It is almost a waste of time for me to say anything about this piece.



Artistically: It anchors itself effectively to the theme and puts it's message across in a way which is easy for the audience to decode. It contains a bag full of clichés including the oldest one; the dichotomy of good and evil, however, the execution is proficient enough for that to be forgiven.



Unlike many works depicting the aforementioned dichotomy of Good and Evil, I find the subtle subversion of expectation interesting as well as personally irksome, traditionally it is the devil character is the one that whispers in the ear of the protagonist as they look to the angel for guidance as the angel sits quietly, confident that the protagonist will do the right thing. This image has the protagonist looking to the "evil" character whilst the "good" character whispers in the ear. Although some would argue that religion has done more damage than good and that it is the angel character that should be portrayed as evil, I cannot escape the classic anchors that the audience will identify, which states that this is seemingly backward, although I would suppose that speaks volumes about the character. That she openly looks to the bad side but is secretly good. The classic anti-hero.



The Yin and Yang just confuses things a little more in the classic sense, as the Light and Dark sides don't match with the Devil and Angel characters positioning, unless the artist thinks that the Devil character is good and the Angel character is bad in which case it adds more depth to the character, perhaps she thinks the bad is good and the good is bad, perhaps she focuses on negativity as an important part of life and positivity as a detriment to herself, it would be an effective parody of one particular human condition; that doubts the praise because it sees it's own faults.



The character sizes should also be noted. The emphasis is mostly placed on the middle character through colouring, however, because the devil character is the tallest and is looking back to the protagonist, the eye gets left in the middle of the two, which is a bit of a waste of directionality but like most things in this image it is easily forgiven.



Technically...

There is a lot to say about the small technical errors that I am sure people have pointed out:

- The dots on the Yin-Yang not being placed correctly.

- The pencil to the left appearing to be slightly off.

- The papers angles slightly altering and twisting the perspective of the table.



- There is a distinct lack of dramatic lighting, it is very much a neutral image. You could have placed the emphasis on the characters traits through use of lighting, for example; very dramatic shadowing on the evil character and highlights on the good character with shafts of light to direct the eye to elements in the scene, just to give them some extra umph, however, that aspect is a consideration for future pieces.



All the little irksome problems with the form don't really subtract from the function, which despite the classical things that bug me, like the inverted roles, they don't really subtract from the characters or the interaction and in fact they can be read into and add a great deal of depth, which is why I say they are interesting as well as irksome to me.



With that said I must turn my attention to the title and description, as they are an important part of any work.



The title: My own worst enemy.

As it stands by itself, it obviously conjures a notion that you are against yourself.

When combined with the imagery it makes the inversion of the characters make a lot more sense, the whole; looking to the negative side becomes more obvious.



The description: Is a lot of things, it informs the image, it almost puts too much in the mix, like adding too much sugar to a cup of tea, too much can spoil something. The description hammers the concept in a remarkably blunt way. In an almost literal sense, it's the artist telling the audience what the image means, which I find, in a way; undermines you as an artist and insults the audiences intellect. In the words of the Robot Devil from Futurama: "You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!".

Whilst, in a way, it has that effect of undermining you as an artist, because the piece is called: "My own worst enemy".

It actually does the piece a whole lot more justice than I give it credit for, because there are levels to the undermining on both conceptual and actual levels, it's legitimately difficult to tell whether or not this was added on purpose to demonstrate the undermining effect you have on yourself or if you added it with the purpose to make it appear that way and either way it informs the image for people who don't understand so in a way, you couldn't really loose out by adding it in. It was a win-win scenario.



In summary; The image is effective, the flaws are forgiveable, the characters have the correct form in large and the anchors work well. There is a lot that could be added to this image to make it pack more punch or add a great deal more drama but as it stands it is adequate for the job and evidently a lot of people enjoyed this image.



In conclusion; You shouldn't be so hard on yourself, having looked through your work and I can tell you have a keen eye for realism which most people would envy and you should be proud of what you have achieved.

The image is enjoyable and can be read into, which is more than what can be said of a lot of works on this site.