A couple of years ago, I had to do a study on an American Subculture for an Anthro assignment. Through some research, I became interested in the Vampiric subculture of America. It is actually what lead me into my artistic studies of the Steampunk subculture.
The Vampiric subculture is pretty obvious, so I won't explain it with entirely too much detail.
Here's me covering my ass:
During this study, I interviewed about 50 Vampires. Wether you believe them or not, they do, so for the purpose of cultural relativity, please don't even bother getting into discussions on wether or not they are real. Wether you believe that a man over 2000 years ago was half human and half god, or wether you believe that there are people that drink blood to survive, it's the same argument on faith and belief. I won't state my views purely for the fact that an Anthropologist merely observes and reports according to the standard scientific methods. My opinions, as a result, are absolutely beside the point.
Anyway, through my interviews, I drew many sketches to try and understand the views and spirituality of the two categories of vampires (sanguine, psivamp).
Well, I was approached by a leader of the Vampiric community, as well as a well-known author, to use my sketches from the study (as well as a tattoo design that I did for a friend) in a book that they are publishing. I was very happy to have the opportunity to do this, and recived royalty rights as well (after a nice 6 page contract).
So I will be published in a book called Dark Chrysalis. The book is a collection of vampire art, lyrics, poetry, and stories.
Hey, published is published!
It also gives me some street cred in this VERY SECRETIVE culture. According to one of my professors, I may be the first scientist to even remotely have the opportunity to infiltrate this culture in its over 50 year history.
I'll have an ISBN within a couple of days, and will be recieving a few copies of the book once it's off the production line. But I'll post these pictures here for everyone to see. Keep in mind, they were sketches done based on spiritual and theoretical conctepts held dear to the two seperate vampire communities.
This is the concept of Psivampirism. The collecting of life energy (much like that of Chi or Ki)
The hungering of a vampire is often compared to a strangling serpent.
Just a little tattoo design that I did for a friend a few years ago. She got it done, and also signed a release form for the use for this book.
So there you go.
See you space cowboy......
Love your strangling serpent illustration, well done.
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