Good first battles for you both.

Evin: I agree with Angie on your line art quality. If you have shakey hands, I understand- but if not, either fix them up in photoshop
with the curves tool to tighten them up, or just take your time. (For me, it felt like you were rushing the lines almost? Forgive me if I am wrong) The thick outlines around the figures shouldn\'t be overused TOO much as well. You don\'t want the figures to seem like they\'re COMPLETELY separate from the background by using them. Storywise, it was rather cute. I felt it was generic, but HEY- it\'s your first battle and I know you\'ll only get better! <3 So GREAT first battle!

Amazingdavid: As it was mention, this did not reflect your intro at all. The quality took a huge downgrade, but I imagine it could be because of the 2 weeks span of time. Even with experimenting, the quality should not diminish. Work on different styles on the side a bit? I am enjoying that texture you are using, but I think you used it a bit too much. It gives the impression that you\'re using it just to UMPF up your pages a bit.  One thing textures help out with is to bring a bit more life to the setting and give the impression that they have some form. (I think I just explained that wrong.. sigh. I can\'t think of the best way to explain it, sorry). Either way, mess around with other textures simply on the backgrounds, different ones for the figures, clothing. Just... tone them down slightly.
Your character is generally interesting, so I would like to see you go further with this Chap!

Nice work, Guys! <3

Evin-Probably my biggest complaint at the moment is your line quality. Your inking felt pretty shaky in a lot of areas and I would like to see you work on tightening it up in the future. It looks like you\'re having some issues with your humans as well. Try to spend as much time on the backgrounds as you do the foregrounds, even background characters are included in that. Now story wise this was pretty typical for a first battle which is fine, no one\'s expecting a big serious epic story right off the bat or anything. I found the battle pretty cute and I enjoyed it so keep working towards improving.

amazingdavid-I have to echo the statements of the people that this wasn\'t as strong as your intros and while I understand you were experimenting, you probably should have tried working with this different style a little more prior to battling so you could get a good hang on it. I like the look of your battle and enjoyed your color selection, I do have to agree that occasionally the textures were way too much, perhaps toning them down just a little. Since Perca was the first one to bring it up, definitely listen to her about it and check out the work she did on Spiral http://entervoid.com/character/1296 for some examples of how heavily relying on textures can be done well. Story wise I\'m wondering where you\'re going to go with the character, obviously as a first battle I\'m not expecting an amazing story, so I\'ll wait and see where you take this guy. Also good to see another fellow CCAD student (well you graduated already)

Pretty good showings from both of you guys, always nice to see people\'s first battles starting off on the right foot

trememdous lolz from both sides. Thsi fight was a great match up!

Evin, he totally beat you to the all-black-execpt-eyes-and-chest-panel shot, it look sso rad.
Can\'t call it, just have to see how the votes turn out.

Evan

So  I didn\'t give a very thoughtful critique..

Too be honest I only half agree with everybody else.  I actually dig the way you draw a lot. I honestly don\'t care incorrect perspective or bad anatomy or any of that shit.  And mostly it\'s because it doesn\'t seem like that is your intent.  I believe if you wanted to draw your characters realistically in a realistic setting then (despite skill level) you would have attempted that.  I think you have a lot of the basic skills that will allow you to decide how you want to continue creating.  With all that said I actually really enjoyed your comic, and the funky perspective and the simplistic characters didn\'t bother me at all.  I would suggest that you study anatomy a little bit, but not so much that you lose your ability to abstract it (it seems the people who draw realistically real well have a much harder time abstracting) I would also suggest you figure out what kind of comics you want to eventually create and that will help you determine how to proceed from here...

@Jared: Yeah, that\'s how I used to do it. Just draw every element on its own at whatever scale I need to make it look right, and then combine them all in PS, but I never liked the way they turned out, because although each element looked good in and of itself, it just didn\'t work as well, composition-wise, which is why I\'m doing it like this, and drawing everything on the same page. And for the record, I\'m just using normal 8.5x11, because it is plentiful, and is a good size for working at my current desk, as well, as being what fits on my scanner. I also have a ginormous sketchbook lying around that I did buy for this exact purpose, but it\'s just too unwieldy at this point. We\'ll see, though.

Jared..um..sorry

but too be honest I was going for sterile and synthetic...maybe it just wasn\'t a good choice...I used rounded arial for my next battle too...hehehe...

i knew the \'hyper evolved\' part. and wrote off the other anthropomorphic features. but the legs just look awkward & unpenguin like. oh and penguins can talk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boj75h3urLU

what size are you drawing at? if you\'re scanning into photoshop, don\'t be afraid to take up more of a page for certain panels & shrink it down once it\'s scanned.

-J

@ Jared Lewis: Yeah, my background characters suck. I just need to start drawing on larger stuff, essentially. Drawing tiny makes it tough to make good background detail (or, clearly, any, in my case). And I have it, I just don\'t have the room to do it right now, which is unfortunate.

Regarding the penguin legs, if you read my bio and intro thing, it\'s explained. He\'s all hyper-evolved and stuff. Penguins also don\'t have, y\'know, fingers, or the ability to talk, either.

haha! panda bird! XD

very funny stories from the both of you. nice art too.
pretty much everything\'s been said. i\'m no good at critiques anyway

evin, i\'m not digging how you draw people or backgrounds. and don\'t penguins usually have stumpy legs? story was kinda fun though so i gave you some points there.

dave, this wasn\'t as nice as your intro pages. the perspective seemed a little jacked in places too. and the texture seemed very unnecessary to be flatly overlaid through out. AND SERIOUSLY. blambot.com! for reals. rounded arial looks like ass for dialog. even if you wanna stray from traditional comic text it looks way too sterile & synthetic for your time lost piratesque character. i was hoping for better from you

-J

yeah I pretty much agree with everyone else but I had to drop somethin\' on my Bro\'s first battle.

Dave- textures did kinda get overwhelming.

Evin- life drawing, get to it. well if you are really want to get good, if not its cool. BUt either way I would start learning perspective drawing. I like your character and your story, and the fact that you made me go back and watch batman returnes just to see the battle penguins.

Thanks Foo...Yeah...next battle will definitely be closer to my design sheets...hehehe...although not quite.  My goal is to use Void to try out all the styles I don\'t use much so I can increase my versatility....

david: awesome character bro.. hopefully next time we can see a style closer to yur char sheet as i was much more fond of that style so it makes it hard to crit yur work if you arent goin with the style you are more comfortable with... but it was a good start. still was very funny to me.. pumped to see what you do next.

evin: i liked yur battle as well.. i liked all the scanner moments at the beginning.. was amusing.. harder to crit yur style cause i dunno how much is style and how much is flaws.. so.. just keep workin on yur line work is all ill say since yur lines clash with yur tech stuff i.e. the pda thing that pen X carries the screen and the random shape of the object it self. but in all a good battle i enjoyed it.

Penguin X by evin  - heh, not bad. I was definently entertained . luvin cha art work

Flint Locke  by amazingdavid  - ONe word...damn...( lol made me hungry) Definently luvin yah art work

@Evin: I don\'t want to repeat the others here, but sadly I\'ll have to ha ha. A really simple shading could had made miracles here, aside from that, It was an enjoyable read, you got me interested in your character ha ha ha  I like the simple humor you got around, it sure made the job for me.

@amazingdavid: I understand that the first page is missing, I would suggest you to ask Angie or other staff member about it (or at least ask for permission to post the link to the missing page on the comment box, idk...). I\'ll comment from what I can see here then, leave the plot for later.

Being a pattern user myself, I think you overused it on the pages, you lost the balance between the color and the pattern dept, making it too strong and looking like you didn\'t bother to use the pattern to make the lineart stand, but just to use the pattern and whatever (sorry if it sound a bit harsh, but it kinda broke my heart ha ha). The usage on the colors for the characters and backgrounds was something that bothered me, aside form the panels you completely colored the characters black, I barely can\'t see the difference between the strong colors on the bg and the chars, low the saturation and bright of one of them to make the other pop.

I understand that you\'re going for a different style, but it\'s no excuse for the floppy inking polish HA HA I hate to repeat what everybody says, but this look like under the level of your intros, Almost all panels i can feel you losing steam on the inking with open lines and weird line variations, and the colors just made those stand a lot, watch out for that. I dunno if it was you getting short on time or if it was something else, but since it is there, it\'s a good thing to point out for the future.

All in all, this was very entertaining, props up for both of you, this is an awesome first match! *thumbs up*

Also @ Dimension....I was going for a cartoonier style, which apparently I\'m not used to drawing so that could be the reason for the lowered quality bodys n such....

I still hope I can repost the first page...otherwise...that\'s really gonna suck...

Evin: The art wasn\'t very good - but your story was pretty funny in a sort of understated way - so you got my vote for entertainment at least.

amazingdavid: I kind of have to echo the thoughts below.  The art was a notch above your opponents (but not to the level of your intro sheets), but the entertainment was a notch a below... either that or I just didn\'t get it.

@amazingdavid: Dude, your colours blow my frigging mind. Kudos to the max.

@Dimension: Yeah, I know what you mean. Throughout my colouring it, it was in the back of my mind. I just haven\'t developed a method that I\'m happy with yet. It\'s all about reconciling vision with style, and I haven\'t been able to do that to an acceptable degree yet, but here\'s hoping.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Awesome Evin...

Nice story I am quite impressed....

@dimension....AAAAAAAAH Crap...so I added a first apology for the tiny lettering which replaced the first page that kind of would have made thisstory mean something....is there a way to change that??

@Evin: nice first battle! it was very cute and i like the character :3 I really would suggest adding in some shadows though to help make you characters pop more. cool stuff!

@amazingdavid: also a nice first battle, but in my opinion...I didn\'t quite feel that this was at the same quality of your intros or design sheet; the faces and body\'s didn\'t seem as well constructed and the ink work also looks pretty different. D: the story was, however,very fun to read, though it was pretty random at some times.oh,and the expressions of the characters were fun too look at too, nice job.

both of you did an awesome job for your first battles, nice work guys!

Jesus Christ, that was fantastic. Good gracious.

Hah, me too. Been getting my colour on for the past two days.

AAAAaaahh diggity dang I\'m excited my first battle

HAhaha..nabooki that\'s why I wanted to do this challenge...

ohhh im pumped! I LOVE penguins!

good luck guys!

This is going to be cool.

Good luck you guys! Hope you can manage two battles at once david