#vampire count

Been on a painting binge this week, so I painted another skele-bro.

And then I was like "eh I got time" and painted a second one

Just finish this little guy, really proud about! 

Greetings, all! It’s another October Mythological TBT, and this week we’re continuing our spooky trend with another classic monster, the vampire.

The vampire has existed in European folklore for hundreds of years, with many variations. Initially vampires were considered to be wicked spirits that came back to life, crawling out of graves and ravenously seeking blood. Far from the suave, beautiful figures of today, early vampires were described as bloated and ruddy from drinking blood. Sounds more like a mosquito! 

Vampires were frightening but had their weaknesses. They were unable to stand daylight or cross running water, and they could be warded with garlic or Christian symbols. One theory in particular had it that they were incredibly indecisive, and so burying a corpse you suspected of vampirism at a crossroads would baffle one long enough for day to come and the vampire to be destroyed. And of course, driving a wooden stake through one's heart would kill it, though the type of wood varied from place to place. In Russia and the Baltic states, ash was favoured, while in Serbia they used hawthorn. 

Vampires were regarded as mindless irredeemable monsters until the eighteenth century, when literature began to reform their image. In particular, a horror story contest between the Romantic poets and their friend John Polidori spawned the novel The Vampire and the notion of the Byronic vampire: a sophisticated lord cursed with an inescapable thirst for blood. This archetype may have been influenced by figures such as Countess Elizabeth Bathory, a Hungarian noblewoman whose family ruled Transylvania. She was also a torturer and serial killer, reputed to bathe in (and drink) the blood of virgins and tear off their faces with her teeth in order to preserve her beauty. While the more gruesome elements of the story are considered to be inventions, the truth of her peasant-murdering ways likely informed many tales, not least Bram Stoker's.

Vampire lore is not just common to Europe, though. Folk stories of creatures that feast on blood or other bodily fluids abound throughout Asia. In Malaysia there is the tale of the penanggalan, a demon woman who poses as a midwife in order to find pregnant women to feed upon during labour. She detaches her head and organs from the rest of her body and floats around, extending a long invisible tongue to feed upon birthing mothers' blood, transmitting a fatal wasting disease as she does. There is also the story of the Chinese jiangshi, a ghost stiff with rigor mortis that hops around to kill its prey and feed on their life energy. Grisly... 

Gideon Montesquieu (???). The vampire seeks true love, but will he ever find it? A mysterious figure, shrouded in shadow, his intentions as enigmatic as the darkness he calls home. Yet, which lady or gentleman might possess the rare magic to melt his cold, immortal heart? Will it be a daring soul unafraid of his secrets, or a kindred spirit who understands the depths of his solitude? Only time will reveal the answer to this haunting question.

A Game of (Vampiric) Love

#Cosplayer BloodandCosplay as Vampire Count from Warhammer. #cosplay #submission

https://www.facebook.com/Bloodandcosplay Photographer - http://cosplaypnw.tumblr.com/