Thanks for reading.

Carlito-I think you had some really nice shots going on in here but the line tool backgrounds really hurt you. Never use the line tool for backgrounds unless you can hide it well. I would also like to see you get more detailed with your backgrounds, page 9 had such a great shot so it was unfortunate it looked kind of empty, you could have pushed it so much more. Your action is improving and art wise you\'re also getting better, but I want to see you tighten up your inking as there were many areas where it looked very shaky.

Dragon-dan-this battle was a pretty big step up for you, I think you\'re getting the hang of inking and linewidths, you also had some very nice backgrounds going on in here. I didn\'t mind the black building backgrounds so much as it didn\'t take away attention from the figures during the action scenes. Keep working on tightening up your inking and working on your perspective, and you\'ll continue to move up.

Joshua:
thanks for a good and the bad. It\'s pretty evident in my backgrounds that I know how to do them, but the apporaching deadline makes me worry & cut detail & prep time. I think next I need to work on when it\'s ok not not have any background. I was using faber castell brush pens for my last battle, and they simply aren\'t for filling in large areas, and when I trade up to better markers, I need to get heavier paper too. The 2 guys I made this time were Zapman and baron Dreadjaw, if I had more time for extras, I\'d have drawn them at the end. Lastly, I drew the word bubbles in unlike last time when they were all digital, and I saved time by homogenizing them. Again, good crit.

Carlito:

Getting better man, just keep pushing it, I know perspective and anatomy take time to use well, just don\'t stop training
in those areas.  Chia is starting to show some personality, keep it up.  
Critique-wise:  the super fat line-weights all over the panel really flatten things i\'m not really into them.
Your best lines are on Chia\'s close-up head shots. That being said, It would be nice if the level of detail
you put into Chia was put into other characters.
One last thing, the word balloons in super fat line style just do not look good to me.
Try to draw some cleaner word balloons in the future eh?

DragonDan:  

I was impressed by your level of improvement on this battle. Your drawings weren\'t as stiff and you
ditched the marker fill-ins which I think is good.  Backgrounds are getting better.  I think your storytelling skills are good,
so just keep challenging yourself with the art.  I also like the funny random super-powered fighters that stranger slaps around.
I think one thing that might help you on backgrounds is to plan out the space a little more.
page 5 panel 3 i think is a great BG, but in many other panels it goes: sidewalk- straight to skyline silhouettes.
Maybe plan out the street area first, draw the closer stuff, then add the skyline farther in the distance.
Do a plan drawing, look at some maps and draw a top view of your proposed battlefield.
Also, I see the stranger doesn\'t talk in \"robo-font\" anyore, and I enjoyed that in your last fight.

I enjoyed both of these. I liked the way you made the story flow carlito by talking about how fast he is then showing it. Things like that make me interested about reading your future comics. And I loved the character development with yours too dan. It would be cool to see him start being destructive and starting fights with just civilians now that he\'s upgraded his mission or whatever. I haven\'t got much in the way of crits but keep it up you guys. These were noticable improvements.

Carlito: The art was a definite improvement over the last battle you had. And the ending was more satisfying this time aswell.

DD: Good battle. Your art was quite nice. But it could have used some additional cleanup in photoshop.
Also, the ending is kinda... The oposite of what carlito did in his last comic. But also the exact same thing. I liked that.

Good job both of you.  

Carlito I like your minimalist style.  It\'s quite competent and shows a good understanding of design and action.  It reminds me of Chris Ware (check him out) I read something in one of your comments about wanting to add more to your illustrations and to be honest I felt a lot of your panels were so well designed as simple shapes interacting that any more additions to each panel would ruin that openess.  I say go with this minimalist style and refine it. I think it shows a lot of promise.


Dragon-Dan- I would suggest working on your anatomy a bit more.  I believe you have a lot of the basic skills that are hard to teach such as composition, pacing, and panel design. But you need to get your skills up in the things you can practice like anatmoy and line control.

To both of you I think your storytelling skills are fine.  In the future I would like to read stories that rely less on the usual conventions of nemesis/strong guy/bad guy/good guy archetypes.  Try something new and different maybe people will respond to what you devise.

carlito, well the rest of your comic looks a lot better than the first two pages, I don\'t know why theres a difference... I liked that you were doing a lot of backgrounds. The action was competent. My only suggestion is to keep working on anatomy and perspective

dragon-dan, I like your characters better but I got really annoyed with the constant city silhouette in the background.

good job both of you at keeping the quality up through the whole thing.

carlito, page 8 made me chuckle. Chia poking his head up to see what happened.
I had tons of fun with this one, looks like you did too.

It\'s a shame you couldn\'t do it the way you wanted then, but heh..life\'s life^^

Thanks for reading.

Heya^^

All in all, it was enjoyable to read...both of them, but you guys have serious background issues.

@Carlito:
You should give the same importance to BGs as your character and all that. Your panels that had backgrounds were a bit poor in quality and the quantity in the whole comic was a let down.  Also, you lose consistency sometimes like on page 5 the two first panels (it looks like there\'s an old Chia and a young Chia)
Moreover, I\'d suggest you check out some hands anatomy, I know hands aren\'t exactly the easiest thing to do, but working more on them would make a great difference^^
And finally...here\'s a tip that helps with the arrangement of any background in any panel : Use different line thickness. Thick for what\'s on the foreground and thin for what\'s in the back.

@Dragon:
BG\'s issue....you had more backgrounds in your whole comic compared to your opponent BUT! in some of them the quality were lacking. It was a bit wobbly for some. Like you knew ya had to do them, but ya didn\'t care that much...that\'s my feeling anyway.
Like I said to Carlito, try to use different line thickness for what\'s appropriate. Your intensity in your story was nice too^^

So I know it\'s a pain, but put more effort in your backgrounds in the future.

OH MY 1 minute to go
PHEW

good lucks all around!

Thanks for reading.

It occured to me how funny my desktop looks, planning this fight, so I\'ll share it with you.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v243/dragon-dan/voidbattlescreen.jpg

i got next on the stranger
xD

nice to see you back in action dragon-dan :3

do your best guys!

good luck guys! that\'ll be interesting  =)