I am a bad friend who did not comment on this while it was up for voting (but i did vote). here is your late comment lol first off i LOVE your inking, like what the heck pen setting are you using? You draw the BEST curves, like Xia's fire is always just so pretty, and Vivian's bodacious hips of course lol. Im super envious of your shapes. I also think you excel at panel layout and pacing. I'm prone to agree with some of the below comments that some of your tones could use more contrast- theres a lot of spots where your tones look GREAT but some places where the background and foreground a bit run together, like the bottom 2 panels of page 10. you could probably get away with using a lot more black than you do, some darker shadows might make her fire look even hotter. But i loved the intensity of your fight scene, and all the strong emotions being throws around! I can't wait to see where Xia's story goes from here! (ps fight me)

Thanks so much for your feedback everyone! I'll admit, I'm having trouble in how I'm gonna push the quality of my comics even more in my future battles, but this was a good way to test a few things out and see what worked and didn't work. Backgrounds continue to be my biggest obstacle, but it's definitely needed.

Kozispoon: Or heck, maybe this is incentive for folks to want to figure out what the heck they read and want to read your previous battles?

huehuehuehue

Omigossssssh its done! I was sweating it thinking it was gonna be cancelled again, so its rad to see this comic out in its full Hiemium addicted glory. You should be really proud. I know you've been at this particular tale for a while. :) I was totally feeling the first page from the get go, but as I went to page two, three and beyond I was disappointed to find your pages all look really soft. Soft enough that your high impact scenes and action feel almost sleepy. Definitely punch up those blacks. I know i'm guilty of it myself being so gun shy about over darkening my pages, but for a story like this that takes place underground and has such fantastic opportunities for light with Xia's abilities, it definitely wanted for some intense blacks. I'll also have to agree with Kura that some of your big empty panels of action really looked like they were missing sound effects. The ones that come to mind are the bottom panel of page 3 when Xia gets grazed? You have a whole background to add a sharp SFX to really drive that surprising attack home. As it is, I feel we lose that 'omigosh!' moment. Also bottom panel of page 5 suffers from a very intense, but quiet connection of power between these two bodacious babes. Its kind of wild how much a lack of sound effect can really change the impact of a scene like this. At least for the reader. That's not to say this comic isn't without its merits. You definitely know your action! I was on the edge of my seat wondering who was gonna win out on this intense tussle. Vivian is one lady you definitely don't wanna be up against! Though Xia (poor addicted Xia) definitely pulled at my heartstrings. You weaved all the elements to re-introduce Xia to members old and new, but I feel there was alot of context and backstory that was left unexplained. If I was a newbie checking this out, I feel I'd be a bit lost as to who was what and why this or that was pertinent. I know this is a community where we all kinda have an idea of voids universe and 'canon' heavy hitters have made popular and others have run with, but I think a comic- especially one you put so much time and effort on, should be understood by anyone. Or heck, maybe this is incentive for folks to want to figure out what the heck they read and want to read your previous battles?

the word that I was looking for that I didn't think of til now is to make their expressions more animated~

Great job overall! My critique is gonna be about your faces, this is something that I have noticed hints of before and I feel that it's very apparent in this particular comic, sometimes the expressions on the faces aren't hitting the right level of impact. It's not all the time; pages 7, 13, these work fine. It took me some time to see what I think they needed and i figured it out, so i'll list them for easy checking: -Vivian's eyebrows are always raised, so in places where she should be looking angry she's not looking angry enough. I would test lowering those eyebrows more (doesn't have to be DBZ-connected-to-top-lid level, but experiment cause you want to push that fury more). Biggest offenders is her in pages 3 and 11 -I think drawing pupils are vertical and narrow isn't helping, I can see the shift with Xia and it helps show her emotions but again Vivian's eye size remains constant throughout most of the comic and it doesn't help differentiate one emotion from another, or make her face more interesting to see. -There's alot of panels throughout where Xia and/or Vivian have the same small pouty half-closed mouth, regardless of the situation, and this homogenizes all the faces too much, like they have the same look on their face so often. Pages that could have used open mouths, baring teeth, etc. include: page 3 both vivian and xia, page 7 last panel, page 10 any of the panels as she'd have to be calling out loudly against the flames and to not make it feel like she's monologuing in her head, page 11 last panel, page 12 second-to-last panel Hope this helps and keep up the good work!

I think others have covered the critiques I would have given, so I'll just leave my two cents by saying how much I loved this comic! It was great to see Vivian back, to see her and Xia in conflict like this, to see the conflict between Lithium and Caelum highlighted, to be reminded of where it all started, and to see Xia experiencing a huge moment in her story. I'm on the edge of my seat for whatever comes next, and I want to jump on this metaplot somehow because it doesn't get enough love IMO. Beautifully done, Ari!

I actually like the overexposed, atmospheric effect the tones give in your battle. I think they could have been used to their maximum potential however if you made it seem like the lighting came from beneath the characters, thus allowing darks to be used when you're expressing height in your backgrounds- using this consistently through all your comics. Another thing that i liked was the pacing your layout had set to the tune of a beat of threes. Great use of type and word bubble placements too. Great job!

Alright so, after much reading I believe the main thing you need to learn now is how to fill out those empty spaces and where to apply more blacks and darker tones cos the whole thing looks pretty muted. What I see if you pretty much stuck with only 1 screentone with a gradient on it. As a result, the background elements get lost in the tone and lose whatever depth they would have provided. Whenever you do this, you will want to either apply darker screentone shades on the background elements or ink it with high contrast shading. Also, another tip to experiment with. Foreground elements. Like in a few of these: http://orig15.deviantart.net/99de/f/2011/183/3/4/environment_composition_thumbs_by_matchack-d3kqnl8.jpg They're good for framing compositions and adding depth.

I like page 13s frenetic energy with the diagonal panels enforcing her unstable nature at this point. I feel that could be pushed even more. The grey tones and fluid lines give a very fresh and clean look to the whole comic. The speech bubbles are noticeably on point as well. Not really as much of an artistic point but the way you draw Vi's body, movement and body language is sexy as hell!

Now that I'm reading this for like the 10th time, I'm thinking you need a bit more contrast with your tones. Even though I'm not a fan of using sound effects myself, maybe try applying those to fill out some of the empty space in your action sequences.

Gdi everyone is getting addicted to hiemium.

As a side note, the bracket things in the end is something I got from jiisuris comic vs jane blonde, so I guess its taking place during that comic. Or whatevs.

all done and uploaded.

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!!!!!

Go get 'er Skullage.

Its back! :D I hope you can get this done. Really looking forward to reading it!

so hyped!!

Good luck this time!

Where is Datarray?

This is back up. Now that Walmart's calming their shit down, and I have all but one more page sketched, I'll be finishing this up. Hopefully all of you will enjoy the end result.