I havent seen a "Brain Battle" on this site since oct.24 2006, hawhaw. (http://entervoid.com/comic.php?id=187 excellent reading for those interested)
Great first battle you guys!
BrainBaists - Really stellar work, i can safely say this is one of the cooler characters ive seen in a long time. I really wish i had accepted your battle challenge and not amazing davids after seeing what you've done here. Big step up from your intro pages. I really dig how you weave the two "worlds" together. My only complaint is that you hand draw your perspective work, it looks like you understand the concepts and what have you, i just with you would work a but more with a straight edge in the design stages, doing that will eventually get your hand steady enough to draw a lot of perspective shots free-hand, but a ruler is always helpful if you ask me. Other than that, i really dig what you have to offer, can't wait to see more from you! I'll be in touch
FauxBrains - Excellent first battle as well, I want to echo what Rofl-Q said about practicing "everyday" items, they dont look quite right. He already pointed out the cigarette, but i want to point out the pistol. I dont have anything negative to say about the comic but the pistol really brings things down for me. First off, it looks completely fake and out of place, as it were pulled out of imagination land (which it surely was). It looks as if you drew Dennis' hand and tried to fit a gun in there as best you could. I suggest more drawing from reference to strengthen your imagination drawing. Also, when drawing a character holding something, be sure to rough out the object in their hand before wrapping a hand around it. Hope some of this was of help to you.
Awesome first comic, can't wait to see you at it again!
BrainBaists: Welcome to the site! Awesome visuals, I really like your style. There's a lot of messy pencil lines remaining in your drawing still, but for whatever reason, it isn't actually taking away from this and I think it's because your style is already very gritty looking. Your grays are very nice although a little splotchy at some spots, so make sure you don't get too messy with them.
Your people are a treat to look at, although I think you need to work a little bit on perspective and anatomy. Example being page 2, where the Dennis' friend's shoes don't change position from the first panel to the second panel. His arms in the final panel of that page seem really off, too.
I loved your story and your pacing, however I thought continuing to follow up with Dennis' friend without actually having him meet up with Bhaav or Maansik was kind of pointless. Maybe you had more planned or maybe not, but it seemed like it didn't really contribute anything to the narrative. But, it didn't take anything away, just became more eye-candy.
This was one of my favorite fights I've seen so far this year and I'm really excited to see what you'll do with your next battles. Good job.
fauxbrains: Welcome to the site! You've got an interesting character idea and this was a nice first comic. You kind of remind me of myself when I first joined, because there's a whole lot of panels and images of people from elbow up. I think you should work more on including better detailed establishing shots, backgrounds, and shots of relation between your characters. The general gradient coloring on the background is kind of lazy feeling as opposed to giving detail to your clouds and sky.
That is a teeny tiny Barbie cigarette Dennis is smoking on page one. I think you need some practice drawing them, because that's practically pill sized. Speaking of small things, Dennis' pupils are really small. Your addition of the iris is kind of useless, because this guy's eye is so small. I would work on trying out realistic sizes or something, because at the size you're working at, I wouldn't even bother adding color and would just make it all black.
This story seemed really haphazardly put together. I guess the interaction between the three characters felt kind of lame. I also felt killing himself was kind of an empty plot option and that the only reason Dennis did it in the first place was because plot dictated him to do it. It was like that was too easy to do as opposed to including Bhaav and Maansik in other more interesting ways.
You've got a lot of potential, man. I'm excited to see what you do with it in your next battle.
BrainBaists -
Dude, I really like your character. It brings something completely different to the site as far as I am aware, and the comic had some genuinely trippy moments in it. I really am liking what you are doing with this, so keep doing it dude :).
Fauxbrains -
Nice comic as well, I can't say I enjoyed it as much as Brain's, but I still like your character. Overall it was okay dude, most of what was said already I kind of agree with so I won't be a parrot and just say it again. An enjoyable comic in any case!
angieness:
Brainbaists-I'm really enjoying the character a lot, the story here was pretty solid. I do think you need to spend more time on the cleanup phase of your comics though, gray tones can only do so much to hide pencil lines so it hurts your presentation some. It would be good to see some true blacks in your work since everything is just overall gray, you were close on page 5 and it worked very nicely. One thing to watch out for on your anatomy is the eyes, there were several panels where there was just so much space between the eyes it looked really odd like page 9.
thank you angie for the crit! The coloring im sad to admit was done at the last minute. So that's why its so scrappy. Plus this is the second comic i have ever colored and if you noticed the coloring changed half way through because I finally got used to the program. I am still having some trouble drawing eyes. That is my weakness when it comes to anatomy. I'll try to tighten that up next time too. thank you again!
Thanks for all the critique so far! I can definitely see what you're all talking about and I'm taking everything you say into a count.
Hopefully the improvement will be visible in my next comic!
Brainbaists-I'm really enjoying the character a lot, the story here was pretty solid. I do think you need to spend more time on the cleanup phase of your comics though, gray tones can only do so much to hide pencil lines so it hurts your presentation some. It would be good to see some true blacks in your work since everything is just overall gray, you were close on page 5 and it worked very nicely. One thing to watch out for on your anatomy is the eyes, there were several panels where there was just so much space between the eyes it looked really odd like page 9.
fauxbrains-like with Brainbaists, I really like the character since I'm a fan of more darker kind of themes in comics. The only thing that really bothered me storywise was there really was no build up. These guys are just randomly on the roof and while you implied that Bhaav came out of nowhere, it feels as though he was always there. It would really help you to zoom the camera out from time to time since this is primarily headshots. You *can* get away with it to an extent for the sake of drama and it was appropriate to have so many closeups in this story, but having at least a handful of panels where the camera moved around to show the surroundings would have helped.
BrainBaists:
The_BenT_One:
Brain: it looked like you were missing a few pages at the end.
to be continued!
Ah, I see... It's all part of the plan. I can't wait to battle you, dude.
The battle of the Brains! These turned out awesome. Congrats to you both.
Brain: it looked like you were missing a few pages at the end. I'm guessing that poor dude on the beer run opens the elevator and gets a fist through the face from Bhaav. Even so, HOLY SHIT that's awesome! Just the kind of stuff I expect from you. but some of your realworld perspective bugs me. maybe just cause I'm so into details like that.
Faux: your art looks good, but the panels seem squashed together. give them some room to breath. Your color is also looking good, maybe you can try some highlights and shadows in your next comic. Also, the sky gradients were a bit much. Other that those things (and skimming over the fact that Bhaav can't talk), this is an awesome first comic!
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