@David: your comment made me smile the most haha I had to read a shitload of things to get that tweaker down. and that's just what i wanted to hear. thanks C:

@tenko: I know, huh?? haha Is it just me, or do addicts always wanna give you advice? It's hella funny.

@dimmension: ...i didn't shade this at all! XD I was sure i wasn't gonna have time to do that, so i just left them flat. But yeah, I do cel shading when I get the time. And I get what you mean by the line tool; I'll be sure to work on that.

@joshua: I totally agree with you and I'm gonna devote my next battle to detailed backgrounds.

@pi-e: thanks again for the battle! I was thinking that I'd like to have Aja appear again later on in Duane's story, so I'll definitely note you for that <3

thanks everyone for the critiques! They really inspire me to go forward.

booboo:

Really good job with Duane's personality, and a good believable set-up.
I thought his apartment could have been scummier, really slob it up.  You're off to a good start with the textures, but it almost seemed too clean, needs more trash n shit laying around, maybe keep it darker in those scenes to push the mood also?
 
pi-e

Some beautiful drawings in here, but overall I thought it was a bit far-fetched that she would trust him enough to go hang out,  and to roll around on his bed, which would probly be real nasty.  Really enjoyed your compositions and layouts.

good match!

pi-e: yeah he was looking a bit girlish, it's his face shape. It's a soft shape, like a young girl's. A 20-something scrawny dude would be much more angular.
And it's not just Dimension; I think the texture that is used for his hair is a bit out of place because it's not used anywhere else in the comic and is very different from the soft shading.

ari: If you set out to make readers uncomfortable, well, it worked on me at least. D: grinding his fingernails off, aaah. :C
Again adding on to what Dimension mentioned, there are some issues with scale here... that is how the figures are looking too small sometimes. For example, page 1, a typical kitchen wouldn't have cupboards put up that high. Duade is being dwarfed by his giant cupboards and counter. I think using references would really help you in the scale department. They will also give you ideas on what details to stick in, and how to make them a little less generic and empty?

great battle guys~

@Aribooboo: you know? I feel that the thing you need to work on the most is perspective, a lot of things just don't make a whole lot of sense perspective wise. A lot of the characters look way too small, I understand that they're are further away, but they still look too tiny. I don't know what program you're using to color, but I think cel shading would fit your style more or..maybe just add more contrast to your shading. also try to not use the line tool so much (I too use it quite a lot and should stop XD) but the line tool causes your backgrounds to lose life. kk, butthis was a nice comic though, Duane seems like a fun dude. keep at it!
@Pi-e: veeeeeery nice frist page, I'm lovin it. You had some real nice pencils, but the hatching/shading style you had for Duane's hair felt a bit out of place to me, but that's just me. I think your guys are still looking a bit girlie. my guess is that it's his eyelashes, they looked kind of girlie, it also could have been his head since it seemed a bit more round and cute  in some panels. good stuff though, gooood stuff. :3

Ari: You have created probably the creepiest most uneasy comc in void history...well at least for me.  I know meth heads and tweekers and this shit is spot on...and its kinda scary how accurate it is...so your comic for me was like dealing with those assholes...

both were really really awesome.
great work, dudes.

Both entries were terrible because they both reminded me in my weakness in drawing womanz.

@ari: The textures + colors in the first panel of the first page were delicious, there's nothing more beautiful to me than psychedelic art. I can see that you put a lot of attention in coloring every single different thing its own color and adding its own texture, but that amount of detail can take away the focus of what you're trying to convey in each panel and detract from the flow of each page and the comic as a whole. Sometimes the only way you can really tell anything from each other is the differences in textures you've used (such as the backgrounds, which has a lot of textures, and the actual characters, which has no textures).
An example of focus being lost because of these factors is in page 4 panel 3, where it looks like duane was asking aja "so whats wrong with you" and then seemingly answering his own question, until i noticed that lin was in the middle of the bench. Which brings me to another point of a critical error of putting large, vertical, black lines going directly through small, mostly black, vertical figures; basically cloaking lin.
As phill suggested, you can improve greatly by limiting your pallette to 5 or less colors and decreasing the colors and contrast of the backgrounds to near-neutral, or by sparing textures and bright colors for more important scenes

@pi-e: Man, i loved the soft-palette of your first page and the soft, low contrasts of the entry as a whole. Aside from an anatomical weakness in side-views of faces (which i believe it can easily be fixed since most of your other faces are pretty strong) is the awkwardness of the flow of the story. The flow of the first 5 pages sort of began to crumble bit by bit as you went on from one page to the next, and then cracked by page 6, the flow completely dissipated by page 7 (which in my opinion was your weakest page in terms of how the panelling was laid out, next to 8 being the second weakest) . After page 8, the entire point of the story would've been lost if it weren't for the dialogue, though page 8 ended very weakly in contrast to how strongly page 1 started. As a storyteller i think you should work on consistency of your panels and consider where the interest of your entry begins to dip in terms of where each page is concerned.

Good work both of you, except for the fact that you both draw cute girls, which i resent greatly.

Well they were good, but both have their flaws.


Ari: Nice, I really like how you're setting up your character as really really paranoid and downright scary, but I think it would of been nice if you pushed that a bit further when he was talking to Aja, such as getting very close to her and trying to grab at her, hell, maybe even try to chase after her as she gets on the bus to really up the tension. Other than that, the art was OK, I think you should practice with a limited palette as the colors were good but not great for me. My vote goes to you


Pi-e: Not bad, the first page was pretty kickin', but seeing the quality drop down on page 2 really took the strength out of your art. The story wasn't bad, but... I felt that the dramatic part with Aja mentioning her brother at the end was forced and didn't have any emotional impact on me whatsoever. If instead you were to show some of her past where she had to deal with this and have it be a rather gritty scenario it'd be more understandable and believable for me. Instead it just comes off as one of those "I can't believe you're doing that!" moments, which isn't bad in the least mind you, but it's not that impressive either (Almost every teen drama I know does that). But you still have a solid comic nonetheless and the art is still tight despite what I said earlier.

wtf this really good than i thought they both too great damn hahaha

well good thing i woke up early and got to see that last page! XD HAHA
Pie, i LOVED this and where you took it. Simple, but it was SOO SWEEEET. There was so much emotion in there and I seeing Aja's point of view. Your pencils, God, you're really going somewhere with them. Just as good as your digitals! I love how you drew Duane, and Aja always has that precious little face of hers CX I would totally want to do a continuum; we can go in so many directions with this! <3 Thanks for battling me, I had a lot of fun with this C:

<-- that is a great thing to know for future reference o__o i had noooo idea I could do that *dumbass*

Well you had until this afternoon to correct it silly, I put up the battle when I woke up. You are able to check what you have uploaded after uploading in the manager.

so, I had a ninth page which I forgot to upload and that can't be posted in the comments so uhmm.. i'll post it int he forum after voting's done.

Sorry for the terrible scan quality, my scanner of 8 years is finally shitting out >_<

Ari: LOL! I love how well you did the expressions! You really got a very "human" feeling down in Duane, like he was a really believable meth addict with all his little quirks. The dialogue was great as well. As for Aja that was such a friggin cute outfit you put her in, might hafta steal that one for another battle XD We should totally do a continuum to this sometime, make good on Duane's word lol!

comment deleted...no links to outside pages

yup, GOLD on both sides.

love Ari's writing.

love Pi-e's softness

cant...wait....longer

cmon cmon cant wait 4 dis one

uploaded!
I can't wait to see what you did, Pi-e C:

O_O Excitement!!!

DON'T METH AROUND!

STOOOOOOKED!

smashkill

sweet!

I can't see this not ending up creepy.

Yessss welcome back Pi-e.
Looking forward to Duane's debut!

yayayayayay :3

good luck you crazy youngins

Yes! mushroom!!!

I smell mushroom tea...

O my!!! This is going to be intense!

Go Pi-e go!