Massive improvement with the way you color in this one. Not gonna reiterate the crits so I'll keep this short and sweet. The story is a bit short and not much has happened but I think that's the intention anyway. Thanks for giving us a glimpse of what Matilda has been up to in this Hell on Earth.

Good job with this BB, I love your colors for this and your lighting as a whole is good. One thing you should practice is starting to implement the lighting on the different planes, the face being the biggest area you need to practice. your 3rd page has the biggets examples of this where the lighting on the face just looks like a gradient when in reality the face will have different planes catching light and making shadow. also I think you can add another line around the eyes to either indicate an upper eyelid or lower one since the eyes feel a bit flat, part of that could be the lighting. Good job with the comic and keep on making more.

@Py Kozi found it weird that Matilda didn’t check up on Amber, because Amber is her girlfriend. But going by the comics archive and your own confirmation, on enterVOID they are just friends, and the only other show of them meeting in comics is a six word synopsis on a recap page. However, they ARE girlfriends in VRG, or in some sort of non-platonic relationship.


Though it may not have been mentioned directly, this kind of assumption can only be made with the knowledge of VRG and the expectation of its events to be canon, or confusing its events with website canon, so I don’t think it’s presumptuous of me to bring it up.

I love all this discourse! Good comic, good comments!

Keep trucking, Hellis.

Just a quick clarification to Cy: Amber and Miller are just friends in the comics tho they have more than holiday comics hanging out

https://entervoid.com/view.php?id=6431&side=1&iid=1

Either way it's presumptuous to assume the question is related to VRG, that wasn't even brought up

Yesss! A Matilda comic! And holy shit did you get this one out fast.

First of all, I liked the first page. Good lighting, “reality displaced” instead of just a generic “homeless” sign is a good touch that gives info on both Matilda and Void City. It’s also nice to have a refresher on her arrival to Void - even though I did read her archive afterwards, I didn’t need to to understand this comic. The “grant me a wish” panels on page 5 were also super cool and dramatic, loved the lighting and just simple phrase doing so much damage.

As for crits, overall I think it could do with a bit more oomph. This is supposed to be a powerful moment for Matilda but I don’t really feel it. Since you’re obscuring her face with a mask and hiding her emotions, you should be really pushing the lighting and emphasising how sort of... divine she is. This faceless being, ready to kill Gods and hardly bothered by demons. Page 6 for instance, might have been more impactful if Matilda had darker shadows or was perhaps completely in silhouette. In the final panel too, this is her time to shine but she gets lost in the crowd of demons due to the similar values and lack of clear silhouette, lessening the impact.

Now for some nitpicks haha. On the second page, what is she sitting on? We don’t see the chair from any angle, on panel 3 it looks like she’s floating in midair. Even if it’s a stool with no back, we should see some of it. In panel 2 page 5, you should have given the teeth some more love, imo. The flat looking, uniform teeth next to the more detailed hair took me out of the scene. Seconding on the need for proofreading too, honestly I’d be happy to do it for you.

Also @Kozi, I looked through Matilda’s archive myself, Amber and Matilda met like, twice? Getting drunk at camp and giving out cocoa. They’re hardly girlfriends in comics, idk why you’d expect her to be mentioned just because they have a relationship in VRG. I’m also confused about your thoughts on the note. I see no indication here who the note would be from, again the meeting between these two characters was super brief and idk why Hunter would help her when she tried to kill him when they last met agjahssj

 I definitely see an improvement in this comic since your battle with Cy a week ago. Your linework is looking crisper now and your composition through the comic just keeps improving. I think you should try fucking around with some more dynamic and over-exaggerated poses in your panels so they don't appear too stiff. Ragdoll the fuck out of those demons and get Matilda looking more loose. I tend to have a hard time doing this as well so maybe we can work on that together?

You're also starting to really fill out the panels and hash out some interesting, but subtle backgrounds. Some panels still feel underutilized, but you didn't leave me with big empty negative spaces so that's rad! I think just fuck around more with line widths to make your characters pop.

As far as writing, I can see where you are going with this. Matildas growth from her first showing up during one Arma to her now. Kozi made some interesting points below. I can't wait to see what you got in mind for her next.

@Hats

Thank you for the crits. Yeah, I agree entirely with what you said about Page 4. I had more meant to be shown, but I Think I just kinda forgot/got to invested in other panels. I will deffo get bolder with my shadows and lights for my next comic!

@Kozi.  

Thank you for the crits!

In regards to my writing:
It meant to say Prize. Not price. The fact that I forgot to fix it when I redrew the page is annoying me. I also realized I am missing a little dialogue. Namely that said demon said he loves Mages. I should have rewritten some of the dialogue when I reordered and redrew some things. That is my bad and I should likely have taken a extra day to let the thing stew.

Some things need to be addressed and clarified:
 Matilda didn't know who sent her the note. Her main interaction with hunter was almost killing him. SInce then they have not met. She just knew someone warned her and that gave her time to prep. As for Amber and

I have not established anything about Mayor Smile, Nor do I personally, as a writer know what Smile is doing other then that he went out with cool gear and that his a nasty man. Alos please remember that she has No idea that she and smile met. Genie literally reversed time when they met as to make sure they never met. So I don't know what that crit is about, honestly? It feels like your drawing assumptions of meta-knowledge Matilda just would not have.

Another Arma 2020 hype comic, yessss. SO STOKED so many people are bringing void favs out of hibernation to respond to the hijinks going on in the city. Hats has really hit the nail on the head for what you need to work on and what stands out, so I wont reiterate it. I will reiterate as with the last comic to please have someone proofread your work. I get having that comic fever and getting these out as fast as possible, but I think your quality and the dialogue suffers. On page 4 the demons exclaim they found a price. The price of what? Was there a hell bounty on Matilda's head from the get? Also page three has 'mam' instead of 'ma'am', unless the voice on the other end is her kid?

I had to go back and read what we saw Matilda up to last to try and orient myself as to how we see her now. I have so many questions. What's her deal with Mayor Smile? Considering this went up well after the Arma collab, I would've figured if she knew he was out there getting wacky, she'd be gunning to squash him. Also you've established on the first page that she is looking at the note of warning Hunter gave her and she is declaring she's going to stand her ground. She comes off as a smart cookie- why wasn't this BB about her trying to track down Hunter or seek answers as to how he knew this was going to happen to provide a warning for her well beforehand? Why waste time on demons?

Also where does Matilda's girlfriend factor in this? You make a point of having her be concerned (and rightly so) over her patients safety, but what about her main squeeze? Granted, skimming through Matilda's comic archive didn't exhume Matilda and Amber actually meeting, but I figured it was still an in universe thing that would've affected her actions in this BB. If I'm wrong feel free to correct me!

- Page 4 panel 1 is boring for whats going on, I don't think a side view mid shot was the best choice - and realistically (as realistically as you can be with demons smashing through your office wall) id imagine a lot more chunks of wall flying off. Matilda could still be shown as non-chalant and zero fucks, but this could have been delivered better.

- make sure the space around your text in their balloons is consistent, most balloons have enough breathing room but not all of them.

- the demons wanting to get jiggy with it is just a bit weird to me but that's probably just me, I dont feel like it adds anything.

- "big bro just melted" got a laugh.
- overall, not a lot happens but I dont really think you intended a lot to happen and that's absolutely fine, you got a nice arrangement of demon designs and your colours are nice but I want to see you push your shadows ans highlight more, don't just rely on your spot blacks for that.

- I look forward to see where this leads.

Felt I needed to make a BB about Arma before it happens, as Matilda did arrive during the last Arma event.

Draw time: 5 days

Thanks Heathen for helping me spot various ways to improve the pages.