Summer Love Burning Bright

With the Strawberry Moon and the solstice now behind us, we are officially into the summer season. To get things rolling this summer, here's a new piece featuring my current favorite story going.
There is no couple, I've mentioned before, more "normal" in the entire Book of the Shadows series, than Yugi and Drusilla out of the Cromwell Universes. Normal is a relative term, of course. Perhaps the better way of putting it is that theirs is the least odd of the bunch.

While the odds of their meeting and falling in love are not entirely pie-in-the-sky, it did have a touch of magic to it. The way they are so overpoweringly affectionate to one another is also quite unusual for most normal couples. Drusilla and Yugi hardly, if ever, get into fights, nothing at least that lasts for very long. They playfully tease and prod each other, banter with the jovial nature and sickening sweetness of kids falling in love for the first time, after being together for decades. While one might initially forgive this of Yugi given his young age when he and Drusilla meet, it isn't as easy an excuse for Drusilla who was already a hundred or more times his age when she greeted him. And even the best of couples can't keep that sort of thing going constantly after several decades of marriage. 

The idea of a May to December romance is that a couple gets together and their relationship is like the heat of summer - warm, hot even, burning brightly. But just as the season moves on and the temperatures cool into the cold winter of December, the relationship also cools and the couple's relationship comes to an end. If that is truly the arc of most, if not all, relationships, it suggests that there is a long, long way to go for Yugi and Drusilla, given where their relationship stands as I'm typing this. 

The reason I like Drusilla and Yugi out of Cromwell is because they are the only couple, thus far in my writings, whose relationship is so definitive, so persistent, and so focused. There's no question about if they're a couple or not, they're together from chapter 2 on. Their relationship continues uninterrupted, save a small kidnapping incident and a brief period of death, unlike Anzu and Yugi's many starts and stops. And, whereas other couples' relationships go on as sort of background noise to the relevant story, Drusilla and Yugi's is a central part. 

As such, it's become a little hard for me to think of pictures of Drusilla without Yugi being in them as well. They are "That" couple, the ones who can't seem to find a time or place to do something without the other. I have a couple images of Drusilla absent Yugi, but even those at times I thought about adding him in too. There are a multitude of possible ways of drawing the two of them to show their affection to one another. The last of them, of course, depicted her hanging over his shoulder. I note this because at this point in time, Yugi is about the only male character I've drawn in the last decade or so. Early on in the Book of the Shadows, more than a decade ago now, I did draw Yami a couple times (for what distinction that's worth) and I drew Lamia from the Betterman series. And like most kids I knew back in those days, I drew Gohan and Goku in the Cell Games era of Dragonball Z's run on Toonami. But that's about it for male characters. I've mentioned it in the past - I just don't really draw them all that often.

This new image I've created is meant to convey passion. As the title suggests, it is meant to be an image showing Yugi and Drusilla embracing each other in a passionate kiss, like one of those summer love couples.

One of the difficulties with doing an image with them together like this is the height difference between them. Although I don't have a firm number in mind for Drusilla's height, I've always conceptually understood it in my head as her being "above average" for women. For comparison, Hancock is well above average, the tallest of the Two-Six. Anzu is about average, perhaps slightly taller. Drusilla would be taller than Anzu, but closer in height to her than she is to Hancock. And of course, Yugi has always been a bit of a munchkin. Even with the new Yu-Gi-Oh movie this year, and going back to the "future Yugi" we see in Yu-Gi-Oh GX, he's grown significantly taller, but is still probably only just about, if not slightly below, average for a man.

All that is to say, Yugi is shorter than Drusilla, so I had to draw them in a way that reflects that distinction, while not exaggerating it too much. I'm still not entirely sure I got it just right, but it's very close to what it should be. Not forgetting that Drusilla is likely in heels of some fashion, we see that she has a bit of an arch in her back (fig. 1), suggesting that she is having to lean in a little. Her head is also at a slight downward angle (fig.2), again showing that she is a little taller than her partner. Meanwhile, we see that Yugi is standing almost completely straight up. He's also stretching his neck forward (fig.3), while his head is tilted upwards.

fig. 1

                   

fig. 2

fig. 3

There isn't anything particularly noteworthy of Yugi's outfit. It's actually very basic - a shirt, slacks, and a blazer. I didn't do the whole "wind-swept and starched" look every Yu-Gi-Oh protag sports because even I think that would be a little too impractical.

When it comes to characters I've drawn a lot, their attire takes on a rather common trend. I start with their normal attire from whatever series they originate from. Later works then focus on some other related character's attire, the common cosplay images. Finally, I start experimenting with entirely new designs and ideas for clothes and hairstyles. Not being any sort of fashion buff, this usually manifests as the amalgamation of a variety of design elements from both anime and non-anime sources.

Originally I had a ring on her exposed hand, except that's her right hand, not her left, so I changed the plan to bridal gauntlets. Initially they were going to terminate at the bicep as regular detached sleeves, but with what was at the time a simple spaghetti-strap dress, it seemed a touch too pedestrian for her. So I went for the fully attached sleeves, with the puffed shoulders. I went with a small, straight, collar. I was tempted to go more grandiose with the collar, probably something like Maleficent, but I rethought how appropriate that might be in this particular piece. Certainly the story of Maleficent, at least as told in the last Disney movie about her, is more anti-hero than villain. Her particular character makeup is more suited to Drusilla out of First Moon, than Cromwell.

Drusilla will be sporting her fourth, maybe fifth, different hairstyle from among the various images of her I've done, although it's a little hard to tell from this specific iteration. A better view of it will be in a future piece I'm currently trying to conceive, but it's basically a side split-ponytail - a ponytail, split in two at the base, offset to one side, in this case her left.

And there you go, another art piece done (sort of). I've gone back to mechanical pencil. It's gotten where mechanical pencil is more comfortable that wood pencils, At the moment this one is not a priority in terms of coloring, but I do hope to get to it sooner rather than later. Hope you like it. Until next time.