Exotic and Erotic - An Interview with Artist Team Le Peruggine.
Interview conducted by Sandra Scholes
Known for their unique art style and raunchy looking characters, Le Peruggine have been having their work published for a long time, creating the covers and interior comic artwork for Yaoi Press.
Sandra: What made you want to be a writer and artist team.
Le Peruggine: Our passion for YAOI books led us to become an author and illustrator team. And our friends' support. However, it was Eva Villa, a former illustrator and author, who brought in when she proposed us to create our own comic story for her fanzine.
Sandra: Has yaoi art always been something close to your heart?
Le Peruggine: Yes, in a way, since when we were just children, however of course at that time we mean it as male/male friendship, with no sexual connotation at it.
Sandra: I like to know what makes an artist team think up a certain project and I would love to know what your first ideas for a yaoi novel were?
Le Peruggine: We suppose, like for anybody else, just the inspiration hitting you at the right time and with the right ideas. :) Then being two people it's very helping to the brainstorm process, bouncing ideas off of each other. Our first YAOI stories were just for us and our close friends, some have never made it on zines or the internet. They revolved around original fantasy worlds. Some them are still available on our old website.
Sandra: Which artists inspired you when you were growing up, or starting out?
Le Peruggine: Our favourites from our teen days, maybe oddly enough, were mostly artists and authors of Shonen manga and anime: Kazushi Hagiwara, CLAMP, Kentarou Miura, Nobuteru Yuuki, Mutsumi Inomata. But the opera that actually brought us into the YAOI world was the OVA "Il cuneo dell'amore" (Ai no Kusabi) released in Italy in 1996.
Sandra: One of my favourite series of yours is Winter Demon where Yamila Abraham of Yaoi Press was the writer and you were the artists. I loved the covers and the way you drew Fuyu and Hakuin. As they were both opposites, were the two characters what you expected them to be, or did you have other ideas for them?
Le Peruggine: Yamila was the author of every character and of the whole series, however in our experience it's nearly inevitable that when you draw a comic a bit of your personal interpretation makes it on the pages too. In this case, when we started to work on the main story, if you pay real attention to it, you can see that Fuyu in particular was influenced by our personal take on him, and Yamila liked and approved of it. :)
Sandra: When I look at yaoi art, I have a tendency to notice the eyes first, and Hakuin from Winter Demon has the loveliest, innocent eyes being a monk. Also, Fuyu's eyes have a very suggestive look to them. How much fun did you have creating their expressions for the novel?
Le Peruggine: Facial and bodily expressions and expressive eyes, are important elements to a comic or a graphic novel, in our personal opinion. And we have fun when we draw and colour them. ;)
Sandra: Fuyu has a very handsome body. Did you base him on anyone famous or was he the product of your imagination?
Le Peruggine: We based him on his original character sheets (drawings) that Yamila sent us. :)
Sandra: What was your first yaoi novel?
Le Peruggine: Speaking about unedited works, if we recall correctly, it's a story named "Il Desiderio" (The Wish). A long fantasy novel about a young and clumsy wizard who accidentally links his very body to the one of a young countryman whom has the misfortune to be there when the spell goes awry. And a Prince Demon who was born, however, with a kind heart. The Prince crosses his path with the wizard and the countryman’s one and inevitably fall in love with the latter.
Here a portrait of Prince Demon Annubis:
http://www.peruggine.it/immagini/sp/ORIGINALI/ORIG960.jpg
Our first published work, however, was an original short comic about two students, one Italian, one Japanese-Italian, who meet each other at a sharing house for students. They had sex, then fall in love with each other.
Sandra: If you could make a yaoi calendar, which characters would you have for the 12 months?
Le Peruggine: That sounds like a cool idea.
The links here will show you who the couples we'd choose are, however don't mind the drawings: if we were working on a calendar we'd most certainly be making new pictures for it.
1. Eliyon/Swaen (http://i.imgur.com/3buD7k6.jpg)
2. Nys’Alysar/Falkan
3. Dario/Vincent (http://i.imgur.com/giEMgFA.jpg )
4. Ethen/Kevan/Vasily (these guys are portrayed on the header of our blog: http://leperuggine.blogspot.it/ )
5. Valente/Learco ( https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvCVgYJksmlzJhHNtSK4qbk2b7rsWNCbNean6r5a41uN1ov0muW-IPWVWGaVzy23pM7lxvX4GlbDNwoz4-Kw2T2SRya7apsYpFgYpsdfEWmGiY5QDY1h5UkXT8s_J9l_ZntuQJc9Utqu0l/s1600/CAP2bis+++++Firma+x+Blog.jpg )
6. Patrizio/Antonio ( https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgx2UDnS75bL5JM0a_QIr34HLJ09uN47bmtUaw3Dv-Xk6ZZcvRBx8CxjIeRxK_4zKiCRjNSIH3q7nLXOvLzomHPpTDo4n-buGn6LuP71-MaiZnvrRhDnDpqkNA4R8kyfhKTXoe4t7zbB6z/s1600/NdT_Prev.jpg )
7. Gavriil/Hai ( http://i.imgur.com/LYjx9xO.jpg )
8. Alessandro/Lennart ( http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AYN3vc6MP_8/TvOtpzX1bsI/ AAAAAAAAAV0/ohUEsctf_ls/s1600/ Natale2011_01%252B%252B%252B%252B%252B%252B%252B%252BUritA100dpi.jpg)
9. Hae-Woo/Nyhar ( https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim49NndMSLcxOGTRWXqfzQPcag-z6r1fTPkVswc33aUdIigQ3lBNQMDt2x68v-HUBfvXxx07k1Fx-mB4IcUq0bXX9n2I55z9w097o_NEimngKzQPE3EeW-h54TzpxdRJQyoL4EwurlO5vH/s1600/03_Urit.jpg )
10. Vanni/Lapo ( http://i.imgur.com/0OxKLln.jpg )
11. Cain/Vanqisher ( https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxQdsR6FC5rB_cXEnfXnNCX3uH40XsIBMXtsW-zcyJrkh-SeRcGm7pT6MDourpNcWqjs1KDoKRiIfehLBsO-_CkDW8QW98bssNHVMxRg9rKClSykplaysls-YgVKXqaXUytn3qJ87GgyJm/s1600/CainVanqi04U25X100.jpg )
12. Kamui/Hevan ( http://www.peruggine.it/immagini/sp/ORIGINALI/ORIG989.jpg )
Sandra: What is your favourite period setting for your novels and why?
Le Peruggine: If we are speaking about Historical Novels, our favourite settings are Middle Age, Greek and Roman. We find these periods very interesting, culturally and historically speaking, and a source of inspiration to us. But we also love Space Opera, being lovers for some branch of science and futuristic thinking. And Heroic Fantasy novels too, which was the first genre getting us into reading books while we were still children, we still love it.
Sandra: Are you working on any new projects this year and could you give us a sneak peek at your new work?
Le Peruggine: We are working on two new projects at the same time, both still in the works. The first one a long epic length fantasy novel, that sadly can't be published in English as our language skills aren't good enough. The second one is a sci-fi webcomic, that will be published in double language (to where is still to be decided). News and updates about when and where they will get eventually published will be posted on our facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Le-Peruggine/208225722542690 ) and our blog http://leperuggine.blogspot.it ).
Here you can find an unreleased preview to a painting portraying Eliyon, one of the four main characters of ‘Guerra dell’alba e del tramonto’ (War for the Sunrise and the Sunset), the novel currently in the works:http://i.imgur.com/3buD7k6.jpg
And here is a picture illustrating Dario and Vincent, two main characters of the webcomic, also in the works and unreleased yet: http://i.imgur.com/giEMgFA.jpg
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