A Christmas Gift :)
Hello, there!
We posted 6 brand new promotional wallpapers in many different sizes for you to decorate your desktop. Feel free to download them all and share them with your friends!
Bloodysugar Ch #2 in-depth - the Dragon Emblem
Hello everybody! Here is another in-depth about BloodySugar comics background and side details.
Our readers saw BloodySugar steal something in the Národní Muzeum in Prague: a scroll showing a dragon.
Well, that scroll actually exists, just as the dragon symbol: that is infact, the symbol of the Order of the Dragon; it shows a dragon with its tail coiled around the neck and a cross on his back, the Scarlet Beast of the Book of Revelations, also known as the Apocalypse of John, the last of the books of the Bible (New Testament).
The red cross of St. George represents the victory over the forces of evil, and it it also used as the national flag of England and Georgia as well as the municipal flag for numerous cities, including Montreal, Barcelona, Almería, Milan, Genoa, and Freiburg im Breisgau. Anyway the Symbol has not to be read as “God wins against the evil beast” since it was a pagan order, and the Dragon in Eurasia was a positive symbol representing the ‘Opposer’ or ‘Other God’.
The original badge is missing but few reconstructions of the emblem remain, and a sketch is custodied in a Museum in Austria.
The order of the Dragon (Societatis Draconistrarum) was a chivalric institution created by the King of Hungary, Emperor Sigismund, in 1408; their duty was to protect the cross from the Ottoman and Hussite enemies. in 1418 the Order vas publicly announced with its twenty-four founding members and in 1432 the Emperor decided to expand it, including more influential vassals such as Vlad II, Voivod of Wallachia, who guarded the passes from Transylvania to Wallachia. This membership resulted in Vlad being called Dracul (”The Dragon”) and his son being called Draculea (”Son of the Dragon”) or Dracula, as I wrote on the blog about Vlad III of Wallachia.
BloodySugar MSN & AIM Avatars (part 1)
Hi guys!
I wanted to share with you as a free download, some AIM and MSN Live Messenger avatars… hoping you like them! This is to annouce we’ll open a Download section soon on the site… members will get all the avatars in zipped files 
Also, some nice Winamp Skins.
I’ll post 5 Avatars for AIM and 5 for MSN now… stay tuned for more Avatars to come!
AIM Small (48×48):
AIM Medium (64×64):
MSN- AIM large (96×96):
Bloodysugar Ch #3 locations - Olomuc’s belltower
A very short blog this time, about the locations we take inspiration from: a dear friend of mine was this summer in the Czech Republic and took some wonderful photographs…
He gave us a full cd-rom of them to study the architecture, colors and give Bloodysugar some Bohemian taste!
Here is the photograph Federico took inspiration for the #2 cover!
It is the belltower of the Town Hall in Olomuc, a town in Moravia, a region of the Czech Republic.
then, you can see the black and white art:
..and finally, here’s the result!
Stay tuned for my next blog.
Love,
Serena
Burlesque Halloween Greetings!
We must admit it: Burlesque’s in vogue! We choose to dedicate our BloodySugar Halloween celebration to it…
But what is it, exactly?
Burlesque is a theatrical variety and entertainment show, mixing satire and mockery gags with dance and striptease shows, born on the second half of 1800.
Beautiful girls dancing alternating any kind of spectacular exhibitions like fire eating, contorsionism, and shiny and colorful costumes with feathers and pailletes, colorful lights and sexy music. In time the satiric part of the shows disappeared, leaving all the scene to dance and striptease.
Since women couldn’t show complete nudity, they used to wear “pasties”, small discs pasted with cosmetic glue on the nipples, and the c-string, a kind of very minimal thong.
Burlesque is linving now a new golden age, thanks to many Burlesque theatrical companies and worldwide famous pinups like the wonderful Dita Von Teese.
Here are some videos for you:
Dita bathing into the Martini Cup!
Sally Rand’s bubble dance (1937)
A Bettie Page show, 1950:
Bloodysugar Ch #2 locations - Národní Muzeum
There are many beautiful and interesting museums in Prague but the Národní Muzeum is maybe the most famous.
It’s also known as the National Museum and its large halls host a lot of breathtaking founds from prehistory, and more: Prehistory, Protohistory, Archeology, Ethonography are the most valued departments. You could get lost between dinosaur skeletons there! I did some research to find such museum since I needed such a location where our nasty purple-haired villain could act. Here you can see the preliminary sketch Federico did of the Museum, and the final result after coloured!
Also, the seal you can see on Chapter #2 page 5 (below) is the seal of the Charles University in Prague. BloodySugar enters an off limits area of the Museum, where relics and founds to catalogue are kept for study and research. Honestly, I don’t know is such area exist in the Narodni… I made it up!
By the way, (Charles University) is the largest and oldest Czech universities and one of the oldest in Europe, foundend in 1347.
Prince Vlad III of Wallachia, also known as Vlad Tepes or Vlad Dracula.
As I previously mentioned, I’m going to write some blogs about famous historical or legendary characters of East Europe. I’m going to start, of course, with the most legendary and famous of all:
Prince Vlad III of Wallachia, also known as Vlad Tepes or Vlad Dracula, a bloody figure and basic inspirer of the worldwide known vampire Count Dracula, with novels, books and movies we all know.
He is described as a short man, well build, with jet black long hair; he used to shave his face, except for the moustaches. His big green eyes, shaded by dark and tight eyebrows, along with a hooked nose, gave his face a cold and cruel look.
Historical facts:
Today in the Podisul Plateau, near Budapest, you can visit the medieval village of Sighisoara. Among the wooden and stone ancient houses, there is still the existence of the native home of Dracula. A sign tells the visitors that Vlad Tepes was born there in 1431 and lived there since 1435. After this early years, he grow up in the Tirgoviste Castle, the originary capitol of Wallachia. He had 3 brothers: Mircea, older brother, that he admired, who inspired his desire to become a warrior and a conqueror; Radu, also known as “the beautiful”, and the illegitimate one also called Vlad, who lived his entire life in a convent with his mother.
Vlad III had to fight many times for the Wallachia throne against his uncle first, and then against his cousin Daniel, always plotting against him. Two opposite factions fought for the 2 cousins: the Danesti (Daniel’s supporters) and Draculesti.
His father, Vlad II, stipulated a cowardish but advantageous agreement with Ottoman Sultan Murad II: in exchange for the Sultan’s military support he let him ride and predate all the countries around Wallachia, invading Est Europe also thanks to the strategical suggestion of Vlad II, who obtained Wallachia and part of Transilvania Principality.
But the Turks had no easy way into the Eastern Europe, even with Vlad’s help, so he betrayed them many times for his convenience, causing the Sultan’s wrath. Trying to calm Murad, Vlad II came to visit him with his 2 sons Vlad and Radu (notice that he didn’t took his favourite, Mircea…) and he came back in Wallachia alone, since the Sultan kept the boys as a sign fo Vlad’s good will, and as excellent hostages. Radu, also known as “the Beautiful”, became the sultan’s lover and joined the male harem; Vlad, more interested in war tactics and fighting, was trained by the Janissaries ( the Ottoman Sultan’s household troops and bodyguard); there, he witnessed cruelty, tortures and violence and learned the impaling torture, that seemed to leave a deep mark in his mind. You need to remember, by the way, that Vlad and Radu lived in the Sultan’s curt as prisoners in a golden cage. Romanian prisoners in the heart of the Ottoman Empire.
Meanwhile in Wallachia Vlad II and his son Mircea turned against the turks once more, until they were tortured and assassined in 1447. Although Vlad II’s umpteenth betrayal, Vlad III and Radu kept living their life in the Sultan’s Court, instead of suffering the awful destiny the traitor’s sons could be expected to meet.
In 1448, one year after his father’s death, Vlad leaves the Sultan to reclaim Wallachia’s Principality back, while his brother 
Radu stays with the Sultan, due to his ambiguous relationship with him. Vlad III had to fight many times for Wallachia, he is actually considered a patriotic hero for his relentless fight to banish Octomans once he had the Principality back. He had to fight his uncle first and his cousin Daniel then, to reconquer his throne for 3 times: 1448, then from 1456 to 1462 and in 1476, the year he died.
The stories about his atrocities are countless… from thousend of impaled enemies left out of the conquered cities, howling and weeping for days, to the brutal death he gave to his 2 wives by his hands.
People used to call Prince Vlad III by many names. Here are the most famous with some brief notes:
Vlad Tepes (pronunce: Tzah-Pash):
Tepes means “impaler” in Romanian: people called him so because of his favourite torture he used to inflict to enemies and traitors. The impaling torture hit people’s imagination and shocked them, because it was something new to his people, since Vlad III learned it from Octomans in the time he spent by the Sultan Murad. Just imagine how strange, cruel and exotic that torture could seem to Romanians, that also explains the terror and legends about his endless cruelties and bloodthirst. About blood drinking: it is proved that was only a rumor, since Prince Vlad never used to drink enemies blood… but this rumor, along with his scary personality and story, inspired the creation of one of the most worldwide famous fictionary characters: Count Dracula the Vampire, from the Bram Stoker’s novel.
Vlad Dracula:
Vlad III, and his father too, was a member of the Order of the Dragon (Societas Draconis in Latin), along with the rulers of Poland and Serbia. The purpose of the Order was to protect Eastern Europe and the Holy Roman Empire from Islamic expansion as embodied in the campaigns of the Ottoman Empire, especially fighting the herectic Hussites.
So, Vlad II was also called “Dracul” (that means “Dragon”)… but also “Devil” in Romanian. The last “a” of Dracula means “son of” so, Dracula literally means “Son of the Dragon” but maybe also “Son of the Devil”.
Kaziglu Bey:
Means “Impaler Prince”: Octomans gave him this name nearly 100 years after Vlad III’s death, in 1550.
I hope you liked my research about this incredible character, because I’ll write more about the Order of the Dragon, on Count Dracula, the novels and movies and much more! For further details about Vlad II, check his Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_III_the_Impaler
Serena
Locations - concept, sketches and final result!
You might think all the villages and cities on BloodySugar are fiction, and you are, of course, partially right.
The 1st adventure of Bette and BloodySugar is set in Vlazni Kralov, a small town in Bohemia, but that just does not exist! It’s just a made up tiny village to start.
Then we move to Prague, also known as “The magical City”… but’s not the Prague we know today, not only for the fact that it’s 1899, but it’s a sorta parallel 1899 where steam technology, alchemy and magic are much more present and functional, compared to how it was. So we have hand charged small dynamos to make simple and small object work, steam motorcycles like Bette’s, flying machines, magically charged objects and distance communicators… we’re going to explain some details about the strange gadgets and stuff in a dedicated section of the site. Stay tuned!
Cheers,
Serena
Some notes on Bloodysugar setting.
We choose to set this comic in a sort of parallel, steampunk-ish 1899 East-European land.
East Europa is indeed a fascinating place, lustfully green and wild and the cities and villages still preserve a gothic look and taste, and the superstitions and legends are well known all around the world and along with some historical figures create a unique scenario. Here you can see a picture of Prague, the Old Town Square.
So, in the next posts I’d like to talk not only about Bloodysugar production stories but also of Vlad Tepes, well konwn as “the impaler” Prince of Wallachia, or the bloody Countess, the Frankenstein story and Dracula books and movies…
If you like, I’ll post some short but interesting details about historical and legendary characters.
I promise to keep my posts short but informative, it is not my purpose to copy and paste Wikipedia stuff or very long arcticles boring to read! 
Thank you everyone,
Serena
Vlad Tepes, Prince of Wallachia (1431 - 1476)
A shot from “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (Francis Ford Coppola, 1992)