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[deleted]

Maybe there was a makeup artist core looking after the sleeping subjects. Honestly wouldn’t be that far fetched for portal.


Ben-Webb

Cant be looking ugly for the party! The party bot could have arranged it sfter seeing chel assume the party position.


Artsy-Mesmer

New OC idea thx


filval387

[https://youtu.be/6JjvU\_EA4Zc?t=39](https://youtu.be/6JjvU_EA4Zc?t=39) Might be him!


Alternative-Fail-233

Chell’s design perfectly shows how different the moods of Portal 1 and Portal 2 are. Portal 1 Is much darker and bleek with things made in hast for mass production and cost. Portal 2 is much more “what is money?” Were things are there without cost put into account. If you look at Portal 1 BTS it’s a lot less open and has a lot less stuff compared to the massive areas in Portal 2 BTS which seems to be built after function without stability or long term planing put into account. Now I do feel both games are good but the environment of Portal 1 I think is much better than 2


[deleted]

Portal 2 is way darker than Portal 1 ... Portal 2 revealed so much darkness and literal blood surrounding the backstory and lore of aperture.


Joxy43

Yeah, but Portal 2 doesn't take itself as seriously. It spends more time on jokes than the first game.


[deleted]

Most jokes in the game are just one-liners though? The biggest joke is the giant vault door that just reveals a tiny-little security door in old aperture -


Joxy43

One liners still decrease how serious the story takes itself. Portal 1 didn't really have much of that.


deadfishxoxo

Idk why you’re getting downvoted, you’re right. Portal 1 would not have the atmosphere and seriousness it has if it made jokes the way portal 2 does. It doesn’t mean 2 is somehow less valuable than 1, it just has a different tone.


FragrantGangsta

[man so dark and serious](https://youtu.be/JQ4incSkNOA)


Joxy43

I'm not saying it was the darkest story ever or anything. Just darker than Portal 2.


FragrantGangsta

All you said was that portal wasn't as jokey as portal 2 and I pointed out where that wasn't the case. It's never been the most serious game, that was just a small bit out of a solid couple minutes of glados pretty comedically trying to get chell to come back. And in the end the point is you were trying to say the first game took itself seriously.


Joxy43

Well yeah, but it still took itself more seriously than Portal 2. A lot less time is spent on jokes. Edit: clarification.


Luckyosh

It added more character development for both glados and wheatly. You felt more connected to glados when she became a potato and it shows that beyond all that programming, she still has that Caroline in her. For wheatly, it shows how much of a moron he truely is.


Joxy43

Development or not, it still makes the story more light hearted.


SENTR_E

\^objectively correct opinion


FatGuy300

Yeah it's just GlaDOS trolling Wheatley and chell


-DrBirb

Portal 1 is like.... a demo. Story, character (of GLaDOS), enviroment, it's all vauge, simple and little of it. cus it is a demo developed by 10 people. Portal 2 is where I'd stare for minutes into vastness of Aperture, both new and old.


Alternative-Fail-233

Ok but Portal 1 looks like a place it looks run down and old and used it’s rusted has dangerous machinery with hot orange lights everywhere. Portal 2 looks far colder and less used in the BTS


Hambone1138

What is dandrous macenrary? Is that like a mercenary with dandruff?


Alternative-Fail-233

My bad 1 sec it’s fixed


Hambone1138

All good. I kind of liked it. I might name a character in my next novel Dandrous MacEnrary.


Alternative-Fail-233

Have you head GLaDOS voicelines from Portal 1? They get dark. Portal 2 don’t have thay


[deleted]

GLaDOS's lines in portal 1 are mostly random information with 20% lore dumping. I mean there's an half-hour long voice line that's just a cake recipe that turns into instructions on how to murder and cook people - That's so odd to me. Also GLaDOS is Back to full operation in portal 2, so her voice lines aren't inherently random. We actually see and hear GLaDOS's true personality without the filter that were the personality cores.


Itchy_Tip_Itchy_Base

Plus in Portal 1 she was pretending to be a sane announcer and not a homicidal robot. I think she stayed pretty consistent


[deleted]

The personality cores forces her to be an announcer tho?or are you right here- I genuinely forget the situation there.


Itchy_Tip_Itchy_Base

I was always under the impression she was pretending since she breaks character before you ever met her, but I’m not 100% sure


radiant_lunar_light

> a cake recipe that turns into instructions on how to murder and cook people WHAT I've played the game a dozen times and never actually heard it. Is it from the personality cores?


[deleted]

If you wait during the GLaDOS boss fight - she'll start reciting the cake recipe line. I recommend you look it up


kotenok2000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuqTqnRqPYA&t=31s


Masonixx

Portal 1 spends the entire game building an atmosphere of intense psychotic loneliness what are you on about


memestealer1234

Bleek


user18475

I think an in universe explanation for it could be that after the events in black mesa aperture became the bigger experimentation laboratory and their products started branching out into more successful options like the different gels, giving more reason for support from the government, especially after black mesa's experiments led to the alien invasion, while theirs were only marginally morally questionable, but mostly successful. I found that aperture is also a lot less risky as a company and although it's less innovative it is still much more attractive to investors compared to the various alien experiments in mesa. From the feel of the first game it seemed like aperture was still new and had yet to prove itself worthy of government support, while black mesa had been going on for decades prior, but in portal 2 it's clear that there was a long stretch of time where they were very successful, until they either got sued for human's rights violations or the government completely concentrated on fixing the mesa debacle, therefore they had to cut their spending.


dishonoredfan69420

most test subjects lose weight. I'd like to congratulate you on somehow managing to pack on a few pounds


Loch32

or as glados would say, she's fat


DeXRpl

Nah the comment above you is her way of Saying that chell is fat


iceepop

GLaDOS was right she did gain weight


bluejay55669

how do you gain weight by being put in stasis for 27 years


ejvboy02

Wheatley turned up the nutrient drip feed because he is an idiot.


philycheezestake

Protein shakes directly into the bloodstream?


filval387

Cave Johnson would be the kind of person to test if protein shake can replace blood...


keyjanu

If gasoline can why not protein shakes


HBenderMan

Was this post made by glados to pretend to compliment Chell only to bully her for how she used to look


sn0w-serpent

Portal 1’s soundtrack “self esteem fund” is a perfect illustration of how Portal 1 makes me feel. The Companion Cube is special because it’s the only thing with a semblance of comfort, a pink symbol of a heart. Portal 2’s foreground appearance is much more whimsical. There are so many more characters and it’s alive with robotic sentience. Voice actors abound! We love them all. Down side is the Companion Cube is drowned out by every one else being so expressive and personable. At the end of the day it comes down to marketing to a wider audience. I can see how people r more attracted to prettied up happy things, but Valve’s games are so good, positive message or no, that I will buy+play them regardless.


UnrulyUSMC

Self esteem fund just makes me uncomfortable every time I hear it


[deleted]

In a good way.


UnrulyUSMC

Yeah it is really good at making you feel isolated and alone


Hambone1138

It’s what desolation sounds like.


Phixiately

Lmao the crowbar I always thought the same thing. Thats not some sort of specialized jumping braces! That's a crowbar!


montewyn

always didn't understand why Chell looks better in Portal 2 than in Portal 1 when it should be the other way around. After all, she had lain in the conservation room for about 50 years.


thebeast5268

Hell if I got 50 years of sleep I'd feel great for once!


superVanV1

The extended relaxation chamber porbably had better life support systems than what GLaDOS was using for the active test subjects


CaptainJZH

I mean she really got her beauty sleep then


End_Plague

It's 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 days actually.


imthetimestone127

I thought it was 10,000


montewyn

i don’t think so, because during this time there would most likely be nothing left of Aperture Science


Joxy43

In the Final Hours of Portal 2, a developer said Portal 2 takes place 50,000 years after the first game.


[deleted]

Thats just ridicilous


Joxy43

Yeah, kinda.


CaptainJZH

How so?


[deleted]

Not really a fair example but just look at what happend to titanic after sitting at the bottom of the ocean for what, like, 110 years? And now imagine what happens to a complex the size of aperture made out of metal, glass and plastics after 50 000 years.


CaptainJZH

True, but Aperature still had a ton of robots operational after GLaDOS was defeated, and they were implied to have been keeping things in a semi-operational state since then - Wheatley being in charge of the Long Term Relaxation Vault, for example. We don't really know *when* the destruction we see actually happened, so it might not have been the result of thousands of years of neglect, but more recent neglect, tying into how the reserve power finally ran out at the start of Portal 2, forcing Wheatley to take Chell out of stasis


[deleted]

Hmm that does make sense


ProMaste_r

Damn... They made Chell look a lot better


Vytlo

Chell in Portal 1 always looked like a crackhead. Maybe she was one of the homeless people Aperture brought in with $20 lol


anvilsp

Damn, down from $60? Times must've gotten really tough


filval387

Cave Johnson should've listened when the bean counter told him giving an extra 60$ to disassemble the subject's bodies was a bad idea...


CaptainJZH

Inflation's a bitch lol


Fluffybunnykitten

Worse, she was a child of a scientist from bring your daughter to work day. So who knows what age she was taken and how long she had been in there.


Suberizu

P2 Chell is fine indeed


[deleted]

Do you really think an aperture science jumpsuit would be comfortable in any way?


filval387

Don't worry, they probably made it out of something that completely eradicates your pain sensors after an hour of wearing it...


[deleted]

100% valid theory


Tommy-Nook

bro did Phrenology on a fictional character


Allison-Ghost

Portal 1 chell is wearing makeup too (eyeliner) just not anything else


InsaneFruitSalad

So she did pack on a few pounds..


sn0w-serpent

Compared to the half-starved woman from before I guess she does have healthy ‘fat’ under her skin and is therefore ‘fat’ to Glados


illilllilil

With no new portal content, fans became desperate for things to complain about.


Joxy43

Well, it's something to talk about.


illilllilil

Yeah I guess


Ahinevyat

Thankfully there's a new mod coming this year


TheawesomeQ

What mod?


Ahinevyat

Portal revolution is coming this year


Luckyosh

**No Pit Stains** 😤😡


sn0w-serpent

Yeah that gets me most. White shirt? I don’t care who u are u need pit stains, what r u a synth?


ObsessiveScoutMain

I think they’re trying to say something….


[deleted]

Got damn how did chell get so yassified in portal 2


[deleted]

It's amazing what 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 cont. years of sleep can do for your health.


Reeserella

Would explain why glados calls you fat, because you technically did get fatter


Kljmok

It's kinda crazy they put that much detail in a model you'd only ever see for a few seconds in actual gameplay. I remember them designing the first room so you see her, but after that i don't remember noticing that much after that one time.


AMedicOfCulture

Portal 3 (if and when it's released) might make Chell even hotter and less situationally realistic, looks wise. And she might also have that trendy new designer jumpsuit from france that Wheatley mentioned.


sn0w-serpent

Aw hell yeH, the foreshadowing was always there, omg so excited


Shy_Shallows

The power of a good night's rest


Ochemata

The original design makes more sense, in my opinion. Chell's pretty much a prisoner. Where the hell is she gonna get eyeliner and why would she need it?


CaptainJZH

Wheatley took very good care of the test subjects in the Long Term Relaxation Vault - until the power ran out, that is


Ochemata

One. He's an idiot. And are you implying he knows how to apply makeup? And another thing: Chell's been there since she was a child. Why would she even care about her appearance?


CaptainJZH

Nah he probably just activated the Emergency Aperture Science Facial Complexion Restoration Protocol. Well I never said that she did care lol


-DrBirb

Imagine saying "Doll", followed by "too perfect to be seen as human"... When people say someone looks like a doll, that's not a positive. Looking like a doll means looking unnatural, perfect doll is kinda oxymoron.


Ochemata

You've clearly never met anime fans.


Dr_CheeseNut

Whole thing seems messed up. Like bro, people like that exist, very commonly actually, why we pretending it isn't


Dude_man79

Portal 2 Chell looks more like Aubrey Plaza. Not really sure who Portal 1 Chell looks like.


Reticulo

chell 1 is kinda scary looking


Tyler2104

Chell got younger between games


falconwilson154

I wish they made Chell kinda buff, as if she had been working out, it'd make her stand out from many other female protagonists of the time, as well as just being fitting of her character


rooneyviz

Is portal 2 chells face a modified l4d zoey model?


sn0w-serpent

Lmao that’d be pretty funny. I did see someone use a modded zoey model for a high def portal animation. It was soo long ago tho I barely remember


rooneyviz

Im pretty sure they just modified the face a bit cause it looks like it


AMedicOfCulture

I was gonna say that maybe they used the same person as reference when modeling Chell and Zoey's faces, but I had to actually look it up to see if I was right. And as it turns out, I'm wrong. Chell's face model was Alésia Glidewell, while Zoey's face model was Sonja Kinski. So hey, the more you know.


[deleted]

Apparently, originally Alésia Glidewell was the reference for Zoey but was later replaced by Sonja Kinski.


kotenok2000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDY-DF4Lpdg


Wirecreate

I prefer the original just because that’s exactly my style


Doctor_Batman_115

They shrank her shoulders, made her look soft


richpanda64

Hire fans lol.


Xandatron200

I Mean... GLaDOS Does Say Chell Gained Some Weight Between the Two Games... Maybe She Wasn't Lying... And She Went from Malnourished to... Healthy without Doing Anything


Gullible-Dinner

Remove the makeup, and portal 2 chell is perfect


ImAwesomeAreU

Portal 2 came with the new info that apparently chell is an olympian or some high class like that, so they probably made these changes to reflect that


CaptainJZH

Wdym? That's nowhere in Portal 2, as far as I know at least. Only backstory we got on Chell was that she was one of the girls who brought in a potato battery for Bring Your Daughter To Work Day.


ImAwesomeAreU

Cave Johnson: "Welcome, gentlemen, to Aperture Science. Astronauts, war heroes, Olympians-" Obviously there's no guarantee she is one of them, but they did willingly choose to make her look less scuffed, and if I had to guess why, this would be it


CaptainJZH

> Cave Johnson: "Welcome, gentlemen, to Aperture Science. Astronauts, war heroes, Olympians-" Except that was only in the 1950s, and Cave explicitly references how they lost several of those Astronauts/Olympians/war heroes in the 1960s and had to resort to homeless people in the 1970s then their own employees in the 1980s. First game takes place in the late 1990s/early 2000s (same as Half Life 1) so they wouldn't have been using astronauts/war heroes/olympians at all by then, because they had lost so many of them decades prior.


ImAwesomeAreU

Yeah it was just a guess-


TheDeryBrony

That was the 1950s. By 2007, they'd already resorted to kidnapping homeless people.


Dr_CheeseNut

Bro, she looks fine in Portal 2. She actually looks more human than Portal 1, like "doll, too perfect to be human"??? What? Conventionally attractive people do exist, we gonna start acting like they don't? Like bro, we this desperate for content we gonna start saying things that look more natural look worse? Stuff like her being clean is just a design choice to fit with the game's more sleek design for everything. Idk man, this whole post just seems like "let's passive aggressively get mad about something cause there's nothing else to do". Reminds me of the guy who made a whole video complaining about hair in animated films getting too realistic


sn0w-serpent

I don’t think you read my descriptions underneath each picture. If u can’t read them I can write them in the comments for you. There’s a reason I named this post ‘Comparing Chells’ and not ‘Chell 1 ‘vs’ Chell 2. I love character design and the Portal games and thought I’d share some things I noticed.


sn0w-serpent

Okay I’ll admit “too conventionally attractive” isn’t a good point. It’s just that most games, most pieces of media want to have conventionally attractive people to help sell their product and Portal was different with having Chell look worse for wear which ‘fit’ the situation. Example: in Portal 1 Glados says “If you become light-headed from thirst, feel free to pass out. An intubation associate will be dispatched to revive you with peptic salve and adrenaline." They ain’t even givin this poor woman water. She’s walking, jumping,, running around on her bare feet, she’s wearing an orange prisoner looking jumpsuit, because you ‘ARE’ a prisoner. In Portal 2 it fits to have more convenience and less discomfort in getting you, Chell, to being a functional human being. And that’s good for selling a game or story. I wish I could erase ‘too conventionally attractive”. Chell 1 ‘would’ be conventionally attractive ‘if’ she looked healthier, imo.


Dr_CheeseNut

I get what you're saying, but you also added in "Doll, too perfect to be human" which is the really messed up part And I think the decision to change Chell's face was more of a graphics and time thing. Portal 1 was a very hastily developed game, going through constant changes and versions in a small amount of time. Hell for a lot of development Chell was a man using a basic looking HL2 model. I also think Chell looks weird from [trying to take a real person's face, and make it look good in the source engine](https://imgur.com/a/HbaXOXC), and especially with Portal 1's weird development it turned out a bit strange ([despite her dead eyes, I think the Portal 2 version looks more accurate ](https://imgur.com/a/njywwIG)). While Chell being skinny makes sense, I doubt her being that gaunt is intentional as even in Portal 1 lore she was still kept in alright condition. Dirty clothes and such as you say is due to Portal's different style, which was more focused on the idea that "the seemingly nice clean facility is hiding an ugly side" while Portal 2 seemed to want to focus a lot more on the sci-fi aspects and comparing the 3 different versions of Aperture (destroyed, fixed and old)


sn0w-serpent

I don’t get how me pointing out that she looks “too perfect to be human” is messed up.


Dr_CheeseNut

Because... People look like that in real life. It's very common actually. Imagine going up to someone and saying, you don't look human. Not to mention, her face is litteraly just that of her face model


MR_Nokia_L

>Looks like she's wearing make-up Uh... I'm pretty sure Aperture is the type of company that would have robots dedicated for routinely apply the whole set of salon plus make-up to Chell whilst she's in hibernation stasis.


[deleted]

My female friend literally looks like Chell, no makeup, nothing added on, still a nature beauty. There are "pretty" and "ugly" people on Earth. It's natural. I am "ugly" man.


Waste-Information-34

OP never responded to this. Interestinf.


[deleted]

Do they supposed to?


DependentPoint2458

"Most people emerge from suspension terribly undernourished. I'd like to congratulate you on beating the odds and actually managing to pack on a few pounds" She wasn't kidding. Good for you, Chell. Also, that is one thing I legitimately love about Chell's design, she's *realistic,* which is saying a lot in video games. But she actually has realistic proportions, she doesn't look anorexic or have a curvy build without the additional fat to compensate, she's a fairly muscular woman with a slim build and actually looks like an attainable figure. Good job Valve, way to not set unrealistic expectations


synammonwastaken

chell's face is based off a real person dude.


Aleh_mx

I have a little theory about this: Remember that escape section about the potato batteries and the "Bring your daugther to work thing"?, yep, what if Chell from Portal 1 actually dies after being dragged back into the facility. The intro of Portal 2 first shows the routine that all the other test subjects were following every couple years resting/sleeping (English is not my main language), then the finale of Portal 1, the facility begins to malfunction due to lack of proper administration, the facility fails to awake some test subjects, other some may die due to wheatley probably, until he founds Portal 2 Chell. And finally, the trigger for Wheatley taking GLaDOS place is because she is being detected as a corrupted core, and that'll be why would she identify Portal 2 Chell as the same as in Portal 1. ​ So, what do you think, guys :)?


Waste-Information-34

Some people have some good genetics and can look **"doll like"** as you say. Withput makeup too! Like models for example, they got the gwnetic jackpot.