Don Bluth is such a hack, hahaha... yeah, challenge me when you're available bro, it'll be fun.

Sure, once I get some time. I'll level your Don Bluth loving ass in an artist battle or something, inbetweener.

*grabs popcorn*

Haha, hey Kuro...

WANNA FIGHT?

Your little mocking scoff is pretty on the money. Comics are different, & this wasn't a storyboard practicing site last I checked. Hell, I've animated things before too. Doesn't mean I approach every little thing I create with the same broad brush & a pack of excuses. Reusing a bg's logical in frame based animation. But you're reusing things only two-four times here, multiple times, & a better result could be achieved by moving your camera around. Hell even if it were to break up the monotony of four wides with the same bg. It'd be something.
It needs more variance. And like I said: It'd be one thing if that was used as effect once, but you're relying on it for a huge chunk of this comic & it feels like a cop out.

I have to disagree with Kuro completely on Sloth's. In a comic with a 1 week deadline, I don't see a reason not to reuse assets in an advantageous way. Besides, I felt they were used in a more cinematic way. Sure, the first page coulda been like, two panels, but then the pacing would be much too quick, with not enough build up. The puddle of ooze she steps in, the broken door, and the anticipation behind it all lent itself well to the comic.


In regards to Space-aged, it was a nice comic. The first few panels on the first page i felt were all too far out and narrow to really work with what you were going for. I would have liked to see those on their own page, I think, to give it all more space to breath. The tones were nice, but I sometimes felt inconsistent, mostly regarding the slight texture and variation that went with some of them, but were lacking elsewhere. I do feel the art in this comic was better than in your first, it felt slightly more polished.

woot

Storyboards instead of comics? You'd think that maybe I was an animator, not a comic artist... Oh wait! I am. Pacing, effect, and layout are exactly as I planned them from the get-go. Sorry you found the read dull, Kuro~

"Well, you're in the comics world now, sloth! Draw them like comics!"

Yeh, yeh. Ok.

Man, deadlines are tight, but don't reuse bgs. I've noticed a lot of that in these tourney comics, because it feels like people are laying out action like storyboards rather than comics! Draw it out with some differences or vary the angles up to build emotion. The site's for practice, so get in some dang practice.

Slothvert, you're the biggest offender so far of that. Move the camera. That kind of thing's okay for an effect & to build slow burn kind of tension every so often, but you do it like 3 or 4 times through out this & it just feels lazy. Like the instance of them coming down the side of the building, why not vary things up by cutting to a reaction shot, then a dynamic shot of flan coming down the side of the building to make it more exciting. Looking at it from a side view just reads like a diagram progression.

Space-aged, I liked it, but there's something a little off about the layouts. You've got the ability to give nice detail working digitally, & you can kind of see it in those first couple of panels, but she's so ridiculously tiny in them, I can't help but feel like you could've laid things out better to give us the same idea & yet see things better. I think you could've spread this out over another page if only to show some of the action better. Give it space to breathe.

Thanks everyone for you comments! I appreciate every single one of them.

Angie: It's all done in Sai. I struggled a bit in deciding how to tone him and make him still seem gelatinous. I did remove the texture to make him smooth, so that might seem why he seems so different.

Tinman, Evil Eye & Mister Kent: I had started to color Flan really green, but it seemed just to jarring to me so I backed it off. I probably should have added it in somewhere else.  Thanks for the suggestions about backgrounds and story, I am working on improving those areas. I'm pretty limited on these one weeks battles because I swear I am the slowest artist out there. I end up taking a lot of short cuts.

Thank you all for the comments & critiques!

Angie: I tried to do something different with the colouring, and ran out of time to finish it proper. I agree with you totally on the rendering. It's been a long time since I ventured away from using just flats, and the rustiness shows. Can practise, will improve.

Mr Kent: Flan loves you, too.

Evil Eye: The story was intentionally ambiguous as to Flan's motivations. All in all, though, he is essentially just a monster that wants to eat people... as to why he's back in his own apartment, well, that says something about him, too. Also, I never said Dr. Flan was a scientist - just a DOCTOR who was transformed by SCIENCE. His doctorate is in romantic literature. The scientist must be... someone else...

Tinman: Thanks for kind words. I'm really kicking myself over the missing pages - though the story reads well enough without them, the panel layouts were much more experimental, and really broke out of the box, so to speak. I'll have to ink 'em and toss 'em into BB, because I'm really quite fond of that work.

Slothvert: I love Dr. Flan. He resides comfortably among my favorites in this Tourney and it pleases me greatly that you've begun to hint at his alter ego and give him some depth aside from mutant monster Frog. You excel at using the environment, I love the way you moved Hazel through the area, and your paneling for the fall was superb. The utilization of her powers on Flan was a stroke of lucky ingenuity on your part as well.

Space: I envy your gray tones, they compliment the cartoony expressions and animations so well but the splashes of color you've used before would amp things to the next level. Excellent panel layouts and compositions but your backgrounds could use a tweak to ground the tale. Despite the simply package delivery plot you made this entertaining, still I'd like to see more of her motivations with more complex storytelling.

Sloth: Poor Dr. Flan.  He just wanted to accept his package; he might have even given her a tip!  Couriers are so rude nowadays.  Haha, I really liked this comic, a lot more than your round one, which I also quite liked.  Having Haze use the high water content in Flan's froggy globby body to completely buttdevastate him was very clever and satisfying way to deal with the encounter.  Meanwhile Haze ditches the package, so whenever he thaws he still gets... whatever it is that he wanted there.  I like when people do a story where their character completely loses a fight encounter, but manages to "win".  It takes clever writing, and you pulled it off.  

I also really like the implication that this "fight" happens as a result of an unfortunate misunderstanding.  It turns "Void Plot #1" on its ear in an enjoyable manner.  Your art is even more solid than last time around as well, with some cool images like the Doc climbin' down the side of that wall there.  The one thing I will say is that a couple of Haze's expressions seemed a bit off or too placid.  The Doc however remains the most expressive fictional frog of all time.  Also, was that some foreshadowing I caught there?  On the first page of the comic, Haze steps in a watery puddle that appears to be ordinary Slum Water, but sticks to the bottom of her boot as she walks away, suggesting it might be Flan-goo.  My mind jumped back to that right away later on when Haze put him in the Own Zone.  

space: Speaking of expressions!  ...yours are really good.  That's about it.  Haze really looks like she's lost in thought on the first page, and she really looks pouty when she tells off Dr. Flan.  I also like the brashness of it, how she realizes in short order that telling off the giant frog thing was probably not a good idea, but in the moment just couldn't help herself.  Your rendition of Flan is also quite fun to look at, with him being very expressive in his sinister frogliness and the gelatinous way his body reacts to movement and impact.  Haze has a really sassy quality I enjoy, and I plan to keep followin' her if you don't win this round.  Sloth edged you out juuuuust slightly for a couple main reasons.  I really like the style you have here, with the soft tones, but Kent's note about seeing something a bit more vivid has one really good point.  This is set in the forest somewhere, and Haze is attacked by a giant frog; I think the more vivid, lush style of your first round battle would have been better suited for this match-up.  Give the scenery some life, particularly when a bit of life within the scenery becomes an aggressor not too long afterward!  Could just have been a time factor, though.  And that's not to take anything away from the art, though, as it's quite nice at a technical level and might even be an improvement on round one if my memory serves me at all.  

The other thing was the story; I think having Dr. Flan appear as a B-movie-esque WHEN NATURE ATTACKS plot device is going to get tiresome pretty quickly.  Didn't hurt you much as you're the second person to do this (not the twenty-second as will surely be a milestone Flan opponents will reach some day), but there's more at play with the character than that facet.  He's a scientist too, after all.  His bio didn't really give me the impression that he tries to eat everyone he sees.  Future opponents of the Doc take note!  But yeah, don't think this was some highly erroneous writing on your part; Dr. Flan trying to eat people is completely hilarious.  I'm just explaining why I felt this was a less satisfying stumble-upon encounter than your round 1 story, and it still rated well, just not quite as well as sloth's premise.  

A very, very close one.  Might be the closest vote I've yet made.

Both really entertaining comics! Slothvert, I liked the set-up/story of yours and think Flan is the cutest coolest glob-a-ma-thing ever.

Space-aged, I was surprised by your light tones (in a good way) and enjoyed Haze's pouty face. I'm a sucker for colors, so it'd be nice to see a few more vivid hues next time around.

Great work, both of you!

Great stuff from both of you, love Dr Flan's final expression on each of the last pages

slothvert-your palette again was very nice this round, but I felt as though your rendering got muddier. I think the blocky rendering on the walls in the latter pages worked better than the first half, I think it was because it didn't translate as well on the floor and furniture of the apartment as it does on the walls.

space-aged-really like the simple toning you have here! Feels very watercolor like! (and if you did use watercolors, just ignore that haha) I think overall your entry was nice but it felt like Dr.Flan was done in a different style than everything else in the comic which felt a little jarring. I think toning down the highlights and outline on him would have helped make him feel less cartoony against everything else.

great lines and expressions on both of these! And I love Sloth's colours and Space-Aged's tones! Top quality! I don't even know who will win!

I love both of these guys, and it's way to hard to decide between you. Good work!

Fabulous work Slothvert! I loved it!

This is great, space-aged! I love the lamppost gag. Flan's appetite gets the best of him again.

OK, got mine submitted.
Oh, I want to see those ice puns!

Puns, you say? You're gonna like my comic.

Still can't wait for this. TOO LONG!

Comic submitted! There are two pages missing from the original script, one which was just a pretty fire escape drawing, and the other was a page of ice puns. The ice puns may be submitted for beyond battle, because, you know. I love me some puns.

Good luck space-aged!

This is gonna be awesome. I will be updating Dr. Flan's character sheet tonight. He is now wall-eyed, that's cannon.


*never did update the sheet. just draw him derpy at all times.

Haha, I almost choked on my coffee when I saw who I got matched up with. This should be loads of fun! Good luck to you Solthvert - I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Omg I was hoping this would happen. Can't wait!

FFFFF...! This is going to be bloody brilliant. Don't muss her hair, Flan.