Character previewCharacter previewCharacter previewCharacter preview
arrow_back

2013 Tag Tournament: Round 2

2 Weeks
Tag Team 2013

Comics

2013 Tag Tournament: Round 2
By Red & Dr.Salt
chat_bubble 25
star star
TL Bot
star star
Ethanol Jones
trophy WINNER
Final Score: 7.92
2013 Tag Tournament: Round 2
By fel/P2 & PyrasTerran
chat_bubble 25
star star
P2
star star
Arena
Final Score: 6.44

Comments (25)

Pennydox's avatar
Pennydox
All-Rounder
11 years ago
That little robot, can't get enough fun stories outta that guy :3 Red/Dr. Salt: Really great story. I find it far easier on the past comic to pic up the difference between past and future scenes than on this one. Because in the previous comic, it was in black and white, you could pay attention to the lines and realize the difference. But in this story, once you add the color, it's hard to differentiate, even if the lines are different. I know in a lot of comics I read, they change the color scheme a bit. Something like adding a much heavier texture overlay, or making it drastically more monochromatic/grayscale to emphasize the difference. fel/p2/Pyras Terran: I hope I'm making the right assumption that whoever drew the lines was different from the colors, because if it was a collaboration with you two, great teamwork. I see Arena in comics a lot, and well....sand is quite a tricky thing to draw. Sand is tiny and flies everywhere. If you want to make it more convincing in the black and white drawings, try making little white speckle dots around the edges of the sand as well. The black and white where is INTENSE. Usually avoid a 50% black 50% white combo on comics. Try and make your strips have a dominant white or dominant black, so when you really have a crazy intense scene, the moment you add mroe black/white, it will pop out more as an action. Page 14 and 17 is a good example of dominant black/dominant white showing certain panels to be very intense, and page 8 and 12 is an example of a 50% black/white, and so the action doesn't seem as powerful.

PyrasTerran's avatar
PyrasTerran
Writer
11 years ago
Tofubeast: Thanks for the crit. Actually, Arena and P2 killed those characters, and are using their bodies for infiltration. In the two-page spreads it explains what Arena and P2 are doing there fighting the Hatred. I know what you mean about the balloons. It's always painful to me when I worked on a panel and realize I didn't take into account the room needed for the words. I have to cut the script as much as I feel is possible without losing information, and then find myself slapping them in large balloons that cover whole parts of what I worked hard on drawing. It is definitely a problem that I hope to correct in the future. Angie: Thanks for the critique, I'm sorry that the story was still confusing. I'm glad you liked my blacks, I'm probably gonna stick with that as my base format when I don't color. Fed: Thank you for the thoughts, I'm glad you enjoyed our work. Bobo: Thanks much for the critique. I don't recall noticing the drop in quality with the art, shamefully, but it must be there given the time scramble we found ourselves in with this round. Felle and I were joking that there was going to be at least SOMEone who thought that "now, Arena and P2 aren't in it enough". This was one of the most challenging stories I ever had to write on this site, or the most challenging. This was also my first time lettering for a 2-page spread, so you can see the clumsy result of that. I will try to coordinate the images and words better the next time I'm in that position. I'm actually surprised that you were hoping to see more Orphanage-related stuff, it was our understanding that that was one of the bigger turn-offs of our recent comics. I'm glad you think Ethanol was well written, I have alot of love for that character despite being the total opposite of the characters I make, and I tried to pay attention to my errors with portraying other people's characters that I was told about in the last two Arena-related comics. You will see more, both Felle and I are working on BB's to continue our characters' stories forward. Red: Thank you very much, I'm happy that you enjoyed it. If the creator of the character likes the way you portrayed that character, that is a large win in my book. Your comic was very funny and I enjoyed the fixed timeline system you went with. My favorite page artwise is TL bot first landing in front of the future Void City. I want to see Dr. Salt do more Egyptian god comics. I would have really loved to see him draw Arena and P2 as well, as I've noticed that you're the only one drawing the opponents' characters during this tournament. Neeners: I'm sorry that you did not enjoy the comic. I will try harder next time. Puzzlething: Thanks very much for the critique. I'm glad you were able to notice what we tried doing with playing to the strengths of the characters. In the original script, Arena and P2 were going to fight alongside TL Bot Final, against the Hatred together. But because of factors and events that happened in our personal lives, we had to do alot of editing (originally, the entire comic was going to be drawn by Felle and I would color, just like last round). It makes me happy that you found this entertaining at all. My favorite part of writing this was teetering Future TL Bot between ruggedly cool and completely incompetent. The "I Totally Love You" is a nod to TL Bot's name. He is Totally Lovable. Thank you all again.

Puzzlething's avatar
Puzzlething
All-Rounder
11 years ago
Red/Salt - You already heard a lot of what I have to say, and everyone else has done a great job of saying most of the rest. I feel like most the problems in the comic could be explained by simply time and how much the deadline started weighing on you by the end. I've seen you do amazing comics, almost as long as this, on shorter timeframes, so I think something about the process for TL-bot comics is inherently slow/laborious. Maybe spend a little time thinking of some way to make it easier on yourself, without sacrificing the quality or style you wanna go for. I now I'm sort of just saying "Oh hey you should just invent a car that runs on farts and is indestructable.", but I think it's a good idea every now and again and step back to see if there's a way to streamline your process. I think you're backgrounds get a little sparse, and I get that they're simplified for the sake of time, but I think you could've made the environments feel more real by making them a little less empty. Like when there's a background in this comic it's often ||Stuff that makes up the back wall|| + ||Stuff that makes up the floor|| + ||Stuff that makes up the side walls||. I know I have a tendency towards cluttered spaces, but I still think even one or two objects rising up into the negative space of the middle ground in settings like the jail or city or whatever would've made them feel less empty. Besides that, I think the comic is HARLARIOUS and awesome. Oh my god, the whole bit with egyptian gods just makes me want to read a comic based around them. I think the story flows really naturally, and none of the dialogue feels wasted or unnecessary. I actually really like how circular the story was, like Boopy becoming Pugwash and how BA bot learns about Ethanol in the past so he can contact her in the future. Also, DOUBLE FUTURE. I'd also love to see more of the interlaced comics if you guys can keep that up without dying. Fel/Pyras - That splash panel had terrible composition, there was really not a great sense of what direction you were supposed to follow the illustration, either to see the events or read the boxes. You could've just used drawn sort of curved line for the reader to follow through the page, like extending that light that enlightened TL-bot is sitting on. I loved how you broke up the story by playing the characters to their strengths, with the emotional story of normal people sacrificing delegating to the Red/salts characters, and the action left to p2/arena. I think the only spot you really missed was the chance to tie those characters together when TL-bot enters the fray. Instead of simply getting knocked out of the fight, p2/arena should have aided the bots in sacrificing themselves. Besides those nitpicks and what other dudes said, it was waaaaaay more entertaining than I could've imagined. I love how the story sort of gently swings between melodrama and goofiness. The hulk jokes and the fact a major plot device is TL-bots love of kitties. Just the way the characters talk totally shows a level of respect and attention to their personality. "I totally love you" hahahaha, so sweet. I love that line. It's like such a corny/cliche thing to say " I love you" right before sacrificing yourself, but the addition of "totally" in there sort of throws it over the edge of corny/cliche into corny/lovable. I think you really listened to your crit's last round. You still went for the big, emotional crescendo's, the dramatic moments, but I felt like this time you actually put in the leg work to get me there. Sure, the art got really rough and rushed in alot of places, but by the end of the comic I cared about what was going on, and what was going to happen to the characters.

neens's avatar
neens
All-Rounder
11 years ago
salt/red - more backgrounds you two! salt's side looks pretty solid as usual, and I agree with red's side having some very awkward and stiff posing. overall though I thought it was a fun comic! fel/pyras - not that into it, I'm afraid! I spy a lot of "off" drawings in this comic, a lot of it feels rushed to me. there are some real good drawings sprinkled in though. not a fan of that double page spread either, because numbered text boxes? really? while helpful for navigating, it shouldn't be necessary. this is also around the point where I became completely disinterested in what was going on. despite having read your previous TTT comic, it's all very confusing. I do like the vibrant colors though, and I wish the whole thing could have them.

Red's avatar
Red
All-Rounder
11 years ago
[quote]I did dock you a little because of some of Red's stiff poses Bahhh! Don't look at those!! Haha, yeah that's something I've struggled with for a long time. The first week of this I was really good about looking up references and photos for poses that I knew I would get wonky, but as time passed I really had to blaze through some parts just to get this done, and therefore had no time to work out poses. If we make it to the next round, we've vowed to make a shorter comic where we can really focus on quality. [quote]If anything I would have liked you to switch more often, ie two pages from the flashback, quick pop-back to the sofa for a page, just to remind the reader what is going on. Good point, we should have done more of that ... I really liked the way the mash-up pages came out, I wish we had time to do more of that. [quote]Right now the coloring looks kind of flat on the first few pages and the slightly light gradient isn't adding anymore depth.The coloring improves as we reach page 6 I would have liked to see more of that on Salt's page. (obviously those scenes don't need super dramatic shading, just a little more color) I'm hesitant to add to much to his lines, they remind me of cute paper cut-outs. My mind set for coloring them was minimal shading with a hard edge, and fun colors but with a limited palette. Looking at it now, I should have added more shadows, like where they are sitting on the couch. Like, on page 2, first panel I add a shadow on the side of the couch, but I don't do that anywhere else. Thanks for the crits so far dudes! Felle & Pyras: I might be slightly biased but I LOVED your comic!! Hahahaha. I think you captured Ethanol and TL Bot perfectly. I thought your story was awesome, and a clever way to incorporate our characters and still have a badass fight scene (clearly your strength!). Obviously wishing it could have all been in color, but stuff happens! I wish we had another week right?! I had to read your story twice, but I understand it all now. I think someone mentioned it before, but in parts there was a LOT of text all at once. The ending was super sweet and I love the TIME CAT!! So funny! <3

Rose's avatar
Rose
All-Rounder
11 years ago
Salty Red (Gum): This good work thing. Thanks for make this. I liek it. I really dig the way you split up your art styles--it looks like you took my advice, and I like where you went with it! I'm also really glad you were able to color the comic this time around, because it added so much to the quality of your art. I did dock you a little because of some of Red's stiff poses (you should know better than to do what you did on page 13, bottom left panel!), but overall I really enjoyed the art in this comic a lot. The story was genius. You did a perfect job of tying together your comic from last round, as well as your opponents' storyline, which was really cool. I feel like P2 and Arena could have played a bigger role in the story, since they felt more like convenient plot devices than integral characters, but at least they were part of the story and not just background characters. I can't wait for more from you guys, because this is AWESOME! felopyra: Your art quality seems to have dropped a bit from last round, which was disappointing. I really like how you incorporated Red and Salt's story from round 1 into your comic, but I feel like you did the same thing they did, and made P2 and Arena side characters to their story, which is weird since this is YOUR comic. The writing was also really confusing for the first few pages, and on page 7, I didn't know which text box to read first on the bottom panel. I was stuck for several seconds trying to decide where to go, and that's a big no-no. If you look at it, your text boxes make almost a z-pattern, but the last text box is in the middle of the Z instead of at the end of it. The coloring towards the beginning looked really nice, but it looks like you got rushed a little later, which is too bad. On the plus side, I really enjoyed the way you tied TL Bot's story together with your own. I was hoping for a little more stuff from your previous battle and that story arc, but I appreciated that you at least threw a little continuity in there to make it all work together instead of just feeling like you dumped one storyline in favor of another. And even though you were worried about writing comedy characters, I think you did a great job of writing Ethanol, so kudos to you for that! I hope we get to see more from you guys, whether you win this round or not!

Fed's avatar
Fed
All-Rounder
11 years ago
Red/Salt: Superbrilliant! I really like the way you are interchanging your art to tell the same story from two perspectives and props for the ending! If anything I would have liked you to switch more often, ie two pages from the flashback, quick pop-back to the sofa for a page, just to remind the reader what is going on. Fel/Pyras: Solid art from both of you! As angie said, the story confuses a bit, which is a shame because it starts out very promising. Other than that, I personally liked the colored pages, good job!

Angie's avatar
Angie
All-Rounder
11 years ago
Red/Salt I really enjoyed this one! Thanks for the sweet eye patch Angie cameo. The ending was one of the first Void comics to really make me laugh in a while, it was kind of unexpected. For the coloring I felt the shadows could have been slightly more intense and colorful. Right now the coloring looks kind of flat on the first few pages and the slightly light gradient isn't adding anymore depth. The coloring improves as we reach page 6, I would have liked to see more of that on Salt's page. (obviously those scenes don't need super dramatic shading, just a little more color) Fel/Pyras-I really liked the solid blacks that were present in the last part of the comic, I felt like it worked a lot better stylistically and had more punch than the colored pages. The story sort of confused me, the Orphanage felt sort of tacked on at the beginning. I didn't understand why they were there until I read through the comic the second time. There were times I had a hard time reading pages, like page 9. It's not because I'm lazy and don't like text, but the text could have been broken up into more manageable chunks and could have been laid out in a far more aesthetically pleasing manner. Right now it looked like you just forced text where it would fit. Remember that you don't have to 100% stick to your script. If there's ever a time it looks like you're just going to have a wall of text in your panel, think about what could be cut out.

fel/P2's avatar
fel/P2
All-Rounder
11 years ago
Thats is and isn't arena meditating. Thats p2 with arena's sand around him so he can view what she does as shes controlling the 2 corspe they took from the last fight. There was even a page that explains how they got involved in the fight too.

fel/P2's avatar
fel/P2
All-Rounder
11 years ago
Thats is and isn't arena meditating. Thats p2 with arena's sand around him so he can view what she does as shes controlling the 2 corspe they took from the last fight. There was even a page that explains how they got involved in the fight too.

Tofubeast's avatar
Tofubeast
All-Rounder
11 years ago
BEEP BOOP BWEEEEP Dr.Red: Cute story, nice nods to voiders of void past and Hell, and this time you managed to balance the different style change by keeping Salt's pages set in the past and Red's pages set in the future. Some of the backgrounds' perspectives start getting a little wonky around page 9, and then it starts to go straight to gradient empty-void backgrounds, but luckily after page 9 and 10 it gets back to normal. Felle Pyras: This time, your opponents' characters are featured more, which is a good thing. I was a bit confused at the beginning with the Orphanage gang and that girl with the horns--at first I thought they had dropped a book or something, and if I go back and read your previous entry, I thought those characters were working with P2 and Arena??? Once the story abruptly changes to TL Bot and Ethanol's perspective, it's a bit easier to understand--although now suddenly P2 and Arena are fighting a huge monster in the background, when previously Arena was in some sort of meditative state? Your black and white pages are easier to discern this time around, but unfortunately time was probably working against you, as there's tons of words/word balloons covering up the background and main parts of most panels in the second half of the comic.

Red's avatar
Red
All-Rounder
11 years ago
Bobo:
Red: BAHAHAHA I apologize for the 38 TL Bot thumbnails ...
Suuuuuuure you do...
Yeah, you're right. Everyone will just have to deal.

Rose's avatar
Rose
All-Rounder
11 years ago
Red: BAHAHAHA I apologize for the 38 TL Bot thumbnails ...
Suuuuuuure you do...

Red's avatar
Red
All-Rounder
11 years ago
BAHAHAHA I apologize for the 38 TL Bot thumbnails ...

PyrasTerran's avatar
PyrasTerran
Writer
11 years ago
Ain't no party like an Ethanol party cause an Ethanol party's got robots

Dr.Salt's avatar
Dr.Salt
All-Rounder
11 years ago
This one is gonna be off the hook, yo!

Red's avatar
Red
All-Rounder
11 years ago
Uploaded!! Win or lose, I'm proud of what we did ; ; Written by: Dr.Salt Stuff that looks like Dr.Salt drew it: Dr.Salt Stuff that doesn't look like Dr.Salt drew it: Me Colors: Me.

Kozispoon's avatar
Kozispoon
All-Rounder
11 years ago
One hour left until we see who comes out a winner= the snarky everymen or the superhero duo. Stay tuned!

PyrasTerran's avatar
PyrasTerran
Writer
11 years ago
Uploaded; credits breakdown. Drawing, Lines & Layout for pages 1-7 by Fel. Colors by me. Sketches/layout for pages 8-12 by Fel. Final drawing/Lines by me. Drawing, lines & layout for pages 13-18 by me. Writing, Lettering & General Editing by me.


Wolcik's avatar
Wolcik
All-Rounder
11 years ago
Crashing small robots isn't a problem - even if they're somewhat cure, and as for the other part -- there's always Andre's mask for P2 to smack a girl.

PyrasTerran's avatar
PyrasTerran
Writer
11 years ago
I'm sure you two will do fantastic as usual, best of luck. If you need any information or anything about our characters, feel free to give us a shout (message).

Tofubeast's avatar
Tofubeast
All-Rounder
11 years ago
SHITBOT AND FRIENDS VS SAND PUNCHING

William_Duel's avatar
William_Duel
All-Rounder
11 years ago
Considering that time travel is a staple of superhero comics this seems like an excellent opportunity.

Red's avatar
Red
All-Rounder
11 years ago
Umm. Wow. We are probably the people you were least wanting to fight.... Super humans versus normal ass dudes... Awkward! I was kind of hoping that we'd get paired up though ... Felle, I've been a fan since I came here in '06 and it's an honor to battle you, sir! You're one person that I NEVER thought I'd fight in a thousand years. Good luck to the both of you, I'm crazy excited for this!!!!!!