Thanks for the critiques guys! I know I need to work on better stories, and I'll work to improve that.
And I totally forgot about the Jpeg thing destroying quality. x_x
Thanks for battling me Carlito. :)
Diascope: I'm liking the colors but your last greyscale battle had alot more character to the drawings. Try to combine trad drawings with this coloring if you're not already.
Carlito; Man this is your most solid yet IMO Chia is learning and growing! I thought the meeting of the 2 was clever using stranger and all, and Chia's struggle to communicate was cool. Art was looking better too and a nice level of detail, just some of the buildings needed some love.
Diaz - Colors almost won me over... need to work on your story telling for entertainment purposes.
Carlito~ Throw some colors in behind that funny fun!
Diascope: cute story, but yeah. I think it needed more. The art was nice you got a nice style and the colors work well, but I feel that your ink work could be cleaner as well as your backgrounds. :3 good to see a battle from you again though!
Carlito: this was an alright battle from you too. As others have mentioned, the action near the end was a bit confusing. I think it's interesting to see Chia Hui learning english by watching Elmo and all.
diascope: I really dig your colouring! Opencanvas and all artists who use it rock XD I would've liked a bit more substance to the story though ... it was cute and all but there wasn't much else to it. Well you already know that. Like Squidman noted, your bgs in the later pages could use a bit more detail.
carlito: Don't be too self-deprecating! You've definitely made progress and that's something to be proud of. I liked your story, interesting theme. I don't get the first page though. Why did show him brushing his teeth and dressing? It's nice and all, but is it necessary for the theme you wanted to communicate? Just asking because I don't get it. You too could give your bgs a bit more love.
Nice battle you two =)
carlito-I enjoyed the sense of urgency with the squid monster thing- nice sesame street reference!
Diascope-cool battle! Your art was a little messy but in a cool way. :D
Diascope: love the simple colouring. Action a bit hard to follow or maybe it's just me being tired.
Carlito: whose eye is it?? Nice build up to suspense and frantic flow.
Great effort both of you =D
In all honesty, I feel that Diascope is the superior artist in this battle. His colors look really great on the page, and I enjoyed the simplistic style! The story, however short, was very easy to follow.
Carlito on the other hand, needs a lot of work with basic anatomy, apparent in several frames. I also felt that his inking style was poorly executed (sorry if I sound a little harsh). The story itself is confusing and seems to go no where... however I give him points for trying.
I liked Carlito's sudden ending. :o Although I think the last panel was a little unclear, and may be what was confusing some people. It's not quite clear in first glance that that's Stranger's eye.
I'm still not liking the gray fill on some of carlito's pages, like 6 and 8. I don't think it's working with the cross-hatching... and I think your cross-hatching is pretty nice on its own. I think it at least needs to be incorporated into more of the pages, to make things more consistent. I'm not sure though. It just looks really ugly and out-of-place somehow.
But your cross-hating is getting nice... however keep it consistent; you use multiple styles throughout.. like on the last page, there are two styles there.
I just noticed the panel placement on page 8.. with the one panel making it look like Chia has a third eye, haha. I think you could have even centered that panel more so it's right between his eyes.
Anyways, I thought the story was pretty cute; I like that he uses Sesame Street and Dr. Seuss to learn English.
Diascope: The idea of a forklift-battle is funny to me, made really ridiculous on page 8 where Marreck is grumbling as he drives back into the warehouse. :B But, the fight itself I found really confusing.. it just wasn't very clear what was happening from the drawings.
And Jpeg made the pages look dirty; save at higher quality next time..?
I wish the rest of it looked the first page; that one's nice and has some good backgrounds.
@Will- I thought I cleaned up the margins, but upon second look I didn't do so great a job. Whoops. I'll try to pay more attention to neatness next time!
@Carlito- Aw you make it seem like it was some horrible mess! I really enjoyed reading it. I liked the pacing until, like the others have said so far, the end. Maybe there could have been another pages with a few panels showing the stab? I had to re-read that a few times. I think your shading style for this worked really well, what with the hatching and all.
Oh! And I used Opencanvas 1.1 to color it. Watercolor tool. Pretty fun program, free too. :)
@Jax- Yoooouuu should call me Scope or something, I've seen someone called Dai, and another called Dia here. or I'm just being silly. Sorry, but that panel shading was actually me just not paying attention to what was erased, I'm glad to hear different input on that though! About that last page- I did it in a day. I would actually be pretty surprised if no one noticed that. xD; I'll try to work on making sure everything fits right next time. :>
Dai: OKAY YOU SUBMITTED IT, YOU BETTER HAVE. The watercolors here are amazing. I've always been a fan of your watercoloring. Even the "white" borders had a little bit of shading around the panels to make it feel a bit more lively. And talking about lively, I did enjoy the sketchiness of the art in general, but sometimes it felt a tad out of place. The last page also felt a tad rushed. The story itself was a bit short and lacking, but it did well in developing your character.
Carlito: The opening was a nice touch. I enjoyed how you incorporated the "CRASH" sound into the background in the second page, too. You definitely are improving. Your anatomy and angles still seem to need some help, though. While it is nice to see you attempt certain angles, they didn't always come out nicely (usually on Marreck). Also, you seem to alternate between detail and simplicity awkwardly. While the art was more detailed than Dai's, her color and consistent style won my attention over yours. You did, however, seem to beat her for a while in the story department, but your sudden ending felt a tad lacking as well.
I enjoyed both entries and was glad to see this battle earlier than usual. And while the stories have a beginning and end I feel like they both could have used an extra scene or so for resolution or aftermath, whatever you want to call it.
Diascope I thought your story was pretty entertaining albeit short. I think you could take a little more time to clean those pages because the white margins seem a little dirty. While the story was somewhat simple and quick, I think it works in a slice of life kinda way. There's no reason for these two characters to embark on a big adventure or anything and basically they wouldn't want to have anything to do with each other. I think it came out pretty well.
carlito, page 10 Marreck's figure on the bottom left could use a little work, perhaps some foreshortening and use of angles. He doesn't seem to match up either. and on 13, a little practice on the hand. I don't know if the sheep has some sort of precedence but I found it hilarious in a non sequitur kind of way. I don't think the Stranger was true to his character but I guess it doesn't matter in this sort of setup.
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