Drusilla and Yugi Arenzai

It’s finally here. Took me a little longer than expected, but here we finally have the art piece I promised, featuring Yugi and Drusilla of the Cromwell Universe.

A couple weeks ago I showed this image, which is from a Code Geass calendar from a few years back. This piece of mine itself only dates back a couple years in terms of concept and early work on it. As I mentioned in the release of the sketch last week, part of the evolution to this final product was changing Drusilla’s hairstyle, which previously featured the plain bun – no bow, no giant ahoge, nor the fanning ponytail behind her. Also, in the original I drew Yugi’s arm, the one holding the pen, too short making it look really awkward.

There are a few “not in a while” components to this piece. For one, as it features Yugi, it is the first time in a while since I’ve drawn any male characters. The last time was probably years ago when I would draw Gohan and Goku from Dragonball Z. So, while it’s not anything particularly special, having drawn Yugi here is the first time in a while I’ve drawn a non-female character.

Further, the shading here is done via cross thatching. If you take art classes one of the earliest things you learn is the various means of shading. By far the most common is blending/smudging, which is basically using a dark to light contrast scale over the select area. While it is a very effective manner of shading, capable of producing all sorts of lighting effects, it can make a mess of you piece if you aren’t careful, hence why most of my artwork I tend to be reluctant about shading at all. You then have stippling/dimpling, which is using a bunch of dots. You use a higher concentration of dots for darker areas, a wider dispersal, less concentrated, set of dots for the lighter shades. Cross thatching is the one I’ve seen used least often for final pieces, but tends to be popular for many artists. It’s not quite as tedious as dimpling, but less versatile than either dimpling or smudging, as making larger squares – spacing the crossing lines more – can make for an awkward appearance to the image. Thus, I find you end up just filling an entire shade area with a common cross-thatching pattern if you’re not careful and haven’t sufficiently mastered the technique. I haven’t practiced dimpling or cross thatch since I learned them back in middle school art class years ago. Using it here was a bit of an experiment/practice.

Additionally, there are a few little details and Easter Eggs here. One, I made it a point to give Drusilla a wedding ring, and Yugi a wedding band. The earring visible for Drusilla is meant to replicate those worn by Arachne of Soul Eater, albeit with a slightly shorter lead than Arachne’s. The necklace is an original piece, though it doesn’t show up well because of the shadow. I might just do a page featuring all the accessories in this image.

The pen is an Easter Egg. In the original image, Lelouch is also holding a pen. My first version of this image I considered having Yugi holding something else, and had settled on a bookmark. It looked awkward so I changed it to a key. That looked even more suggestive than the piece already did, both my first version and the Geass version. After some thought, I determined it was better to stick to a pen after all, and started thinking about a few different possible alternatives. I almost went with a feather quill, but the feather would have completely overwhelmed that section of the image. So, I settled on this creative sort of fountain pen. That it is shaped like a chess piece, the specific design of this chess piece, is the Easter Egg of another series by the artists behind the character designs of the reference image… if you catch my drift.

Finally is the thing on the wall behind Drusilla and Yugi. It is a digital wall clock that shows the time of day, date, and local weather, for specific locations. The scanner bed isn't quite large enough, so the little bit that shows the weather got cut off. In my mind, this scene is set aboard the Arenzai family flagship, in Yugi and Drusilla’s private room, the clock rotating through different locations of importance. First, that reads N.R.T, not NTR. Two completely different acronyms, so don’t get them confused. NRT stands for Nemesis Regional Time, Nemesis of course being a planet of import to them both because of their ancestry. The date shown is a special day for them as well, a very lucky day on which their lives changed (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). The time of day… holds no particular significance.

Well, here you are. At one point it was titled, “Yugi and Drusilla in the Cromwell Universe”, but I settled on the more simple, “Drusilla and Yugi Arenzai”. It is the only story I have so far where Yugi takes the name of Arenzai. By the end of the year I’ll have another picture of Drusilla, in a very different outfit and a very different scene. I’m tempted to do it as a special for the end of summer if I can get it to a nice spot, but that would mean 2 Drusilla pictures by the end of the year, so who knows.

By noon or 1 PM EST I’ll have this piece up on DeviantArt, and probably on Minitokyo as well. And remember, to keep up on any more of my art stay tuned to this blog, follow me on Twitter @DRosencraft, and Like me on Facebook at facebook.com/thebookoftheshadows. 

It’s a new month so that means I’ll have a new chapter up on FanFiction.net before too long, so also stay tuned for that. Until next time, be safe, and have fun.

UPDATE: This piece can be viewed on DeviantArt and Minitokyo. The Minitokyo version has some digital cleanup (noise removal, removing jpeg artifacts, etc). The DeviantArt version is larger - the original scanning size.