Little Voices: Page 15-19

So I said I needed to write the commentary more often, an' that's what I'm doing.

I was mildly concerned about picking up on page 15 with yet another scene featuring Yugi, but hell, the last time he was only on the phone with Pegasus. XD As I mentioned in the original comments, I love Yugi's mom. Yes, she appeared in both the manga and series, yes, if you blink you miss it. But her first appearance was great, because it really encapsulated her relationship with her son: "Mom! Don't talk to me right now!! I'm training my brain for gaming!" "Why don't you train your brain for SCHOOL first?" KLONG. (That was the sound of a ladel hitting Yugi upside the head.) The fact that his own mother really doesn't know what to make of Yugi sometimes, and actually does get frustrated with the whole "I'm gonna play games my whole life" thing... (laughs) it's just very, very real. I deliberately wrote their conversation as calmer here, adding the dynamic that Yugi's done a lot of growing up lately and his mother isn't quite used to it yet.

Yugi's mom is having a girl's day out with several friends. Who these friends ARE and what they're like is something best left to another fanfictionist: This story isn't about Yugi's mom. XD

The girls in the crowd here are all, as I noted before, based on characters from GX, most gender-bended, and several actually from the manga (which I like marginally better than the anime.) From left to right they are: Chazz/Manjoumi, Sho/Syrus, Miss Hibiki (in the back), Jaden/Judai (rather obviously, and sporting her positively adorable Winged Kuriboh top), Reggie (yes, that Reggie), and a little girl who started out as a short Alexis/Asuka and didn't quite end up there. The only one with a given-by-me nickname is the Girl!Jaden, christened off-handedly as "Judi." Feel free to name the rest. :)

On page 16, I got to draw the outside of the Turtle Game Shop again. XD Every time I have to draw an established locale it turns into a treasure hunt, chasing through manga, DVDs and the internet to get there. Fortunately the shop is easy to find in manga (the I2 building absolutely killed me.) But I don't mind THAT much, because Takahashi draws some of the most interesting and crazy buildings I've ever seen. I really feel it forces me to stretch outward.

The "step" panel was actually mildly inspired by another fancomic artist, Duel-Monsters (Sweet Osiris, how'd he get that username?). He does a lot of these short, mostly excuse-plot type comics in MS Paint (it's way better than it sounds-- some of it looks like screenshots.) He's especially fond of Téa, and dressing her in clothes she wouldn't be caught dead in (and that Yugi would absolutely love to see her in, IMO, since it's mostly punk goth rocker stuff, especially of a British bent.) (No offense if you're reading this, man, but she IS a preppy girl, and it would take all of Yugi's puppy eyes and pleading to get her to wear some of what you put her in, no matter how much either you or I like it. XD) One of the things he's given to doing in his early works is step-by-step panels: Téa lights the cigarette, Téa puts it in her mouth, Téa inhales, Téa blows the smoke out through her pursed lips. All from the same angle.

The step panel of page 16 is modeled after one of these pages where the step-by-step method becomes really effective. Except, of course, that my Téa dresses more like she does in the show. I mentioned that I looked through my catalogues to find something for her to wear, failed, and made something up; that's because all of it looked more like something Serenity would wear or was ugly. I like the boat-neck sweater pretty well though, as it shows off her shoulders, so I'm not fussing. (Although you can't see it in any of the pages the outfit's appeared in yet, she's also wearing shorts, dark socks that reach halfway up her calf, and of course those little booties. XD)

Here's a spoiler for the next full length story, by the way: Yugi will look older. This is only six months after the series (and several of the characters have already gotten taller, like Bakura), but the next will be two years after the end of the series (a year and a half after this.) Because drawing Yugi's huge eyes still gives me trouble, even though it turns out looking nice more than it used to.

Something you can only hear in the next to last panel of this page: Téa is totally bulldozing through that crowd. XD

On page 17, Yugi shows himself to be a normal teenage boy in the way that his smooth confidence with his mother flies out the window as soon as Téa walks up. XD The crowd saying stuff like "You can do it Téa!" and "Shut up, Yugi's MINE!" in panel three was added at the last second, because of some of the comments people made on page 16. I like to have background characters who act as the "voices" of the readers. X3

Also, I'm probably going to have to let the GX girls follow Yugi around more in the future.

The way I created the background for the past few pages is this: I use the lineart to create a white backing behind the characters, so that I can add grey tones behind them without lots of erasing. With the past few pages, I cut and pasted that white backing without the lineart in several different panels, so that the girls' faces wouldn't distract from the main subject of each panel. I think I did a better job on some pages than on others, but in the end it worked pretty well.

I think Judi is mildly fascinated by Téa.

On page 18, I had Yugi take off his hoodie mainly because I forgot to draw his ankh, decided "what the heck, maybe he's got it under his hoodie," and then had him remove the hoodie just to prove it. XD You can see it on that stool behind Téa in the first panel, even though it looks more like a purse.

I was pretty pleased with the expressions on this page, and from the sound of things, I was right to be. :3 So thank you guys for saying so. Also, usually I'd have tried to find a reference for the kitchen, but Invid and I couldn't think of any time a room with a sink inside Yugi's house ever appeared, so I decided to risk winging it, and made it look vaguely like the typical kitchens I've seen in anime. (Clean and compact.) They probably eat at that table sometimes, but when they do, it has a tablecloth on it. XD

As I noted on the DA comments, I had to kind of poke at the whole "I will never duel AGAIN" drama that you'll see in both the dub, GX-onward, and fandom. Even 5Ds is guilty of this nonsense. It's like in Pokémon- "This Pokémon wishes not to fight!! The DRAMA!" Right now, Yugi would much rather hear "I need a break from this game" over "I was in love with Atem." There's nothing wrong with grieving and being tired and wanting to lay down your sword for a while, as long as you don't shut yourself away from life completely.

Giving your sword to another, on the other hand, does mean something. I chose Magician of Faith for page 19 mainly because I knew everyone would be likely to recognize it, even if my handwriting turned out to be illegible. (The art is instant-recog for anyone who sees it.) Technically I think Téa's idea of herself could have changed by the end of the series (Yugi's did) but the Magician of Faith is still very strongly associated with her, so I knew it would work. (It also never fails to be a decent to good card, regardless of the metagame, so long as it's not banned. XD )

I could include the next page in this commentary, but I want to talk about that next scene as a unit. Suffice it to say that I like the scene.