Crits and comments of Christmas paaaaaast! XD RADJI- I think this was the starto f this really cool mood lighting and style you've cultivated to the present day. The textures are great and its clear this subject matter is a comfort zone. Your effects and look for magic and spells is really breathtaking and your knack for action and explosions is enviable. You're one of the few voiders I look to for inspiration for high stakes gritty violence because you do it so well. I am bummed taking Wizzie out wasn't even Marie's doing but that of a lackey., but you swing us right back around to the mystery surrounding her transformation which eases the let down. I'm sorry to see things got sketchy round the end, but even those rough studies really evoked some emotion and anguish on Marie's part. Thank you SO MUCH for entering my mini tourney when you did (I know things were crazy for you at the time) and delivering such a compelling tale! HATS- You have this thing with layering relationships around Wizz I super duper love. I think this is something most everyone here is striving for which is character connections outside of a meet cute and you've cultivated this with ease considering all the events and tournies you've entered. I'll admit this is one of the rougher comics of yours I've seen, but all things considered, it still contains your trademark personality and character. In my long ago last crit of your first round, I mentioned the fact you have such a talent ramping things up, but your endings tend to fizzle out. This second round TOTALLY feels like you took that crit to heart and ramped this up to 50. Marie taking a shot at Jiko and Wizzie's reaction made me smile. It'd be so easy to make Wizzie an untouchable badass who feels nothing over a self-regenerating friend getting hurt, but I like that you give her that personality to have flaws, to get too caught up in the moment and actually be shaken by the side of her friends head getting blown off. You did your opponent justice. Marie was actually legit scary in your comic The shot at the end made me audibly gasp. I totally didn't see it coming. I didn't see the color and finished pages coming either. Saving it for your end was a good move.

Radji: The amount you've grown visually over just the past few months is really incredible, it's a shame you weren't able to finish, but beyond that this story is not as strong as your last go's.. the encounter feels too random and over too quickly with the plot moving onto something else entirely in the last 3 pages. I know you're takin' a break after this but stay confident knowing that even your writing is still improving even if it's little by little. Just don't let your talent go to waste during your sabbatical~ Hats: So I've deciphered that in Hats language, "just rendered sketches" translates into "great lines" :V seriously even without colors this comic looks great from front to back, even the box city skyline ends up falling with style rather than just falling flat. This is the kind of 'unfinished' most of us WISH we could achieve. Storywise this comic is also solid from front to back. Very minor nitpicks: An extra page or panel of seeing Wizzie get shot and dropped would have sold that scene just a bit stronger rather than skipping to her already downed, and Marie reminding that the rune was the last of her magic didn't need the extra line about the asteroid, I think it's still remembered from page 2 that Marie was coming in handicapped. A narrative improvement all in all and i'm excited to see what happens next~

On one side, a strong start that fizzled out at the end. On the other, a lesser start that peaked out to greatness at the end. Radji: Alright, looking pretty good for the most part, but watch out for staging. From page 2-4 the positions of wizzie and marie get pretty messy. They kinda switch sides without actually, well, switching sides. What I mean to say is follow that 180 rule, and it'd be good to have a panel to show placement of characters while they talk too. Also, the plot kinda fizzled out at the end. Spirit appeared and it was getting cool, but then we cut to... nothing but the aftereffects. Add that to unfinished pages at the end and I was kinda left hanging. Hats: Alright so, I can tell you didn't get to work that much on these pages as you would've liked and it shows. The panels aren't quite framed as clearly as it could have been, and you've cut a bit to close in some shots, which muddles the position of the characters and clarity of action. I will say, however, that despite that it's still a good looking comic. And then the ending parts just looked really good. Anyway, as far as plot goes, pretty good. I like this development.

Radji: Your inks are very good and I love the way you have limited color in this comic. Also all the effects for the magic are really awesome. Also honestly the ideas you have in your comics are pretty good it's just you struggle a bit to express them. It feels like you add too many ideas in your comic resulting in not giving enough time to explain them all. The more elements you add to a comic the less time you get to explore each which results in your comics leaving alot of confusion and questions for the reader. I think in your future projects you need to hyper focus in on one element and do your best to not add any more things and just keep exploring that element. For example an element that could have been removed from this comic was the NPC cop buddies, they didn't get enough time to add anything and ultimately undercut the situation with Wizzies deity and Marie being a sin. Along with having too many elements you don't give enough time or great explanation for the elements you do have. Whatever is going on with Marie you're being a bit too vague about it. There was never a name given to this curse Marie has which makes it confusing when it's brought up. "It" can mean so many things, but if you had named it something like "rune sickness" it would have given us an idea as to what was going on. Of course that could be different from what is actually happening but because it's only referred to as "it" all I can do is guess since I have no idea what it is. It's fine for the reader to not know everything, but they at least need a name so they know there is actually something there. This could have also been resolved by referencing past events, like saying something like "Ever since that damn necromancer..." which would give us a clear jumping off point to what happened even if we may not know that event we at least know something caused it. We would at least know there was a catalyst for what is happening to Marie and even if we don't fully understand it we would at least know there is something there. I know you mentioned taking a break from void and I wish you luck with your break and while on your break I hope you read up on some writing advice and also check out some of the plenty of youtube video essayists that talk about writing since there is plenty of good advice out there. I would also say if you take a break from void you should try and find a writer and do a comic project for them where they do the writing and see if you can learn stuff from that. basically every major comic thing involves tons of people doing different things so doing just the art for any sort of comic is reasonable and expected. Also your art is so amazing I hope you continue comic projects even if it doesn't stay on void. Hats: Even without colors your art is awesome and with colors your art is god tier. I love the final panel of page 10 with Marie's face. like with this time limit it's understandable you can't color everything and the way you did it in this match was just fine. Though maybe if you wanted to make it look more complete you could have Colored the first page and the 2 last ones so you bookend the comic with colors. You could also try doing black and white with one limited color like in Sin City, that could look more intentional and complete since the lack of color would come off more as as stylistic choice with the one prominent color and have focus sent to certain things easier. Ofcourse that may require a different style of inks but it could be worth trying with these kind of time limits. For the writing I love the asteroid. Need a way to get rid of anyone else's magic? The Asteroid. Need more time for your great dialogue and character interactions? The Asteroid. Need a way to connect all your comics in a tourney? The Asteroid. PRAISE THE ASTEROID! Seriously though it's a great plot device that is paying dividends for you since you have such a simple and understandable way for why other characters are losing magic. It even makes sense for Wizzie to not be affected because she's a starchild. It is a great connection for these comics and I'm glad you put it in there. Now it's time to raise my concern that the next comic's story since it seems to be a focus on Wizzie's Jailbreak and Mammon saving her I'm a little concerned your opponent may just be a side character in it and not a factor in the comic which would be a shame. But overall you have the solid set up and your dialogue for characters is great.

Radji- gotDAMN but I love the way you draw magic. The flame on page 2 and the rendering of Spirit was like, A+++. Youve got great layouts, gesture and expressions, and you really set the scene with the background in the first page. But the last two pages felt like sort of a cop-out (no pun intended.... pun a little intended.) what started out as a badass magic users royale ended with a punch to the face by unestablished NPCs, it was like we were suddenly in a completely different story. I would have liked to see marie dealing with Wizzie and Spirit on her own. Hats: is everything you do so perfect?? even your "unfinished" sketches are gorgeous I just love all the shapes in your designs and the way Marie and Wizzie talk to each other. Jiko getting exploded and reforming was goddam AWESOME and those last three pages? GEEZ if i could colour like that, teach me yours ways! I dont even have any nitpicks I just loved it top to bottom, great work!

Radji: It's really a shame you couldn't get those last pages finished. I really liked some of the visuals you had going, and I especially liked the effects you used for the magic. Story wise, however, I'm utterly lost. The flow seems forced for the most part and it feels cheap to have your opponent knocked out so easily halfway through the comic then shifting on to something else. I'm also really put off by the fact that Wizzie, of all people, needed to be taken to a hospital after just one punch to the face. It seemed...anticlimactic. Hats: I adore too many things to list about your comic. "Unruly youth," playing Monopoly, Wizzie's completely unimpressed expression at the intruder. Honestly if you had not said so, I would not have known those first pages were "sketches" because damn they look good. It's just a shame you didn't have time to color it all because those last few pages are quite possibly the most amazing colors you've ever done. One really awkward thing that jumps out at me is the cross-panel tangent on the last page. Mammon's arm looks like it should be stretching across the panel border to drop the phone, just with how it's lined up. But otherwise I am so intensely impressed with this. Especially since you did it on such a short timeline.

urgh. Mine's three last pages are fairly unfinished...

Battle has been submitted, thumbs about to be emailed to staff - Good luck Radji! A bit of a disclaimer: As a heads up, my comic is pretty much just the rendered sketches - how come? Simply I know what my limits are in a 2 week deadline and a fully finished beautiful comic (artwork), at the length I went to write (which to be fair, isn't even that particularly long) isn't one of them without giving me too much unwarranted stress alongside my other life commitments of work and volunteering for a tournament I entered for the fun of it. So I decided to knuckle down at some narrative issues I was having that I have been previously criticised about (thanks Pyras and Kozi for the crits!) where the endings of my comics were a little lackluster and would drop off suddenly after a decent enough build up. So what I'm basically saying is I decided to concentrate on elements of comic-creating that I wanted to concentrate on for my own benefit. I'm aware that I will take a hit for this, especially on my quality score - but I'm still fairly happy with what I achieved in the time frame and I hope that Voiders (especially my opponent Radji) enjoys what I managed to pull out of my arse. Void has a bit of an unhealthy culture of seeing a comic that isn't fully coloured and being like "OH this comic is unfinished" at times, and I get it. The comic is fully completed in terms of story, so I hope you all enjoy the ride.

Now THIS is gonna be one badass lady smackdown. I cannot WAIT to see this!