Thank you everyone for good crits and kind words. I did end up not having the time I thought I had, and by trying thinner lines and larger canvas, i found that I was a lot less secure and confident in my lines. A matter of practice I suspect.

And thank you again Pon, for taking this battle. I have wanted to battle you for well over a decade, and I very happy to have done so.

Hellis: Your colors are TASTY as all hell. The bright green effects were especially nice, as were the purple galaxy effects! And I loved the story--like others have said, your respect and admiration for your opponent really shows through with the story. There's a lot of love in this, and I really love the setup of this ghoul being like "hey fuck you" to the Goddess of Death and then getting his ass handed to him XD I think my biggest complaint is that, while I think I see what you were going for with Estrella having a big ol creepy grin on page 7, unfortunately with the colors and the way you did the lipstick it ends up looking... kind of clown-like? which threw me off a bit. I think maybe a better effect would've been to make Estrella's face look more gaunt and skull-like in those panels instead of going for the super wide smile?

Ponbiki: While I'm a big fan of some well-done spot blacks, there's a lot of places your comic is almost more spot whites. It does a really good job of setting the mood of dark and gritty, it sacrifices a lot of clarity for it. Especially on pages 2-4, there's so much black inks that it's hard to tell what's fully going on, and the impact of what I think should've been a really fun perspective panel ended up losing a lot of detail and therefore impact. This also especially works to your detriment when it comes to things like faces. It's hard to tell who's who and what they're doing. That said, again your environments are tasty, especially that shot of the desert on page 5!

Hellis: You're creative as fuck and I really like it, from lizard people on Caelum, to Fox soldiers sacrificing themselves.
You add highly Interesting story threads to Void consistently, and this comic is no different. The Psychedelic use of Estrella's powers was inspired and color wise  I enjoyed the palettes you used. All that being said, it seems as though you were either losing time or were experimenting with a looser style. I say this because I'm sure you've posted tighter work before. As critiques go, you just need work on the basics constantly (same as the rest of us) Perspective, Anatomy, Expression, Body Language, Impact.  What might help you out is studying the  animation principle of squash and stretch.


PONBIKI
Let me see if I followed the story correctly.  (correct me if I'm wrong)
1. Jamie is Asleep  and a group of outlaws is sneaking up on him. Estrella  appears to him in his dream, "No rest for the wicked Mr. Masters."
2. These dudes blast the fuck out of Jamie, but they then get creeped out feeling the nearby presence of Death.
3. Jamie gets up and wastes all of his attackers, but the last guy is holding dynamite and it goes off bringing the whole  saloon down on Jamie.
4. The last surviving member of the bushwhacking outlaws finds Jamie in the rubble and points a gun in his face  till the boss arrives.
5.  https://entervoid.com/character/220    this dude shows up  turns out he's the boss of the outlaws.
6.  EL Squido beats on Jamie a bit, then Estrella shows up before he can finish Jamie off.
7. Turns out Squido was working for Estrella and he stole from her and ate 36 babies  
8.  He apologizes and Estrella sends him back to the underworld destroying his physical body.
9.  Estrella has now destroyed her former agents and needs a new one so she conscripts Mr. Masters
10. She gives Him a gun and As long as he follows the terms it will grant him power.
Did I get it right?  your use of Black was heroic  and this was a  really cool  comic

HELLIS:
I really dig the overall plot of this! I'm not really feeling the white text boxes in the first pages, it kinda throws off the palette there i think. The first panel in the second page seems a little flat. Some of the colors might be popping too much at the same time, which makes them,,,not pop off (?) I The dialogue bubbles seem too big for the amount of text they have inside (i struggle with this a lot too, so i 100% know its not as easy as it seems). Some panels seems very small considering what is happening inside. When important stuff happens in a comic it should take more space on a page, i think

Loved the colors and imagery when Estrella gave Jamie the what-for. I'm really wondering what stuff Estrella will get Jamie into, and who other voiders will be on Jamie's sights. That eyeless Jamie with his mouth open looks really wicked

PONBIKI-
I really loved the whole vibe from your side! A lot of the panels looked absolutely d e l i c i o u s, some others were really hard to follow though. I might be a little smooth brained 'cause I had to re-read some pages to know what was happening and who was who. Estrella in a nun's habit in the first page looked absolutely breath-taking, loved the halo around her! Same when she was standing in front of the blood splatter! Very classy gruesome!
Your use of negative space is so damn good, but when things are calm and there are no bursts of light or impact they can get a bit lost. If it wasn't for Jamie's scar, I probably wouldn't be able to tell who is who. Octopus guy and Estrella are the only characters that really pop from the rest i think.
Regardless of my confusion as to what was happening, it was such a fun read, and great eye candy!

Great job you two!

HELLIS-
This was a total loveletter to your opponents character. Jamie was our conduit to experience Estrella in all her deathly glory and I am here for it
This comic needs a better handle of word bubble placement. For example you have a wealth of space on the third panel of page 4, but you chose to cover Estrella instead of breaking up the dialogue to better fit the space
I agree with Cy’s crit on the finger biting panel but for different reasons. That was Jaimie’s sole moment of glory against an unbeatable threat. You even added an epic and stylized sound effect to go with it, but it was relegated to so little space on the page it felt squashed in the corner
anatomy anatomy. Your figures oscillate and bodily landmarks, especially in the face wander off map.


PONBIKI
These inks are thicc almost too thick! I go back to re-read and keep oscillating between I love them and I’m not so sure about them.
I agree with footini’s comment that this comic was on fire with style. Your inking style and execution is such a signature at this point. Pulpy western
That said, would love to see some detail and fine tuning along with story clarity. Who’s the figure on the top of page four? Estrella? A hidden gunslinger revealing herself?
Who is the octopus anteater cowboy? Was there meant to be dialogue to this?
Your comfort zone is definitely high octane action, bold inks and gritty paneling, but I’d actually like to see you tackle story. As it stands what I tried to glean from what was depicted left me lost

I'll fully critique this later once I gather my thoughts on these but both these comics were on fire with style.

Hella - I know you wanted to work extra hard on this and it shows! It’s great to see more textured rendering and environmental details from you. Pages 7 to 9 have some cool imagery and I love the pink-purple smoke that came before it. Estrella feels like a cat playing with her prey in this comic, the fact that she’s so detached and doesn’t even flinch when Jamie bites her is really eerie. She definitely feels like Death.

The two biggest issues you have here are perspective and a lack of impact from blows. For example, the 5th panel on page 1, the horse steps on something and crushes it. The ribs beside it look tiny, and if they’re supposed to be farther away the perspective doesn’t come across. The skull is in the foreground and should look even bigger than normal, but also looks small compared to the hoof. I know it was too late to change it when you showed me, but the first panel on page 2 is also funky because if we can see the buildings at that perspective, the face being eaten by the crow shouldn’t be visible. It looks as if he is floating in midair. The background would need to be a flat plane, or at a less steep angle, to see him.

As for impact, the sequence on page 5 where Jamie bites Estrella’s fingers off isn’t very clear. First, you never show her full hand touching Jamie’s face. The panels cut back and forth so we only see her hand hovering. The panel where Jamie actually bites is small, there is no blood spray, and I didn’t even notice the “CHOMP” effect at first because it’s too stylised to read clearly as letters anymore.

Ponbiki - Many of your pages look like abstract art, but this is a comic. No matter how cool they look, if I can’t tell what’s going on, they haven’t done their job as a vessel for storytelling. The first page, I can make out a wooden building in some state of disrepair, and Estrella addressing an offscreen Jamie, but after that I’m completely lost. I have no idea what the story is apart from the fact that guns are involved, and the sparse dialogue only made me more confused. After my third reread I can sort of glean an octopus man who’s killed by Estrella and who’s job is passed on to Jamie? The heavy spot blacks are certainly intense and dramatic, and if you take some of the panels as isolated pieces of art, they’re gorgeous. Visually, I absolutely love page 2. But going overboard with it sacrificed a lot of readability.

SO HYPED ON THIS

We've reached dangerous yee haw levels here.

A list, grows a little smaller.  Thank you for accepting Ponbiki. As someone who been on this site for 12 years, this is an honor.