To understand her end, one must understand how she got her start. “Kountess Krissi” is a portrait paperdoll of a BBW (Big Beautiful Woman) I knew named Krissi who was to turn 16 on Friday the 13th... on a full moon no less, as was the day or night of her birth. She had palest blue-white skin, translucent with the veins visible at the temples of her hair and the grey/blue eyes of a wolf. She was obviously not a natural brunette; I found out later she was blonde by nature and dyed it raven blue-black like countless other goths before her for a more suitable contrast.

Krissi had the figure of a bawdy voluptuous barmaid in a medieval pub or inn, and a mouth to rival one,too! She was maybe a little too mature for her age, maybe a bit too raunchy for a young woman on the eve of her “sweetest of birthdays”, but she was who she was, so i drew her just as i saw her: hand on hip and smirk on her lips in a semi-defiant pose, yet for all her sensuality she still loooked demure.

Krissi overflowed with curves spilling out and over every attempt to restrain her body and she was conscious of it, but i pictured her in a custom made heavily-boned corset with laces and stays that gave proper support to the breasts. The bloomers are period, maybe Victorian or Edwardian but also could be Medieval European in design.

The hip-bustled rust colored, blood-stained gown derives its inspiration from the Countess De Bathory, or the Blood Countess, cousin to Prince Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula. Women of the court frequently wore these impractically high crisp white lace starched collars which would come up high and wide acrosss the chest and shoulders. In this version, the collar is blood-stained due to the Countess’ predeliction for the blood of young women, especially virgin servant girls. The Countess drew pleasure from the torture and bloodletting of these girls and grew infamous for bathing in vats filled with their fresh blood in order to maintain her healthy “pallor”. The skirt depicts embroidery of a woman crowned with a dagger, possibly a portrait of the Countess?

The other outfit is that of a Crusader (or possibly another religious zealot) carrying the shield and coat of arms and chain mail armour worn in those days to battle. The head of some unfortunate soul is held by the hair of his head in a gloved/gauntletted hand for all to see as an example.

How the Countess met her end: she was, finally after years of unchecked violence against her slaves, walled up in her castle alive and fed thru a locked door with only a slot big enough for a plate to pass thru. Supposedly, even four years after the plates of food quit arriving, she survived the “starvation” (or maybe she survived on the blood of rats?) and then the last stirrings were heard from her room. It could of course be a myth, but most myths have some basis in truth. Pretty creepy isn’t it?