Agreed Zsa, great job from everyone! And go defenders! We are the first defenders since 2004 to ever beat the threat! Thanks to Hiemie and Mecid for making such an awesome threat, the intro pages they did and the interesting character were the whole reason I signed up for this.

Thanks for the crits guys.
I won't give any excuses, if anything i need a better time management, but yeah, plot went speed of light in my part, and nothing really got the attention they deserved.
I own much thanks to Angie, who helped me with flats, and I apologize to her to have shitted on it putting gradients on every single piece of lineart. That was definately a mistake, and I don't do it on RockStar even, though this comic was really an experimentation to me.

Congratulations Hiemie and Mecid too, for putting a strong comic. I've said most issues in the chat already, but I really liked it, specially the ending.
My only real gripe was how the characters suddently met and for some reason by doing that the comic suddently changed from a creepy tone to a more action oriented stuff. It was still a darn good comic.
Also, if I make more Delanna comics i nthe future I'm stealing that chin, haha. (Pretty cool Resident Evil-ish costume you gave her, I loved it.)

Thanks everyone for reading, and congratulations to the defenders too, to pulling this together!

Like I said, ultimately it worked well. It was me just kind of wondering: "Hmm I wonder how x would have done y..." kind of speculation.

Thanks Kuro It's funny you bring that up because when we assigned each part we were trying to go with who would be best for each part of the story. Like I chose to do the first part because I felt I was best at intros and establishing everything since I usually end up doing the first parts of all the collabs I've done.

Put off commenting, because as I read what was being said, I really didn't have much to contribute beyond what's already been mentioned. All & all great, both sides.

Not that it's even much of a comment, but as I went through the defenders' side, there were parts retrospectively where I thought certain artist's strengths would work better for another part of a story & it would have maybe benefited even more in terms of the cohesive result, if that makes the slightest bit of sense. It's not to say what was done was bad, but certain artists can handle certain paces better. Planning like that though probably would have been an even bigger nightmare though.

Like I said though, great job everyone

My prevailing thought while reading this was: What the hell did you guys smoke before this endeavour and where can I get some!

Nah, just kiddin. A more detailed response later, still reading this mini online graphic novel.

Don't be dissappointed Will I planned on that.  After I worked with Angie on the Banner (find it on my or her DA page) I wanted to work with her again.  I had originally designed those pages to be Black and White but I wanted someway to differentiate the "trip" from the rest of the book.  Overall I agree with everyones comments.  I kind of wish I hadn't added all the red blood splatter and left it just the original BnW art. The scenes were clearer and more readable the blood seems to smoosh all of the details together and make them hard to read. I would say I'm happy with the composite pages (those are my favorite to draw!), the pages with Angie and Gris, and the scenes where The Princess is walking through the park. The rest of the pages were done on a plane...geh.

After doing this battle I've finally decided to not work on speed anymore and refine the style I have. I'm finally making work that I would buy and I want to get beastly (teehee) at drawing.  So future battles from me are suo be much shorter but more refined.  Thanks for all the critiques everybody...

Now back to biking!

haha no worries, I was REALLY awful about texture use in the past so it's cool

@Ang:  Oh, haha sorrry. For some reason I remembered your last battles had textures XD my bad.  I also didn't know it was the sun on page 10 (excluding the first panel) because I actually though Flint and Matilda were in doors  for some reason.

Huh...So those pages were angie and david's collab...I'm disappointed in david because I thought it was all his own effort haha.  But hey you guys make a pretty good team it seems.

Glad you guys liked it

Toast-thanks for the feedback!

Dimension-yeah pretty much all my recent work has had 0 texture work, it was just fitting here with this style so I've definitely moved away from it. And the effect wasn't gaussian blur, it was meant to work like just the sun being intense at the top and I occasionally used it to bring some things in the background further to the back.

On David's pages his pages 2-4 were actually colored by me, he just wanted something similar to what I'd done on my part but in grayscale. He wanted me to make it look like an old TV and the scan lines on top of it kind of killed some of the subtle differences in the tones and made a few areas a little darker than I'd had originally, that's also why there's kind of a soft black frame around each panel to mimic the old tv look.

Nice work guys, Niiiice work. This was some pretty impressive stuff.

@Himiecid: I really did enjoy reading this, but I can't say I enjoyed it as much as the defender's side. I think The ending made me feel a little unsatisfied. I guess, it wasn't as an exciting ending. It may have been the way the  beast died, just seemed too simple to me. The drawing quality was alright, but the watercolors were just waaay too opaque and saturated in some areas. The lines could be better too, work on making them cleaner, the hatching that you have in some places looks pretty messy. Proportions were another thing, the characters look super short in some panels and then look normal sized in others and it didn't quite feel like a foreshortening issue, page 6 is a good example of what I mean. Otherwise, this was pretty good. I liked the humor that was in there and it was a nice read. It's also pretty awesome you got 30  pages completely done with the given time, Hiemie. Nice work you two!

Defenders- I'm actually super impressed that you guys all turned in complete entries. The effort you guys put forth in the quality and working out the story is fantastic! My only problem is that so many different things were going on at the same time that certain parts became rather confusing,  but your approach story-wise was still pretty creative and still entertaining in my opinion.

@Angie: Nice intro, you started off the story quite nicely by giving us a bit of info on Princesses' feelings and past. I like the dark color scheme you had going on there. If there's anything I think you could change it's two things:

1.The weird, bright, gaussian blur effect that is in nearly every page up until Nova and Angie show up. I can understand why it's in the first few pages (the light above Princess and perhaps the sun is shining on the house)  but in later pages like where it's just shots of the city, Flint, Miss Matilda or even that trashcan that hobo guy was digging trough, it didn't make sense to me as to why that effect was there. Perhaps it was meant to add contrast or interst to the panels, but It just felt like a glowing orb was following me around.

2. I really suggest cutting back at least, a little on the textures. They work nice in many parts of the comic, but I'd like to see you work more without them. This is just a personal opinion though.

Other than that this was all good.

@Nachte:...Your side is actually one of my favorites. I also suggest cutting out the texture use. The paneling in some pages could be clearer, the pacing seemed way fast, but still is understandable.I really love how you draw your character and Angie looked cute too, but in certain panels she looked very boyish and certain expressions looked kind of silly instead of serious sometimes... XD The colors were very nice and had a nice shading style to them. The colors, however, also were too bright for certain pages, like when they were in the building with the undead children. Your line work could have been neater too, but great job with this.

@Fowlie: Great work. The pacing worked out perfect and the color scheme compliments the mood very well. I actually don't have much to critique on yours, but I think the parts with Miss Matilda could have been made slightly more dramatic/interesting. I think if you showed more close ups of the monster watching her or something similar to that, it would have had a slightly more scary feel it it. But perhaps you were trying to put emphasis on what happens to Nova, since Princess did slice his head of.

@Zsa: Niceness, but as others have mentioned the ink colors were not working very well. I know you were trying  fountain pen inking or something (?) well, maybe it's just me, but I don't see any huge differences between this and your usual inks. Some of your panles could have been bigger and less crowded so they were clearer to read. Not bad though,I liked your backgrounds and the last panels you did (the ones with Princess smiling) looked pretty badass.

@David: Nice work on  the action scenes. I like your black white work, but I think it can seem confusing in some areas, the character art often gets lost in the background and it becomes difficult to distinguish the two. I think you could work some more with toning, but maybe not like you had at first. Maybe try it in a cel shaded or simple style instead of soft shading the tones. I really did enjoy the scenes with the Beast and Princess though, you do pretty good with action, dude.

@Sixtem: I think you did a good job wrapping everything up. The pacing worked well on it, in my opinion. And I aslo enjoyed that BW+red color scheme. I think the angles could have been pushed more, in your comic and you could also vary you line widths more, but besides that this was fine. Good job.

Wtf?? THis is up already. Time flew. I'm savin Hiemie/Mecid's part for last.

Took a breakafter the first three defenders. Great fukkin teamwork so far!

"Wow"s all-around, this was a wonderful set of comics from everyone involved.  Everyone finishing is a huge accomplishment by itself and you should all be congratulated for making such enjoyable comics.

Hiemie and Mecid:
Based on the Brownstone Intro, I was expecting a lot less humor and stronger writing than what was delivered here.  The final product seems heavy on the Hiemie aspect, and somewhat lacking in Mecid.  While still a great story, every character seems to have been written in much the same way, with numerous half sentences or one word balloons.  The lettering was difficult to read at times, and I think should have been done better for such a high profile event.  Still, quite enjoyable.

Defenders:
Giving the Princess a chunk of pages to resolve her story was daring, but I think it really paid off.  I've seen some comments about how there really wasn't a 'team-up' of all Defenders to vanquish the Threat, but I think keeping things somewhat separate makes sense and worked well.  I will say there were times I would get lost by a confusing scene here or there, but overall, six artists completing a single story simultaneously and having each pick up where the previous left off is an enormous challenge that you all made look easy.

Yeah it's not possible for battles to actually have a % like that.

oh wait nm I see it has already been addressed

maybe i dont understand how the voting works but I think the percentages are off :-/

I actually suggested Morrison's Seven Soldiers as a way to tie everything together.  7 people working together and not knowing that they are working together is pretty awesome.  Although the big difference in this situation is that there was only one writer...
Also Pixu and 5 work this way too...multiple artists multiple writers...one complete story...

I simply want to point out for the future (in case this sort of story is tried again) that people interested in doing this sort of 'separate but united' sort of story that a comic that did this very thing was Morrison's Seven Soldiers miniseries.  It is pretty much an arma event, there is a central threat, and there are seven characters who never team up but their individual efforts eventually lead to the threat's defeat.  Though it's probably more writing and such than could be possible in a Void event, I suggest it as inspiration for the future.

Good to hear from 2 previous defenders!

This might not be coherent since I kind of drank too much and passed out on the bathroom floor and couldn't get back to sleep when I woke up so here we go. (I'm a class act)

Monday: It does mean a lot to hear a previous defender enjoyed it. I'm sure you remember when we were initially discussing getting the event going one of the possibilities was having it as a true collab event with just 1 actual writer. Which in some ways that could have helped quite a bit but I also kind of feel like it just wouldn't be the same. I'd rather we had an actual event devoted for that sort of thing. But yeah, I think some inconsistencies and flow problems are going to always be an issue within the Arma format.

And yeah, like during the whole planning thing I think we stressed "okay, no matter what we don't want all the defenders to join up together" and "we want the Princess to resolve everything" so much some things got lost along the way. I do agree that we could have had a better purpose for the defenders. We kind of struggled with that, like we were all okay lets get them to the castle but what they did when they were there never truly got addressed. An idea I'd initially had that spawned from an idea Nachte had had was this whole personal hell thing where as each defender entered the castle they were brought into their own personal hell and had to destroy it before one of the ghosts killed their physical body, which would kill the ghost. It was kind of touched on in David's part but we all agreed we couldn't do it without an obscene amount of additional pages and obviously time wasn't on our side.

So yeah in the end our trying so hard to do something new and try and focus on a character other than our own also kind of turned into a weakness. Looking back on the comic as a whole I do wish we'd kind of kept the horror tone that was present in the first 3 parts since after then the tone takes a shift. But overall I'm pretty happy with our's even though as you said, it's far from perfect.

Lune:No worries haha happy you enjoyed it! Yeah I was happy we finished, for a very long time I've felt that Void could no longer handle large teamwork events so it was awesome to be proven wrong.

I don't want to create a huge spooge of text, so forgive me for being short.

Defenders: I'm proud of you for finishing EVERYTHING in such a short amount of time. You all did a great job and deserve great recognition for your superb teamwork and communication that has prob not been seen for a while in a team event. Given the amount of time restraints you guys had, I say you did great for what limits you had. A few times I got a bit confused with the story and it's direction, but yes- time restraints factored into this and I'm no one to judge. =) Wonderful work to all of you!

Threats: Good job to the both of you. I'm a tad disappointed in the story. I was expecting a gruesome and dark story but it ended up like a "B movie" with a "Sailor Moon"ish ending. (Where everyone comes back to life!).  I imagine you wanted to be fair to your fellow defenders and maybe I'm saying this because I was expecting something else- but yeah! REGARDLESS. You two mixed together well and did a job well down pitting against 6 others.

For the first time ever, both Defender and Threat have turned in the most complete Armageddon I've seen. Considering the monumental difficulty it is to pull this off I thank everyone who participated. You did a great job as this stands head and shoulders above previous works.

There was a mix between traditional and new approaches and I like that the defenders got together to try something risky and fresh. However, now that you've all taken us to this level, I feel that this is deserving of high levels of expectation [and ultimately, respect] and you may not be conscious of it but  I feel that everyone is doing the same thing and really keying in on the holes. Ultimately, I feel that it will only be a matter of people's tastes at this point, as these works are the most fully realized I've seen and I have enjoyed it overall.

Now let's get down to brass tacks- I'll sing, I'll dance, and I'll do a play by play, but for now I think I'll settle with telling you all what I took away from all this.

HeiMecid: First off ! I think I got creepy awesome from this the most ! Super coherent, and Super well-written, you pulled off quite well against what 6 people teamed up to do and this is EXACTLY what Armageddon is all about.  What I liked about your part was your traditional approach to bring the defenders together and have them act on a unified goal. The story gives a parallel focus to The Princess and The Beast and illustrates a horror revenge tale and that is completely fuckawesome for 30 pages ! A lot of the Defenders were put into context but as the story progressed they felt placed in with other more anciliary characters which ran the risk of making things too multifaceted and scattered the focus.
   The fighters were written with flaws, which made them compelling as characters. The best part was in how they were introduced in this story and we're all given these ideas about the roles that they might play.  However the one thing that stood out is that they may have been written too flawed and the situation was resolved in a toss up firefight rather than a battle or struggle over those flaws. It felt like few of the elements that we were introduced to connected in a satisfying way.  Of course the big bad doesn't get her revenge, haha, and everyone comes back to life and everything reverts back to normal. Estrella ends the tale and somehow the day is won. I felt that the takeaway from this could be stronger if I knew which side to feel for- or what sort of message I was supposed to get. Whose struggle was this ultimately for ? And to what end ?  Overall, This was a great showing you two, there were definitely chills and thrills and you stuck to the form that gave Armageddon its name while at the same time gave us something new. Thanks !

==================
Defenders: Your comic was a monster production to be sure ! And I'm talking 100 pages of ultimate awesome in less than 6 weeks. If there was anyone that convinced me of the might of Western Comics it's definitely you guys ! Great showing ! Great job !
   You took up the challenge and you didn't let us down ! If there was a reason you're all winning it's mainly due to the high quality and quantity that you all churned out at the level of completion that you did it in. That in itself is a feat on it's own deserving a win.
   But as it stands, the one weakness all defenders face is creating a unified and cohesive read which I am seeing degrees of but remains as the one chink in your armor ! For one I am not sure what form this monster is taking. An action ? A horror ? A slice of Life ? This piece risked a lot of things to try something new and it has succeeded indeed. But it leaves disjointed feeling of what to expect. A good feeling to be sure, but the message tends to get lost and required a bit of rereading. In the end however, I feel like my take away from this has been "Journeys" I may not know who to root for in this whole thing but I realize that everyone in this story underwent some struggle, whether internal or external even though their meeting hardly transpired or their paths never crossed. Is it bad that my favorite part was when Matilda was waiting outside the house for most ofthe comic ? That was the literal nail drive of what you wanted to say-
" It's Void, shit happens and then goes back to normal, everything happens internally nowadays, and everyone's worlds are rocked in their own terms " The threat of Armageddon occurs in passing but it has occured and the writing acknowledges what the audience missed- " Where is the big battle ? Where is the murderous fray ?" And it is at this point where readers will either go "aw man, really ?" Or - " Oh shit I got turned on my head and that was awesome !"

Personally, I'm one to witness epic struggles myself, and I feel that the defenders weren't giving themselves enough room and placed a lot of importance on the princess as a main character who is both the supposed hero and the villain of her story. In that case, where does this put the defenders ? Were they simply bystanders ? Or do their struggles mirror the story- commenting on it in their own lens ? The only problem I faced here was that I dont think this story explicitly explained that the Beast was the abusive husband- after I got that from reading it all over somethings finally clicked for me.  Overall, it's a strong read with great art, a few tweaks here and there that would address the main point would be the thing to take this all the way I feel.

Angie- You set it up with a horror vibe and kick it off by introducing us that the main character is the princess- she has to be otherwise you wouldn't be writing her in this human light. No problems here and I think the execution was grand. You introduce us to all the elements on the field and set the mood about right !

Tera- Yours was a story in itself. There was a struggle a battle but it gets visceral and close.  Though sometimes too close.
Yours would have to be a favorite because this supplies us action and horror and a semblance of a resolution. However the problems I can glean from your side more or less execution. Your anatomy sometimes feel unnatural and esoteric to your head. The stylistic exaggerations I feel need to be more informed from life. Otherwise when people explode a lot of cool shit happens ! Angie and Gris enters level 2 of the fight and we're set up to think that this will snow ball and escalate.

Fowlie- Your pacing is excellent and the sense of rising tension was definitely building up with plenty of suspense. In here Yuri faces his past, and Matilda struggles with her fears. We're thrown in for a twist when Yuri dies and we're set to believe that Matilda will move forward in the story marching forward either to death or victory ! I dont exactly see where there is anything wrong in your part.

Zsa- And we switch gears to action and suspense. Really the art here was pretty much amazing but it didn't feel like your best work. I had to take my time and read your parts slowly since all your frames were super critical at telling something. When it gets dense like that, things start to get missed. A few more frames emphasizing sleeping beauty and her ability to turn fighters into stone(?) would've been excellent. However I found that your introduction to flint and the concept of keys was entertaining but wasn't enough in expressing their importance. I caught it nonetheless and enjoyed this after much going through.

David: We're faced with all kinds of tension here and things are about building up. You have some good pages here and there that were all visually pleasing, but read together back to back had issues. Mainly this is due to style inconsistencies and the like. You draw the characters [and some panels] with a lot of emotion and ,after a second read through, things about your piece started to make more sense. However Im getting the feeling at this point that the princess is facing her own battle whie everyone is left out to dry. While this isn't necessarily your fault in the matter- this is the only way I could possibly be read it as. Was there supposed to be more? Were these happenstance coincidences supposed to mean something ?  I feel that since this is the climax a lot of things should come in full circle here.
In any case your crazy visuals cap ended various intensities that went on in this fight but like others said the pages didn't go as far as they could have.

Six: Your section tied up all there was to tie up and you did a grand job of it. The whole story ends as  we see vignettes of the characters getting back from an otherwise incidental encounter. There is a sense of trueness in their character and we are all being let down slowly and carefully. Flint and Matilda manage to bring down brownstone castle after a culmination of happenstance events and the situation for the most part regulated itself as if by some divine comedy. I see no problems with how you expressed your portion here.  In fact your only weakness seems to be your backgrounds and lack of space in frames in general. My favorite part here would have to be Matilda carting away a coffin of Yuri and cleaning up like a pro cause thats exactly how this comic felt.
 For future comics I would suggest you refine how you render/characterize your people in interesting and varied ways- you seem to be at a stepping stone where that could start seeing major improvements. Overall I'm super thrilled to say you wash up nice here and completed it all for us.

[At this point I've already been writing this critique for 4 days now....]

Ok so overall I close this book thinking " These were 6 comics written up as a single story- it is connected at the seams perfectly and done so well that they must know what they are doing. This is complete- it must be so"
So with that I have to say that the biggest issue with the story is that while it's not trying to play up the classic, " let's all band together and fight the bad guys" I feel that the collection of happenstance coincidences and disconnected strings in the story did just enough to push the plot forward that only made sense for the princess. Everyone else's role built up to this grand thing and I was expecting for it all to connect . But at the most crucial moment, Matilda was left out to dry, Locke and Dehlanna delivered some keys, and Angie and Gris was on a mission to save the princess in another castle, and Yuri was a casualty. While the comic expressed those events with great aplomb, on paper it really does sound flat.

To be sure- the feeling all this produced was fucking Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillllllllllllllld and I would be HARD PRESSED to tell you how to improve it but I WILL TRY SO ANYWAY !

 The situation fixed itself regardless and despite the defenders' grand efforts played only very minor roles. The climax was supposed to put everything together. But the way it was juxtaposed it was just: " This Happens, meanwhile this happens" how it culminated felt like it needed more than just a system of events occuring, otherwise the plot felt mechanical and objective- why was it important that I read 2 chapters about the key ? What will come out of Angie and Gris fighting the Twins ? What was the consequence for Nova dying ?  All of them were mere stepping stones to the princess and very little about their struggles translated in the end. I wished there was something that brought it all full circle, like if Gris/Angie's struggle played in parallel with the princess's then suddenly the twins could've come in and helped that would've been enough. The elements and build up was ALL there and ripe for the picking but the moment passes.

And in the end it was obvious that I was being pulled in like this and the statement that you have all set out to make have been made: This is the Princess' battle !  I understand that the whole point of the comic was to never embellish itself to the old formula but I believe that there exists a happy middle, where the defenders could've played something greater even though they have or will never meet. But at that point I would be unreasonable in expecting that after you have all gotten together to SLAY THIS BEAST ! So believe me when I say that I would NOT have gotten into paragraphs about the climax if I wasn't damn sure that this could make it much MUCH stronger than it already is !

I am by no means disappointed from either side and I don't claim to expect that this arma should be the most perfect thing either. But damn it wipes the goddamn floor clean. And we're all sitting here waiting for the hot wax too. This was a great showing you guys, and I thank you all for reading through this big fucking monster of a crit.

Heimie, Mecid I wish you both luck in your future works !  

Defenders thank you for stepping up to the challenge !

QUADRUPLE JILLION POINTS FOR EVERYOOONNNNNE

Yes, please keep the crits coming I've appreciated what ones we've gotten. I don't want another event getting bogged down by drama and arguments. A lot of people have joined Void because of previous Armageddons so let's try to keep it classy so maybe we'll get even more new comers. Everyone did a nice job and I'm happy that both sides managed to finish, I hope this continues in the event Arma happens again.

And BTW, thanks a lot for the crits, everyone. I guess gradienting every piece of lineart was an error. I actually just did that trying to pretty the comic up, since I was nable to render it, but it ultimately ruined the lineart.

If you ignore it, is it alright? it's my first comic inked with nib pens, and I wanted to know if aside of the dork coloring, if the inks are cool and what not.
Thanks again

shhh

How about those dog drawings Jho

burp guys

Pyras is right, because when you say Battles in void it obviously means fist to the face comics.

We did follow them Fowlie

"* Artist Application ends April 30
* Official Selection of Defenders and Announcement of Threat will be on May 3
* Drawing Begins on May 3rd - Deadline is June 13
* Voting will take place between June 16 - June 30
* Both comics MUST contain the all Defenders as well as Threat
* ALL Defender Artists MUST co-operate as a team towards a group entry. No solo efforts or entries are allowed and will result in Default
* 5 page minimum, per artist
* Not meeting requirements will result in Default.
* 'Dropping Out' after selection or failing to submit will also be considered a Default."

Nothing in the rules about all the defenders must co-operate as a team, only the artists It's not even in the rules that the threat has to go down by the hands of the defenders, just that there's some sort of confrontation and that did occur.

I'm sorry Terran, I got lost in your rambling text about movies and misunderstood your point.

Also, I never bothered reading the Arma page, ahah. Wait, since we didn't fallow the guide lines, should this have even been posted? :0

Well, despite whatever kinks or disagreements over content there are, I'm sure we can all agree that this arma was a success in terms of participation and completion.

fowlie: Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that it would have been better if it was a more familiar plotline, this end product is a deeper and more original take. But you're mistaken on the advertising; this is straight from the Armageddon page:

 "Defenders job is to come together and, using their six characters, defend the city from the Threat. They must come together as a team and produce one sixth-part sequential that will act as their team's submission.  If the Defenders win, the city is safe and the Threat is killed off. If the Defenders lose then no one is safe."

To me, that sounds exactly like the 'come together and fight the power' kind of comic.

Again, I am not saying that your piece would have been better if you went this familiar route. But because this was what I was expecting, I ultimately had a harder time feeling for many of the characters than I would have normally. That is all..


angie: Pan's Labyrinth is another great example, and fortunately for that film, it didn't end with a rejection of the end product, and it's regarded one of the greatest fantasy films of this age. I'm certain actually that this Armageddon event may be considered one of the best in time, if it is not already considered that now.

You bring up some good and interesting points Pyras! I think that no matter what this is really just going to boil down to a matter of preference and opinion. One of my all time favorite movies is Pan's Labyrinth which was hyped to be a Harry Potter type children's movie in all the advertisement, and boy was I in for a ride when I watched it the first time haha I personally enjoyed being surprised and loved that I was given a movie I didn't expect at all from the advertisements. (of course any parents that took their kids to see it probably didn't feel the same haha) All in all some people are gonna like it, some aren't, and we of course can't please everyone.

I think it's pretty cool to see so much dialogue on the story, since story is often totally disregarded and ignored in critiques on Void. So for both people that liked it as well as the ones that didn't, I appreciate that you read our work and commented.

I'd just like to address our story for a moment...

We all really wanted to do something different from past defenders (like, you know, finishing!) and we felt that this is Princesses' fight. And you know, I am really glad that we decided to go a different way.  If we had done a "band together" comic it would have very few differences from Hiemecid's comic. And personally, that would have been a very boring battle. "oh... do I pick the shorter one where they band together and Princess is defeated... or do I pick the REALLY long one where they band together and Princess is defeated?" I mean, our band together comic probably would have had the same conflicts and such.  Our defenders are made up of a lot of selfish, aloof characters that don't work with others.

You guys keep comparing this to a movie.  Well if our side was a movie, and not a comic that 6 people worked on different parts of and then put together, it wouldn't like the remake of Dawn of the Dead, it would be more like Trick r' Treat.  An anthropology movie with several different stories all tied together with a connecting thread.

And Pyras, I'm not even sure what you are talking about with "misleading advertising".  The only advertising Arma really had was a blurb on the front page, and that didn't say anything about the defenders banding together.  You just made your own assumptions of what had happened before and what you wanted to see.  I'm glad we didn't do that, I find that kind of stuff silly and kind've boring. If I'm going to spend 6 weeks working on one thing, I have to enjoy what I'm doing.

If people are disappointed by our take on arma, I'm afraid I'll have to tell you to suck it up.  You guys got a band together comic, Hiemecid did it.  I dunno how much petter you think we could have done it.

To me, what would have sold the entire story and give it better points to me was to show a human aspect to both the Princess and to the Beast. This was something I tried to do in the BB, whether it succeeded is a different matter. I had a feeling that the Princess would be favored, and while I am in no way pardoning or condoning what the Beast had done, I wanted to see what it would be like if the Beast's less horrific qualities were brought to light.(I also wanted to future-torment Arena for having befriended a murderer/possible-rapist and think of him as a good man) I think it's sometimes too easy to forget that the abuser of a relationship is also a human being with his own conceptions of right and wrong, his own psychosis, his own reasons for why he has become the monster that he is now. I must reiterate, the Beast deserves to be punished for his actions, but I also felt pity when I first saw him. I thought, "what happened to this man throughout his life to turn him into this? What horrors must he have experienced?"

But these are my own thoughts. I'm a very idealistic humanistic kind of guy at heart, but I also very much appreciate moral ambiguity and the blurring of the line. I think that if either comic had more grey elements in them, it would have sold it to the house for me.

The events in the lives of Princess/Beast that had not been shown are just as much a strength to the story as they are the weakness michael believes it to be. The story of domestic violence gone worse has been broken down to its core principle: One has done wrong to the other in an irreparable manner. It doesn't matter whether the Princess was naive, weak, or tried everything she thought she could do... she was murdered. That single act is enough or more reason to become a hatred-filled ghost, as much as years of abuse.

Some new thoughts came to me that I would like to state:

I agree with Kotori that it was refreshing to see an unorthodox take on this kind of event. Being a "girl power" kind of guy myself, I also liked seeing Princess' success in the Defender comic. However, I share Phillip's sentiments, and while it was nice to see that new spin, I think that the advertisement of the entire event helped lead to what I believe is a detachment of sentiments for the characters for the most part.

You see this very often in film, which I'm studying; A movie's ad campaign will sell a film as something else in its trailers(for example, selling films like Splice or Lady in the Water as horror films when they are anything but). This is an attempt to cash in by getting more people excited to see it, but people then come into the film with completely different expectations. Sometimes it doesn't matter, Splice for example is actually critically quite well done and not the generic horror film the trailers make it out to be. However, for the greater majority of the scenario, it becomes subconsciously off-putting, and one must now re-wire their expectations of a story, and it rarely helps.

I went off on a tangent.. my point is, because the event was advertised as the classic "band together to stop the threat", that's what I was expecting. I started reading the Defenders' comic and did not realize that the story was going a completely different route until half-way through. This means my feelings, sentiments, expectations, I had to stop and rewire that all for a different kind of story. I had to stop thinking of Princess as a tragic villain and see her as a justified hero (which is difficult because I was under the impression that Brownstone Castle resulted in the deaths of countless innocents). <- as I write this, I feel this is exactly my problem with the scenario. Brownstone Castle and its ghostly inhabitants, from what has been hyped, have been spreading through the city and killing anyone in their path in their quest to search for the beast. They are responsible for so many senseless deaths. But I guess it's okay because Princess avenged her own..? Add to this that the 'defenders' did little to move the story along..

Ultimately, I wanted to feel stronger for more of the characters, but this radical shift forced me to switch gears and that's enough to detach anyone from a story's characters.

It's a shame that this has become a bit heated for some of us. The topic is an extremely delicate one that is far from black and white and, seemingly, is a personal one for some of us.

Even though I, as an average dude, will never truly understand what it feels like to be in the position Princess was in, I think it's wrong to assume that no love or effort was put into this story just because it's not the most tightly-knit abuse story ever created. You can tell that the writers really cared about Princess, and regardless of whether or not the audience will get that full effect, the show of effort and connection from the writers alone counts for something.

Phill-yeah, I actually learned about a different way I could have handled the colors after I finished and uploaded haha this was my first time really doing a lot with color overlay layers but it turns out there's a way to do it that offers a bit more control and variety. If I do this kind of coloring again I'll give it a shot and see if that helps.

Brittnay-Glad you enjoyed it! It was a lot of fun getting to experiment more on this.

"So much potential, so little time."  This was my thought when I first heard about Armageddon.  Nonetheless, both sides were able to pull this one off rather well.

Hiemecid:  The strewn in bits of humor along with the seriousness of the Threat was great.  I really liked the bold, "fuck if I care" characterization of Flint, but I was a bit surprised by the injection of attached, sentimentality that was given to Angie.  You did a really nice job of getting a group of almost unlikely suspects to forrest gump their way to defeating The Beast.  "Magic", indeed.
I do wish the colors were a little bit cleaner and more appropriately placed for this one, but 30 consistent pages of...God, how many characters and various locations?--it ain' bad at all.  The last couple of pages did have a bit of a rushed-through feel, but I appreciated the portrayal of the Princess' defeat nonetheless.  It was an interesting twist.  I can't help but wonder if you guys are planning to stick to Estrella's last request of bringing her a soul one-year-hence.  Could be exciting!  Very nice job, guys.

Defenders:  Loved the fact that you kept this as The Princess' fight; it was a nice surprise. Collaborations can get a bit messy in many ways, but I think y'all did pretty darn good with this one in terms of sharing the load.  Drawing in perspective will never be perfect (as I read from some of the comments that anatomy and perspective are definitely areas of improvement); but I've been watching you guys over the years (however silent), and you have come a long way.  It's all I could personally ask for.  You each will be able to push the bar for yourselves more and more as you learn and do.
 I enjoy the necessary moments of "passing the torch" between the artists. How their characters interact with their fellow Defenders, and how the following artists in the lineup were able to pick up virtually, exactly, where the previous artist left off.  It shows that you guys were actively communicating and writing this together, and not staying within your own personal shells and seeing Armageddon strictly through your each, individual fighter's eyes.

Heather: I really appreciate this introduction.  The Princess' reflective monologue, coupled with the nearly abstract, surreal, illustrations and limited palette really sat nice with me.  The brief interactions between Angie and Nova were interesting enough to lead the way to Tera's and Sarah's bits in the Defense.

Tera:  Excellent job picking up where Heather left off.  Your coloring methods were a little bit hard for me to get adjusted to--they're so, hmm, electric--but I liked the execution nonetheless. I dug the brief back-and-forth between Angie and Sangre Gris before all hell broke loose in the diner leading up to what I would consider the greatest "head trip" in the general Defense: the personal involvement of Sangre Gris and Angie in their confrontation and resolution with Snow White and Red Rose.  I didn't see that coming.  At all.  I like being surprised like that.

Sarah:  Always love your muted palettes, I love your fleshed-out backgrounds (city street views; vine-infested areas) as much as I love your minimalist backgrounds (Miss Matilda flipping out about her phone and looming Rapunzel; mild vertical line strokes around character-oriented panels).  You've managed to go all out, and hold back (I know, it sounds WEIRD) when you have to.  It makes reading your comics a lot easier instead of playing "Where's Waldo" when a character is interacting with another character, or in a particular action panel, when you don't have a highly detailed background setting infringing on the FOCUS of that particular panel or part of a sequence of events.  You've made "less is more" work to your advantage.  Your introduction of Miss Matilda in the story, and her arrival to Brownstone Castle worked great, especially in contrast to Nova's personal, internal struggle when he first sees Goldilocks and mistakes her for Stephanie.  But I died a little when the Princess takes his head off.  I kind of sat there and stared at my screen like an idiot. I didn't see that coming.  At all.  I don't like being surprised like that.  "A beast...but not mine," was a really, really nice touch, though.  I'd also like to add that the way you work your dialogue bubbles is something that I DO enjoy, particularly the frenzied voice(s) coming from Miss Matilda's possessed phone, as well as the progressive panel of Nova saying, "wwwwWWWWHAT ARE YOU DOING IN VOID, BABY". Only thing that I could think of to make it work a little better is to give your figures equal love, space, and attention--especially in the progressive-style panel--so that word bubble doesn't infringe too much on the illustration.  I do hope that makes some sort of sense.

Al: I can't help but wonder if you were definitely getting experimental with your coloring for your installation.  I liked where the story was going, with Delanna and Flint teaming up together to find the key, and the reintroduction of the Princess into the story, but yours took me a little bit longer to read because I had to adjust my eyes to make sense of your color choices.  To me, using colors on your lines makes a lot of sense for background objects as they are not the center or the focus, but I'd try to stay away from doing that with the foreground objects, and areas of focus and attention.  However, if you are going to insist on coloring your lines all-around, make sure you have a pretty set consistent palette that can be read, and understood, according to any and all atmospheric and scenery changes where a particular amount of light, or hue of color, is dominate.  Just bear in mind that it's the color choices that have me mildly concerned; not your line art or storytelling ability.  Those I didn't doubt at all with your part.  You threw down pretty hard, nonetheless.

David: Nice pick-up from Al.  Interesting varied stylistic approaches.  Nice job reworking Angie and Sangre into the story.  Awesome job with the black, white, and red, and the fight between The Princess and The Beast; you definitely got the climactic part down.  A very surreal and fantastical chain of events.  Your expressions (mostly the portrayal of anger/rage emphasized by wide-eyed mania and wide-open mouths) blew my mind.  I didn't miss a beat.  Good job.

Jason:  Finally!  The aftermath!  A great job tying it all together, with great character renditions to boot!  I like that you picked up David's palette, it made for a nice transition...intentional or not.  I loved the varied expressions, the dialogue...I find parts of it positively funny. The last page had me chuckle.  I think it was The Beast's expression that did it for me.

I apologize that the feedback dwindled towards the end.  ALL of you did really great with this.  I'm looking forward to seeing more collaborative efforts like this in the future, now that you've definitely set the bar, and example, of how successful efforts like these can be.  Again, great job, all around.

OK, I'm going to be serious here.

I do think that the Princess herself wasn't presented all too well so I didn't connect all too well with her, I don't get The Beast either which could of really given the threat more depth, then again, there's only been 2 comics with the Brownstone characters (not counting the Arena beyond battle and future cameos). As for the whole domestic abuse situation, it's not really up for debate now is it (unless somebody is going to present a better idea as to how it should of been presented in the comic) and I think it at least gives the threat some motivation for wanting to wreck shit up. All those years of being hurt, abused, and eventually killed is good enough motivation for a villian if you ask me!



Hiemie & Mecid: Awesome job you two, I do think that the story is a bit too quickly paced here and could of used some extra pages, but with the time allowed this might of made things look worse. Again, I wish I could of seen some motivation behind the Beast and why he had to take his frustrations out on the Princess, and the ending was pretty anti climactic. However it still is an enjoyable read and hard to beat in my opinion.

The art was good, but there were just too many things that I just didn't like. The colors are nice, but it could stand to be a bit less... saturated, Hiemie, your tones are nice but they don't fit the tone of this comic too well. I'm not sure what can be done with watercolors to make it look more gritty however, also things looked a bit messy towards the end. The anatomy had a lot of quirky moments here and there, mainly with Nova as sometimes he would look like a stretch armstrong to me. Aside from that, the inks were nice and the visuals weren't completely confusing and regardless of what I've said, this was an awesome comic from you two.


Defenders: First, I'm envious of what you guys got to do this year, but I'm glad none of you phoned this in.

Angie, the colors were nice, but I wish you would of chosen a better way to shift the colors from dark green to those bright warm colors, really hard on the eyes there.

Natche, I really liked your entry, but some of the colored text was very jarring and hard to read. Very nice nonetheless

Fowlie, not bad, the visuals were OK, but I feel like you could of done better with what you had.

Zsa, the colors and visuals were awesome, but coloring most of the linework made things a bit unclear at times, it wasn't too bad though and looked sublime.

David, you shouldn't of toned that flashback sequence and colored that one page, cause all of your comic looked inconsistent and gave me the impression that you didn't finish. Still it was a finished entry and I can see the effort.

Sixtem, I liked yours a whole lot, your visuals are nice and clean, and I can see you've fixed up your perspective.

The story, well, again I really wish you guys got into the motivation behind The Beast, I do feel that some things were dragged out for a little too long, the battle with the Princess and the Beast was a little hard to read at first, but it was still nicely done. The story was a lot more engaging than the threat's but I think it was still a bit too long (opposite problem of the threat's half). Still, a great comic, just need to fix a few things here and there next time.



Vote goes to the defenders.

Michael, just move on. If you yourself have dealt with this kind of situation you would understand. I am saying move on not only as a mod stepping in to stop the drama, but I'm saying it on a personal level. This is a topic you will lose on if I start getting into on a personal level and the battle comments are not the place to go through memory lane.

I'm gonna jump in here too a quick sec because.... Mikey, you're repeating yourself.  We get your side.  It's wrong.  Move on.

Heimie: I tend to agree with Pong. The coloring was really muddy and it looked a bit rushed. Other than that everything worked.

I'm just going to say this. According to the info we were given the Princess did absolutely NOTHING to improve her situation. If you want me to feel for someone you need to make me believe they at least tried to help themselves.

i meant get back to me btw ~*{lol}*~

lol mike work in social services/suicide call center/distress center and come back to me you bigot!!111One
actually aside of that, i agree the potrayal is a bit lacking ins ome ways, and i understand you're trying to crit what you think is lacking, but ahhhh you reek ignorance bro

Because,  yeah, every woman in an abusive relationship has the strength or opportunity to help herself. Or knows how. TOTALLY. And Michael knows this.

He knows everything.

"Let's give it to Mikey! He wont eat it, he hates EVERYTHING!"

Just say you were wrong mike.

I am well aware of those conditions, Angie, and had you presented me with a character suffering from those, I would have felt sympathetic. You gave us two pieces of information: The wife was waaaay to in love with her husband and that he beats her. If I am supposed to feel sorry for someone I need to believe they tried to help themselves. It would have been as simple as having the husband say something like, "If you leave again, I'll kill you." Instead you give us a very one dimensional character who, according to the information we have, has failed to even lift a finger to save her life and the lives of her children.

If this had been an action story, then yeah, you can slap an abused wife label on a character and illicit sympathy, but if this relationship is supposed to be the impetus to an event that brings void to it's knees, then the relationship needs to stand up to the most cursory of scrutiny. Why does the husband beat her? I have no idea. Why does she stay with him? I have no idea. You have presented us with a character who stays in a shitty situation for no logical reason without making any attempt to leave, which, in my book, means you deserve what you get.

Michael Harris, he knows how to treat ladies right. ;3

Heimie: Coloring was well beneath what you're capable of and was the worst aspect of your comic.  Storywise, I thought you entry was great, creepy with a little bit of humor thrown in to keep the mood from getting too dense.  Ending felt a little cheesy, but regardless was an entertaining comic. It could have been longer though, I know the situation was set up in the BB, but a little more exposition in this comic would have brought up the interest and the length a bit.

Defenders:  I really wish I didn't have to rate you in one lump sum.
The only section of your entire long winded, muddled, incomprehensible and monumentally boring and tedious work - was Fowlie's.  Good panelling, pacing, action, narrative, and consistent, good art.  The only one I feel like reading again.
Most of the other ones I either had no idea what was going on, or it was presented in way that I didn't care what was going on. Angie, Zsa, David had ok art, but you just didn't get it all together like fow did.  
Of course when you're splitting up a story amongst artists it's kind of bound to get in-cohesive, but I couldn't get into it, it just wasn't entertaining.  

Hiemecid - The art was heimie standard. A good job was done on keeping the plot largely on track and getting the heroes of void to actually fight the threat. Not an easy task given the general personality of most void residents. The script seemed to be written to be scary at times and this often clashed with the bright mix of colors. The characterization was akward much of the time. Simply put it wasn't bad but it failed to impress.

Defenders: Good art all over. The writing was uneven at times but the sections all fit with the art and didn't give that disjointed feel the other side did.
Natche - Maybe try and add more line thinkness variation on the inking.
Zsab - The colored lines kinda made things unclear at times but this is more of a pet peeve.

Wow. This definitely was one of the best comic battles I've read in VOID, especially on the defenders side. Good job you guys.

Michael: No.

Yeah, just slightly off haha I don't think it's possible to have that kind of gap.

I'm gonna double-check that math.  12 to 87 just doesn't seem right.

Michael, that was probably the most offensive thing I've heard you say yet. You jackass. Seriously, what the hell? Ugh. Just ugh.

Anyway, on to what is actually important:

Hiemecid, that was an interesting read. Overall, however, I was left going 'meh', which is sad. I have to admit, I had looked forward to seeing Mecid's art as well as Hiemie's, and when I didn't I felt rather let down. I was also really unimpressed with how you wrote a few of the defenders, esp Angie. It was completely 'huh?' for me. She was clingy and obsessed with Julia in a way that really detracted from the character. Especially when you consider that just recently she did a BB showing how Angie is really distant to people, even when she's dating them, and how that was an issue. It felt too rushed and crammed too much in, which I can't fault you with... as you had 2 people trying to out do/do as much as six. I still wish you had kept more of the defenders truer to their actual character.

Defenders: The story caught me off-guard. I'm so used to seeing the 'band together and unite to defeat the evil ____' that I kept waiting for it to happen. All I have to say is: GOOD JOB. I LIKE that you didn't do the same ol' same ol'. I like that I kept reading expecting something to happen only to NOT have it happen. I did have to reread things to figure out some of what was going on, but the difference in styles and the jumping around of the story was more to blame for that, and I don't think it was a bad thing. I scored this incredibly high in the Entertainment because of the tangle of threads and the way you handled the threat. And Angie, I really felt the reason behind Princess' rage and desire for revenge were well illustrated in your side. Regardless of what others say, I found myself really feeling for Princess and pleased when she got her own revenge. You all had a mismatch of characters, none of them really 'heroic' and you didn't fall into the 'everyone bands together to save the day' heroic cliche when writing it. Thank you.

Also, congratulations to both sides for FINISHING. Two complete sides to an Arma... is this a first?

Michael I wont like attack you on that, but thats kinda a terrible thing to say. Like angie said that kinda thing happens all the time. A friend of mine was in a situation like that. Just be careful of what you say when its with stuff like that.

Overall I think this arma was a great success. I won't review each individual thing, but overall Hiemecid I really enjoyed your side. The story flowed well and the art was delightfully disturbing. For some reason I couldn't help but imagining "Hall of the Mountain King" by Apocalyptica playing the whole time.

Defenders I'd say your side was just as impressive. It's always a treat to see the different styles telling on story. But I will say that at times your side of the story was kinda disorganized. I could follow it but I occasionally found myself going back or rereading something and feeling like something got skipped or cut out. Overall I enjoyed both immensely.

Man I thought the defenders totally rocked it!!!! Good job guys!!!! On both side!

Everyone's a winner.

I'm not going to go through and critique each part, but I will say that both sides were great reads. There were bumps here and there but what comic doesn't have those? I enjoyed it, that's all I think really matters.

Michael you're a fucking idiot.

Michael, have you ever dealt with that situation? It's unfortunately extremely common for women to remain in abusive relationships because they're scared to leave. It becomes even more difficult when children are involved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battered_woman_defense
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battered_person_syndrome

It's kind of silly to say well the girl should just leave when this kind of thing happens all the time. I can get really personal if you like, but I will tell you that this kind of thing happens and it's extremely complicated when it does. It's not a matter of just leaving.

Defenders
I thought the story was really weak.

IF you want me to care about the princess, you are going to have to give me more than an abused wife story. I wanted to care about her, maybe if I had had a little more insight into her life. But as she stands now, she is just a woman who stayed in a bad relationship when she could have easily left. I kept saying, "why didn't that stupid bitch just leave?". I wanted her to get beat. Maybe if she had been trapped or something I might have felt something for her.

The best thing about these ensemble cast horror movies(and this was set up like a horror movie) is all the protagonists teaming together and cooperating to face the threat. Its the part of the movie where they all do research on the monster to figure out how to kill it, its the montage where they're sanding down baseball bats into stakes in order to fight the vampire.  In this story all the protagonists are cannon fodder. They are the equivalent of hot eighteen year olds having sex in the woods in a Friday the thirteenth movie. They are there just long enough for you to realize they are a person and then die to advance the plot. All the main characters are extraneous.

Ange: I thought the color was a little too limited , I thought a secondary color would have been cool. I couldn't really tell who the people inside the house were(other than the bunny) but other than that everything was fine.

Sangre: The color scheme in conjunction with the textures really grated on my eyes making this a tough read. You have Angie walking out of a building then entering a building that looks exactly the same as the one she exited, which confused me as well. I didn't know until Miss Matilda's part of the battle that Gris was a female either. Keep working on Anatomy and perspective. The story was kind of standard horror fare, and I kind of wanted something less obvious.

Fowlie: The screwed up text in places was incredibly obnoxious. I don't know who the chick was or Nova's connection to the Princess. The art was really well done though.

Zsa: It's brazil disease all over again. It's really pretty but there are little dots of color all over the place making it look a lot like a random mosaic and at times the forms get lost. The action story was a welcome relief as was the characters actually participating in the plot.

Dave: Some of these pages looked like you phoned them in. I already talked to you.

Sixtem: Keep working on anatomy and perspective. I kinda feel like you got the short end of the stick. It's twenty pages of falling action and I didn't really get into the rising action.I didn't really know who any of the people were either which further distanced me from the story. Especially the group of people on the last two pages, they're just incredibly random.

if that was the goal, then you succeeded in it

As a general overall response first off... On the defenders' side the goal here was to mostly focus on the threat and have the Princess kind of portrayed in a human light and have her take on her own challenges. We didn't want to do what previous defenders had done where everyone bands together and takes on the bad guy. That and most of us really felt bad for the Princess and wanted to in a way redeem her.

We just mostly wanted to do something new that previous defenders hadn't done to hopefully catch the audience off guard. While the Princess resolves her own issues, the defenders actually did technically kill off the threat. Matilda and Flint took out the Castle itself and the "Brownstone Castle" is listed as the threat afterall haha. But yeah, all in all we were trying to think outside the Arma box. It was a pretty fun little challenge and I know some people may be a little disappointed that this wasn't all the defenders fighting the bad guy, but I overall felt it was successful.

William-yeah perspective has and probably always be something I need to continue to work on. I definitely noticed the problem with the Angie and Nova scene after I you know, finished the page haha. You live an learn! And yeah, that Flint panel was kind of bad, I was trying for something dynamic and in the end it didn't quite work out.

Pyras-yep, as you can see in my big write up earlier in the post this was intentional. If you think about it, which of the defenders really seem like people that would actively be all about taking on the threat? Each defender is kind of a loner that wouldn't really want to get involved. Aside from Matilda.

Qyz-haha I'm glad you enjoyed it. On my part my goal was to do the unexpected and not focus on my own character since I figured everyone saw big epic Angie story developments coming in my part. I wanted to challenge myself to write someone else's so I'm glad you enjoyed the story there! I'd initially wanted to do a total gray scale comic but in the end I went with the colors .

Thanks for the crits guys!

I am not the biggest Arma fan. I will get that out of the way right now.

I want to commend you all on finishing. Even though I only enjoyed certain parts, I will say that none of it was bad.
It's just too much for one battle.

Hiemecid, you guys did wonderful. Somewhat hard to read in certain parts, but fairly good overall

Angie, I think I've told you in the past I've never really gotten into your comics much. Well, congratulations, I liked your part the most out of anyones. The limited palette, use of blacks, and very nice pacing really won me over

Nachte, It wasn't bad, but the colors and textures just got to me. It didn't please my eyes, but what you had there was still pretty good.

Fowlie, I enjoy your palette choices. Yours wasn't bad at all. I still think you can push yourself a bit, but this was pretty good.

Zsa, generally I like your stuff, but I dunno what happened, as I wasn't digging your colors this time around. It wasn't bad... it just felt like it didn't work well from one panel to the next. I dunno. I liked the panels individually though, if that makes a difference?

AmazingDavid, I was really liking your beginning, but after that, it just kind went back into one of your normal comics. Not bad, but not like how I thought it would be with those first pages.

Sixtem, It was pretty good. I think you really need to use more blacks, though. There was a lot of empty space, but it didn't balance well.

I do apologize if my portrayal of the Beast seems mis-matched with these comics. In the distant future, hopefully things will start to make more sense.

I somewhat agree with some of William's thoughts on the progression of the story:

The funny thing about the Defenders' story is that they didn't do much defending; the Princess sought out her goal and completed it, and whether or not the Defenders were present seemed irrelevant. Because the characters were so reactive rather than proactive, it seems more likely to say that the Princess was the real defender. Was this a twist-y, intentional tactic?

regardless, still a great read, I think amazingdavid's pages and portrayal of the Beast sold it for me for the Defenders' side.

So I guess I might as well start in order.  I'll start by praising the Hiemecid combo for their effort, because even for two people, I'd say 30 pages are a great effort (though Hiemie's always bragging about his speed so I wonder if it can be called an achievement).  The strongest points, storywise, probably laid in the characterization of your own characters.  The beginning, though it starts in a confusing way, sets it up like a horror movie, showcasing the cruelty and animosity of the generals and their bloody search for the beast.  In this way it was nicely done.  I'm sure that you were trying to portray a 'typical' Void family by giving them horns, but I can almost hear cries of "Who are they and what is this in reference to?"  That's not really a criticism but it's something that comes to my mind.  But in the overall scope of the story, you are dragged down by the amount of characters you made.  Though they're not much more than mindless enforcers, you made them as if you were designing a video game scenario and the problem is that you went about it in exactly that fashion.  They're little more than subbosses;to their credit though, they do make up some of the most memorable deaths in the comic.  But it's because of that videogame mentality that thirty pages isn't enough.  The defenders are corralled together in typical rpg fashion and it works against them in this situation, especially in angie's situation.  Her introduction in page 6 is in all honesty, rather weakly written.  Your depiction of Flintlocke has a stronger foundation, and you do no wrong by Miss Matilda.  The contrast between her and Sangre Gris are strong points of the story.  The ending is ok, but almost wraps itself up too quickly.  Really if I had to sum up the fault of the comic in one word it's 'pacing'.  But good job and thanks for the event.

Defenders turn.
Guess I should go in order.  
Angie does a nice job of setting the mood, Angie's coloring serves strongly in this regard.  I see that you've improved in terms of dynamics just from those scenes of the beast beating on the princess.  But to me, the glaring weakness I see for you here are those heads and faces at various angles.  You do use a lot of interesting angles, but your weaknesses in perspective become recognizable at this point.  The most jarring thing to me was Flintlocke's arm on page ten.  No matter how close that arm is coming at us, it's coming in at an angle that is way too abnormal and seem pretty broken.  On page 13, the top panel has a really odd perspective.  The floor is at a farther overhead angle but Nova and Angie are like in an opposite direction, and it looks like they're pretty much struggling not to slip and fall under the table (And I don't mean that because they're drunk.)  When it comes to perspective, the advice I've been trying to heed and integrate is that you have a horizon line where your eye level falls and in order to relate characters to a one point perspective or even two points, you make lines from coming from a point anywhere on that horizon.  I'm sorry, I'm probably terrible at explaining this concept as I'm trying to learn it myself.  Andrew Loomis is incredible, his figure drawing book explains this in a much better way.

Anyways on to Nachte, the coloring is great though probably a bit oversaturated at times.  I take issue with angie's evolving jawline throughout the comic but yeah.  While I think that purposefully lines were not your concern, the linework here is of detriment to this comic.  Especially because there is a lack of depth in some places.  Yeah you have the shadowing, but in the case of the vines in which they have shadowing and rendering all over the place, they look wierd and flat.  In my own humble opinion, this could have been really strong with some firm lines.  Perspective is funky at times but not glaringly so.  I really liked the creepy scene in the hospital and though it's sweet how they helped out the kids, given the ending in perspective, it leads to me to wonder if they really click together well.

Fowlie, your side is well drawn but I seem to be harping on everyone for the same point, perspective again.  Yours is really all over the place.  When Nova is walking down the street and he's surrounded by vines, it looks like he's somehow walking parallel to a wall.  You do a better job with a similar scene on the bottom of page 32 though.  Yet the problem is evident again on 31 when Nova meets Goldilocks.  You're not really following whatever point you set your horizon at.  I think this entry could have also been advanced by further shadowing on the characters.  You do a great job on the backgrounds but when it comes to the characters, they lack this depth that surrounds them.  We only really get it when you have closeups.  But all in all, Nova's role in Arma fits him very well.  And it's almost funny how Nova meets his end because of Goldilocks in both comics.  

Zsa, what you have here is pretty badass as always and cements your rep further but I have to say I kinda don't like what you do with your lines here.  Because you add color to them, and while it's pretty, it also diminishes the clarity of the comic.  Basically you've got such an even coating of color all over the place that it almost makes the whole thing feel flat.  I dunno if that makes sense but that's what I feel when I look at this.  I think you should have just left those blacks as blacks.  I think the best proof of this is the panel with the willow on page 50.  That's a fantastic panel by the way, and easily my favorite.  How you have that bottom row of panels also works really great.  The colored lines on sleeping beauty work here, because you've got the black in contrast to it in subsequent panels.  Though I have to say I don't understand why Delanna turned to stone but I'm assuming it was some added ability by the roots or the Princess.

For amazingdavid's comic, I had to doublecheck and make sure it was him, because I almost didn't recognize it.  It looks like you actually put in an effort that I didn't know you were capable of.  Really this is pretty great and better than your usual stuff.  The great thing about your black and white stuff though is that there is a noticeable amout of expressiveness to it and it's not any less evident here.  Though I can't help but feel you cheated on the background at times. I dunno it was sort of give and take and balanced in that you traded detailed backgrounds for none at all at times.  Your action is great though and the battle between the Princess and the Beast is really entertaining.

Sixtem's comic was fine. It did it's part as a resolution though for me, what stands out are those anatomical issues that none of us seem to be immune from.  Often enough it was hands that looked wierd.  The princess' hips are funny when she's being carried away by the vines and page 78.  Miss Matilda's back, it feels like you tried to squeeze it into that panel too much.  The red, black and grey color scheme doesn't exactly work for me.  Since I'm not too keen on how to explain the mechanics of colors, I'm sorry to cop out and just say it that way.  Also shadowing is sorta rare and probably could have been a bit more consistent.  

I know this is too long but I feel compelled to sum up my thoughts on the comic as a whole.  Versus Hiemecid's comic, the pacing was a lot better but that's because you guys had more elbow room as part of a six man team.  I feel that the characters were handled better because they were handled in small units and in small doses so this is what for me, causes me to feel that the defenders won this one.  And though Hiemecid's comic and yours had this groovy contrast in that they both went in the opposite direction (For Hiemecid, the resolution was brought by the characters and the princess failed in her goal, the defender's comic had the princess succeed and the resolution was mostly hers).  And that's kinda what bugs me, that ultimately the situation resolved itself and really the only impetus the other characters had was to be scared shitless.  I guess that's mostly a personal thing I have.  But the ending kinda irks me because it has that tacky, Hollywood-style, unnecessary spoon feeding at the end with the Beast suffering for eternity.  Really I can think of quite a few blockbuster movies that follow that same train of thought and yeah, I just don't like it.  Sorry for writing so much and whatever blah blah blah blah.

And just so everyone knows, the % is bugged so no one worry no one is shit voting and there's no foul play going on haha I've contacted Toast so it'll be squared away.

I contacted Toast about it, I think he has to change it to something special

Hmm, I don't remember seeing that death match undertitle before...

Mecid, Saaay whaaaaaaaaaaat? My mind would have like shit down. I've been looking forward to reading this all day. When was that exactly?

And on a side not, YAY

Okay it's up! I scanned through both parts to check for errors/things out of order and it should be safe. Let me know if anyone has any technical problems.

London, I thank god you weren't around when the entire site went down when Arma was due.

trapped in the limbo between uploading a comic and it going live~~~

William, I would quite literally die.

It'll be another month before we can see arma.  ;P

Cut that Honeymoon short already....geez!!!!! Seriously!!!!

Need. ARMA! Or. Head. ESPLODE!! O________O

Like getting descendents

It'll be up before too long I imagine, he still has internet access, just obviously he's doing other things right now haha

Hahahahaha. Oh.

Toast has to put this up.

Toast is on his honeymoon.

Where is this?

Toast has to manually upload the pages?

I'm impatient!

My prelude to this event has been uploaded

Hopefully it all fits..... :X

I. CAN'T. WAIT!!!

man. This has been a crazy ride.

Yep, all defender entries are uploaded and are in there without any problems. Not a single incomplete, which is a first for Arma

Uploaded! Looks like we avoided any incompletes/defaults!

Well, I'm emailing the pages to Toast and Wei right now. Twice.

Meg and I are done... We'll likely send an email to toast later. I gotta go to work in like 5 minutes.

all uploaded! I hope you guys are ready for a long fucking comic!

ARE WE THERE YEEET?

I won't be able to read anyones comments until Aug. I am currently on the road...but good luck defenders from what I've seen this is going to be great!!

I've uploaded!
I hope you guys like it. On my part it's an experiment with fountain pen inking, differently from my usual uni pin stuff.
Can't wait!

SOOOOOooooo CLOOOOSE

Omg! OMG! Omg! It's almost here!!!! weeeeeee!!!!! Come on guy's bring on the pain!!!!!!

There's an issue with the uploader screwing up the Defenders' page order. David and I uploaded and have also sent our pages to Toast for him to sort out. All the Defenders will be doing the same.

Uploaded mines...

apparently "good luck" wasnt clear i was being supportive so.. I hope you guys fuggin PWN the threat!... do it for all the defenders of old who got murder-ated by the baddy.

kick some ass team.. theres a few i know and a few i dont but im sure youre all equally kick ass.. also i hope the threats comic is kick ass too.. but im pullin for the good guys cause ya gotta.. theyre the good guys!

GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Uploaded my part and all. Not that it matters much since I'm probably the one that'll be putting Arma up but still haha

With this I learned I actually can work on 2 comics at the same time, I had to juggle this with a paid gig. Hope you guys enjoy

Really excited for this - good luck all!

This should be very exciting

We'll try

Also as a heads up for all the participants, if anyone has a comic that is more than 20 pages they will have to email the additional files to Toast, Wei, and I as well as leave a comment on the battle saying they did so. Obviously note what pages they are meant to be so if you have like 50 pages say that you uploaded the first 20, here's the last 30.

The uploader still has not been fixed and still will not allow more than 20 pages to be uploaded. The complete entry must be uploaded along with any additional pages emailed to those people by the deadline. There may be a delay in the event going up because of this.

Love Love Love Love~ <3 Make me die of happiness guys!!! X3

Well for this Arma people signed up that already had several battles under their belt. The council then picked defenders based on who would work well together, who had a good solid work, who had been active on the site, etc.

If the threat wins nothing really happens. If the defenders win the threat dies.

How do you get into an Armageddon battle? Besides having a character and having actually battled? >_>

p.s. best of luck...
p.p.s. What happens if the Armageddon wins? 8O
p.p.p.s. Will there be a movie on this flight??

~Jingle~

Hiemiecid's thumb looks like a Doomsday clock...except it's pointing 5 minutes after midnight.
You are all pre-fukked!!

Goooo, defenders!!

uhhh thanks for the support?

As you should!

I'm so excited about this.

heeecka didnt get in. oh wells cant say im surprised.. good luck defenders.

aww i fail! I guess better luck next time for me!! and hey you gusy goodluck!!!!

Good luck, everyone!!

Sweet! This is going to rule!!!!!

FUUUUUUUUUUUCK YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HOLY SMOKES! D: GOGOGOGOGO!!!!

The combination is blowing my mind and the anticipation is gonna' kill me. Knock it out chaps.

Hahaha, sorry I had to decline the invitation to join this smack-down in void town! Good luck to every one of you guys though. Your all killer artists.

Throw down mighty.

HEHEHEHEHEHEHE This is the first time I saw this go up as a civilian.

Good luck, everyone !

This is positively a who's who of asskicking talent. Good luck, y'all

GOOD LUCK, GUYS!!!!!

SHIT one day gone already!

Better get to work!

The very best of luck

Good Luck!! Kick some random pshyosis ass XD

neat-o

An interesting lineup to say the least.

Let's give the opposition a sound drubbing, shall we?

wooty woot..

Let the Asskickingage begin!!

This is good! I called all but one of these people getting in!

good luck! :3

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Also, that +extend button is amusing.

Ohboyohboyohboy