I just want to say thank you to everyone who commented and/or voted on this awesome battle. I appreciate all the positive feedback and critiques! Thank you Kura and ABI for the awesome competition. You did amazing work and I am looking forward to what you guys have in store next round! A vey well deserved win.
A big thanks to my partner in crime, Camel, he fucking went hard on these pages and I am super stoked we had the chance to team up for this and drop some bombs on you fools! Ya'll keep your eyes open for the next installment of our "STONED SAGA"!
Majikura and Bad Idea: The Comedy Rule of Three, a classic. A solid setup with some choice bits of dialogue from Harvey and Klepp really strengthened the story here, but it really could have benefited from ending on page 13, with the first panel from 14 put at the end. Also, even though you are one of the teams that didn't use animation, all I could think of is that the portion with the earth exploding really would have been aces if it had been animated instead of two splash pages. In terms of art, your lines and flats are great, with a wide range of super expressive, uh, expressions, and beautiful backgrounds through and through, but the shading and highlights made everything feel really soft, like if I touched someones face and then the walls that it would have been the same texture. I can almost forgive it, considering you all cranked out fifteen pages in two weeks, but it feels like it was the last step and so got the least amount of love.
Astro Sean and Camel: I. Fucking. Loved this. Narratively you all get top marks because I have a critical eye for dialogue and you two knocked it out of the park here. With the plot proper I enjoyed how it acted as a solid continuation of Harvey's tale and really brought everyone into the fold as their own entity without feeling like slotted in stereotypes. The people felt like people. And it has a solid end that could easily lead into another comic, which made me want so much more. With as good as the writing was for this, I have to say the art did let me down a bit. The sketchy, gritty feel of the cover and the first page gave me a standard of comparison for the rest, making the facial expressions and anatomy in a lot of your panels stick out, especially with Cue. The colors and backgrounds are great for the style you're going for, but the people did feel a bit stiff and crude as the movement they were expected to do increased. Overall, one of the more enjoyable comics in the tourney.
Majikura and A Bad Idea: This was so much fun XD as a goddess of chaos, Cue has chosen the perfect partner. One thing I notice is that the inking on the characters tends to be the the same line-width all over. Varying line-width and making exterior outlines thicker than inner details on clothing, etc., would help give more depth to the character drawings. You did a really good job on the props like the spaceship and that big giant bomb at the end. I felt like all the punch lines were really well executed, too. I was laughing through the whole thing XD
Astro Sean and Camel: You guys put some really nice detail and texture into your environments! I'd love to see what they'd look like if they were drawn with the help of some perspective grids to give them that last bit of polish. Keep working on anatomy, too. Cue ended up looking a little strange, and a better understanding of musculature, etc., would have helped in the rendering of her practically naked body. I loved Baku's explosion-crush on Harvey. It was so out-of-the-blue and yet so perfect >:3
Kura/ABI: Pure utter chaos, as I'd expect from the both of these characters. I'm glad to see the both of you working together for this! Only real point I can give is the overuse of airbrushing, but that's easy to fix for the future.
Astro Sean/Camel: The both of you gave an impressive show, and even though your linework is a bit on the sketchy side I can appreciate the detail you're putting in. There are times where your perspective is completely off, so keep that in mind for the next time.
Majikura and A Bad Idea: I think everyone's mentioned the shading but just to take a slight different angle - would be cool to tone down highlights in terms of texture- it's especially noticeable on page 1 where Harvey and Klepp are extra shiny in odd places - I don't know if you're colour picking or doing dodge/burn but having a different hue or what... I could go on but it's clear in other places you know what's up so just would say keep it reasonable on figures with different textured hair/clothing/etc. This was a really fun story though.
Astro Sean and Camel: Love love love the dorky humour of this one. I appreciate that you guys ended to have a more complete looking comic, though it's a pity it was at the expense of a proper punchline. I think the sketchiness in both your inks works so well together, just needs some extra tightening in places. Shout out to my fave bit of art in this, which is Cue eating popcorn, I love the expression and the inking and everything there. Colours are so nice too. Please collab again :)
teambros: Entertaining and highly polished stuff, as could be expected from you both! :) You did a great job with the two pages with the earth exploding.Next time it could be good to experiment with some variation between soft and harder edges in your shading.
Astrocamel: Nice! A really easy-going and enjoyable read. I hope we get to find out more about the stone-turning limb set-up in the future ;)
Kura and Idea: Oh wow, this was laughs all around. I loved the chemistry the characters had with each other. It really sold the running joke. I also really dug the costume changes. Go big or go home, right?
Astro Sean and Camel: A quieter comic, but also great in the chemistry department with good comedic timing. Not sure about the ending or the petrification, though.
TEAM BOOMBOOM- Holy shine, this comic is shiny. Which in some cases is totally fine, but regardless of where these characters are- neighborhood, dark alley, the dimming spray of water over a dam, a grungy bar- its all the same shiny. I feel page to page a stagehand is following the events around with a spotlight. With some of the neat environments you guys got going on, I would've loved to see a change up in the general shading/colors and highlights.
I super dig you filling up the world with your fellow tourney opponents as mayhem ensures and feel Paris is properly represented with inner tube floating Mimi whooping it up over the waves. You succeed in making Harvey so gosh darned endearing too. His hopeful outlook at the end totally made me go 'awww'.
The humor is ridiculously on point. It plays like a Saturday morning cartoon which I can totally appreciate. The ridiculousness of the stakes raised for folks to realize Baku is to blame are taken to the enth degree where they literally blow up a planet and that's danged funny. Though to be real, I have NO idea where y'all are going with this if you win. TTT in spaaaaace?
TEAM DEFAULTSWAG- Looks like you gone and goofed hardcore. you accidentally a whole comic! From page one, I can tell you had fun with this one. The backgrounds and environments are oozing with personality and I for one had a time oogling over it all. It looks like a void that's lived in. From the get, its a shame to see Harvey having to close up shop (literally) on the life he knew before he gone and mucked it all up.
You also got some legendary quotes up in here. "I'm all for murder, that shit sounds great" is not only super apt for Cue, but funny to boot. Not to mention the 'love' angle of Baku makes all kindsa sense. A living bomb? Talk about swoon. Definitely a clever angle! And 'I'm stoned!" had me cackling more than I should've XD
Together, you guys really succeeded in using color and expressions to draw out a moment and add suspense. Most notably when Cue dust Harvey with pepper and you have that great panel to panel build up of a sneeze he tries to hold. It would've been so easy to just make that one panel, but knowing you guys took the time out for this is fab. That splash page at the end gives us a hook to wanna know more while also giving us a cool ending note to this battle.
KuraABI- i love this comic, oh my fuckin god where do i start. Well, okay, technical aspects out of the way: I really like the polish you both put into the quality of this comic to make it so crisp. The only technical crit i have is that sometimes the paint-shading looks a bit airbrushed ? but because I paint too that's probably why I'm nitpicking.
but hoooly hell i love the writing for this comic. I admittedly was expecting the punchline (won't spoil, but, the bit with Regi), but thats not BAD at all, i was kind of HOPING for that punchline if it makes sense!! great job!
CamelSean- Your guys' humor aligns super well here, but I felt that the comic ends SO ABRUPTLY that it makes me sad :( like I really liked the buildup and that it was going to be a showdown, but then, it shows them just, running? And there's not really a wind-down...
Other than that, though, especially on the early pages, Sean's inks and Camel's colors work BEAUTIFULLY together, and I want to see more from you two!
Maji and ABA: What a fantastic story, you used repetition masterfully and every image felt like it had a weight to it that I don't usually see here on void. Just really amazing work. probably my fave of round one. The only part that I feel inclined to critique are the first few pages. I'm not sure what it is but the highlights just feel over the top on these two pages. perhaps it is that the ambient lighting just doesn't feel like it would cause highlights like those.
Loved it though #1 for round 1 for sure.
Sean and Camel: No shortage of love for you guys, your really have a grungy look and you pull it off. Though the petrification part felt like it came out of left field everything else feels very cohesive. I am definitely curious to see if you had something planned for it.
TEAM CHAOS: One of the strengths of Cue comics is the irreverence and utter disregard for the community canon, and this comic benefits from that spice once again. I got some genuine laughs out of this, and while I feel like the final punchline could have been a little better aimed, overall this was a very enjoyable comic. Visually it's got strong points and weak points. The mighty colors are masking some of the drawing weaknesses but those weaknesses are still there if you look long enough; additionally sometimes there feels like a bit too much saturation and restrictive color schemes despite lighting, and I'm not a fan of the way the hair is hilighted, for many of the characters it makes it look like they're wearing smooth plastic faux hair over their heads. I would suggest to experiment with how you do this lighting and see how you can make it better (and more like hair)
TEAM SPICYSWAG: Fun comic too yo, these are characters we already love so it's easy to continue loving them on their radventures. This is one comic though that I felt like your overall visual presentation suffered because of how the work was delegated. You want to acknowledge and capitalize on each other's strengths, so I think a different setup could have made this a stronger looking comic.
Kura and ABI: Some good humor in this y'all! I really dug the recurring joke, and y'all played the scenes pretty well! I'm not sure how I feel on the shading tho? The soft shading with the specific shines on everything give it all this weird kinda, plasticy feel? But honestly, the fact y'all kept changing the environments to tone with the last iteration of the joke was such a nice touch, and I really think that helped the delivery out a ton! Good work y'all.
Sean and Camel: The characters in this are a hoot! Honestly, from Baku's love of the man's "atomic" structure, to Klepp's just "Eh" to shit is great. My favorite bit is the joke about the stone curse. Such a casual regard, it really got me laughing. The lines are a little loose and messy in the second half, and I can't help but feel like, it might have worked better to have one consistent style throughout, instead of the change at the explosion? It worked well for the explosion itself, but it kinda changed the visual vibe in a weird way after that for me personally. Overall nice color choices. A bit ubrupt on the ending, but hey, we're only human and people only have so much time to plan around, but it just felt a bit, short to cut the comic off so suddenly like that. Overall great work you two, y'all's senses of humour fucking touch up perfectly with each other!
"THIS UNHOLY SACRAMENT... IS COMPLETE"- My barber last tuesday
Sean "Honda Civic" Kowalski - Story, First half inks, ending splash
Camel "Gritty Bratz Doll's Reboot" Johnson - Dialogue, Second half inks, Colors, VFX, Cover
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