@Q-Bit - Now I am REALLY curious about Gil's past! Also what Cherry did for him was really nice! Yeah, ya know, backgrounds would have been nice but hey! I really dig your artstyle!

@Audius - Really fast-paced and great portayal of both characters in such few pages! A bit confusing at times, tho, and I think it would have benefited from more pages, but it is pretty good!

Well, after looking up open and closed silhouettes I realized the thing I'm thinking of doesn't immediately pop up in a search, so I'll clarify: The idea is that, if you were to make the figure a black silhouette, what's going on should be clear and visible.

Animators are big on this. Here's a little something on it by Andreas Deja:
http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/08/strong-silhouetteor-not.html

On balloons, one thing I've been doing lately is laying out my panels and my dialog early in the process, during thumbnails or roughs. I'm not good at projecting where things should be before beginning to draw, but I can easily reposition, resize, or change a sketch if I try to put words next to it and it gets kind of crowded. The software I use, Clip Studio Paint, does the panels and balloons as easily changed vector assets, so it's easy to test things out and nudge them around. With it all there in a form I can see, I start resizing and rearranging until it looks like a good, readable page.

I suppose it's also good to think of your comic as if it will be resized for print to figure out how the layout and sizes are doing.

Thanks @everyone for all your critiques/kind words.  Honestly, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to finish in time and am glad that I was able to prove to myself that I could make this happen.  Wanted a good first impression and did that.

A problem that I have is knowing how to use my canvas space.  I don't know what makes a panel too big, and what makes a panel too small, don't really know anything wording-wise (the comic I worked on for over a year was lettered by my writer, so this is kinda my first attempt).  I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction for a forum post that has these kinds of hints/facts?
((sorry for this text dump, feel like I need to respond to everyone, work's been keeping me in overtime status all week, so I'm going to unwind this gods blessed Friday night by taking it out with you!))

@Bobo:  I'll get to work on getting used to backing off my characters and their actions, thanks!

@Inksword:  I actually own the book and pushed it to my "reading now" slot to see what I can learn!  Thanks for the tip.

@MaxieWest: Lol, this was actually me trying to do some background work.  I completely see what you mean and agree, I'll work harder next time.

@Astro Sean: Glad I left you wanting more, I'm pretty sure that's something I should strive for?  I hope it was enough for this round though!

@citronrobotlord: I'll see what I can do about the words, I hope my pacing improves and that I can be clearer in the next comic I get a chance at!  Baby Barbarian got a lot of traction as soon as he made an appearance, hope I can keep up when we face eachother.

@Julz: Thanks a lot, warms my hear to hear that you liked Cherry B0MB's presence!  Maybe she'll let me start working on backgrounds instead of spending so much time on her next time D:

@Flutterbyes:  Don't know what I'm doing but I'll look up what those silhouettes are, should help in the next comic!  Backgrounds popping out might be the critique to strive for at the moment.  Maybe I'll learn to do them first, then worry about toning them down.  I'll start studying my comics and see what I can implement.  Teaming up with @Q-Bit in the future sounds like a fun proposition.

@G.Lo:  (I can't stand doing critiques myself because I always say something then think "If I knew that then whY DIDN'T I DO THAT?"  I feel you.)  Wanted to echo what YOU said about @Q-Bit's color work, I actually really liked the monochromatic pages a lot!  First time lettering, but I'll try to keep the bubbles in mind in the thumbs next time, thanks!

@mortooncian:  I hate making excuses, but the major reason I was having pacing issues is because I had to turn a 7 page comic into a "do-able" 3 pager because of gross working times these two weeks.  Honestly, even without the crunch, pretty sure my pacing is all over the place so I'll just work on it and we'll see how I improve!

Thank you all so much for the comments so far!  I'll be back tomorrow morning with a round of "fellow contestant  critiques whether I want to or not".  Again, sorry about the dump, I'm delirious with sleep deprivation and will bid you all adieu!

[-Audius OUT-]

QBit: You couldn't finish full-coloring the later pages and that's alright: what can help with that is to try to reach a similar level of completion on all pages, which can help reduce inconsistency.
I really enjoyed your story; the only thing that threw me off was Cherry deciding so rapidly to let him go. However, you did a ton for a week, and I nitpick stories to bits, so don't mind me too much!

Audius: The story feels very... fast ? I'd say my major issue with this comic was the really rapid pacing. Either a page or two more, or more panels per page to help ease into the story beats, would really help you out here. Either way, great job, ESPECIALLY for a one weeker and especially for a first void comic!

I always feel god awful for critiquing things that have one week deadlines because I know I sure as hell wouldn't get half as much done as everyone who does one weekers haha.

Q-Bit:
I'm gonna echo off of everyone and their mom with backgrounds, and also Flutterbyes with color palettes and lighting. You've got the same lighting situation on page one where it looks like she's either in a club/party place or outside in the middle of the night and on page 3 where she's looking for Terminal in broad daylight. Since you've clearly made these points in time complete opposite times of the day, your lighting on your characters needs to reflect that otherwise it just kinda falls flat.

I actually like what you did with the pages that have that yellow color because the fact that you limited your palette makes it look like you understood what the focus of the panel had to be. Like on page 5, everything is bright until Terminal makes his way into the dark alley. And then once in the dark alley, you've highlighted that the only way out is up so he's SOL. If you give that mindset to your colored pages, I think it would really make your panels pop more and become more relevant.

Audius
You goootttaaa figure out the placement of your word bubbles and SFX before you establish your panel. The first panel on page 3 has a good action sequence going on but you hide most of the art with the word bubbles and the sound fx fonts! Also considering the placement of your word bubbles will make you think harder on how to construct your panel which could lead for more interesting angles and such as opposed to the straight-forward view your action sequences displayed.

I liked how short and sweet your story was- a little snippet of this duo that seems to be together in wary circumstances. You definitely gave off the vibe in just 3 pages that they kind of just have to trust each other to get this job done.

Great job guys!

I really like how you think, Q-bit! If you work on your simplified anatomy, staging, and foreshortening, you'll probably pull of some really fun composition with the ideas you have. I also like what you're doing with color, particularly to keep the comic looking tight and interesting in a limited way, but you'll pull it off much better if you mind your values. For example, in the first two pages, many important elements are in conflict with the background color because their values are too close. Page 3 mixes up the colors, but if you throw on an adjustment layer with the saturation turned all the way down, you'll see in greyscale that in most panels they're nearly identical in value.

Oooh, Audius, you have some really fun line quality and and action going on. If you stage them just a little better, open up those poses (are you familiar with open and closed silhouettes?), they'll really pop! It's super hard to get proper backgrounds going in such fast comics with one week or shorter deadlines, and that's something that's going to take some time to get to a point when "HMMM YOUR BACKGROUNDS..." stops being a constant critique, but if you could find a way to make the background, you know... drop into the, well, background? Pull a little less attention to itself and how its drawn? Feel free to use things like line tools or perspective rulers, throw in a little bit of a detail here, a shadow in the corner there.... I don't know, this is something I'm working on, too.

UH STORY. I think you both did a good job of effectively introducing your characters. Both feel like they're kicking off into something bigger. I think maybe you should have them team up again in the future.

Qbit try using figure drawing to get a better feel for more dynamic poses. Everyones just kinda standing around in your comic. It would have been cool to see what these peple were doing while she asked about the photo. Nice use of foreshortening and great first comic!!
Audius i love how powerful your character looks. She has such a presence. Id like to see more details in the environment in your next comic. Everything is so bare!

I'm definitely hearing everyone on the backgrounds. I made the mistake of not drawing them during the sketch phase and I couldn't really retrofit them in later. With the confession, I was trying to imply that there was, gasp, more to the job than 'stop that hacker',  which Cherry and her client had gone over offscreen, which is why she knows what he's talking about. I have a pretty bad grasp on my own storytelling ability,  so those critiques are extremely helpful.

Terminal vs. Baby Barbarian, huh? Gonna have to think of something clever for that one.

I'm terrible at critiquing art but I'm pretty confident about pacing and storytelling so here it goes!

@Q-bit Love the mood! but I feel like you hinted at more than you explained on page 6, I got a bit confused with terminals confession. Would Cherry know anything about Terminals past or what he meant? perhaps she could have seen the information earlier in the comic.

@Audius, Really love the action and so much colour! the dialogue could have been clearer in a few spots, but I was able to figure out what was going on.  I've never been a bit fan of a lot of dialogue in one panel. but that's just me.

you're both on my hit list. watch your backs.

Q-Bit - Your characters are well drawn, but the panel flow threw me off at times and the lack of backgrounds felt me wanting more. I look forward to learning more about Terminal and seeing his story progress. Show me some of those sweet hacking skills Gil posseses!

Audits - Your comic has some fun angles and was well colored/shaded. For a short comic it did leave me wanting more and I'm super curious as to know what they are breaking into and what files they obtained. I look forward to more Cherry B0MB stuff in the near future!

@Qbit; I really loved your comic you got so much done in a short amount of time. Like the others said the lack of backgrounds hurt your overall comic but you've still got some nice staging and I appreciate that you thought about using light in some on the backgroundless panels to imply space. Story wise I feel like your pacing might be a bit odd? I think you could have combined the information in the first two pages to one page and the comic may have flowed together nicer though this is more of a personal preference I think?

@Audius; Short and sweet! The story was a little convoluted but you made up for it in color and backgrounds. I particularly like the warping effect of the first page. It's a bit nitpicky but next time I'd love to see you try and add a little bit more detail to your backgrounds. You really don't need much but right now they feel like cardboard models rather than actual intractable spaces, if that makes sense? Like they feel just bare enough to be noticeable? In any case overall you did great this round good work!

@Qbit: I'm going to echo what Bobo said and say that your lack of backgrounds was noticeable! You did establish where they were with certain panels with backgrounds, so I knew what was going on, but I'd love to see them throughout the comic! Especially since you did a good job when you did include them. The fifth page is probably my favorite, you've got some dynamic angles and differing shot composition in that one that makes it spicier than the rest of the comic. I also like how you showed Terminal in the list of people she questioned before she put it all together.

@Audius: First off, congrats on doing a full color comic! Not a lot of us newbies achieved that this week! The colors are super comic-booky too which I think fits Cherry Bomb's style. The story was short, but sweet, though I feel like the transition between her kidnapping Terminal and was a little rushed/jarring. Maybe getting another establishing shot in there before jumping to the safe cracking rather than going from close-up to close up. I always look to Scott McCloud's understanding comics for techniques when I want to show a scene transition or passage of time.

@Q-Bit: I love your character art! There are certainly places where your anatomy or posing could use some work, but overall I'm really impressed with how they all turned out! It was fun to see all those cameos, too. My biggest issue with your comic was BACKGROUNDS. There were almost NO BACKGROUNDS. I think you could have cut down your story a lot and compressed it into fewer pages so you could spend some more time and add in backgrounds to help set the scene and give a sense of where your characters are. You also clearly ran out of time and couldn't finish coloring everything, but I think you handled that well by giving us some stylized colors and shading to at least set the mood a little bit and add interest. Awesome job for your first comic on VOID, and I can't wait to see more!

@Audius: Short, but sweet! I love how you captured the characters' personalities in so short a time. Cherry obviously had a bit more of a developed personality about her, but you did a good job of taking what you knew about Terminal and giving him a bit of his own feel, as well. What I would recommend for you is to zoom out a little more. You have a ton of close-ups, which can be great when used properly, but if you add in some more wide shots you can really set the stage and capture more of the action in a single panel. With this comic, I felt kind of claustrophobic, and it made Cherry's leaps and flying kicks feel less impressive than if you had shown me some more distance between her and the guards. So work on that, and you'll be on an awesome path! I really enjoyed the variety of angles you used, so if you combine that with a greater variety of close-ups and wide shots, your composition will be that much more interesting and fun to look at!

Awesome job, both of you! Good luck, and I'm looking forward to your next comics!

AHHHH ゞ◎Д◎ヾ

I've got something uploaded! It's not perfect, but it is done. There's a lot I wish I did differently, starting with backgrounds, or maybe the art style I chose, but right now I'm just happy to be finished. The stress was starting to get to me a little bit, haha.

I'll give it my all.  By "my all" I mean "I'll actually do backgrounds".  

Goodluck! I look forward to reading and giving all the help I know!

Best of luck to you both. Hope ya bring it, and bring it hard!

Ooooh, starting off cyberpunk. I like it, I like it.