Yami x Teana Belated Christmas 5

02/21/14  -  I did a little color adjusting that I was a bit too tired to do last night.

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Hello everyone!!

How are you? Are you doing well? I sure hope that you are! ! My goodness!  It's been a long time, hasn't it?  It would appear that this is only my second deviation of the year, and it's been even LONGER since I updated my journal entry (which I hope to do soon too.... )  It seems  I have a lot of catching up to do in terms of messages! (I'm so sorry everyone! ) and I also have my commission list to complete before I can even consider accepting any more!   I hope that I can catch up with it all, and hopefully be more productive this year, as I would really like to increase my productivity and perhaps even try some new things, thanks to the encouragement of all of you, and my boyfriend   But I guess we'll see....   Wish me luck everyone, and remember, no matter HOW long it takes me to reply, or even stop in in here on Deviantart, each and every comment and favorite means a lot to me! I'll never stop saying that, as it's as true as it was on the first day that I joined the deviantart community! Thank you all!

Well, I guess I should start talking about the piece above, eh?   Especially since it's been a long time in the making, in a number of ways actually.   It started with the sketch below:

yamigirl21.deviantart.com/art/…

And though it is belatedly Christmas related, I did indeed start it before the Christmas season, being an installment in the series of works that I'd finished in previous years, as seen here:

I truly wish I had finished it for the holidays, but much as I had wanted to, to me, it was much more important that I finish a few paintings that I had done as Christmas gifts, such as these:

And of course things in my personal life have kept me busy too....   I really do hope to be able to balance things a bit better from this point on, but I suppose only time will tell.

Anyhow.....  Despite the lateness of this work, it was quite crucial and even meaningful to me to complete this image, in a manner that I felt satisfied with.  And so I continued onward, trying to add as much detail as I envisioned, and referencing the older works above, for the accumulation in the story that I was trying to tell with it.

As for what I wanted to portray, I started 5 years ago with a holiday themed image featuring Yami Yugi aka Pharaoh Atem or Atemu and my version of Teana (a rendition of the previous incarnation of Yu-Gi-Oh's Anzu Mazaki) in a fun little game that continuously upped the ante in sexiness!

I pushed this concept every year afterwards, with more holiday themed imagery and even more alluring ideas and costumes, as the two characters I rendered continously tried to outdo the other!   It was a LOT of fun and I looked forward to depicting these works with something fresh and new each holiday season! But alas I reasoned that I couldn't push this particular concept any more, without it being a bit TOO mature for Deviantart! And so I came up with this image that has my beloved Yami and Teana finally giving into passion, with the remnants of the design and clothing choices from previous years all around them, as the two bask in the afterglow of their love!

My goodness.... What more can I say about these two that I haven't already said!   For many many years now the coupling of Yami Yugi and Teana has meant a great deal to me.  I would often feel that the imagery, their written works, and the very concept of their story was something that I could invest in emotionally, as if the two safeguarded my own heart while I patiently waited to find real love in life.  Perhaps that sounds odd or even a little silly, but truth be told, that was how I felt, for a very very long time.  On a happy personal note, I finally feel that I can share that love, not only through my art work, but with my wonderful boyfriend who is also an artist!  And yet, I think these two will always mean the world to me, as I hope to continue to create works featuring the two of them!   I assure you that I still hope do so, including holiday pieces as I enjoy them far too much to stop now!   But in regards to this paricular story with Yami and Teana, I think that this may be the last of this series, as I wouldn't want to make these works TOO risque to feature here.   And besides, I felt that this ending was fitting, as both Teana and Yami end up winners in their little game, as they share their victory in being together at long last! 

Much like the previous works, I opted for a decorative background.  In theory, these two versions of the characters are from Ancient Egypt, after all, in which Christmas of course, did not occur.   So to make the images take place "outside" of their envirnoment and time, since creating the first image, I would always have them among holiday themed visuals, such as ribbons, holly, and snowflakes.  I continued with that concept every year, and of course this piece was no exception.  Given that this piece was an accumulation of the others that came before, I wanted to try to take note of all of the previous works works, in terms of the choices that I made, such as having a ribbon, as seen in the first two images, but with red and green interwined, symbolizing Yami and Teana combinning together, like in the painting itself.  I also chose a main color for a background, (gold this time) with a snowy texture like in the works of the past.  I also opted for a candy-cane like border, also with red and green, pushing the concept of the two coming together even further.   And finally for an accent on each corner, I decided to depict holiday candles and pointsettias, which I thought would be decorative, but still romantic; given the theoretical candlelight of their scene.

As I mentioned previously, I also thought it would be a nice touch, to have all of Yami and Teana's previous holiday themed attire in the foreground, hinting of what went on between them of course, while also referencing the series of pieces that came before as well.  I wasn't able to include EVERYTHING that they wore, but hopefully enough to point to each of those works. And as seen in the anime version of the "Millennium World" arc of the manga, Yami appeared to have green sheets in his bedroom, which I decided to use in this piece too! As always this image was done by hand, using opaque water color paints!

Well everyone, it truly has been incredibly fun for me to create these pieces, and again, I hope that it was fun for all of you to view them as well!   Once more, I am not abandoning the notion of holiday themed works, but maybe next year (or rather this year, given the time frame at the time of this posting....) I can come up with something a little different for these two, that doesn't involve them losing more clothing than they already have!   I'll definitely be looking forward to it, and I hope all of you will be too!  Though it has been quite some time since then, I sincerely hope that you all enjoyed your holiday season and that the new year has started off  on a positive note for you, so far!  Thank you all for your support, encouragement and for your extraordinary kindness! Until next time then!

Lots of Love,
Yamigirl21