A drag queen from Bulwell has described how getting involved with the scene helped him come "out of his shell" and be more confident in himself.
Carl Newson, 34, is a BA Fine Art and Fashion student at Nottingham College, who formerly worked in childcare for 14 years.
Soon after coming out, Carl saw two drag queens while in the New Foresters pub on Huntington Street and was struck by their 'glitz and glamour'.
He has now been performing as a drag queen for around six years in Nottingham and Carl - who appears in drag under the double entendre name of Claire-Leigh Knott - makes a new costume for each of the six or seven shows he takes part in annually.
Carl - who is also is a make-up artist - said: "I worked in childcare for 14 years and then I thought I wanted to do something else and started to try drag. I decided to restudy and picked a subject that would also help my drag.
"My first experience of it was going to the New Foresters in Nottingham and seeing two drag queens there. I used to go there a lot when I first came out and that must have been about 10 or 11 years ago. It's stuck with me since though.
"Seeing the glamour and glitz of how they were dressed really brought me out of my shell.
"I'm not a very confident person and as a drag queen, it helps me put myself out there. As soon as you wear the make-up and fake boobs, you just feel so out there."
Carl - who performs in Nottingham with a group called 'Scream Queenz - Comedy Chaos' - has said the drag scene in Nottingham is 'not huge' but quite diverse.
He added: "There is a massive positivity to it all. No one wants to see someone acting moody or upset on stage and my character is a 6ft 5" woman, so it's always bigger, better and beautiful.
"I gave my mum a selection of names and let her choose one and she's always supported me. Claire-Leigh Knott is a play on how I'm clearly not an actual woman, and also as a nod to 'Notts' because I'm so proud of where I'm from.
"I never would have said it when I started, but my favourite thing about it all now, is the interaction with people."
Carl's work as an artist within the LGBT community has also recently been recognised in the DAA (Designers against AIDS) X ARTS Threads Young Creatives Against AIDS Contest.
Here, designers in college or university from across the UK were asked to to develop designs for a safe sex campaign for HIV.
Carl won the competition and will now have his designs displayed in a worldwide social media campaign and on t-shirts to raise awareness.
The designs - which feature fruit and are collectively called 'one of your five a day' - featured slogans including 'if in doubt, check it out' and 'respect yourself, protect yourself.'
Carl said: "As part of my BA course we had to choose some national competitions to be part of our module and I did not know that much about AIDS. People don't really talk about it that much in the gay scene either.
"My campaign was to take some slogans and carry a serious message. I aimed to ease worries people may have about AIDS by starting that conversation.
“I was so excited when I received the news that I had been chosen as the winner and I’m really proud that my designs are being used to help such an important campaign.
"I would like to thank my lecturers for encouraging me to enter the competition and for being so supportive throughout my time at college.”
Nottingham College Fine Art and Fashion course leader, Elizabeth Libor, said: “Carl's designs answered the brief perfectly. He combined his own artwork with a playful approach in terms of the humour of both the visuals and the tag lines, which he then printed into five individual t-shirts which worked brilliantly.”
