First of all... Thank you RTV for taking on this Battle... it helped me come back to the light... it's been too long. I've been moving all week and had little time to view the posts... So a big thank you for all the Critiques, you guys are awesome.
I know I crammed a lot of dialogue trying to set up the story... it also didn't help that i basically took 22 pages of story and knocked it down to 12.
But I will definitely get on this by next week and finish out the story... it's actually about four parts and then we'll see where I'm at in my Life.
A big thank you to Angie for suggesting the Hand lettering to me on my last battle... it was very challenging and by the end I was enjoying the hell out of it.... It's my first time hand lettering and I loved it. I'll be doing it from now on.
Thanks again guy's this was awesome and I'm really looking forward to get the BB up.
Oh by the way AJ your Character Kojiro is already in this part... it's hard to tell but he's in the first panel on the fifth page. And for the rest of you, watch out I'm planning of putting in about fifty void characters in the story line.... heheheheh...
alberto-It's hard to really critique this due to the unfinished nature, what you had was nice and there was the start of some good things in the unfinished pencils like that first establishing shot on the first page. One thing to watch out for is the amount of text. I don't mind reading a ton of text, but you need to watch your pacing with it. Like the second page large panel works fine, you broke the text up into digestible chunks. The next page it gets a little rougher, like the first panel you have like this wall of text coming from RTV, then on the next panel while you broke the text up some, you could have broken it down into several panels. It would have been better to use that opportunity to move the camera around so we're not just staring at a ginormous panel of him talking into the camera.
The only other thing I really noticed was while your inks are very solid, there's a few areas where they feel slightly cluttered. Like the middle panels of the fourth page all the characters blend together because they have the same line widths, distribution of blacks, and details so it's hard to really separate them from one another. Other than that this was a nice start to the comic, I really hope you finish it because I really got interested in where it was going. You did a great job with the expressions and aside from the clutter issues, your inks are great.
RTV-I've always been a sucker of alternate future kind of stuff so I was pretty interested in the story's premise. I think the pacing was solid and you had some great characterization, I definitely enjoyed the story here so I hope you keep moving with it instead of a dreaded TO BE CONTINUED!
I will echo what others have said about the anatomy being kind of weird. I'm cool with the stretched out figures since it's a stylistic thing that works most of the time. (I always think of Peter Chung when I look at your work) But there were times it looked like you just tried to cram the figure into the panel so you chopped off part of their body. For example, first page bottom panel, second page bottom panel, etc. you have these long torsos with little bitty legs. The detail in the backgrounds was awesome, but occasionally got overwhelming and difficult to focus on like page 4 panel 3, that's a very nice background but I had a difficult time really knowing where to focus my attention since it was kind of a detail onslaught. Balancing the blacks a little more in that panel could have helped it from feeling so overwhelming.
One thing that you really need to watch out for is your post production work. I know that you did all the scanning and cleanup and lettering in the last day and you just can't do that. You had a very slick looking comic here so it kind of sucks to see pencil and structural lines here and there. Never ever put those important steps off to the last minute, do them as you finish each page so you can have a more presentable product. Another thing I wasn't a fan of was the use of blur. I'm never a fan of when people combine digital and traditional work because it's very hard to make work. If you are going to use digital tools, it's best to make it look as though you didn't use them, the digital stuff should blend in seamlessly with your inks. For me it's like watching a 2D cartoon and spotting a really badly done CGI object that clashes with the style.
Other than that it was a solid comic, I thoroughly enjoyed it and thought that it was pretty top notch work from you.
Both of you please finish these stories or I'll cry.
Alberto, well obviously the BB will be awesome. Great stuff with the city view. You seem to be great with closeup shots, not so much with full bodied figures though. RTV looks like she's trying to swing a leg over that word balloon on the second page and failing badly to do so. Honestly something bugs me about the panel and I can't quite put my finger on it. I'm staring and I can't put it into words. It's...messy or something. Sorry about that vagueness. I think on it's own, it pulls the eye in many different places but I also think, the way the word balloons are set up actually work to its favor in guiding the reader along. Yeah, I think on its own it wouldn't be as nice. But hey, keep chugging. The groups scenes are ambitious and you're a pretty badass artist.
So RTV, here's the deal, you've got excellent highly rendered backgrounds. They're great. Your figures are kinda wierd though and a bit all over the place, a bit offputting compared to the backgrounds. But I have also noticed that your excellent shading is limited to your figures. It's good, but it only really applies to the people. There's too much white, in my opinion, you could extended those shadows more to the background. Like, don't be afraid to cover up some of the detail. I look to those pages where the gutter is black and those pages are excellent in my opinion, because they contrast against that excessive white space in your panels, and the shading on the figures help to make up for that. Not so much when the gutters are all white.
I liked the story, it was well told. And this sort of storyline reminds me of X-Men, Days of Future Old (was that the title? I forget). Angie was well incorporated.
And did you notice that RTV doesn't match the RTV in the design sheet?! It's shocking really.
Alberto is next.
Well according to RTV's comic, this new RTV is future RTV, or rather a young girl who has taken the mantle of the dead black man. A Mr. Kick kinda thing.
Hi there Alberto and Rtv!
Bros, i enjoyed alot both of your comics , I already had seen some stuff of you two before, but soon after reading this battle, i went to see more of your characters story, in order to understand what's going on, and to see your art evolution too ( new member's homework lol -_-' )
Alberto-- loved that ink skills man! Nice use of light/ shadows too, it shows effort, and i valorize that. I liked those expressions on the characters faces too...( something i must work on )...
The details on your art are really cool to see, too ( I respect, but don't like lazy art...but this is not the case here :) ).
Nice story flow, the funny parts are cool too. The ballooning its okay and fits well through the draws...some people may say that the dialogues are too much but i don't agree with that, i think it´s ok,i like some info ( that's a matter of personal taste i guess )
Great perspective skills, Al...page one panel one just make my eyes come!
I've got only 2 not-so-cool things to say...
1st page and 5th page have no inks man... :/ it was a lack of time issue or something...?And the story ends so fast too...i wish to see the continue of the story, but yeah...bring it on those BB pages SOON!!
Rtv-- Loved the way you told the story visually, bro! Nice work especcially in the backgrounds, it was cool to see all those debris and city chaos in the first pages :) , and the cemetery scene was intense, too.
You did a nice work with the light/shadows in most of the comic, but i noticed that there are a few panels you didn't do apply it...
Nothing major to point, just bothers me some anatomy issues ( heads...side view, as in page 6 panels 1,2...and page 10 panel 2 )
The last pages action sequence it´s real cool, and the comic ends up with a cool cliffhanger...Hope to see how this will end, bro!
P.S: Hey, Rtv, what happened to Rtv...?I thought your character were a guy, not a girl...did i miss something?Could you link me to the info?
Peace bros
to both of you, nice inks. Visually, both were pretty nice.
But, I couldn't get into either comic. You should both just assume that it's just me, and that I'm not into these kind of comics, as that's probably what it is.
Good job though, dudes
And here I thought we were gonna get a heart warming story about how RTV realized he was a woman in a man's body and the struggles he was going to go through with the sex change operation and his newfound feelings for P2, not as a man, but as a woman.
But no seriously I liked these comics. Pretty badass. I don't have anything substantial to say because I havent fully read them, just skimmed. Tomorrow I'll say something, maybe.
RTV--Your anatomy is still funky, and your action is still awesome. Bravo on dialog and personality.
Al-- Ditto Ari about the narration boxes going down then up... I don't mind the number of them though. I like reading. Sometimes it just calls for it. I really REALLY wish you had finished inking that first page. Well done perspective always impresses me.
This is one big AU then--I think I like it.
Alberto: I really like how you work inks, you get a bunch of textures with them and everything just seems...full? Dunno how to explain it but it's a nice look and I hope to see this finished. Your dialouge was great and sounded natural for the most part, but I think there was just a bit too much information at once, specially with the narroration boxes. All that writting sort of scared me away. Also, you might want to be more careful with where you place your speech bubbles ( and boxes ). At times I wasn't sure which one to read first, like on page 3. And page 5, having the word boxes move down then up feels a bit weird to the reader, since usually we read things left to right, going just DOWN ( if that makes sense ). It was just small little things like that that bothered me but other than that I liked where the story was going. The last panel on page 2, ohoho! I love it haha nice job with that. Looking forward to your finished product! :3
Rtv: Damn did I like those blacks and backgrounds. I adored the motion of your action sequences too! That last page was ace. I would have liked to have seen cleaner lines though, there are still a lot of pencils there ( thought maybe that's not your fault since you ran out of time...). Dialouge was nice and smooth, I liked the personality you gave each person, it made me smile haha It's something I wanna see more of on void. It just makes everything easy to read. But I think you had a bit too much writting in there too. I know you wanted to explain everything, but it ended up feeling like I was reading a novel. Maybe you could have spaced the info out and could have covered some things in the next comic...? It'd be a smoother read and makes us want to keep reading to find out what's going on. But I did really like the feeling of yours, it was sort of cute and funny and action-y all in one. Now I'm curious to see what happens! Show us some more :D
Shiit, didn't get to do what i wanted so i "worded" what was supposed to be drawn. I think that woulda been about 22 pages as well. Did the lettering last minute....a minute that took fourteen hours cuz i just HAD to do them filler/flashback pages to make 'some' sence leading upto something.I don't even remember what i wrote. Bring on the hate!
It has served it's purpose, wich was to get back into sequentials after a year of simplistic commissions. Went through hell to do this and i had an awesome time. (and yes this will continue, but it's gonna be all action now that i got the wordy shit outta the way)
captain Melendez, i completley understand the situation as you mentioned on Skype. I'm glad you still pushed through despite the hectic stuff and good to see you back in the game. That first page is CRAZY, had you finished it and showed me i think i would've forfeit. lol
I've seen the script. Cant'wait till you BB this. (or fight me again)
Thanks for the awesome experience RTV... No regrets and no apologies ( well just for panel two on page 1)
I learned a lot on this Journey... about myself and my opponent... especially about some of the blocks in my life that i have to get rid of... to be better creatively.
I got really ambitious with this one, it started with a 22 page story... then i cut it down to twelve.. unfortunately five is all i could muster and two of those are not where i wanted them... but I am looking forward to finish this as a BB... Looking forward to view your pages RTv.
This site has a fukkin glitch... every few minutes/hours i press F5 i have less time left to draw.
It always happens on the last day. That is sooo unfair.
So RTV accidentally got an extension which he had Toast fix but in the end both artists needed it but couldn't get the extension after the mishap. So here I am, you have an extension now.
"Oh Lords of the endless Void, please forgive me for the sins that I am about to commit."
Thanks guys. Good Luck RTV! Although this went up sooner than I wanted.... I'll just have to deal and get it done. It's good to be back... I've been in a social and creative coma for too long.... And Fel .... I'm not sure what to expect either... I guess we'll see when it get's posted... I'm excited.
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