Gray vs Nyasuu

@ v@ This character development is interesting

Awesome battle, you guys! I can't wait to see what these gals get up to next!

man oh man, that was super duper close, we kept switching spots Julz lol! You are a truly worthy adversary! I love the colour palette you picked for this, I cant believe you managed to make such Easter colours so creepy. I just ADORE how you draw Gray, somehow so cute and spooky at once! when we first see her on page 3 is my favorite! though i had to read the dialogue like three times at first lol I was like "Did Gray really just call herself a wiener??" but I laughed so you're off the hook XD I feel like sometimes the action scenes could be pushed a little further as they don't have quite the impact they could but your expressions are pure gold. Thank you for battling me! This was great fun! (sorry about Nyasuu's lungs! ^^;) and thanks for the critiques, everyone! Looks like I'm finally improving in colour from last year but I need to work on my inking for line weight variation and straighter lines, and also on my shadows and highlights, especially in a high-shadow scene like this one. I will keep these in mind for my next battle!

JULZ: overall I enjoyed your comic...you made some clever and pleasing panel choices...I do think however that greater attention needs to be made to your linework...more hints of black/shadows and either greater linewidth variatio.....thick is fine but you need varitation to offset and enhance...just some thin lines here and there and a little bit of black would greatly improve the overall image SHEN: I liked what was going on in the panels but you need to break up the 'camera distance'....everything is 'shot too tight' and crammed into the frames....I also have the same criticism about your linework as JULZ...more linewidth and variance and blackwork

Yeah ive got the entire ending scene in my head now buts its too late. Ill prolly write it into my next comic.

These are gorgeous, gorgeous and each in their own ways. Gads, I am FLOORED you two could bang out such richly colored comics in two weeks. Y'all are ANIMALS! ;D JULZ- YOUR. BACKGROUNDS. Dear lawd, I cannot get over how lovely your backgrounds are. You never skimp and I love it. From the establishing shot of the library, to the powerful cyan magics glowing through the floorboards (although, I would've liked to have seen you punch up your shadows to get the full effect of that). Your humor, per usual shines through. You expect such a serious mournful moment from Gray, but I about died reading 'vice buns'. Well played, lady. There's something really appealing in how you laid out the events on page 7. The feature of the pierced book in the first panel is great as well as the tilt in the last panel as NYasuu is dragged along by magical cyan power blobbiness. And throughout, I'm enjoying such a fast paced ghostly scene in shades of pink and purple. Who knew they could be scary? I do think that the initial hit of Nyasuu going through the window is kind of weak, but the subsequent panel really punches up the impact with how you changed the perspective. I also like the breakdown of Gray's scar in your character sheet for her, but I would've much preferred to see that in your comic. SHEN- Another lovely comic with a great color palate, but I am puzzled by a few things. The nice warm colors you used for the interior of Nyasuu's pad is faboo, but I don't see it at all reflected in the characters. Their linework is colored, but you don't see that glow in Gray's outfit or the shadows. Its all very jumbly. I DO however dig the changeover in tone on page 6. I think here is where your colors look harmonious and your black shadows actually work. I think there is difficulty in marrying both color schemes as evidenced in the opening panel of page 9 because it just looks...muddled? I can't quite find the word for it. I do super dig how you draw Nyasuu. I can't get over the fact you gave her fuzzy cheeks. Definitely something I'll adopt should we ever battle. And speaking of- talk about a subtle yet powerful scar! Gray is definitely not messing around. I really like how this grief-stricken 'attack' is punctuated by the third panel on page 7. I just love that suspension-kind of like that slow mo moment people feel before the impact of an accident. It's definitely not the most visible of scars, but its certainly something I've never seen before, so I instantly love it. This one's gonna be a close call! Great work ladies! Way to bang out some great comics!

oof, these two are too good U_U Stop you guys you're so good

joolio =================================================== Your art gets better every time I see a comic from you, I swear! Your use of color and attention to environment (aka BACKGROUNDS) set the mood and was pleasing to the eye. I like your loose, expressive style. Where more detail and attention to proportion and anatomy might make this comic even better, I think you captured the essence of each shot of your characters so perfectly that the return on investment might not be worth adding any more detail. What I mean to say is that it's always a battle between time and precision, and I think you hit the balance perfectly by providing the emotion I needed in your characters' movements and actions. I also wanted to comment on your humor. I think you'll get pretty mixed responses, but I love it. I want to see you push it a little farther, though. Make it a bit more sophisticated. Your running jokes, referential humor, and characters' cartoonish behavior are all great, but those are also the things that will turn a lot of readers off. Personally, I want to get to know your characters, and right now your humor is getting in the way of that. You've done excellent character development in the past; don't misunderstand my point. What I really want is for your humor to make enough sense character-wise that we understand Nyasuu (and, to a lesser extent, anyone else in your comics) THROUGH your humor. You actually had a perfect example of this at the bottom of page 5, middle panel. That panel was one of my favorite parts of your entire comic, but it also shows several things about Nyasuu's personality: she's always prepared, she's still holding on to habits from before VOID, and she's maybe not the most elaborate thinker, but she's resourceful! And maybe homeless? Really, the only thing that disappointed me was the ending. It felt like you ran out of time for the last page, and I really wanted to keep reading! I understand how the scar happened, but it was left up to a lot of interpretation by the reader, and not in a good way. And what the scar IS doesn't necessarily make sense from the rest of the comic. Unless I missed something earlier in the comic, I think what I needed for the ending to work is some sort of detail during Nyasuu's flashback on page 3 depicting that type of scarring. I would have also changed up the last page so that it's more apparent that what happened was a result of Gray's earlier incantations (assuming that IS what happened; it's still kind of ambiguous to me). Overall, I give it five franks and a brat. Give me more, please. shenneroo =================================================== Okay, first off: you said that your dialogue was all clichÃ©, but I found it perfectly suitable for your characters. You know how much I love all of your Gray comics and how well you portray characters, but I really love the contrast between Nyasuu and Gray. I especially love their dynamic as it changes from friendly to hostile. Nyasuu's personality was perfect in the second half of the comic, and Gray's inner struggle was haunting. And the second-to-last panel on page 10 is PERFECT. As always, your coloring is beautiful. You have such an eye for mood when you color. I think the greens in your forest scenes might be a little too Crayola, but at the same time, it set a strong contrast to your scenes inside Nyasuu's hut (or whatever it was). There are a few things that are bothering me about this comic, on the other hand. For one, your dialogue is spaced horribly inside most of their speech bubbles. I know you were rushed, but I feel like I see that from you a lot. I think you could easily shrink your text a notch; at the very least, make sure there's enough space all around your letters that you could fit a lowercase o anywhere between your text and the border of your speech bubble. (That's not an official rule; I just made it up. But it seems like a good rule of thumb to me hahah.) And make sure you always have narrower lines of text at the top and bottom of each bit of speech unless absolutely necessary. I tend to avoid using text boxes in Photoshop and just manually add line breaks, because using a box makes it look square and just leads to bad spacing. So there's that. The only other thing that stands out to me is how crooked some of your lines are. I don't notice anything with most lines, but when you have really straight objects like doors, windows, or the first aid kit, crooked lines really stand out and make your work look less polished. Maybe try using a ruler or line tool for the sketch, then ink it carefully by hand. That way, it will be more straight without looking like you just drew a bunch of lines with the line tool hahah. Overall, I give your comic ten broken hearts out of ten broken chest cavities. I anxiously await the chance to bring my characters up to the Gray plate.

These were both great quality and fun to read! And some interesting scars too~! ovo Julz: Honestly, really well drawn. I liked to use of dynamic angles and the effort in the backgrounds. 'A lone weiner gripped between the vice buns of heaven and hell' was pretty funny, even if it might have been a little out of character for Gray to say >v> It also would have been nice to explicitly see the Gray's scar within the comic, as I didn't immediately make the connection between the book exploding (?) and Gray getting that specific scar. Shen: Also really nicely drawn, and I loved the dramatic shading At first I was kind of skeptical about such a vague scar, but I guess it gives Julz some freedom as to when it goes ouo And Gray wanting to become a demon certainly sounds interesting, I'm glad she had a reason for trying to kill Nyasuu, and being so conflicted about it >__> One nitpick I have is that I'm not a big fan of bright generic greens and browns in natural settings - even in a cartoon style you can get a bit more creative with the colours (Gravity Falls is an example off the top of my head) <__< the colours inside Nyasuu's hut were pretty cool though!

JULZ: Love the dialog; it was super funny. Your comic was fun to read and I'm digging the color palette a lot! The only thing I suggest is putting another shot of the book on the last page; just to remind you of what Gray is looking at. Also, first panel on page 8 could have been staged better, but it's okay as is. Really liked Gray's scar too! Shen: Last panel of page 4 is my favorite! Gray is so cool; I love her. I really like show page 6 is done. The staging is nice and the top panel is really dimensional. Just please make a plan for her- I've got some suggestions I think you'd like and would totally love to talk about her with you. A Beyond Battle with more of her story would be awesome! I really enjoyed both of these comics and congrats to the winner!! <3

DELAYED while page order is fixed