When I first saw this, I thought; 'Wow! Just amazing!' I then realised it was your work, Paula, and automatically thought; 'Well, there's no surprise'. I have followed your work for some time now, and as skilled and talented as I know you are, with almost every deviation you still find ways to put me in awe. It's been such a pleasure to watch!

Your vision for this drawing has been aplenty, as I know that you painted from the same reference before, in quite an abstract/ impressionistic style and this time around, adopted that of a different style to what you generally use when attempting pictures with pencil. The way you chose one of the women to look at the audience, with lighter lipstick, and the other to look away, with darker lippy, gives them different personalties, with is a simple but overly effective decision. Therefore, I give you 4.5 for vision.

As far as originality goes, many critics would rate you low for the use of a reference and also the use of the minimalistic style, which you were inspired by another brilliant DA artist. However, when rating originality, I tend to judge by how gutsy the decisions were than the decisions themselves. I don't think I have ever seen this reference used by other people, and with intertwining of hands and intriguing pose by the models, I can imagine how complex that this must have been to construct. I also think that any artist who chooses to adopt anothers style, for the sake of experimentation due to pure inspiration, is a risky move; but having pulled it off, I rate you 4 for Originality.

The thing that I find most exciting about this is the brilliant contrast due to the minimalistic style, which means I have reams and reams of things to talk about for Technique. How you refined the shading to just around the main facial features and around where the two models bodies overlap emphasises them, especially the eyes and lips. You have taken Ileana's style and made it your own, as you also shaded the cheek on the model on our right, which is great to suggest the shape of the cheekbones, and without it, would not have had the same great effect.

As I said before, the eyes are beautifully done as ever; well proportioned and complimented by the large, dark eyelashes. The lips look shiny and kissable, which works well with the models pose, which is very seductive. The outline of the fingers, and the shading that you did use, describes the fingers very well, giving an overall realistic feel.

Attention to detail is, as ever, brilliant. From the shading of the iris's to the eyebrows and reflections on the lips and fingernails, rounds off that realistic feel well. Going back to basics, the proportions seem accurate, although I couldn't say if it bears a true likeness to the reference, as I haven't seen it. But your overall use of tones is as well controlled as ever, even though you abandoned the mid tones in order for the minimalistic style to have such a impact. Another thing which I wanted to draw to peoples attention is how you have managed to draw the audience's eye across the piece, due how the shading highlights the negative spaces, such as the background and portions of the hands, which is very clever indeed. Altogether, I couldn't rate you anything less but 5 for Technique, as it has been done at such a high quality and with a polished finished.

Due to the uber-high contrast and use of dark tones, this style of minimal shading has made the drawing extremely striking and eye catching; it really stands out from a lot of other deviations. The emphasis on the eyes and lips really brings across that seductive tension, therefore I award you 4 for impact.

Overall, I am astonished at how amazing this is, considering it was the first time you had adopted this style of shading. Your skill at drawing shines through too and altogether, sums up the reasons why I have been such an avid watcher of your creations. I feel that this is a perfect drawing, and when taking the critique system into account, the only things you could do to get top marks would be to perhaps change a few things from the reference (although I've no idea of how it looks) and perhaps choose a concept where you could exert more emotion, which would give you 5 for impact. But I think it's brilliant; really well done Paula!