AW MAN!
You guys have GOT to make a sequel to this.

Thx Moe..Color work is a whole seperate battle for me. I am focasing on improving my storytelling and panel work for now. I will probably continue to use ink and pencils untill I feel I am ready to tackle my coloring skills. I spend alot of time on sketches and pencil detail in the final product, so its tough to find the additional time needed to finish in color with my current work scheduale and busy homelife.

Purely amazing. if you (dred) keep this up youl be in the top five by no time. n a color wont hurt.

Many people above have basically took words here and there outta my mouth.. so I don\'t need to restate anything.

Mokuu - Great work for finishing this for starters, man! I think your angles are the strongest point but you got lazy with some details here and there with both lines ... people have mentioned for the most part so.. yeah. You did a solid job with character colors.. but backgrounds also could use work.

Drawdan - Yours was pretty good too. It got the higher vote from me due to artistic quality and detail consistency.. though story wise didn\'t seem as good towards the beginning.. there was some really good parts in yours action-wise. So great work!

Would like to see more battles from either of you two. Good job on the comic collab.

I liked the two that angie threw out but Im still looking.

If possible, search for 1001fonts.com, it\'s got a good number of fonts, but you really gotta look through it to see what works for you.

Thanks..ill try those on my battle with Nameless.

yep. angie\'s right on that one. blambot\'s good for that & sound effect fonts & things. the two she suggested are probably the best but there\'s a lots of goods on there.

-J

http://blambot.com has some nice free comic fonts, I normally use digital strip or letter-o-matic

I was  really happy with the font eighther. Any suggestions on fonts anyone?

both were pretty good guys!

mokuu- the full color work was good, but the line work at times seemed a bit like it was taking short cuts. not the stylizing but like when you add perspective to it, the structure doesn\'t seem consistent. also when you do the city bits, look at some architecture. there\'s plenty of ways to get nice simple detail but still make them look like buildings rather than just boxes

drawdan- generally you have some pretty nice line work. a couple of times though some of the poses seemed pretty stiff. i did really like some of the layouts though, good job there. and good to see variations with the backgrounds & like switching things up & drawing animals & things.

one thing that did kind of stick out & bug me about both was the lettering. mokuu\'s fit more of a comic style but it seemed like there\'s like an incomplete font set. like the one bit should have been an apostrophe & it was a question mark. something like that isn\'t a huge deal but if you leave it in, it kind of ruins the idea that the letters were drawn & more like \'typed\'. and drawdan\'s the font was too digital looking. both kind of took me out of the story.

-J

Mokuu - Nice coming out, full color and everything. The effort is not unappreciated, so props for pulling through. On to the crits!

People seem to be hitting all the right marks, like detail and anatomical consistency, so I won\'t bore you with that. What I will emphasize, however, is improving the dynamics of the scenes you have. You\'ve got a pretty good eye for cinematography in some shots, like knowing when to pull exciting shots and angles, but sometimes you leave it very static and blank when it shouldn\'t. For example, the fourth panel of page seven (where he\'s using his \"volcanic pulverizer\") is totally anti-climactic compared to the lead-up. Just because it misses doesn\'t mean it has to be boring!

Also, remember that the nearer the viewer is to something, the more detail it should have. Just keep that in mind when you want to do a close-up of your character\'s eyes. Word bubbles have been mentioned, but I\'ll go ahead and re-iterate it here.

Dan - nice to have you back! Detail and quality is sharp and classic as ever, but there\'s some trouble spots here and there.

Careful how you arrange and fill your word bubbles. Big blocks of text make things hard to read, so when doing exposition like on page 6, spread it out a bit more. I understand that you don\'t wanna cover up your pretty background (and it\'s very pretty), but try and either a) move the text across more panels and pages, or b) cut down the amount of stuff he has to say. Same goes for the monologue on page 12.

Lastly, it seems like you still pull a lot of old-school poses from classic comics, which is neat, but it doesn\'t always fit the angle we see the panel at, and they also have a tendency to get repetitive. Maybe try doing some poses not at the same angle? I\'m not sure what else to suggest for this other than just keep drawing without reference to other artists, which I\'m sure you do. Maybe some in-between poses, like not quite to the super-dynamic poses you\'ve got.

I\'m looking forward to your batter with Nameless!

Ill focus on your lettering. somewhat rushed. mostly after thought. Drawden your type face was a little bland and your word balloons need more character. Mokuu keep your balloons and lettering more consistant.

Not bad all. An interesting battle with two very different art styles. Refreshing.

Mokuu - Nice coloring on the art overall. The biggest thing I noticed was the lack of attention to BG detail. It stands out a bit, taking away from the art.

Drawdan - Impressive inkwork, looks like you\'ve been working hard. A few gripes though...some of the paneling gets pretty confusing on some of the pages (the one with the glass-like panel boxes) and there are some anatomy issues. However, the background work and attention to detail are improved from your previous stuff.

Dan gets the edge in this one. Much improved.

Great work from both of you.

Mokuu: I\'m a little less critical of your art style. I am a big fan of simple designs. I like it when I can read the comic and I don\'t have to struggle to figure out what is going on by looking at the action. Your work is clean and it\'s straight forward. The story was very good as well. Maybe a little cliche\' but what isn\'t anymore. The powers reminded me of a fighting game with the name listed as he did them, which was funny.

Drawdan: I\'m biased against people who don\'t color their work. However I love your art style so as I went along I gave less and less attention to the lack of color and just really enjoyed the action. The story was pretty good, although I think Mokuu has the slight edge there. I had ALOT of trouble at times trying to figure out what way to read pages. A few times I read the wrong bubble only to figure it out on the next one.

Overall it\'s a tie for me. Slight edge to Dan on art quality, slight edge to Mokuu on entertainment. Equal on creativity. The way you guys did this I wonder how either of you are going to move on to the next battle without the other being there?

Nice start Mo, I like your clean color work and exadurated cartoon style. I agree with alot of the earlyer comments regarding your sparce backgrounds and lack of detail. You did miss the silver accents in Dreds costume(on his belt/shoulder pads and lower legs) Im glad that you felt challenged by our combined script cause thats what were drawing for free for-practice makes perfect! I enjoyed combining efforts storywise with you. Looking foward to your next battle man-keep on hammerin out!

Mokuu-as one animation student to another, animation and comics are two totally different things and you have to treat them as such. You can be as crazy gestural as you want while pencilling, but inking and coloring require you slowing down and tightening things up. You can certainly be expressive in your inking/coloring, but it really has to look intentional if that makes any sense. Try to stay away from the line tool for backgrounds, it\'s very hard to make it look good because it\'s hard to make it not look like the line tool. If you\'re going to use it, try and make the lines very, do what you can to make it look like you didn\'t use the line tool. Backgrounds are great tools for giving your comics a certain feeling and atmosphere, use them wisely. I know I personally always set out to set a certain mood and time of day with mine, it makes working with backgrounds seem like they have more of a purpose and helps make them fun. People have already brought it up but you absolutely must give all the characters in the comic the same love you give the main character or it comes across as lazy. I found your style a lot of fun, I just want to see more work put behind it.

Drawdan-your inks were very lovely and you did a great job on the backgrounds. You did however seem to have some consistency problems with the faces, Abrao looked pretty different in several scenes. I would also like to see you watch your pacing and text layout. Text should never be an afterthought, it should be a part of the design. If you want on particuliar page or panel to have a lot of text, you need to space it out a little to give the viewer room to breathe. If it looks like the text isn\'t going to fit in a word bubble, make the word bubble bigger or have the rest of the text happen in another panel. I just personally had such a difficult time reading the dialogue on some pages due to the tiny text crammed into one word bubble. Also be be careful about adding digital effects to traditional stuff, lense flare doesn\'t work even with a purely digital piece so try to avoid it. Photoshop filters are the enemy unless they are well hidden, a smart Photoshop user knows how to make it look like they aren\'t even there.

I thought this was a fun battle from both sides all around. This fight really had a Saturday morning cartoon feel to it which was a lot of fun. I look forward to seeing more from you guys!

I liked the fact that the two of you collaborated on the entries. Nice way to deal with the issue of both characters basically being good guys and therefore not fighting each other directly.

Mokuu: The main crit I can give you for your entry is to be consistent. You tend to give more time to your rendering of Abrao then other characters in the story. It also looks like you spent more time or effort into natural backgrounds then into the urban backgrounds. Others have touched on this as well, lack of background and rushing the work. So I won’t dwell on it.

Dan: The cover art looks very good… a couple of points. The title text needs more attention. The lettering looks squished into the frame, you start off with “DRED” very strong, but then “NAUT” looks like you were running out of room. Also the overlaps makes it a bit hard to read.

The image itself might have been a little stronger, if it was done in either a bird’s eye or a worm’s eye view. With it straight on, you loose some of the punch that it could have had… just an opinion, but I am thinking you would want to emphases the puppet aspect.

Many of the pages are very strong… However, there were a couple of times where it wasn’t clear what order some of the text balloons were intended to be read in. The clearest example of that is on page three, where text balloons for panel five overlaps into panel three.

Another confusing issue was panel order on page ten. Panels 1-3 worked great, but then it wasn’t clear that the panel with the two hands coming together were suppose to be read before the panel with Abrao firing at the little robot dudes. It took just a second or two for me to figure out what was suppose to be happening, but that broke up the flow of my reading the page.

Over all through I think it was a very strong submission and I am looking forward to seeing your next fight!

This wasn\'t a bad read now actually, but I still have a few nit picks.

Mokuu: This is a wonderful first battle from you, you\'ve got a great animating style and it works for your character. However this animated style really doesn\'t seem to fit completely in your comic, mainly because everything looks so rushed and all the linework and coloring just doesn\'t look clean. I honestly thought you and Koufuyo had switched places for a minute or two. Now, the one thing you should really practice right now is your line art, you have to take your time on a comic now, cause if you rush, it\'ll show. More than a couple of times did I notice that your figures were missing hands, feet, and at one point Dreads was missing the top part of his head! Half the time it seemed like you did this to make room for the sound effects, but normally it\'s just wise not to cover up a character with sound effects.

Second thing you should watch out for is backgrounds and how characters size up to backgrounds. Like Marley mentioned: There was nothing in your backgrounds, even in the forest settings you had as well. Try to think of what might be in a forest or a filthy alleyway in a violent city, there\'s more than just trees and grass, and there\'s more in an alleyway than the stray trash can and the street on the other side ya know. Last thing for backgrounds is how characters are able to fit into one, pages 3 and 4 are the main concerns I have. When comparing how big Mokuu is next to that far away dumpster, he\'s a giant! Same with the panel on page 4 with him listening in and crouching low, there\'s no way he\'d fit on that sidewalk dude! General rule of thumb for backgrounds dude: Character\'s are also part of it, and they have the same perspective as the backgrounds.

Try drawing a background first and draw two lines for where your character\'s head and feet should be, this will help you figure out the right size and keep things like lamp posts, trash bins, etc... from being either really tiny compared to your fighter, or uber massive!

Coloring comes to mind as well when I look at this fight, I understand that you had to rush this, but when I look over this comic I really feel like you should of planned this out in advance, half of the time the colors were bleeding outside of the lines, and you even changed Dreadnaut\'s skin color towards the end. Now I am kinda biased with colors, and honestly I think in your next fight you should greatly consider dropping them until you beef up your line art. But anywho, a decent first entry into void, good luck with future fights.


Drawdan: Your inking has stepped up mang, the only thing that kinda bugged me was the dot shading in certain spots, but that\'s just me being nit picky. Anatomy I can\'t really pick apart either, but I\'m not necessarily a fan of how you draw the feet of the characters... meh, it\'s not that importaint.

The story was pretty good as well, granted it kinda felt like it didn\'t truly pick up until page 5 like Marley mentioned. But it\'s all good so far, just keep up the pace for your next fight now alright?




Anywho, Mokuu: Work on your lineart and backgrounds ASAP! And don\'t rush it either, this isn\'t animation now.  Drawdan: My vote goes to you, and good luck with Nameless.

actually, if you dont count the cover page-its page 9 thats missing-basically the page that follows the page where Abroa is standing on the cracking skylight and proceeding the page where he volcanic erupts the baddies. The missing page shows Ab fall threw the glass to land in the warehouse and join the battlewith dreds. |I emailed Kevin so he can post the correct page..stay tuned for correction.

Moku - You go at great lengths to make your work appear animated, but all of your panels are so sparse that it loses its life and makes your work come off as being lazy. You really need to work on your details, and put some focus into bringing your environments to life. The cubes for buildings, and the cookie cutter bricks don\'t cut it. You actually have alley with no garbage or puddles or anything on the ground. Spend some time filling sketchbooks with environments. Put more consideration into what you may find in the locations you\'re drawing.

Dan - Great use of details. I can tell you put a lot of effort in! Pages 6 and 7 win the match for you. That panel with the animals in cages and the establishment panel of them standing over the warehouse makes me wish you would focus more on the storytelling aspect of your art. The pages leading up to those two pages felt like a collection of pinups, and it was hard to get a sense of location. The fighting was also pretty confusing in parts. On page 10 specifically it looks like turned into a giant, and he\'s going to volcano pulverizer them by sitting on whatever he was fighting. ALSO STAY AWAY FROM LENSE FLARES THEY\'RE THE DEVIL!

 

|Kev duplicated page 10 and 11-page 10 is missing- in Dreds battle

Mokuu!!!! Finally in!
This is gonna be great^^
I\'m comin for you man!

Dan, you had me going through so much : D i cant tell you the amount of mistakes and shit i landed and noted for next time. No joke, this battle sends me back to the drawing board to learn new moves XD. How far are you with the prologue?

ive uploaded my main pages..Battle done......wheeewww...my inking hand is in pain...I am workin on a prolouge in pencils that I am trying to finish. If I finish it..great..if not Ill post it later.

Pages submited. 10 pages, never again XD

Ill make it worth that wait for ya RTV.

When i\'m in a fight, 2 weeks fly by like they were 2 minutes
When waiting for someone elses fight, 2 days seem like 2 weeks.

Mokuu\'s debut and Drawdan\'s return...next time pick some other method to torture me.

Time to go overdrive:

OVERNIGHT COFFEE RUSH !

(+90 Energy and Endurance)
(+30 bladder problem)
(-50 mental coherance next morning)

ooooooooooh yeah ! Lets spark this !

Not at all Phill, my battle with you was alot of fun. And we can rematch whenever you think you have the time. Im not gonna lie to you Mo...I think that this battle is BY FAr my best work on Void yet. I hope my fellow Void City neighbors agree. I should be finishing my last couple of pages tonight and will start inking tommorow.Im really looking foward to seeing your work Mo..Im sure your gonna bring the heavy lumber!

Sorry for the slow timing, Dreads, pencils are somewhat done, im just adding more infos to make the job easier, as for the robots, our settings are different so its normal that the squads may be different XD So far ill have a digital strike left cause photomerge never co-operates with brush pen inking. Lets get the show on the road !

Man, *looks at his heavyweight fight against Drawdan and shakes his head* I must of sounded like a child back in the day, and my battle against ya was ass. Well anywho, good luck you two, and if there\'s a chance for a rematch in the future, feel free to send me a challenge DD, I\'m curious to see how far along I\'ve come while fighting on void.

hows it coming Mo? Im almost dome with my pencils, which for me they are always the most labor intensive part. The inking is much quicker. Email me with any questions or updates. If you need any ref. for any of Gepettos established henchmen just let me know. But as I stated in my email, you can pretty much make them look like whatever you want. I am using animal/lycan type in my battle to tie into your background.

Glad to see you back Dawdan! I was just reading your old battles the other day and I look forward to seeing how you\'ve improved. And good luck to you Mokuu! I can\'t wait to see how you do on your first battle

Lets take it to the limit !

Thats right RTV! deff. kick me a challenge when your ready. Dreds is back-new and improved  and on the warpath!

Mothafukking Mokkuuuu! You got in, good for you man. Been dying to see you in action for 9 months now.

Dreadnaut? The former Boots n Dreadz? Damn it\'s been a while.
i think i actually owe you one.

Kick ass.

I just uploaded all my new Dreds 2.0 content in the manager. New win/loose pose-model sheet, bio and 2 page intro are up and running Mokuu. Email me with any questions.-dan

You finally have a batlle man, hope it\'s a good one, good luck...

whoo, so you found someone! good luck you guys!

This better be fantastic.

AWESOME.  

You boys better BRANG IT, y\'hear??