back from beyond the grave for an encore.
Jacob “BBQ” Biggs: The proprietor of the Hunter Society’s Barbecue, Jacob “BBQ” Biggs is best known for turning rabbits, chickens, pigs, and more into delicious stew, ribs, and more, all thanks to his famous secret BBQ sauce. He’s highly proud of his culinary skills, so much so that he’s had to take up banjo playing in order to resolve any arguments over whether his BBQ is the best food in town. Not one to let failure get to him (he doesn’t take it well), he’s the town’s most intense banjo player by virtue of trying to win at whatever cost, with one duel ending when his fingers began to bleed.
Mayor Sharon Tumblewolf: Howling Hollow’s newest mayor and the town’s first woman to hold the title, Mayor Sharon Tumblewolf spent her entire life growing up in Howling Hollow. While she is not a monster herself, she understands that not all of her constituents are human. While she is always ready to greet the tourists coming into town, she also feels a lot of pressure from her role, not only from a locally-historic moment, but also from a bureaucratic stand-point. She will frequently take breaks from the crowd to tend to civic duties, as well as engage in some alone time, until she is ready to resume her symbolic duties.
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Whiskey Joe Character Sketch. Whiskey Joe is supposed to be a more comedic character, as well as a passionate one, so I wanted to showcase him with his beloved banjo. He is, in a lot of ways, a stereotypical Southern hillbilly, but since I wanted a character and not a stereotype, I gave him a passion for playing the banjo, as well as the occupation of being the town's only barber (suggested by his clean-cut hair and moustache).
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Whiskey Joe: Considered the town’s greatest banjo player (besides Banjo Buffalo), Whiskey Joe is the owner of the barbershop and an obsessive banjo player. He’s been crowned champion more times than there are houses in the town (though that’s not saying a lot, judging by the map), but takes his winnings in stride. He’s more of a fan than a competitor and decorates his barbershop with memorabilia commemorating the past legends of banjo playing. The reason for his nickname is that he’s a member of the Quick Animal Hunter’s Society, but usually spends his days off on his front porch, sipping whiskey and pointing out the heads of his kills to curious eyes.
Jamal Whittler: A newcomer to town who moved in with Torgo’s Atlantic Excursions and took up banjo playing as well as modeling, Jamal Whittler is considered “Torgo’s Token Minority,” but doesn’t let this label bother him. In spite of the community’s history, he’s integrated quite well, taking residence in a house just outside of town and becoming part of the town’s banjo dueling community. He’s more of a casual player, however, and usually engages in his own creative photography projects.
Connie Craft: The owner of Weird Wares Pawn Shop with a strange fascination with Dr. Bradford Rant’s Theory of Cosmic Kinesis, Connie Craft dresses in a fashion as modern and dark as her store, with a mixture of trendy and punk. She’s off-put by the tourists and would much rather focus on stacking her store full of hand-crafted oddities, but since everyone is being lifted by this rising tide, she has reluctantly let some trendy items make their way into her store. Still, her specialty is creating or just selling weird items that people have brought in over the years, including the taxidermy remains of unearthly monsters. She’s also taken up banjo playing in the event that she needs to settle an argument, though she does think that it is a silly way to end an argument.
Wrastlin’ Samson: The town braggart and the manager of the town’s bank, Wrastlin’ Samson is a boastful folk who likes to show off to the tourists. The only problem is that almost all of the stories that he has told are completely false, such as his claim that he once made a werewolf that was biting him turn into a were-Samson. Because of his boastful nature, he’s usually wandering the streets of Howling Hollow whenever tourists are present.
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| Timmy "Howling" Phil Character Sketch. Part of the humor of this character is the fact that he's not only hard-working with manual labor, but also that he's as thin as a rail. I wanted to communicate that in an exaggerated manner without breaking the style of the land by giving him thin clothes that cover his whole body, as well as a skinny frame. This is juxtaposed with his no-nonsense posture. |
Timmy “Howling” Phil: In spite of his extremely thin frame, Timmy “Howling” Phil is a loud, brash, and courageous teenager working for Lycan Works. Why does everyone view him with apprehension? Because he’s actually a werewolf, making him much stronger than he appears. He doesn’t take kindly to either braggarts like Wrastlin’ Samson or lazy bodies like Dirk Crumple, and will use the full moon to make his point. He’s never actually harmed or killed anyone, but holding onto his consciousness with each transformation is a bit of a struggle for him, even if it has gotten easier for him each month.
Katley Swamp: Caring more about shopping for trinkets at Weird Wares and Travel Supplies than actually getting a job, Katley Swamp is a young adult who wanders the streets of Howling Hollow with her boyfriend, Dirk Crumple. She’s fairly chatty with the tourists and usually ends up grabbing some ribs from the Hunter Society’s Barbecue.
Dirk Crumple: A local kid who has dared some of his friends to use the Haunted Outhouse, Dirk Crumple is an easygoing young adult who likes fast cars, hot women, and good looks. He’s extremely shallow and isn’t willing to take on a job, even if his life depended on it. He spends most of his time with his girlfriend Katley Swamp.
Russel Spectre: An executive producer on and co-host for the TV show Ghost Files, U.S.A., Russel Spectre is a huge fan of the paranormal, who became fascinated at a young age when he heard stories about how his hometown’s post office was allegedly haunted. Planting his show in the United States of America (partially due to his phobia of flying), he and his team have explored stories of the paranormal from sea to shining sea. However, he is also not the greatest at negotiating his contracts, so when his show’s budget was slashed when the host studio hit some rocky, COVID-induced, financial times, Russel was left with few options for searching for new topics to cover. Thankfully, he’s discovered Howling Hollow through Mary Rawlins’ book, and a social media app named HowlSpace. And, as he’s discovered, finding new friends and followers this way is much easier than he thought, giving him the perfect opportunity to find out more about this town’s rumors of a “Slenderman.”
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Daybreak Werewolf Character Sketch. For this land's main werewolf, I wanted something more bestial, so I made the pose more in line with a gorilla than either a human or wolf, but also so that this is clearly a werewolf and not just a regular wolf that is running around. When writing this character's story, I decided to make the werewolf permanently transformed, mainly for utilitarian reasons. After all, the LycanCoaster is going to be running all day, so I needed a reason why the guests are being chased by a werewolf if they go on the ride in the middle of the day.
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Daybreak Werewolf: For unknown reasons, this werewolf is unique in that it will not turn human in the sun but is rather a permanent werewolf. No one knows who this was before their transformation, but if it had any humanity in the past, that is long gone. Recently seen as a source of terror for the town’s residents, this monster is agile enough to evade all of Arthur Van Helbrick’s attempts to capture or kill it, forcing him to bring in back-up.
Sam Blade: A construction worker under the employ of Torgo’s Atlantic Excursions who has been turned into a vampire, Sam Blade’s most distinguishing feature is his unbelievably good looks, which were somehow accentuated when he was turned into a vampire. He’s a handsome, if scared, kid who dropped out of college in order to pay his bills with a construction job, but he tries to muster up his courage in confronting Count Elyk. Not even his transformation and monstrous new abilities changed his timid nature.
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| Count Elyk Character Sketch. In a land that already has multiple vampires, how do you make the land's only antagonistic vampire stand out from the crowd? Count Elyk (which is my middle name spelled backwards) was inspired by the rat-like Count Orlok from Nosferatu, in order to make him a bit of a vermin that has infected the halls of the abandoned funeral home. He's dressed in an older fashion but walks barefoot and has enormous teeth and fingernails to communicate his parasitic and feral nature. Only his cape makes him larger than life and imposing to the guests. He's not by any means a stupid character, but he is one that is willing to get dirty to get what he wants. In this way, the land also contains the trifecta of how vampires have commonly been depicted in the past. Chef Dracula is the classical vampire with a misunderstood twist, Sam Blade is the Twilight-esque heartthrob who is sentimental, and now Count Elyk is the rat-like vampire that is a cunning and unrepentant villain. |
Count Elyk: A former assistant to the long-gone Count Werdna, the rat-like Count Elyk is one of the monsters that has been hired by Torgo’s Atlantic Excursions as a presentation host. However, when he was inevitably assigned to host tours of the restored Funeral Home, he soon used this opportunity to exact his plan: he’s actually a long-lost relative of Count Werdna, and he joined the travel company not to sell timeshares, but to trap and kill every living soul that sets foot into his adopted home. Then, using their souls, he plans on harnessing the energy of a pocket underworld for his own end. He’s already killed several construction workers who have worked on the restoration process, and he's not ready to stop with the tourists.
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Slenderman Character Sketch. The land's entire plot hinges around this character, so I had to get it right. First, this meant knowing the character's entire backstory before putting pencil to paper, then it came time to take the internet mythos and translate that into Howling Hollow's style, including ways to incorporate hints to this character's true identity. In a lot of ways, this is one of the few truly "scary" monsters in the land, and I'm quite happy with the way this one turned out.
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Slenderman: No one has seen Slenderman and lived unscarred, but reports suggest that this faceless fiend haunts the namesake Forest of Fear itself, luring in unsuspecting victims for its unknown ends. Considered a legend in pop culture, this monster always seems to know where its victims are going, always being one step ahead of its prey.
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Kappa Krane Character Sketch. For this character, I wanted to give the sense of someone who is always tired while leaning into visual indicators that he is a mechanic. Balancing this with the fact that he's also a Kappa wasn't easy, so I decided to balance this out by excluding certain articles of clothing to show off certain body traits while also giving him the appropriate posture.
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Kappa Krane: A Kappa Yokai who has more experience fixing motors than attacking swimmers, Kappa Krane is the head technician of Torgo’s Terror Tours, hosted by Torgo’s Atlantic Excursions. He’s constantly drained of any energy that he might have had, working mainly to make ends meet and to keep the bowl of water in his head from spilling. Due to his slow and somber demeanor, he shambles along with a slouched gait, accentuated by his pot belly.
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Clara Dunkinkle Character Sketch. Does this one really count as a character? The book Cities That You MUST Absolutely, Positively, Stay Out of to Avoid Being Eaten Alive!!! already established that this character exists in the land as a will of the wisp, so designing this character was really straight forward. In fact, this sketch is the only one in this post that has no construction lines. It's literally just shading. With that said, because of who this character is, it does capture the glowing aura really well.
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Clara Dunkinkle: A former employee of Lycan Works Lumber and Supply Co., Clara Dunkinkle was killed in an infamous workplace accident involving a malfunctioning forklift. While now dead, her ghostly presence can still be felt by tourists visiting the lumber yard.
Banjo Buffalo: So legendary that some sources question who he actually was, Banjo Buffalo was a mountain man and the town’s alleged yet official founder (Count Werdna arrived in 1819, whereas Banjo Buffalo arrived in 1820) and the first banjo dueler in the town’s history. He placed his roots in a cabin right on the edge of the Lake of Despair, where it is said that he cleared trees with his mighty fists, built his home with his bare hands, and used his musical abilities to defeat a black bear in what is now known as the town’s first official banjo duel. Whether or not any of this is true is up for debate, but he is unquestioningly dead, with his ghost said to haunt his former home.
Monster Octopus: Escaped from the Georgia Aquarium decades ago, this octopus wasn’t an actual monster…until it ate a plant drenched in an unknown substance concocted by Billy Lugosi. Growing to a massive size, it now lives in the Lake of Despair, rarely emerging from the water. It eats mostly fish and livestock that wander too close to the lake’s edge, but incidents of it eating wandering tourists have been reported, and not even other monsters are outside of its diet.
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