Tsumi vs Virtua

Oh shoot, forgot to come back and say thanks again. Thanks again! heh. Hellis: You're totes right, my background work tends to slip after the first page or two of any comic as the repetition gets difficult. heh. Shen: Yay! glad the implied tie got across~ Flutts: Well fudge, got me blushing. I try really hard to make sure my opponent matters and makes sense to the comic and I really appreciate hearing that. Thank you! Zee: I really considered throwing colors on this at the last minute, so hearing it worked without them properly really makes it feel work the heavy ink effort. Petar: Dawww, thanks! Now that you pointed it out I checked my recent battles and I guess doing a set of facial expressions has become a something of a trend for me. hehe. But hey, if it's working I'm glad to hear it. I still feel like I struggle with facial exaggeration but if it's coming through I must be doing something right. I did have to wiki "chiaroscuro", heh, but after I did I wonder if anyone caught what little symbolism or whatever I tried to put into the shading. Thanks again to everyone who read, voted, and commented! Working on a new design sheet now so hopefully the next battle will start soon.

MrPr - Overall, I'm diggin this. The pixel style for this one (and hopefully all Virtua comics) really fits the tone and both you as an artist. You seem to favor simpler backgrounds with over the top character designs. In past comics, this has made it pretty clear where your heart lies. But once you add the pixel art element, suddenly things start to make sense. It suddenly brings the vibe of the old Simpsons Arcade Game, which adds some much-appreciated charm. The big notes for this one would definitely be the word balloons, their placement, and their lettering. Balloons overlapping panel borders *can* lead the eye where you want it to go, but it can just as easily make bridges that let me skip whole panels. To avoid this, just keep the balloons in their panels and plan around them. Right now it seems like theyre the last to go on rather than an important part of the composition. Another note, when the pixel-text gets bigger, it suddenly starts warping together in really weird ways. Letters connecting where they shouldnt, weird thin spots, etc. A consistent font size would definitely solve this. Other lil' nitpicks. I mentioned the simple backgrounds as a positive, but looking at Beat-em-up Sidescrolls like The Simpsons Arcade Game, TMNT: Turtles In Time, or Comic Zone would really help push this style to what it could be. Tay: Definitely a departure from what I was expecting! But overall, approval. It seemed like you knew what you were going for when you took this fight on: A good old-fashioned fisticuffs, and you really hammered that home from start to finish, so bravo. Your smart use of chiaroscuro keeps everything defined and readable, and you kept your inks super slick, so kudos on that. While it seems your secondary focus was muscles and anatomy, my personal favorite part was all the facial expressions and headshots. Ya nailed those pretty dang hard. There's not a whole lot to crit here, save for some readability issues that stand out amongst the super-clarity of everything else. Mostly the lower part of page 4. It's an interesting layout, but it took way too long to figure out the order the panels are supposed to be read in. Using Virtua's hair-poof as an origin point for the layout sounds cool, but just makes me re-read the whole bottom half.

Can I just say I'm glad there was some significant burgin going on in these comics. Brawls and burgers are clearly the path to friendship. MrPr - I really like the sharp pixel style, it's very interesting to look at and works well in my opinion! I really hope you do more of this style in the future. My only suggestion would be to maybe use a different "pixel"-type font, I think there are many options that will read much easier. Maybe something along the lines of: https://www.dafont.com/pixellari.font There's a lot you can do with pixel fonts, and there are probably better options than that one there, I just think keeping the lettering at a consistent thickness/ width/ smoothness will make for quicker and easier reading. AND FINALLY- I thought the ending to this was really cute, it was a surprise as I too expecting more brawling, but I liked it! otakutaylor - MAN these heavy inks are killer, I don't feel like this is lacking even without color. I wasn't confused at all as to what was happening and this feels like a complete comic. Also damn. All those muscles. I mean I know you're great at that, but it's still impressive! The fights scenes were satisfying and again, this ending was pretty adorable. Great job!

MRPR: And thus was the start of a charming friendship. That was a funread, although I didn't catch on at first that Virtua was exiting an arcade machine and now outside. A little more establushment and pulling the "camera" back would help there. Otakutaylor: I like how you managed to make a short fight both poignant and humorous. Virtua has such a, well, virtual quality to her and you did such a good job of rendering her to fit in with the world of your work in a way that still captures her and doesn't feel like a total redesign. I especially love the last two panels.

MrPr: i like this pixelated art style for Virtua comics! i think the colours are a bit all over the place, like the first panel has some nice atmospheric purples and greens as the background colours and then a guy in cartoonishly bright red and blue. But i think youre scratching the surface of an art style that could work here. i would maybe recommend looking at LeFred's CannotDance DoesntCare comics for pixel art inspiration~ story wise the last page was sort of a massive textwall and im kind of sad we never actually saw Tsumi and Virtua fight! Tay: LOVE the spotblacks!! your anatomy is God-tier as always. i wish the action had been pulled out a little more as its all so close i actually cant super follow it. I like how you kind of cant tell in the end who won because BOTH Virtua's conditions were met- shes eating the burger and also listening to Tsumi's story (poor tsumi! she just wants someone to talk to!) i like seeing rowdy Tsumi who just wants to punch some stuff, makes me want to fight you! this is the Good Shit!

MRPRR: I really enjoy the videogame aestethics you got going on and if you commit to this particular style and refine it, I think it will pay off. I will have to agree with Kozi though, I was expecting a fightscene! Tay: Solid comic. Got a good laugh out of me and Virtuas dialogue cracked me up. I feel you could easily have cleaned up some of the the backgrounds in places.

Oh my gooooosh~~ Thank you all so much for the comments and to MRPR for the adorable comic between our big ladies! MRPR - You did an excellent job of characterizing Tsumi and the look you went for (as mentioned already below) worked very well. A few things to crit, the word bubbles and text choice, while it fits the theme, you need to watch the edges and text size a bit. While I could see it needing to be large to feel like a game, it took up a lot of space that wasn't necessary and at times was difficult to focus on. Also, try and keep word bubbles within the panel they're speaking in. Page 2's cut in breaks this rule very well since it's part of the character introduction, but Page 3 and 4 's jutting bubbles just looks like they couldn't fit. The panels that set up the arcade and the fighting arena well were placed, but likely could have used a farther zoomed out shot or follow up panel. (not that I didn't need some more establishing shots too) The pixelated motif worked well, especially with virtua and half the comics setting, though I'd say look into some of the tutorials going around on retro game design stuff if you wanna throw in some extra tidbits to really nail home that old game feel. All that said, I really smiled at Tsumi getting her butt kicked in the game on two different levels. Plus, we both ended up giving Tsumi a shotokan fighting stance! ^_^ Pita- Thankies~~ it was weirdly hard to find a good reason for these two to fight so I'm glad it worked out! Pyras- heh, page 4 made sense when I first had it as a thumbnail, when you could read the whole thing in one glance. But I didn't realize it lost that at full size till I was nearly finished. Gotta remember to double check the sizes when I blow them up to page size. Yarn- There is supposed to be a pause there, and I really debated between adding and ellipse or not to slow it down, or just put an angry grunt in there. I probably should have if only to slow down the pace and make sure Tsumi's frustration and Virtua's confusion read better. Julz- but, she has a burger. How can she be lonely? ^_^ Kozi- Glad I got a laugh~ I don't want everything Tsumi does to be sappy, but it's hard to avoid what's coming for her, hehe. SFX and action lines I do need to work on. They're not something I've focused on alot in recent comics and I think I've got older comics that did it better before. I did try to fill space a few times with the black, mostly out of a desire to make sure it wasn't just a white comic with black inks, but a proper B/W comic. Of which I went a bit overboard. Had I zoomed out more as pyras mentioned Tsumi and Virtua wouldn't have taken up so much of the white balance of the composition.

MRPR1993- This is just me, but I think you've found it. I've been following your comics since you've joined void seeing your artwork and comics meander and feel out different styles and looks and I must say this is my fav. The style is clean, the colors are sharp and it completely enhances the whole gamer aesthetic of Virtua and her perception of the world. I really hope you keep this style of comics because I really like it. But don't stop here! Really polish and hone this- I honestly think you got something here. The story otherwise, I found kind of disappointing. We got two musclebound gals, BOTH in a fighting game, ready to square off in the match of the year and we get a cutaway?? No action? no nothing? Sadness. OTAKUTAYLOR- I usually know what to expect with your comics- especially now with where you have Tsumi. Angst, action, sadness and plot. I did not expect to laugh. Like outright laugh at my computer at the hilarious expression you got Tsumi pulling trying to flip Virtua. Hilarious! It honestly isn't everyday Tsumi meets her match and Virtua barely lifted a finger. This comic not only gave us the action I was hoping for, but still held true to the sadsack Tsumi is and continued her arc. I super dug. My only nitpick is while your spot blacks are gorg, I feel that you got a bit too dark in some panels that I wasn't sure what was what. In addition, your SFX for the window crash on the first page gets lost in your hyper detailed establishing shot. It really should've been all while with some cracks in the font so it could stand out.

seeing Angie in a comic nowadays is like visiting your animals in animal crossing after like 5 years haha ... she looks lonely.

Oh wow! Mr. Pr your humor was fantastic at least by my standards. Very nice! Otakutaylor, there was a timing thing with the flip I think. I couldn't tell if there was a pause or not. But AHHHHHHH BLACK AND WHITE this stuff is my favorite.

MrPr I dig this look and not just cause I love diving into the lineless look too. Play with more shades amd more details for the backgrounds and keep an eye on your letters with wordbubbles. I didn't get lost at all with the last page conversation so good job with that order I'd say otakutaylor: The realm of your specialty! I knew you'd do Virtua's musculature justice. I got lost in page 4 though; The action is super close quite often and you want to have moments where we zoom out and orient ourselves better with where everyone is. Since the visual spectacle here is the battle that's especially important good job guys great to finally see this battle happen

MRPR-- Right off the bat I'll tell you that I really dig the lineless approach. If you want to continue with this style choice, I will suggest choosing different palettes to differentiate between the arcade and the in-game combat. Fun story! TAYLOR-- I like the dialog that's going on here! Nice to see Tsumi bonding through muscle and feelings with another stronk lady. The game related lines from Tsumi were great, too!

Dis is gunna be gud!

MUSCLE LADIESSSSS