Sleep well - Day 7

This struck me as a very unusual scene. It took me a long time to figure out what was going on. This was entirely due to the fact I had never played Portal. I still think I'm a little lost. I only mention this to warn you that I might not interpret some things correctly.

I'll start by mentioning you did capture my interest. I'm usually a little critical of fan art for relying too much on being familiar with the game / show / media it is based on. From the perspective of an ``outsider'', it is nice to have a complex enough scene so that I can enjoy the artwork as well. I'm sure the little story I'm envisioning isn't the true one, but I have ``something to do'' nonetheless.

I can't comment on how accurate the machinery is (although judging from the comments, it looks like it's close, but not perfect). From my perspective, it looks like a machine. What I assume is a bag (due to the folds) looks fairly well done. I have some other comments I'll mention later.

The form the lady is not bad, either. You may want to pay attention to two details in particular, though: her legs, and her arm. Her arm looks like one big ``pole'' instead of two, joined at an elbow. Second, her pants look skin tight.

This is a neat scene, but I feel the composition is lacking in two major areas. First, there is almost no shading or light source whatsoever. Even cartoons have simple shading that helps set atmosphere. This is something that can make this piece much stronger: mood. Looking at the comments, I can tell this machine has peculiar behavior. The mood you set (e,g, is the machine being friendly? sinister?) can be greatly shown just by the lighting alone. If anything else, it will give the composition a more complete feel. This is the primary reason I only gave two stars for impact. There is almost no mood or tone set.

Second, the shading feels a little sloppy. I'm mostly reacting to the background on this comment, but even in some of the foreground it could be done a bit smoother. I work almost entirely with digital media, so I'm not on top of all the techniques for traditional tools. I do know, though, cross-hatching is a good technique that, when practiced, will yield nice lines and (back to shading again) a sense of light vs dark.

I generally don't like to nitpick on details, but there is one I can't overlook. I do know one thing about Portal ( as I don't live entirely under a rock <img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/s/s…" width="15" height="15" alt="" title=" (Smile)"/> ). I do know gravity is a big factor in the gameplay. I assume the woman is hanging from the machine, asleep (as the title suggests). But if I study your pose carefully, I realize the effect of gravity is incomplete. There are a lot of little instances of this, but I'll point out some of the bigger ones as an example of what I mean. The ``bag'' on the machine is floating, her hair is floating, and I'm not sure her arm would be in that position if it were relaxed.

Some of my earliest drawings were in colored pencil (cheap Crayola ones). Your drawing looks almost exactly like one of mine in terms of pose (although your anatomy is much better). The primary reason the gravity jumps out at me is that I made the exact same oversight. I can show you the drawing if you want. Anyway, I'd suggest being very aware of the environment your characters are in. There are so many little things that can be overlooked in environments that some will never be caught until someone else points them out. I can hope I've been helpful to that degree.

With that said, I hope you find this feedback useful. Good work!