DIMENSION- Stunningly beautiful comic. Clean, crisp and just a treat. Your inks are to die for. I especially dig the visual representation of Siclalis powers. So tentacley! So red! I'll admit for all its visual goodness, the story itself felt like more of an opening number that ended before we got to the good stuff. I blame the drink. Siclalis can only be so cool when you're barfing up your tab. XD Crit wise, I do agree on the mouth and expression being ramped up. Page to page, it felt more posey than outright interaction between these two. Also echoing the actual magical powers being more apparent when they activate and break off. HELLIS- Wow. This story was super great! I'll admit, I was worried Akira was going to be this unflappable all powerful vampire that we're all used to seeing in popular media, but I gotta hand it to you. I really liked this. The tit for tat between these two left me not only surprised, but kind of excited to see Siclalis get the upper hand on Akira. Not only did it (funnily enough) humanize him for me, it gave us a reeeally good peek into a fear. Cryptic as it was, I found myself leaning in, intrigued. I am SO wanting to know more. While I agree and echo on some of the technical crit you've gotten below, I think this is pretty solid storytelling and you left me wanting more.

Thanks everyone for the extensive crits! Its been immensely usefull for me. Two things I defiently learned from this battle: Refine my sketching progress. I do not have the dicipline for long ass deadlines haha.

Dimension: My favorite part of this is how you do the hallucination for the demon form and transition into that, those pages are delightfully trippy. Also in general your colors are awesome. When Astro pointed out the mouths weren't really opening when talking I couldn't unsee that and that is also kind of an issue and you should work on some expression variation and opening their mouths. In terms of story the one thing i would want to mention is page 4 where I think it's when she takes control of the bartender or at least that's what's implied from when akira gets in. since eye contact is important I think that page should have ended with them making eye contact and Sicalis' eye doing that thing that happens to both the bartenders eye and Akira's when they get caught in the magic. It would have been good to establish the pattern of the magic or at least the sign something magic was happening by using that last shot to show Sicalis' begin their magic on the bartender. Hellis: I love the story and planning you're doing with Akira, it's not just what's going on in the comic but all the stuff you imply is all really cool as well. The reason the lack of backgrounds sticks out because of the consistency, You have multiple shots of similar angles but in some the background is there and sometimes it isn't. the most clear example of this is page 4 where the floor changes colors and in one shot doesn't have the tiles. However beyond that the lack of backgrounds sticks out becuase you try to use the lack of background later on to try and show the fear attack, so that fear attack with the black background has much less impact when you have used black backgrounds previously just in place of background, so you end up mixxing locations since the black background becomes a location later on the comic as a sort of fear scape. Just be more mindful of the lack of backgrounds when you have magic that is partially shown by eliminating the background, which is the may reason why it stuck out so much in this comic. I love the composition you did at the bottom of page 6 with the transition from the fear back to the club. Also another quick consistency thing is when Akira grabs Sicalis it's with his left but on the start of the next page he's hold with his right, just a small thing that I noticed and stuck out to me when reading this. but overall good job with this and the building of Akira's character

Thank you all for the comments and criticism! To answer the questions brought up. Siclalis getting drunk was SORT OF kinda of to unleash her powers, but not entirely. Its a little bit more that that, but in future comics I'll reveal a bit more of what she's like and why she does certain things. As for the illusion that Akira sees, in this case it's a more monstrous form of her. She can make others see many different monsters or people in a hallucination. It will not always be the same. While all criticisms will be taken into account. I'll be sure to have a focus on story, dialogue and speech bubbles/text on my next comic as I desperately need to improve on these.

Dimension: the lines and coloring here are really solid. It’s always nice to see a fully colored comic. My main critique of this comic is the composition. You have your drawing style pretty well established, so I would focus now on overall panel composition and how each panel works with the page as a whole. Pay attention to how your character poses and background details can move the reader’s eye around the page. If you can combine this kind of composition with your existing art style, I really think you can kick it up the the next level. My only big issue with this is the actual story. It doesn’t seem like much happens other than Siclalis getting drunk and talking through an illusion with Akira. I feel like you could have still left your comic on the same cliffhanger, but included more intimate moments with the characters before you get to the end. Hellis: I like this comic a lot. The pacing really builds up to the ultimate clash of personalities and powers and pays off the tension building in the interview. The dialogue feels natural, which is difficult to get right, but I think you pulled it off and really established the different personalities. Artwise, your characters’ anatomy is still a little wonky. I’d be interested to know how you approach your penciling and how much sketching you do to build up the figures. The posing and interaction with the environment feels a little awkward and stiff at times. Obviously all this can be improved with good old fashioned practice. It would also bee nice to see more backgrounds in some of the more open panels, or at least spot black shadows to add to the atmosphere. I really enjoyed reading this, and I can’t wait to see more of Akira!

Dimension: Your art is absolutely lovely, and I greatly enjoyed your usage of composition. Page ten has an amazing look to it especially at a distance and I feel like its really amazing how you put such focus on the weird monster thing, and Akira!! One thing I am left wondering however what is this bizarre monster? The story kind of left me at a loss for what, and I know your character has illusion powers, but I'm not entirely sure what this is and what to think of it? Is it related to the picture on the alcoholic beverage? One thing I do want you to know is your colors are absolutely gorgeous, I love the way you put shine into them, and just looking at them makes me squee in admiration!I will echo what Astro say and mention the word bubbles are kind of bizarre, I feel if you shape them a bit better and more round it'll work out amazing! I feel like the 'Don't look at her' part went by so quickly that I kind of got lost at that point and never got back on track with what was going on haha. Hellis: First of all I'm going to say your coloring is starting to head on the right track, however I have a few things I want to note when it comes to coloring. Firstly, you may want to work on picking palettes, your first page is a good example of this. You have that establishing shot that has a ton of people in it, but if you notice, it has very mismatched colors, none of them seem to be in harmony with one another. I'm not sure if you just color picked all the colors but I very much suggest in the future working hard to make sure all your colors seem to give off the feel and atmosphere you want, and also like working to make sure they work harmoniously is very important. Alongside that, onto actual shading, your shading can be very messy and oddly placed at times, remember, shading is used to both create form, signify lighting, and give off a feel. Sometimes parts of your art seem to lack shading altogether. I feel like you also use some type of airbrushing tool so liberally that it has a tendency to give off the feel that the walls and floor are painted some bizarre color. (for example page 2.) This makes things seem really weird in my eyes and I feel like you may want to work on this somewhat. This isnt just present in that one spot, but even in the shrug panel of page three i find a good example of bizarrely used shading, that doesnt feel right.Glow effects are also a tad overused and seem to clash a lot in many places, but specifically when used on a person's face, especially the pink eyes on page five. I think however if there's one thing with shading I definitely want to see you improve with, its how you shade faces. Shading on faces tends to be a thing that easily can bug me, but the way you shade them can be the difference between someone looking alive, or completely dead. (which probably fits for one of your charas here lol) One thing thats always important is to build form with the faces, and highlights can add an extra bit of life that faces can look bizarre without. Reddish tones actually tend to be some of the best when shading a face to signify its alive, but blue or purplish tones are really good for characters that should look less alive. bUT MOST IMPORTANTLY FORM FORM FORM. If you shade in a way that makes something look like there's more form to it, it tends to look a lot nicer, and not only that it gives your art a less flat feel to it. Gosh and now that I'm done with that hideously long rant about colors and shading (im so sorry) lemme get onto other things. 100% agree that the lack of backgrounds in places is very noticeable, it made me be confused a lot because suddenly your characters were in an empty void of nothingness. Especially when you zoom out, you really need at least some semblance of a background. With close ups doing that some can be fine, but if you can see most their whole body, unless you're doing a specific visual effect, a background is needed. You never gave an establishing shot for the exterior of the location, which can be really helpful for giving location clarity. I won't comment much on the pacing, because honestly, I don't really know much about that but I know a lot of people really enjoyed your pacing, and story, and so I am really happy that's the case!!! Your lining also has gotten ages better! Its much cleaner, and if anything, I'd suggest trying to vary your line widths a bit more! Good job on your comic!

This is tough so I am gonna simplify it as best I can. Hellis's writing is awesome. Dimension's lines are more confident and the coloring is really neat. You guys had a good battle. I like how you went about a similar scenario in a different way.

Dimension: Beautiful colors and lighting. I like time passing with panels kind of bleeding into each other. I really love the "Don't look" opener, but it did come up a little... like there was a lot of information but not enough time or space to really lay it out? Is Siclalis getting drunk specifically to unleash her powers, or was that a vice that bit her in the ass in the end? Hellis: I can't get over the question "Does 'you smell like cocaine' mean 'you're an addict' or 'I WANNA RUB MY FACE IN YOUR BLOOD IT GIVES ME POWERS I AM SNOWFLAAAAME?" Probably the former. I kind of feel like more could have been done with (apparently) knocking Akira out with fear visually. The coloring is on the harsh,rough side, but I like the touches of hot colors like the pink. It's like when movies loved using colored scrims. I also like the story of this negotiation and business.

Alright, I uploaded my side I have plans for tomorrow so I can't work further on this. I do apologize for awful pacing and decline in quality, had more pages planned overall, but you know how it goes. I still plan on continuing this some time in November if life allows.

I need more Akira in my life

Ooh, interesting matchup~ Can't wait!