Heavyweight 2024 : Round 1

Thanks for all the feedback, guys, I'm glad my entry got such a positive reception ;-; Putrid: I've noticed I've been getting that a lot lately, people thinking or wondering if I'm using physical pens. All my comics on void, save one, have been done digitally, but my main method of drawing up until a few years ago was pencil, and I still have a lot of those old habits. It's how I learned to cross hatch, which can be very useful, but also I have to actively stop myself from doing it when I'm trying to just do quick sketches. That's what happened with pages 3-9, I'll elaborate on that later. Bobert: yeah it really did seem like we all were having a time with this one, though honestly I dug my own grave here, I gotta admit. Selevan: it was a main point of mine to try and make sure everyone got some spotlight here, to the best of my ability. Granted the core idea of my plot made it a necessity anyways. I do admit that writing for Harrison and quicksilver was one of the most fun aspects of making this comic That whole fight is so unserious, its great. Snowy: I spend a LOT of time just thinking about action shots and the framing and view angles of them. Im the kind of person that puts a song on, and watches the little movie in my head, except I keep restarting halfway through the song over and over until I visualize it right. So it's an aspect I do give particular attention to when making these comics, and I'm glad to hear it working ^^; . And paneling is something I've been trying to focus and work on lately. I actually started referencing your paneling a bit once I got into Dairyus portion of the comic. Since I was going through her comic archive a lot for references and ideas, I started looking at the panels as well. Also I didn't mean for my earlier "curb stomp" comment to be a negative, because unlike the average "my character wins and it's easy :)" that such a comic usually entails, Dairyus level of power is well established, and it's common knowledge that she holds back in most of her fights. And with that context, having a comic where she doesn't bother to do that doesn't feel cheap, it becomes a narrative device. All that being said, I absolutely get where your coming from with the fight choreography. I might get into that more on the discord since this comment has already gone on way too long. ItizJR: on the idea of going right from thumbs to inks, that was actually my plan for most of the first half of this comic. What I ended up submitting for pages 1 and 10-15 ARE the thumbs, mostly, and have just had some bits touched up just before posting that I felt NEEDED the extra clarity. Pages 3-9 were thumbed a LOT looser, that's just how it ended up happening, and I had to go over them again to take them from a bunch of scribbled composition markers to something I could work off in the inking stage. But then I went too far into it. Thinking back on it I think what killed me there was starting that process with pages 4 and 5, two pages with a lot of scenery, that I decided was batter to get planned out ahead of time instead of in the inking stage, but then that leaked into the character drawing, and by the time I got to the action scene I had already established the "level". Ultimately, something I started doing to make the inking process easier and faster ended up basically ensuring that nothing got inked at all. Page 16 through to the end were different, since at that point I was just doing the thumbnails in my sketchbook amd then redrawing them digitally later. That process took a lot less time, but I did almost fall into the exact same trap at the start of dairyu's section. Goldie: I'm glad to hear the readability wasn't hurt too much. I've said it before that's always my minimum requirement goal, is getting the whole story across, if nothing else. Badger: yeah, that initial conversation about the dangers of the ruins was planned to have some actual payoff, I wanted to get some monster shenanigans in there, but that was honestly the first thing to go once I actually started planning things out. Once the actual list of participants was chosen I was much more concerned with finding a place for everyone than I was about shoehorning monsters in. There is a monorat, though! I remember during the sign up period I was working through potential ideas for the applicants and before JCee dropped out I had some ideas for Black Swan that would have involved monsters, but alas, twas not to be. Batty: I was very excited with the prospect of a relic ruins battle with this amount of power in play, where there's no concern about preservation of their surroundings. If time wasn't a concern they all would have absolutely knocked down more buildings, but as things are, I mostly just had to focus on getting from point A to point B and then onto the next one.

I'll add more thoughts later when I have more time but I had to say that I loved everyone's entries and their portrayals of the robots!

Songbird my man you have GOT to get over Swan XDD I think my favorite part of this comic was just the jump-cut to Songbird being sandwiched between Harrison's massive pecs, though everything else with Harrison is a real close second. I'll agree with everyone else in that I wish that the heist plotline and the gambling plotline were a bit more interconnected; I really enjoyed both, and they had the vibes of an A-plot/B-plot split that you see in a lot of sitcoms and TV shows in general. Because of that, I don't think you really would have needed to have them be part of the heist storyline, just so long as there was something linking the two plotlines--could have been something as small as Harrison bumping into the cat as he escorted Songbird through the casino!

Holy ambitious undertaking, Batman! Both for you and for Keito! I really loved the idea of a free-for-all battle, just an arena where people get to really unleash and cause mayhem! All of the fight scenes were so well choreographed, like damn. I think my favorite fight tbh was with the HR99 bots! On the one hand I want to say that maybe cutting some pages/truncating some fights would have helped you get more completed, but in this case I really don't know what COULD have been cut that wouldn't have been sorely missed. I don't usually say this because I myself am not good at going back and finishing comics, but in this case I really would love to see what this comic could've been if it was fully rendered! Also: thank you for including Croi aaaaaa!

I don't have too much to add that hasn't already been said, other than the fact that you do a really good job of setting up an unsettling mood/atmosphere in your comics! Which imo is especially impressive in this particular comic because nothing outright sinister happens, and yet everything Harrison does comes off as vaguely threatening and sinister. Also I fuckin loved Harrison just climbing out a goddamn window XDD

I should really know to re-read comics before commenting because apparently I forgot that you DID use different colors for the different storytimes lmao. Ignore that bit of the comment whoops

Pizza, I've always been a fan of your humor and this was no exception! I'm a sucker for this kind of storytelling, where the story changes based on the perspective of the person telling it. I really liked the touch of making the art style different for each character's tale (though I'll agree with some of the others in that I feel like you could've pushed it just a little bit farther to be more noticable--or else used a different color palette depending on who was telling the story at that point?), and the constant interrupting got a good giggle out of me!

Your colors are very pleasing in this comic! I specifically really like how you drew the lava (the ben-day dot shading works well with your style) and the sound effects are really satisfying. I like that the main focus of your comic is more about the other character’s theories on Dairyu’s motivations, spending more time on how the cast sees her rather than on the fight itself. It’s a really compelling and creative approach for a story with such a powerful character!

I really like how Songbird’s powers are portrayed here! It seems to be highly effective to the point where perhaps even Songbird loses track of how powerful he is. The casino/boxing match setup is really cool, though I do feel that some characters feel a bit disconnected from the central plot. I think you should also put a little more attention into your backgrounds, sometimes it can be hard to tell where characters are standing in relation to each other. Always glad to see more Songbird! That morshu reference at the beginning got me lol

What an impressive page count! The story setup being a game/contest is very cool, the stakes feel really high here and I think the discussion over how dangerous the area is contributes a lot to that. Your pencils are absolutely gorgeous and I love your background work as well, the action feels dynamic and energetic, especially in the Dairyu vs Keito swordfight! It does get a little hard to follow in the unfinished pages but I understand that it’s due to time constraints. The story is still plenty legible though and I really like what you have here!

The drama and mystery here is soo much fun, this comic has such a strong mood to it that I absolutely adore. I really like how you portrayed Songbird’s eyes glitching out, and that full page spread on pg 10 is super cool and has so much energy to it! I’d love to learn more about Harrison’s motivations here. Great stuff!

I really like your use of long scroll format here, especially on page 1 when Dairyu is telling her part of the story! The setup of this comic revolving around unreliable narrators is really interesting and clearly has plenty of space for comedy lol, this got a few real laughs out of me. In terms of critique I would like to see more focus on backgrounds from you! Typically I would recommend having at least one clear establishing background per traditional page (though admittedly, I don’t know how that guideline adapts to long scroll format, so maybe someone else can weigh in there). This was a really fun comic overall!

I had a lot of fun reading all these comic! Loved all the portrayals of Songbird. I feel like Pizzaman got him the closest. It had me laughing pretty good. I loved all these though. Everyone went very hard on heavy weight!

Snowy - I loved your plot and the art was superb, liked a lot Dairyu here, also thanks for the cameo! Fluff - I loved your color palette and character expressions, but the thing I most loved are the references to Morshuu HAHAHAH YOU WANT IT!? IT'S YOURS MY FRIEND Keito - Really good sketches! Story was nice. Pizza - I will always love how free your style is. Selevan - Nice story and monochrome style!

Sorry these aren’t too in depth but here you go; Pizzaman: Loved the storytime storyline, and good job on the long scroll format! The only thing I wanna recommend is using the ellipse/circle tool for text bubbles, the odd shapes were throwing me off a bit Selevan: Excellent work on the character depictions and action, good sir! But I agree with Jelly in that there’s things left unanswered but the end of the comic. Maybe that’ll be in another comic you got planned but as a stand alone it can confuse peeps. Keep up the good work tho Jelly: Despite the fact these are sketches, they work so well as lines I had no trouble following along! Your panel work is stellar and your story amazed me, wonderful job! Fluff: I was laughing through this entire read, your comedy is always amazing! I loved your portrayal of everyone and your minimal palette~ Snowy: This has gotta be one of your most outstanding comics yet! Everything was so on-point, and I’m happy to see a different side to her than normal! Super excited to see more!

Putrid - Thank you so much! I hope the pay off doesn't disappoint when I finally get around to it, I have been enjoying showing less of Dairyu's "friendly" side and more of how the natural disaster side of her. Bobert - I'd love to fight you when we both are feeling up to it! Unfortunately the person on the first page is robo-Ancelin, not Quicksilver, though I can see how the skin color could have been confusing! I'm glad you liked my depiction of Quicksilver! Selevan - This depiction of Dairyu is her comics-canon version, in which I mean it is the version that has been through all of my comics except for the one that was about Yamato in his alternate adult version, I'm hoping that the few side comics I still need to make will make her motives more clear. Thank you for the compliments tho, I'm glad that you enjoyed how Harrison was drawn and characterized! SirJellyRaptor - Normally, I'm also not a fan of curb stomp encounters, and had I more time there would have been more to the fight choreography between Dairyu, Keito, and Quicksilver. I had to cut two pages of the fight because a couple of weeks in I was behind schedule and adjusted the remaining pages, but as you said, it became less of a fight as a result. Hopefully the story results in something that feels worth it! ItisJR - Thank you! Honestly, Dairyu is supposed to be a character who intentionally holds back to make a fight more fun, because your comparison to OPM is absolutely correct. When I joined VOID, I wanted to make comics that were more about interactions and character relations than I did for fighting and all-out brawls. There are definitely characters that can match her in fights - namely other gods, characters with god-like powers like Rickter, and characters like Rae, Kubo, and Rantu who have powers related to spirits and the preternatural, but my interest in comic-making aligns much more with slice of life and romance genres than fights as well. Thanks to everyone who's read my comic so far!

You had some great bits in here. I especially liked how you did the reveal with Harrisson. I could really feel the awkwardness haha! I'd say the interactions with Harrisson were my fav in the comic. The whole tamagochi bit was also very creative though. One thing I think could have been improved is maybe including a page before page 11 that would have included a "trigger" for Dairyu to blow Harrisson through the wall. I love the panel itself, but when I first read it, it just seemed like it came out of nowhere and left me a bit confused as to what was happening. Entertaining work though overall!

I feel like it would be hard to do a good combat centered story with Dairyu since she's so powerful. But you went with a good strategy of focusing a lot of the story on the other characters. Sort of like how One Punch Man does it. Clearly a lot of effort was put into this with the quality of the end product on display! I also liked that you seemed to experiment a lot with your panel layouts (more so than usual I think anyway!). I can say that this is definitely the best comic I've seen from you. So good job overall!

This was very ambitious! It's hard to criticize art wise because I feel like any critique I give would have probably been resolved in a more polished version. It looks really good in this stage, but the only thing is the line weight is the same on a lot of things which just leads to visual overload. But like I said, pretty sure that would have been handled with a bit more time to polish. But maybe a good thing for you to start practicing is not penciling as much and just going straight to inks after thumbnails so you can have more time to do the other tasks in making comics? That's also the goal for myself since I see a lot of pros doing it in order to speed up their workflow. You've got a really good sense of how to position the camera in your panels and even the panels themselves really lent to the feeling of the story and the pacing you were probably looking for. You've really got a lot of outstanding pages in here! You also managed to pack a TON of story in here which *slow clap* for that. Overall, really good work though! Would be amazing to see a "finished" version of this using all your potential.

The quality on display here is outstanding. It's easy to read and it feels like all the characters get an adequate amount of screen time. I'm not usually a fan of "curb stomp" encounters, but given it's Dairyu, knowing the extent of her abilities, and with the strong character motivation she's been working with in her last few comics it makes sense that we're seeing a Dairyu that's letting go of the usual restraints. I'm interested to see what ends up coming of all this down the line.

I really like the idea of the train which reminded me of the movie Bullet Train (which I LOVE!), but as Raptor mentioned, it's unfortunate that we don't find out more about the purpose of the train and Harrison is trying to stop it in the first place. At first read, I was surprised that it was ending and had a thought that maybe you just didn't have time to finish the entire vision before deadline. You did have some neat ideas in here. I especially liked the interaction with Songbird. Only thing is that each characters role just didn't seem to actually matter to the overall plot: stop the train. This more or less felt like it would be the beginning of the story, with the ending being the inciting incident that actually starts act 2. Which I would be totally down for! Art wise, I liked a lot of your shots. There was a lot of variety in the types of shots (which is something I'm trying to work on as well!). Only thing I would say would bump up the overall quality art wise would be the backgrounds. Which I get, is usually the less exciting stuff that probably gets pushed to the very last minute. But just adding some details/textures onto the train would have worked wonders I feel. And nice try on the effect on page 9. Feel like I know what you were going for, but for some reason it just doesn't land as intended and just looks like she's going slow af. Maybe adding some speed lines or even taking a trick from animation and smearing the form would have communicated the speed better? I do like Harrison as a character though, he's right up my alley! Good job overall!

Holy shit this was amazing!! The story was so good aaaaaaaa- Even if it isn't technically "finished" I do like it a lot, the dynamic paneling is so well executed that one doesn't quite realise just how many pages there are at first! It just seamlessly transitions to the point where I had to do some double takes to realise haha I loved all of the characterisation for everyone, you captured them quite well I have to say, and I HAVE to point out just how giddy I was to see my boi being in this for a good chunk holy shit- Standing here I realise that you did fantastic!

Aw man it's a bummer that we couldn't see what you were cooking Can't wait to see it once you upload it tho! Godspeed!!

I like the setting being an interrogation! With what happened being revealed over the course of the comic through (sometimes flourished hehe) recounts I have to highlight what Jelly said in the previous comic, with the retellings being in a different style being so cool, although only properly noticeable through consecutive re-readings. Overall enjoyable read tho!

Oh God this was hilarious How Songbirds folk (for the most part) refused to join him, so he had to outsource muscle haha Harrison being charmed and going on a tangent was funny, also like how Dairyu knew him well enough to know something ain't right, even if it was obvious XD I wonder what he has in mind for the relic 👀

YO this is fantastic! It feels very sharp and polished, the colours are popping and it was easy to read! I get the feeling that there is something going on, as in that this might not be our usual Dairyu and rather one of the many facets in another universe maybe? Similar to the one where the lil ferret Yamato is all grown up! I liked the characterisation of everyone, giggling kicking my feet looking at how you drew Harrison aaaaaaaaa- I also enjoyed the choreography and how the narration layered over it! Overall a very enjoyable read!

I absolutely loved this entry! The visuals are great and I really dig the color palette you went with. This comic is just shenanigans all the way down and it's a real joy to read. If I had been asked what my expectations were going into this battle, Keito being turned into a tamagotchi would not hVe been one of them. If I had to put forth a nitpick, tho, it's that half of the cast here is entirely disconnected from the plot. The pages with quicksilver, keito, and 41 could be removed entirely and the overall plot is entirely unaffected. That said, it's still a thoroughly entertaining section and comic overall

The visuals here are very well executed, which is to be expected from you, and I like the depictions of all the characters, I think ypu got their personalities down real well! But I do take issue with the fact that there's no real resolution for any of the threads going on here. You present a lot of questions but no real answers, and I would LOVE to know the answers here. It all keeps coming back to the core question of what IS Harrison doing here? We know he's on a job, but never get any hint as to what he's actually trying to accomplish. Which is great for building up anticipation and expectation, his coyness about his reall intentions makes the reader want to know whats really going on more and more, but then we get to the end and it seems to cut off just before he actually does what he came to do, so we're just left wondering.

MY favorite aspect of this is how the art style changes depending on who's telling the story. That being said, I wish that aspect could have been pushed a little bit more. For Harrison and Quicksilvers sections the style shift is obvious, but I didn't actually notice it was happening INTIL I got to those two parts, and then went back to check. On first viewing the changes can be seen as just some natural variation within your art style, so making the effect a bit less subtle would have gone a long way, I think. I also agree with snowy that some things could have been presented clearer if the artwork was tightened up a bit, and I think that might have also addressed the previous point, as well. I agree with the common consensus that the writing and premise is fun as hell. One of the biggest challenges of any Royale is finding a way to fit everyone in, and this is a clever narrative solution.

I gotta say, this was extremely entertaining to read! The writing is very good! I don't mind the art either as it seems to fit very well with the whole vibe of the comic. There was also a lot of creative use of panels in here that I dug. There are little nitpicky things that could improve it like making sure there's enough breathing room inside the word balloons and such. But those are really overshadowed by the sheer fun of the comic. Now I'd be very curious as to what you could do if you just decided to give your absolute best effort, without a deadline with the art side to see how you could improve on that bit. As that's really the only thing I can think of off the top of my head that I would look to improve upon (which really, we all should strive for). Really well done! If memory serves me right, I think this is one of the rare occasions I voted a 10 for entertainment (and I don't give out 10s often.)

I love LOVE the action shots in this, and your clever paneling! The characterizations for everyone felt spot on as well, which is impressive for royales because there's so many characters to juggle! I'm sorry you had such tough luch getting the comic done, but what you did get done is really great!

The humor in this is so top notch, I loved how everyone was interrupting each other and inserting their own views of the others characters into the stories. The expressions were great as well, I just wish you could have polished some of the panels up a bit because the humor is so nice!

I loved the interactions that you had for the characters in this, and the expressions were so fun as always! I loved how overboard Harrison took Songbird's charming words and the silliness that ensued. Nice colors for this as well, I enjoy your limited palettes a lot!

I'm sorry that you weren't able to get your comic uploaded, I would love to see what you had planned for it!

I liked the action shots that you had in this comic! The story was an interesting one and makes me wonder what Harrison needed to do at the end of his journey down the train. Nice work on the gray scales in this!

Great comic! I do wish all of us had much better fortune for this tournament because your completed pages were awesome as hell! Although the incomplete ones feel nice because they feel like those lively needle thin ballpoint pen drawings I've seen some artists online do!

This was a cool comic to read and the colours were top notch, I definitely wouldn't mind having a battle between Quicksilver and Dairyu one on one some time in the future when conditions are more favourable, that outfit you gave Quick in the first page was also pretty nice, something I'll play around with because of his limited wardrobe. To make clear unambiguously to you and our other opponents, I am extremely grateful for everyone's depictions of my character. The artifact the conflict being centred around is an interesting choice and exciting to think about. I'd love to add more substantial comments but I'm feeling my mind scattering to multiple places, so I'll just restate that I enjoyed this comic.

It was a funny comic and I'm glad you managed to get as much as you were able to. Poor Harrison.

I knew that you were going for a Casino heist scenario due to our back and forths during the death match and I really love what you did, also the green and orange gradients are lovely.

This was a cool comic and your grey scales were topnotch yo.

Incredible effort from everyone! I've had little time to indulge in comics and art lately, so I apologize if my comments on each of the entries are brief PIZZAMAN- The stylization of some characters specifically is very fun and appealing. I liked the whole aspect of everyone telling their own story. The dynamic between characters was hilarious SELEVAN- The vougue-like cover already had me invested in what was gonna happen with Harrison. I got really excited when Harrison climbed on the train's roof to avoid crossing that door. Such a cool Western Spaghetti easter egg. I always like seeing characters be polite to others, even if they get in the way of their goal SIRJELLYRAPTOR- I'm a big fan of your art style, and regardless of your entry being considered sketches; the creativity with how you play with the panels and the line weight makes it feel as if it's inks instead. I'm always impressed with your work. Specially it (seemingly) being made with a ballpoint pen. Amazing work at dialogue, too FLUFFS - Holy shit your entry put a big ol' smile on my face lmao! The Zelda CD-i reference in the begining grabbed my attention right away. And then I read what was going on and got doubly excited! I am incredibly flattered and thankful for the cameo and references to my idiot himbo. Songbird's constant hatred for Swan will never cease to be hilarious and I love him for it. The scene with Songbird and Harrison trying to fool Dairyu was so endearing and funny SNOWY - The quality on your entry is absolutely stunning. Your inks seem to be getting even better with each comic I see from you. I really digged the expressions and body language in this! And seeing Dairyu starting to get overzealous over her family is both exciting and terrifying. These 'new' sides from her are very intriguing but I also worry about my fave air goddess- the words you ended the comic on would be very wholesome on another context. I really like how foreboding Dairyu's stories have been

GUAGH AGAIN APOLOGIES FOR THE INCOMPLETE CAKE BUT ITS SOMETHING OVER NOTHING IN A BAD SITUATION