VIDO320 & MISTAH KENT- Definitely loved the inks. Your lines, Kent (I'm guessing it was you, kent) are always sharp, crisp and along with the colors really gives your side of the battle a Saturday morning cartoon feel and I love it. also talk about making TL Bot look unintentionally cool! I dug the sizzling ed eyes after he finishing zapping the steak. I also like that, at least to me you really knew your opponents. Ethanol's snark and mannerisms really come through- especially in the 'I prefer being called server' bit. It totally felt like you weren't just collabing together, but with your opponents as well. I'll admit my votes teetered for a good while over who to give this to as you guys put forth a really solid comic and I'm glad to see the votes were close!
RED & Dr. SALT- Oh my poor shitbot, I feel your pain of the loss of those kitties. It's ok. </3 I love that even in a collab tournament battle, you still managed to keep up your theme of kid crayon scrawl as a title page. I really missed TL Bot and I knew next to nothing about Ethanol Jones until your beyond battle and have become an instant fan! Your styles are clearly distinct, but for some reason I didn't mind the sudden stylistic jumps in the story. It made for an interesting read! Red the high whites speckling your blacks like things were constantly in intense spotlight was really cool. It gave your pages a nice gritty noir-ish feel to them. alterntively I think that theme was mirrored in the texture you used in your pages, Salt. Like on page five when the shelter owner ominously says the kitties will find homes someday the colors darken to add to the mood- very nice!
I got a kick of future TL Boy and his five o-clock stubble XD Great lead in to work with during round 2. Congrats again on your win and totally looking forward to what you guys will do next!
Yeah, i don't know why I haven't comment yet either.
Red/Dr. Salt - Your guy's comic was really fantastic. Honestly it was my favorite comic for round 1. The alternating storyline and styles kept me, some one who is easily bored, completely engaged the entire time. Not sure what to say when everything was good. I wish you two the best of luck for round two. Also, you HAVE to win the tourney now since Kent and I have been booted.
Kent - I'm taking a break from VOID for a little while, but when I come back I'd like to battle you. Jane and May Part 2.
I just realized that I never responded to this :I
Video/Kent: Wow, this was a really close battle and I honestly thought we were going to lose because you guys did such a great job. Kent, your stuff is always a joy to read, and the way you drew TL Bot made me so happy! You guys really impressed me, doing so many page in FULL COLOR. That was my original plan, but yeah, ran out of time and decided to go black and white. Thank you guys for an amazing battle!!
Thanks to people who gave critiques, most of you had the same points so I'll respond to a couple of those:
First, I don't think we clarified the workload, although I think it was obvious who drew what. Dr.Salt wrote the whole thing, and I drew the parts focusing on Jane and May, and he drew Ethanol with the kitties. We wanted two stories that were connected, and clearly defined as different by being drawn in different styles. I didn't realize until I read these comics that I shouldn't have thrown the more cartoony bits in there, because that kind of messed with the whole styles being different thing. We're going to do things a little differently next round, for sure. So, thanks for bringing that up.
This was the first comic I've ever drawn 100% digitally, and it turns out that I really don't like it. I'm definitely going back to drawing traditionally ... I experiment a lot in comics and sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not lol. William Duel, you're right, I'm a lot stronger with color.
So yeah, thank you for your comments, everyone :D
Video/Kent: Jane Blonde and May Wu is an interesting combination! The story was well written and did a good job establishing how the characters fit into the world. I liked that decided to have the opponents as employees of the restaurant, TLBot the cook was very cute. The transitions between the two sides of the comics were fairly smooth. Colorwise, Kent, I think for the flashback scene the choice of using monochromatic browns was good to establish the difference from past and present but the splash of yellow for Jane's hair is really distracting because it's so bright in comparison to the browns in the panel. I don't know if it's just me or my computer, but at times, jane's hair against the yellow-green looked strange to me like the colors might be too close (the scenes where the lines were thicker around jane though it was okay). Video, I like your colors especially the temperature change in the shadows (cool shadows against warm light source). It's been mentioned, but you need to be careful of some of the line widths around the characters, clean up the pencil or turn off the pencil layer if the lines were done digitally. Some of the anatomy gets a little problematic in terms of construction, but with more practice, you'll get better in no time.
Red/Salt: I really like the story and how TL Bot was pretty much running the story from beginning to end. I enjoy both styles, but seeing them together is kind of jarring. The first time I read the comic, the alternation of styles bothered me a lot because of the detailed realistic work in Red's side and the simplicity of Salt's work. Reading it again, it seemed not so bad since I resolved it as they are different points of view, but the awkwardness of having the two styles together stood out to me with the last page. I'm sure there's a way to integrate it all so that both sides can come together cohesively. I don't know if this would apply for you guys, but I'd like to suggest the children's book Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems. The characters a simple but are integrated to photographs of real life places and for some reason it doesn't seem too strange. Perhaps it would be something that you two can explore, with Red doing backgrounds and Salt integrating the characters into the background. It's a suggestion I hope you don't mind, you can toss it if you don't like it.
Both sides were really fun stories, the first with the battle chef duel and the second with TL Bot's antics. :) Good job both of you.
Video Kent: This is a nice entry, it's got backgrounds, characters, the whole shebang. Expressions are varied and there's a lot of body language and good composition work going on. I like how clear the scenes are and I think the color helps in that sense but I'm not a big fan of the color work here. The lines do look a bit flat and there's no shading to tell us otherwise. And the color palette is so big that I think you've included every color possible at some point. I'm not particularly attached to the flashback with the browns and the blonde hair, it just doesn't look great. A smaller thing that may just be a personal quirk, I did not like how May Wu and her father were missing the whites of their eyes. Kent's anatomy is pretty tight and always getting better but it still lacks a bit of consistency at times. I was much more fond of Video's coloring and color choices this time around as it's pretty easy on the eyes and there's some nice shading to add depth. Though there was some messy linework that could have used more spit and polish and unerased pencil lines. I commend the effort on including backgrounds and perspective but the backgrounds could still use a little more love at times. Also try to work on your heads when they are on the side as they get pretty wonky. Overall a fun story and a pretty complete and satisfying entry.
Red Salt: I thought this was a fun combo as well though I am a pretty big fan of Salt's work. Red, your style remains identifiable but I believe your work is always stronger when accompanied by your coloring. A problem I see here is the dichotomy between the characters you draw, being pretty realistic, and the items they interact with like the wok which lack the detail work necessary to keep them in a cohesive world. Worse in my opinion, is when you veer into the cartoony territory because I feel that since Dr. Salt has the stylized cartoony part down in his part,you encroach too much into his territory when you do so as well. To me, it's fine to have this blend of characters and styles as long as they stick to it because the styles represent very well the different moods and scenes. While I'm not against Dr. Salt's blurry backgrounds I feel like he cheats a bit too many times with it. But I am fond of it's use to indicate mood. I did really enjoy this comic though and the ending blew my mind.
Video/Kent : I see alot of classic kent in the story, which is a good thing. Video, I'm not sure if the thick lines are doing you any favors, I think they end up overshadowing some of the linework. If you're concerned about it all mixing together, that is something that I feel occurs more often in black and white stories rather than in color, so you can narrow up the width of those lines.
Red/Salt: I really like the story, but the styles are so different that sometimes it's jarring for me personally. It could be just the different style per page, but it felt like the writing style changed with the pages as well.
With that pic of Mr. Creamy on the last page, Video&Kent, I expected the recipe to include blood or body parts or children's tears. >.>
Red&Salt the title page TLBot made for your comic was an adorable touch.
Video/Kent - Pretty interesting story here. Personally, I found the perspective to be a bit off at some points, and the poses could use a small bit more work.
Red/Salt - I liked the idea you guys had with the story. Mainly TL Bot's attempt to keep Jane from stealing the battle wok. I gotta admit, I have to wonder where future TL Bot came from. It seems as if he came out of nowhere.
Good job you two... er... four.
Red Salt: The twist ending just blew me away. I prefer salt's cartoony style to imperfect realism, cause with that if you're doing good then it's great, but when you miss proportion just a bit it feels way too off.
Video Kent: I knew that a team with Kent on board would have a long and complex story with many places and characters, and it's great to see it's finished. I like both Kent's and Video's lines and colors, and I focused on the story and art was pleasant enough for me to almost not notice the change of artist. To be honest I prefer your battle as it's solid through all of it.
Video32 + Mr. Kent: Good staging and angles placing the characters in the restaurant. Page 3/panel 2 has a scale issue in that she can be 7 foot tall in this view. Page 13/panel 5 is the most problematic section! The ground, Jane running, and the dude laid out. That being said, the colors are what I can appreciate and take away from the most. While there are plenty of dead panels, I especially like that blue off the pink of Jane's outfit and the server's hair. I feel like a unified tone to all the backgrounds in your pages may have allowed time to give the characters some development. As much as the first and last pages are nice touches, emphasizing the bookends let the tasty insides suffer.
Red + Dr. Salt: In some ways the alternating styles hasn't distracted me, in others it pointed to some glaring details. With the two styles co-operating the same story, it emphasized the many scenarios playing out. The last page being the selling point. However, when the 5th page moved into the 6th, the stark lines turned into a visual comfort zone which hiccups the flow. Page 6, panel 2 and 4 had me squinting. Panel 3 shows them on a rooftop, but the shape of the skylight window in the previous panel was a mild disconnect. In panel 4, the billboards behind frame her head it was another disconnect. Be mindful of objects in space and how they relate; the shadowed buildings creating its own shape. Besides that, I really like your figures, Dr. Salt.
A lot of cute kittehs! :3 I appreciated your use of Jane and May's history--the wok was a cool idea. Also enjoyed the "lucky phinora" statue in the museum. Very entertaining tale--and congrats on completing Round 1, of course!
Oh boy, this was a TOUGH fight. You two did a REALLY awesome job! Both of you: wonderfully entertaining stories.
Video320/Mistah Kent: The story had a beginning-to-end, and a great introduction for both characters and their situation + why they're working together. The ending is very creative idea, although it would have been better if the recipe was potstickers. The combination of both artists was a very smooth transition (thanks to a very nice constant color scheme), although I would say on the second half of the comic, the bold outlines lines may be a bit too bold. Although it took me a few seconds to register, some of the drawings are hard to understand what exactly really happened (like the butcher knife and the flour). I think it's just the camera angle you used that confuses the reader that the focus is on the food hitting the person, and not the focus of the people itself. It may require an additional panel or two to establish the object, and then the action. It was a very neat idea to combine all four characters on the same side (in the story), and establish a plot that way-it was well thought out too.
Princess Red/Dr. Salt: Wow, two completely different artists, using their ability to tell two different parts of the story-great idea. However, whoever drew the more detailed drawings made the simplified drawings in their pages a bit too simplified, and so it blends a little to the much more cartoony pages, and it got a bit confusing. Excellent ending though, great cliff hanger. Whatever effect/texture you used on the black shadows, it looks great (pointing to page 7). One thing that also got confusing is that since TL Bot was originally a very simple looking robot, it looked a bit too similar between both established parts of the story. It's obvious Jane and May looked very very different, but TL Bot's design didn't really change at all.
also, congratulations on completing round 1 :]
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