willie jimenez: Happy Thanksgiving! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I would like to think no one is going crazy and taking things personally from what you've said. Confused or misunderstood, sure. I'll trust what you and Coatl are saying and keep quiet, because in my head it still sounds like passive aggressive offhand comments about some of the members here. Wolcik is right. People cannot see the score until they vote. So no one can see that it's a tie and then vote accordingly.

willie jimenez: I'm sorry if you took all my words too personal, I didn't mean to disrespect. As far as I know you don't see whenever it's a tie or not if you haven't voted. Most battles get bellow 20 votes anyway. The easiest to vote are really good battles when all fighter's put a colorful long stories with sparcles on both ends - then people don't need to think how good it is from 1-9 :P You work in the biz? I need to get my application by today to get somewhere too in that case XD

I think you just need to take a breather and step away from the battle comments since I think this is getting to be less about the comics and more about personal attacks and when that happens everyone just gets upset. If you disagree with something someone says, believe me, it's best to just let it go because it's not worth the headache that follows. Not everyone is right, but it's also important to choose what battles are really important. (and I don't mean the comic battles of course)

coats right i am being general... he can tell that because he know i haven't attacked his art. but some of you keep putting worlds in my mouth starting sentences with are you say... i've been in the biz along time, and i seen this kind of thing alot. i say one thing and bunch of people go crazy and take things personally. which is why most forums or social networks have become places where people, refuse speak up for themselves or wait until someone else says something first. where the only thing they do say is something they've read somewhere, and then the tips and how to books somehow become gospel truths. and you get a room full of people who don't have an option of there own anymore. a little information is a dangerous thing. coat winning good for him! its only been by one or two votes from the start who cares about that. if i go off it isn't about the few of you commenting and voting. it the guys not voting who get to me... i've been watching the votes go up two by two from the start. basically no one wants to vote until they see a tie, then it's like ok i'll vote now to even things out, then it goes dead again. until i lashed out a bit that is lol. I may have a chip on my shoulder, cause i'm sick of seeing the same lame group mentality everywhere i go, and and i know listening to what other people say is great, but only to a point. i see alot of passion here for comics here. but until you some of you learn to break out on your own you won't make it comics. take it from me i'm currently working for three different companies right now. i've done so much this past year and worked with some of the most amazing people, its incredible. and i owe most of that to staying away from nah sayers with real experience to back things up. again i'm not attacking anyone here personally just ranting again. lol

SO here's is my response so far for what's being said about myself. I am also disappointed that I did only 3 pages in 4 weeks I'm disappointed that I was lazy for the first week, thumbed a 10 page true battle, then loss motivation due to the fact that I was frustrated with my drawings. then because of procrastination I worked on three pages in 4 days. Not only that, I posted the last page 3 minutes before the Deadline and then realized mistakes. there's a lot of things I did learn from this: I should grab my collection of comics and manga and study and sketch the battles and the way they build up. I need to work on my anatomy and composition. I need to learn how to draw angles and BGs properly and even help make the character's stand out from said backgrounds and scanning them properly. I have trouble working on 8.5 X 11 so I taped two of them to make an 11 x 17 page. It's helped but trying to paste them came with some lessons as well. Next time I'll try to practice more with my limitations and try to up the quality more as well as plan my stuff correctly as these 4 pages were improvised.

guys I think he's being general about voting honestly. Willy: I don't wanna sound like you're the bad guy or anything cause I definitely respect you as much as I respect anyone else. and I don't care who's winning. I think you should be clear that you're not trying to be confrontational and you just believe that we should vote honestly. Some people find taste in different things and a lot of people just feel this or that on your work as they do with mine. I did each page with two 8x11, that doesn't make me better than you who worked on one page per page but you should try it and if you like it keep doing it, if not, try to practice and refine under the limitations you're in. I don't think removing the flashes will be boring but you should study your fav artist like Angie said to get a clearer version of your look while being able to communicate your ideas. I enjoyed your battle, I liked how you handled my character and I liked your backgrounds but I hope that we're not coming off as making you a bad guy and I hope this bit of salt can help you grow as an artist, man.

Wolcik's on point: Even if you technically lose you can still pull out a great comic Also, since this is a spar, the "lose" isn't as definite as a real match anyway. Your opponent just sparred a little better is all~

willie jimenez: ok here the point i wanna make to everyone... individual crits are great and helpful to whom they are aimed at, but in the end the only thing that should matter is how they measure up against each-other. i got stuff i know i need to work on or haven't been able to squeeze into tree pages to show you i do. but that doesn't matter as long as i did batter the other guy. regardless of what your into or what you like. you should be able to see who the better artist and vote accordingly. who you like and who the better artist can be two different things, if being liked was the aim of these battles then whats the point, thats all i'm saying! I thought that nobody would anwser that, but since I don't have to be the first one... XD I try to vote on each artist based only what he/she showed me, and maybe sometimes I add my experiance with them if I have enough of it - which only makes the expectation higher usually. From my experiance in batteling I can tell you that losing isn't something that you'd like to brag about to your friends, but I still want everybody I know to see my battles no matter what score. It can be hard to lose to someone that put a worse effort or didn't fill all the requirements (didn't portrair your character properly or something), but it's always better than winning by deafault :P I lost most of my battles, but I'm still plenty happy just because people liked my story no matter who wins.

willie jimenez: regardless of what your into or what you like. you should be able to see who the better artist and vote accordingly. ! So are you saying that you are flat out the better artist here? That is the vibe I'm getting dude, you seem to be disappointed with the way the scores are panning out. That kind of an attitude really isn't going to sit well. If you lose today, then take this loss as an experience of what you can do better next time instead of putting down your opponent and trying to question peoples motives for voting. Yes, people do have preferences and favourites, and yes - you are going to come across it. However, if there was any underhandedness and favouritism that was rampant, the mods would step up and do something about it. Since they haven't, the vote is fair dude, you'll just have to deal with it and learn from this match and make your next one even better! Losing is just as valuable as winning, if not moreso. Personally I'm siding with Coatl's entry, it was much more refined but really for the amount of drawing time for this battle, I am disappointed there wasn't a lot more meat to both comics and a lot more polish. There was 4 weeks to do 3 pages, really these both should be looking as clean and polished as can be. I guess maybe because I've been conditioned on one week battles for so long I just don't understand how 4 weeks can only result in pages that kind of don't really feel as finished as they should be. Sorry if I come across as a dick, just sayin'.

willie jimenez: ok here the point i wanna make to everyone... individual crits are great and helpful to whom they are aimed at, but in the end the only thing that should matter is how they measure up against each-other. i got stuff i know i need to work on or haven't been able to squeeze into tree pages to show you i do. but that doesn't matter as long as i did batter the other guy. regardless of what your into or what you like. you should be able to see who the better artist and vote accordingly. who you like and who the better artist can be two different things, if being liked was the aim of these battles then whats the point, thats all i'm saying! I don't think Coatl's comic is "winning" because we like the guy more, it's not like anyone dislikes you. I think most people simply feel it is a stronger comic. This is nothing against you as a person or an artist, but you're right: it boils down to whose comic is better. I think it can be agreed based on the votes that Coatl's comic is a stronger showing in both art and narrative.

[quote]i could have been clearer yes but then pages would have been less interesting and boring. i could have spent more time to set up the fight but then there would be less room to fight. It may be helpful for you to study up on how other artists have tackled battle scenes. A lot of manga devotes a significant amount of time to build up to set the scene and establish a mood. While you obviously realistically can't do 400 pages of build up prior to the actual fight, giving the reader a moment to understand what's going on will be helpful. Action is a tough beast to tackle so it's always worth studying up on how you could improve on it.

hey RoflQu thanks for the lengthy agreement... it hard to draw on 8by11 paper a get all the faces and details just right. if i had the room and more time i'd fix all the problem you had. but there so much i can do ya know. i'm also used to inking my own works and redrawing as i ink, bad habits of leaving things out. not that i'm making excuses lol but this a simple sparing match, so i wasn't something i worried about!

ok here the point i wanna make to everyone... individual crits are great and helpful to whom they are aimed at, but in the end the only thing that should matter is how they measure up against each-other. i got stuff i know i need to work on or haven't been able to squeeze into tree pages to show you i do. but that doesn't matter as long as i did batter the other guy. regardless of what your into or what you like. you should be able to see who the better artist and vote accordingly. i could have been clearer yes but then pages would have been less interesting and boring. i could have spent more time to set up the fight but then there would be less room to fight. manga readers like more panel that explain everything, american comic like to jump around and let you full in stuff...its all subjective and its all give and take. if your looking to complain about something you'll always find it. yes it was battle brawl but it didn't stop me from telling you there was a relationship between the two and there was developments on both sides, there was different emotions and changes along the way. it was still good story telling. who you like and who the better artist can be two different things, if being liked was the aim of these battles then whats the point, thats all i'm saying!

west: Welcome to the site. I see you like action comics. I like action comics, too. Page 1, I don't think BRAKKA-BOOM!!! put in front of where the action is happening in the panel at the end is a good idea. It covers up your lovely art and that's not good for anyone. A far better spot would be to put it alongside the arm at the bottom or where the fist ends, because you're covering up your foreshortening attempt there. You need to really practice your faces and your body anatomy. You're inconsistent and your faces are bunched together tightly. Sometimes you have a predominant nose and sometimes it's smaller than your eyes. Work on getting these details cohesive and consistent. If you want a good starting block, I would search for Andrew Loomis PDFs and read them to get a real good help for your art. How old is Kenosuke, by the way? His white hair and wrinkles make me think 60's and up, but you've also got Sonny with those heavy set cheekbones, so I'm not sure. Also, you need to do some foreshortening practice. It's a tricky subject, but look in the mirror, see how your arm looks and relates in it to you in various poses and then try drawing what you see. The glowing photoshop effect is kind of annoying. I'm not saying get rid of it, because it helped what would be sketchy pencils otherwise, but you should work on tightening up your photoshop skills if you want to continue down that path. I'm also dying for some backgrounds to bring it together. You had some, but it was a lot of loose lines that didn't really feel like it enhanced your work or brought it together. I would work on that. You did a nice job with attention it minute details on the robot arm on Sonny, I liked how you had actual plates there instead of making it flat. That was a nice touch. You also put yourself out there with a lot of those fighting poses and tried a lot of daring stuff, that's cool. I can tell you'll be able to do just fine, but make sure to listen to what people tell you, more often than not, they've got a good idea about what they're talking about. You made a nice first battle, and I await your next. Coatl: Hey, lovely little piece. It was cool to see a story development done in 3 pages! I was interested in seeing friction made between Arena and Sonny. I think you should still pursue the idea of him working under another tutor, it'd be neat to see. I don't remember Sonny wearing football gear under his clothes, because suddenly he's super bulky in the shoulder region? Are you trying to do foreshortening there or what happened? I liked your faces in this battle, a lot. I'm also glad you didn't have silly faces each panel like the last fight, because it brings them out with much more impact when you do use them. I'm also glad we have more background and out-viewed shots. I think solid blacks would have looked much better than the sketchy blacks. It would have made this all a more solid piece, I think, instead of being sketchy. Either way, this was a nice fight, I'm excited to see what you cook up next. (Also, that's a funny looking bottle of whatever they're drinking on page 1. It kind of reminds me of Clorox Bleach, which is really amusing to think the three of them are sitting around drinking Bleach.)

Angie made a good poin for both of you - something I couldn't because of my lack of big vocabulary or rather grammar corretness when writting XD [why there isn't a spell check in comments? I write that in suggestion threat] west: I'm recently very mad at myself for reading manga mostly instead of western graphic books, because they are very diffrent in structure. Sometimes I tend to give a bigger close up or not focus on backgrounds because of it - because in manga there are times when one page contains only two faces, while it rather should contain two panels of a room with two (or more) people in it with diffrent perspective instead, for artistic value. But if you're aiming for mangaish style then be my guest, follow your desire :) Coatl: Angie says that it's a choosen texture, and I thought that you just have a crappy scanner or couldn't clean up your scans properly... sorry, for missunderstooding your artistic message for a underdoing :P I rahter see your clean lines on whites or greish.

Void has a variety of tastes and comics on the site which is part of the beauty. Some love doing action and hate dialogue heavy comics, some love comedy and hate action, some love drama and hate comedy, etc. Void isn't about brawls and battles, it's about making comics! If you wanna keep doing brawl comics by all means go for it, just because some people dislike fighting comics doesn't mean you have to stop. If we all stopped doing certain types of comics just because a vocal minority didn't like it, there would be no comics on the site. west-With action you really have to believe that the audience is stupid, which is kind of a mean way to put it but you have to clearly show the cause and effect of each action or some things may be lost on the viewer. Since you started in the middle of the action with no establishing shot or without a shot that shows both figures, that makes things even more vague. On the first page it would have helped to slow down the action some to show Sonny about to punch while showing Kenosuke in the shot, Sonny goes to punch, then Kenosuke in the process of moving by showing a foot, then the rest would be fine since what it going on would be made clear at that point. The rest of your action is just hurt by all the closeups so it's hard to tell what's going on. As for all the dialogue it didn't really bother me but I'm also very familiar with shonen manga so I'm used to that kind of thing. But remember that panels are meant to be read, if not just make the panel black. Ernesto-I'm still really torn on the choice of using a texture but I've never been a fan of texture on straight up lineart without a lot of dynamic shading since it tends to overpower the lines. You could have paced the text a bit better in some of these word bubbles, in that second panel first page it would have worked better to turn those 2 sentences into 2 bubbles just due to the size of each sentence. I wish you would have done a bit more with the backgrounds, while there's a few there, you *did* have 4 weeks for these pages and all haha. I do agree about it being bad that you cut out the fight. It would have worked a lot better to just come up with a different resolution to their dilemma because it's very anticlimactic to be like IM GONNA WIN IN A FIGHT! and then cut to "damn I lost". That really only works for comedic effect and this fight was over something too serious to just brush off.

what you draw in the comic doesn't HAVE to be a fight, willie... no one's penalizing you for that either, but I think you're misunderstanding what some folks are telling you. Concerning to talking on every panel, you may not believe that it is significant, but it is very significant. An artist can lose points in their comic if their dialogue is bad, because that's an element of the Entertainment. If something isn't fun to read then it's worth criticizing the dialogue since that's part of the writing. What I feel having them talking in almost every panel does, for example, is detach you from the fight. Personally, when people start having conversations during heated battle, it removes me from the action and then the fight is not as exciting. That's what I think this is doing to your comic: with everyone bothering to read every word bubble they focus less on what's actually going on in the panel. Also, you're supposed to read the balloons AND the panels. The image is just as important, if not moreso, as the sentence told by the character. So it's important to take care of what you draw as much as what you write. Also, am I to understand that you believe we should be harsher on Coatl??

willie jimenez: your suppose read the word balloons not the panels lol i did break a little rule in page 2 but it's not even worth mentioning really... no ones dumb enough to jump to the last panel. and i'm sorry i was under the impression brawl comics is what entervoid was about... next time i'll just skip the whole fight since it seems to work for other people. I ment panels - to know what's going on inside them. Your word bubbles are very clear and easy to read :) You don't have to drop batteling, but you could give it a reason and thus make story more interesting. If you're batteling a monsterious beast then your character could just jump in, but when it comes to human based characters it's nice to hope that they have personalities and aren't walking fighting mashines.

Wolcik: willie jimenez: Action flow is very hard to follow on page 2 and 3. Only speed lines won't make a readable panel - if you're going for DBZ speed thing, then you have to remember that it's done diffrently in animated version than the graphic book. It's a simple brawl comics (story wise) which is a start. I suggest batteling more for future development. your suppose read the word balloons not the panels lol i did break a little rule in page 2 but it's not even worth mentioning really... no ones dumb enough to jump to the last panel. and i'm sorry i was under the impression brawl comics is what entervoid was about... next time i'll just skip the whole fight since it seems to work for other people.

willie jimenez: Action flow is very hard to follow on page 2 and 3. Only speed lines won't make a readable panel - if you're going for DBZ speed thing, then you have to remember that it's done diffrently in animated version than the graphic book. It's a simple brawl comics (story wise) which is a start. I suggest batteling more for future development. Coatl: As for you backgrounds I'd suggest drawning a horisontal line here and there (if possible) to show that characters aren't floating in space :) You focused on character's interaction rahter then the actual fight which is good, but also gives impression of something lacking - it's as if they were talking about going to a strip club, and you wouldn't draw any boobs to prove it XD I always assume that those choices were made due time limit :P On 3rd page in the first panel characters are croaching on panel's line - it be much better if they were at least a little above it - in the picture XD

BrainBaists: art is subjective. so any comment can be said. but doesnt need to be heard if the listener doesnt agree. i know and thats why i ignored the rest of his comment but that in particularly was just silly to say. i expected people to be extra hard on the new guy but that was just... IDK looking at how people are voting and the comments, (or not) non of makes sense.

willie jimenez: haven: west: you dont need dialogue on every panel. thats just subjective and silly to bring up! really art is subjective. so any comment can be said. but doesnt need to be heard if the listener doesnt agree.

Coatl: you know about the spelling errors, but i would have liked to see that fight. when i got to the third page and saw you skipped it, i was dissapointed Yeah same here. I had trouble with choreography. Like I had the fight planned and it was gonna end the same way but I was just frustrated with the lack of time and the transition.

haven: west: you dont need dialogue on every panel. thats just subjective and silly to bring up! really

west: you dont need dialogue on every panel. i would focus more on anatomy and keeping faces consistent rathar than glowy effects. coatl: you know about the spelling errors, but i would have liked to see that fight. when i got to the third page and saw you skipped it, i was dissapointed

Coatl: fucking spelling errors man. I was rushing that last page. don't worry i'm sure mine has them too... just like every page i'll post since i'm dyslexic as all hell lol

angieness: [quote] Cause I have to put the comics up manually. oh ok... sorry just figuring out how this whole thing works!

PyrasTerran: so does this mean Sonny's jumping sensei? ...pay closer attention to your clothes and how they should fold. ...lack of backgrounds. Getting to draw better backgrounds Na Sonny isn't jumping Senseis, but I felt like I wanted to add a bit of friction for some development, like "Ken" said, he just wanted to teach him some form. I also wanted to give you a chance to play around with her emotions and an excuse for her to take a break from Sonny or at least add more than just a teacher, student relationship. It's also weird that a lot of my BGs disappeared cause my pencils were too light, also my I rushed some of these pages the day of since I had 3 minutes before the due date to complete page 3. lol

so does this mean Sonny's jumping sensei? Coatl, your faces have improved a good deal, and you're getting better with figures, I would say to pay closer attention to your clothes and how they should fold. Of course you know this, the biggest problem with this comic is the lack of backgrounds. Getting to draw better backgrounds I'd say is one of the big stepping stones for new artists like us here in Void, once you make that jump you're gonna see the page in a new way. Great job for a quick spar :D west: the action is solid but I think there was a bit too much digital interference, I think the drawing itself needed a bit more love and polish to look less rushed. Still entertaining and you do have a couple more backgrounds :D

fucking spelling errors man. I was rushing that last page.

Coatl that is some serious improvement. Good Job. Whatever you're doing keep it up. Just focus on the backgrounds too and remember that negative space is the enemies. Your body types are much looking much better, though a few issues with proportion from time to time that will probably be solved with practice.

willie jimenez: i've uploaded my pages a long time ago... how come i'm seeing anything yet? Cause I have to put the comics up manually.

i've uploaded my pages a long time ago... how come i'm seeing anything yet?

I get the feeling you're the kind of person who's not gonna lie, Coatl.

I want this to upload now. D:

ok I'm not gonna lie, this whole thing was improvised. but I hope you at least had something worth your time. Tear my shit up!

Nothing wrong with pencils, just make them awesome

I'm not gonna lie, the final product will be done in pencil.

Hey! First time after a long time then, huh? Good luck you guys!

Awesome! Back in the Saddle!