Dream Fairies

These fairies are giving some fantastical dreams to the quiet sleeper. The male fairy is creating the dreams, and the female fairy is whispering these dreams into her ear.

This is my attempt at focusing on the overall composition, including the background, since the background is always the part that I struggle with the most.

This is a submission for the Fairies Contest held by Myths-and-Legends.

This is also a submission for the Awareness of the Arts Contest: Into The Stars held by CollaborativeMinds. A literature interpretation of this image, created by TheRedSephaos, can be found here.

Reference image for the sleeping figure provided by kizysem.

Process shown here: fav.me/dad8cro


UPDATE August 8, 2016 - I've uploaded a slightly larger version of the image so that more detail on the face is visible, and I have hadded a bit more shading on the visible hand and both arms. I've also softened the sharp edges of the fairy wings somewhat, to match the softness of the rest of the image.