Kaa Bakensobek

Kaa Bakensobek (often just Kaa) is the fandom name of a scalie artist and writer living in Colorado. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, he has been drawing anthropomorphic characters from a very young age, and continuing almost non-stop since then. Like many in the fandom, his favorite art subjects were canids and the occasional feline popping up. As time progressed, he came to prefer reptiles, dinosaurs in particular, which currently make up the vast majority of his work.

He later discovered the furry fandom, which led him to attend his first convention, Confurence 8. Certain events during and after the con prompted him to move into Colorado in 1997. He settled in the Denver metropolitan area two years later, and lives there to this day.

He is mostly known for his drawings featuring reptilian creatures, mostly dinosaurs, and often adult in nature. He considers himself a "storyteller", infusing many of his drawings with descriptions that often detail how the characters in his drawings arrived at the situation depicted in the images. Among his characters, the most notable are "Grell and Darkthunder", an ankylosaur and a Deinonychus living together as a gay couple in a science-fiction universe. They are the most prominent characters in his Fur Affinity gallery.

Kaa has written several short stories, and has plans for a trilogy of fantasy novels featuring humanoid, dragon-like characters of his own creation, introduced in earlier stories he has posted to his online galleries.

He is also a fan of Bowser, the arch enemy of Nintendo's mascot Mario , and is fond of The Inside Story, a game for the DS featuring Bowser.

The "raptor"
Kaa has held several avatars through the years, starting with a rather short-lived dragon in the Alt.Fan.Dragons Usenet group and channel on Dalnet IRC. Perhaps due to its short existence, no drawing was ever rendered of this avatar.

One of his best known incarnations was that of Kaa Starhunter, an anthropomorphic Deinonychus (known by some as Velociraptor) with a feathered crest. The first name, Kaa, was adopted from the snake of the same name from the "Jungle Book" stories by Rudyard Kipling.

This "raptor" avatar lived in a contemporary world, unlike most of the characters he likes to write and draw about.

With time came the realization that, while he still liked dinosaurs, another animal was perhaps more fitting to his nature. In late 2003, the raptor was bid a fond farewell. While still living in a planned series of comic strips called "Predator and Prey", the author admits he hasn't made the time to chronicle the escapades of his former alter-ego.

The crocodile
In his current character's mythology, he is a long-living, half-human/half-crocodile servant of Sobek. This one is known only as the "Bakensobek", without the Kaa praenomen, and translates as "servant of Sobek" in the ancient Egyptian language.

Another incarnation is that of an anthropomorphic crocodile living in a contemporary setting, and goes with the full Kaa Bakensobek name.

Kaa is currently working to bring both crocodile incarnations as a fursuit. This would be his second appearance in a crocodile costume; the previous one being that of a not-so-bright thief named Sivak, a character from a medieval or Dungeons & Dragons-type setting. Other than this, Sivak does not represent any kind of alter-ego of its creator, nor is in any way related to his "bakensobek" self.

Online and real life encounters
The man behind the crocodile is often somewhat reclusive and silent. However, he can be found online sometimes roaming several sims of Second Life, more often than not as something other than a crocodile, but always a reptilian character.

Kaa is currently waiting for a fursuit of his latest dinosaur character to be built in order to resume appearing at furry conventions.