This will be the last comment I guessing. Hey I liked the comics. Read all the crits no need to add two cents. Angie your character is so sweet I love her, follow those crits on the actions I know you'll nail it next time. Also I really, really, really want to see her other form in an action sequence. (REALLY!) MikeX I like the style of your character as I said previously follow those crits. Your character does remind me of DBZ, and I hold Z to be a sacred anime for me so take that as a compliment. Keep up the good work guys.

Ang:

Really liked how you colored the power blasts and whatnot it was perfect.  lot of nice crits down there, I agree that sound effects being more prominent would add a lot of flavor to the read. Your rubble looks awesome too, so did that blood thing. Lotta people said anatomy, etc.. but the main thing that took me out of the story was pg. 11 the last panel, I think the blood is flying to Angie, and she absorbs it.. after a couple rereads it seemed to be the case, but was almost non-sequiter (probably spelled wrong) in that it doesn't seem to relate to what happens before and after it.  Another thing I like is that Angie 's letting it all hang out these days, keep up the good work!

Mikal X:

I think it's a good idea to try just pencils for a while, those parts were my favorite here. Of all the various comp. tricks here, I think you had the most success with the dot pattern/halftone; and the worst offender was the fuzzy white highlights on top of the pencils. Another thing you could try if you have photoshop is to scan pencils and adjust the levels to make them darker, more like inks, it's going to get a bit gritty depending on how clean your sketches are though. And I personally think a rough sketch of a background is better than any weird digital texture stuff. Your storytelling was very clear, but I wish you'd play around with scale/angle some more. lot's of times the chars. are really small in the middle of a panel. the large panel on pg. 4 was a nice break from this. I agree with Mr. noitall that this is the best I've seen from you yet, seems like you pushed urself harder, keep it up!

You guys told a pretty good story, Reminds me of many an rpg"the chosen one" kind of thing, but i'm definitely interested in what happens from here on out!

he’s a magnificent retarded bastard, that kubo tite.

Thanks for the comment Jetaime! I don't think I'll ever really give up 2 parters just because it's something I enjoy doing, although I understand why some people would dislike it. That and I do enough BBs to where people are able to see what I'm capable of solo. I'll work on the texture thing, it was my mistake to just use roughly 1-2 textures all over the place. I was trying to work on making textures more subtle in my work but they ended up being more prominent than I'd wanted this time around.

And Kubo Tite only gets away with having 1 background every 40 pages because I think all Bleach's chapters take place in the sky haha which I guess if you wanted to do a lot of floating in the sky battles that'd be the way to go.

i'm not a big fan of half & half matches. the shift in styles is sometimes jarring, and it seems like one side or the other will invariably get the more interesting side of the story.
i think i'd rather see you both draw the same (whole) story so that i can vote on who told the story better (instead of who drew their half better).

angie: you have your coloring down, so i think the next step is to start getting into texture. everything in this comic seems to be made out of a sort of vinylic material. take into consideration the properties of whatever it is you're coloring: is it glossy or matte? smooth or rugged? hard or soft?
also, anatomyblahblahsomethingweallneedtoworkonalwaysan dforever.

michael: backgrounds aren't something you can just toss in at the end if you have time. kubo tite is the only comicer i can think of who can maybe get away with not drawing backgrounds (though it's still really obnoxious).
they can be fun if you think about how they can set a mood or complete/establish a composition.

Whoo boy, lots of comments! And of course I would go out of town so they have time to stack up on me. Appreciate the comments all around folks
In broad strokes:

Yeah I attempted to do some new stuff artwise here, a lot of it background and shading oriented.  UNFORTUNATELY I spent more time on pencils so that when it came time to experiement it was more or less do or die time.  A learned lesson though.  I personally hate to ink so I think for a while I'm gonna focus on pencils which means, like every has noted, I can't skimp on backgrounds.  More practice, more application, better end results.

Character and storywise;  The dual 'puppet master' deal was something that was hashed out between me and Angie prior.  Both characters have someone pulling/manipulating them in their backgrounds so we thought it'd be feasible to have a previously unknown collabo between Mikal's antagonist and the Masked Men.   In retrospect it may have come out better if I had introduced Kaiser before had in some form other than rumor and heresay format.  
As for Mikal's power range i don't think I played him out of his 'zone' more than he's been done in the past.  He's a mage first, in close fighter second.  His spells used here were more tame than what he's capable of/ used in the past (Mikal vs Reign meteor spell). And the gunblade is simply what he was designed with since conception and another variant for him to use in combat a way to merge spellslinging and swordplay if you will. I understand the DBZ reference, however Mikal's spell chants were more of a quirk I figured would be used to avoid the whole 'I name my every attack' as well as the impression that he can simply 'do anything' as well as give a reference to what he's doing.

I had a blast with this one overall and whole to make this at LEAST a minimum standard going forward. (No sense backsliding ) Hope to do more story and artwise soon.  Thanks for watching folks! Angie; Great fight!

Yeah I do watch quite a bit of action films, I just seem to have issues absorbing and applying it I think. Johnny actually told me something earlier in the chat that's similar to what you red lined haha I really appreciate you doing that for me, I did have something like in that bottom left panel originally in the thumbnails but couldn't quite get the angle to work and now I really wish I had. It does help a lot, thanks dude!

Angie, William raises valid points-- watching action movies will help and exaggeration of poses definitely will aid with action. I'll take one of your action pages and draw a redline to show you.

As it stands, I think that you're perfectly capable of drawing poses that depict action. That's not the problem that you have with action, no. The essential thing is choosing the correct frame to show the motion at it's greatest impact.

http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/1414/actionhelp.jpg

Look at what I did especially at the middle panel- I fastforwarded the sequence of motion you intended to portray by a few frames, which is Angie landing a solid kick onto Mikal's back. Instead of showing the exact point of contact, I showed the point immediately AFTER contact. It makes it much clearer that Mikal is being thrust forward by the sheer force of the kick because of how I displayed how his body is being affected by the hit. A couple of dust particles and a clearer impact mark would definitely aid the capturing of motion because environment is influenced by action. Dirt and dust will be lifted if you run, for instance. Also, a strong, clear, and bold sfx- WHAM! or something along those lines! You gotta get it across to the readers that Angie did a strong kick, because it managed to make Mikal skid so far along the sidewalk.

I hope this helps with the action issue.. I'll come back later with a critique for both of your overall comics.

I'll keep that in mind for next time then, I do love doing crazy ass expressions haha and yeah I can see how neither side really didn't seem to be struggling, I think I was too focused on not making this a super bloody dramatic fight so I didn't make them go all out like I should have.

Yeah, I'd say the same as Will, with the exaggeration. Also, I think it would have been mroe entertaining if you made it look more like one of them ( or both ) was struggling, you know? I look back and Angie looks like she's dodging the attacks really calmly or like she was just skipping around. So Mikal came off looking like he wasn't very threatening. You've got some great facial expressions that I oh so love and I think that if you could give that same attention to your body language, this would be perfect C:

Just as someone who likes watching action a lot (although by no means at all an expert) exaggeration is key.  The other guy has to look like he's being hit hard.  Plus interesting angles at which to view the action is good too.  Lots of collateral damage too.

William-yeah I can see that, I have a lot of problems with action poses still so I'll see what I can do to loosen them up and make them feel less awkward.

Dahque-thanks dude!

Aribooboo-Yeah I probably could have paced the opening a little better, I was trying not to do a page monster but I probably could have spread that intro across just one more page to make it work a bit better.

Phil-yeah, I felt I could have done a little more story wise but I guess I felt stuck. I wanted to go one direction and try to establish a few things but it's hard not to feel as though I have to do an action battle with a scar match.

Kirei-kuro-Like what I said with Phil, I guess I didn't know how to properly pace this and decide where I wanted to go with it. I'm so used to having a lot of pages to establish things so I guess trying to make it both an action as well as story driven comic kind of failed and I guess killed my pacing. I don't think it's necessarily that I didn't space the panels properly, I probably went into the action too fast and didn't allow proper time between actions for what happened to really sink in. As for the cover page that's what comes with drawing something I don't have practice with, I relied on several references and since I was inexperienced with what I was drawing I guess it came out weird. I'll try to do more practice drawings next time I'm about to go into unfamiliar territory in the future.

One thing that's coming up in a lot of critiques are the poses, what's coming across as unnatural? I want to improve on them and get better but I'm kind of stuck on what's unnatural or awkward about them since I don't really see it. If someone could give me a little more detail to explain why or give me examples that'd really help as I'd know what I did wrong and how I could hopefully avoid it in the future.

I'm still kind of stuck on how to handle an action battle I guess. Every few comics I want to take another shot at action and it never seems to go over very well. How could I make more entertaining action battle? This time I didn't have the drama to really pull the reader in since I wanted to do something a little more quick and less serious. As a reader what makes a good action comic to you? I mean obviously action isn't everyone's cup of tea, but what do you more action oriented people think I could improve on to make a more entertaining action comic?

Like I know you guys prefer when I do more serious and story driven comics and while I do prefer to do them more, I think it's also well worth working on something I'm pretty weak at. What would have made this comic more entertaining for you in the action part? More dialogue? More flashy angles and page layouts? I'm pretty open to suggestions. I don't wanna totally be like "I'm not doing action because I suck at it" I want to get good at it and really do an action comic that'll make you guys be all zomg Angie this was so much better than your last action battle.

I'm just trying to find a little more in depth guidance since I always struggle with action comics and appreciate the feedback and I've never gotten that much guidance in terms of how to make a more entertaining action comic. Obviously there are people that I'll never win over, but it certainly never hurts to try!

In short, I can't say I really liked either of the comics...

Angieness, your colors are fantastic, as usual, but a lot of your poses seem...awkward to me. Like, there's something wrong with them, but I can't pick out what it is. Your more casual poses, like in the beginning of your comic, are great, but something about your "cover page" looks really weird. I think you may be trying too hard to create certain moods and poses; Mikal's position on the piano seems forced and unnatural....I think....like I said, I'm not quite sure what it is. Also, the story altogether was really awkward to me - it felt jumpy and hard to follow. The reason may be that you're not spacing your panels properly. There were a lot of pages were I wasn't sure if I should read them right column then left column, or horizontally; either way, they didn't seem to flow.

MikalXavier, experimenting is great and all, but the mix of sketchy-looking characters and more computerized-looking backgrounds wasn't working for me.  Like in the first panel on page nine - the big guy looks like you drew him by hand, scanned him in, and just pasted him into the panel, but the four-armed guy looks like he was done by hand, scanned, edited, and put into the panel. And then on the same page in the third panel: the character is obviously hand-drawn and messily colored in, so it looks twice as awkward on the clearly computer-added background. In addition, like angieness's story, it felt jumpy and awkward.

I guess I essentially feel that neither of them were that great, but they certainly weren't terrible.

Angie: Storywise, not my favorite of your battles, and you had some weird perspective and anatomy going on, but your colors were awesome as ever, keep it up your on your way to being top on the site.

Mikal: a bit too experimental for me, i wasn't diggin' the real life photo backgrounds, but other then that it was a nice response and your getting better and the fact that your messing around with new methods is good your really trying to up your game, and it'll pay off.

nice work both of you

Angie: You just keep getting better and better, don't you? I loved your colors, 'specially your outside nighttime scenes. I could feel the cold. This really seems like an anime or something, I could almost see them moving! And your attention to detail is amazing. I always love looking around in your backgrounds to see what I can find. I have to agree with the others about the sound effects. That's what stood out the most to me, but a quick change of size should do the trick. Maybe the little...blast thing ( I have no idea what it's called. The little spark looking thing you draw to show someone or something is being hit ) could have been a lot bigger too. I liked how we get to see what's going on in Angie's personal life, and not just when she's doing work. That gives her a nice rounded personality. I don't know if it was just me, but the beginning felt like it was a little too much talking. But don't take my word for it 'cause it's probably just me haha It wasn't a huge deal anyway since I do think you made it sound pretty natural. It's good that you switch up people's dialects, like, Angie has her own slang and her Boss has his. Makes it feel more real. Overall this was a great comic. Looks like I have another battle to add to my list of comics I look back to! <3

Mikal: This was ok. I did like some of your action scenes like on page 4 and 7, but other times, I couldn't quite get what was going on. It seemed very silent too. I think you could have benefitted from bigger sound effects as well. It would have made it seem like a bigger impact. From what I've seen, pencils and textures don't mix well. I think this would have looked fine it had been inked. The dialouge, t but it blunty, just really reminded me of DBZ. Maybe it was the yelling of the attacks, I dunno. I don't really have much to say, but keep working at it! I'm glad you're still here and fighting :3

I wanna read it again! Great job guys.

Mikal, I'd have to agree with the others, switching between textured and tonal backgrounds was a tad annoying. Aside from that, impressive stuff.

Angie, amazing colours, I really liked the texture on the "blood ball". May you continue to amaze.

Other than that (I haven't been doing this long enough to give any more crits), great work, both of you.

Angie, my advice would be that for the action scenes, like when Angie is drop kicking Mikal, his body is too stiff.  The addition of the speedlines in the back make it awkward.  This is just my opinion, but if it had been a normal background, it would have made sense because of the lessened impact.  Like the speedlines are telling us that something dramatic is happening but the bodies aren't reacting like that.  Like I would say Mikal needs to look more like he's getting hit, like where he's getting kicked is moving forward but his arms and heads etc, would probably pull back more from the abrupt movement.  That was probably too much explanation, sorry.

Otherwise I have nothing to add that hasn't been said, I enjoyed the storyline and as always I liked angie's colorwork.  

Yeah that's understandable, I probably should have given a name or who it was more than a vague description.

Well my problem with the dating girls quip was because she said "that guy wouldn't let me date girls" it was unclear to me who "that guy" was because it isn't concretely established that she is talking about her old boss. Had she said, "My old boss wouldn't let me date girls" it would have flowed smoothly for me.

Angie: I agree that the clothing folds and some anatomy issues are your weakest areas. The page of the masked man dodging the first blast was probably my least favorite due to anatomy issues, though the coloring was impressive. I know action is hard for you, but I'm happy to see that you keep working on it. Personally, I had ZERO issues with the opening of your side. If anything, I loved it. It gave some insight into her background without falling to the usual technique of dramatic flashbacks that you've done with her. I like that you didn't here and used a conversation to explain why she has been denying her sexual preference for so long. It worked for me, made sense given the situation, and worked. I mean, she's there on the phone with someone and obviously into them, her boss is a pushy nosy S.O.B who is more concerned with getting the job done than caring about an agent's sexual preference, and you conveyed that really well. That part was the best of the comic, imho, and made me laugh. Poor Angie.

Mikal: I'm really happy to see a complete battle from you, man, but you mixed too many mediums and not very well. The lack of backgrounds and the attempt to cover that up with tones, photos, and effects was incredibly obvious and hurt the comic as much as if you had just left them blank. It was just impossible to not see it as a quick attempt to avoid drawing backgrounds. I hate doing them, too, but if you don't practice and try you'll never get the hang of it. The photos and tones hurt more than they helped. I was a bit confused about the two apparent 'puppet  masters' who were watching the fight. I think there was too much hinting and dancing around things and not enough there to really hold our attention and hook us in.

PS: Michael, I think your bais against anime in general is showing in your crit, dude. Angie didn't use any 'new' powers, she just utilized her blood abilities in a defensive way and then lashed out with it. As for Mikal, he's always been able to use various magic spells and having a hand-weapon when you use magic doesn't seem odd to me at all... Think about it, what happens if you fight someone immune to magic or in an area you can't use it? A well trained fighter would have some kind of physical weapon(staff, knife, etc) to use if necessary. I don't see any problem with a person crafting their character that way and find it a little odd you'd tell someone that they shouldn't have created their character how they wanted.

Thanks guys!

Elio-yeah, I'll keep that in mind, I really should have added more sound effects.

Delya-yeah, it's pretty hard to write action without it getting kind of silly sometimes. I tried to keep the dialogue during the fighting to a minimum to make it come across as silly anime fighting.

Michael-yeah I've been working on those, I did reference myself occasionally for the folds and anatomy but the running page ended up pretty weak regardless. I'll keep working on my perspective since I've always had some issues with it. The reason Angie'd brought up the not being allowed to date girls thing was because she was sitting there being told by one boss it's totally fine when in the past a different higher up had told her it was a no no. I was trying to at least establish that because in past battles she's always denied being gay and I always wanted to show why. But since I have enough dramatic flashbacks I just tried to touch on it without having to get into all the gritty details. As for the powers thing, the powers Angie had in the comic were always in any of her previous comics, she just used her blood and that's about it. Mikal I was just going from what he'd displayed in previous fights.

Thanks for the crits guys, I'll keep them in mind and try to improve on the next battle! The next comic won't be an action one, I tend to have much weaker stories when I try action.

Angie - the colors are fun, but you really need to get a better handle on anatomy and the way clothes actually fold over the body. Like in the first panel when the guy is running, the way the legs are positioned, they couldn't possibly be attached to the same person. You draw most of your folds at the joints, but the rest of the outfit is usually fold free, it seems like you are drawing folds where you think they should be and not actually referencing them. The perspective was a little off too in places, like in the panel where there is a downshot of mikal looking at the bloody swirl. We are looking down at the ground towards the bloody swirl thing but we are looking pretty much on an even plane with Mikal. Also the part where she says, "but that guy said I'm not allowed to date girls" seem EXTREMELY random and I had to read a few times and still have no idea how that would come up naturally in that conversation.

Mikal - yeah, please stick to one "style" per comic. I wouldn't actually suggest doing any photoshop "tricks" with only pencils, they never really work out right. It is also extremely hard to do photo backgrounds and get them to look good. Keep working on anatomy and perspective.

Both - How many powers do these guys have?  I guess its ok to have lots of powers but it kind of takes away from the fight if they just randomly pull out new powers whenever they feel like it.  I t kind of feels like two kids playing and whenever one gets shot he just makes up a new power to outdo the other kid. I know this is kind of an anime staple but it really turned me off. Also if you can shoot giant energy blasts from your hands, what's the point of carrying a gun? It's kind of like Nightcrawler wearing a teleporting belt. It just seems like you really like drawing gunblades and not that it belongs with the character.

Angie: As always, love the coloring. Your panels were varied and easy to follow for the most part, but there was one hang up. I think she was hitting the ground? It was placed vertically so it was a bit confusing, I thought it was a pillar that sprung up outta nowhere. XD; Minor perspective issues, but other than that very nice. Love the action you put into it, the poses were dynamic and fluid for the most part. Story wise it got a little hokey in parts, but it was still easy to follow and a very entertaining read. Awesome.

Mikal: Just as entertaining as Angie's, but the art was lacking. Your figures are fun and I enjoy your style, but it was very sloppy and sketchy. Definitely would have benefited from some clean inking and more careful shading. Perspective and anatomy kinks as well, nothing some practice won't improve. I do believe this is one of your best battles yet and I look forward to seeing more.

Angela - Great work. Love the colors and atmosphere. Add some loud sound effects next time around when light energy beams are being tossed around, or when buildings are collapsing. That should put some nice pepper on things.

Mikal - You got the ground work of good stuff, but your comic right now is half baked and still wet. You need to finish everything to make it look complete. Clean, ink, tone. Take your time.

Angie never ceases to amaze.
Mikal, your best work yet IMO.

Angie - You're sound effects were all right - I have the same problem with choosing SFX fonts. Your light effects were well done, as were a lot of the lighting on the figures
Mikal - The tones you used in backgrounds sort of confused me, as were some of the techniques used. I think that overall you have a lively and fun style - very animated - and with some more attention to overall polish it'd be killer.

Good story though, both of you - very interesting use of your characters

BM-Yeah, that panel gave me some issues. I wish I had gone back and redone it because I noticed the anatomy issue after I'd inked it.

Pong yeah, I tried to tone down my exterior backgrounds a little since people kept telling me it was bad I was going so detailed with them. It'll try to make them a little more interesting without going detail crazy. Sound effects have always been something I'm weak at, I'd actually like to practice them traditionally since it just doesn't look as good when I do them digitally. I think I kind of get stuck on what to do with them since I never know what words work well for sound effects. I know that you're supposed to try to sound it out but I'm always like ugh this sounds awful haha but I suppose not all sound effects are supposed to sound like actual words so I shouldn't get stuck on that. And yeah, that aftermath shot of the kick could have been done better, I wish I'd chosen a more interesting point of view to drive home that he was supposed to be sliding across the ground.

Thanks for the crits guys!

Come on guys.

Angie: I basically have the same things to say as BM below me.   The coloring was great.  You did a lot better at successfully using different points of view in this comic than in your last one.  Yeah, the kick action in page seven probably needed to be emphasized a lot more than it was.  I think a sound effect would have helped too. The following panel is also a little confusing.
Your interior backgrounds are really great, but your exterior ones are comparatively basic.

Micheal: your art is amazingly disorganzied.  Once you choose to go down one route STICK WITH IT.  IF you're going to shade using half tone, then use half tone for the ENTIRE comic.  Mixing pencils with flat greys with tones, with photo backgrounds - it's really annoying. IF you want to draw in pencil, then pencil EVERYTHING. I think you get the point, try to be consistent in your art, instead of schizophrenic.  

Angie - Over all excellent with some minor nitpicks in a couple pages. On page 5 when the masked man was bomber diving away from the flash attack his head proportions were bigger than his body. Page 7 when Angela was kicking Mikal in the back, the action mark seemed almost dark enough to become a part of his shirt.
What I did enjoy most was your textures, dialogues, and the battle sequence while Mikal was shooting blasts of light were well executed.

Michael - There seems to be some quality and visual continuity issues that are constant in this entry. The use of random background tones seem to over contrast your tight pencil work to a point of distraction, and the use of cgi buildings and bricks don't seem to blend as well with your tight pencil work. Clean up also seems to be an issue, especially in pages 6 and 11. The highly contrasted blots, and the scratchy white left overs surrounding the characters look rather sloppy. However, regarding your pencils, they can stand just as good on their own without such heavy screen tones. My advice is to practice more with working on backgrounds and drawing cityscapes. If you still want to use screen tones and graphics, only use them to a minimum with lighter contrast. Don't use them as a cover up for not drawing your own buildings and backgrounds. You got potential to do much more with your pencils as your anatomy and shading are getting  much better! Keep at it and you'll go far man.

awesome, will put it up either once Toast gets your last page showing up or you can get it uploaded with Firefox. Otherwise it's thumbed and good to go!

Finished and uploaded.

With four days to spare? Wow.

Finished, uploaded, and thumbed. Not that I really need to comment since I'm the one that'll probably be putting it up but still. Have a brutal work weekend up ahead, think I managed to weed out any last minute problems. I don't think it's my best written battle by any means, but it was nice to do an action battle without tons of dramas in it. So yeah, hope you guys enjoy, next battle will be soon!

YOUR TIME WILL COME YOUNG MAN. Except you're older than me but STILL

I mean it!!!!!

Cant wait to see this!!! You totally owe me a battle Angie!

Really? Well at the moment they can only be set up through the mods. Pretty much whoever loses' character receives a scar.

This is gonna be awesome. i never heard of a Scar Match

oh...what do we have here

Gogogogogo!

Oh, here's one I really can't wait for.  

WOW so many epic battles up right now!!!
SCAR SCAR SCAR!!

have fun dudes!

GO GIANT MEOW MEOW GOOOO!

Good luck to the both of you.

Well dragons are part of the lizard family aren't they? Mikal gets to fight a big vicious meow kitty.

Lizard?!? Dragon, DRA-GON... I don't do that tongue thing *thpbt*

Give em hell.

:DDDDDDDDD kick ass guys!

This should be good.

Woohoo! I can't wait to see what you both bring!

Kitty vs Lizard >:} Go go Kitty!

And weird, it says I have a loss, I'll have to run that by Toast since I've never lost a battle haha

TEAR HIM A NEW ONE

woot, finally I'm free to do a battle!