Crafty: I love the self reflection going on with the character in your comic, it adds a layer of depth not often seen in comics around here. It still needs some trimming for pacing purposes but it's a great feat nonetheless. What you need to work on as well is filling your pages. Besides lines, you want to look into shades and of course adding more to the backgrounds so we aren't getting full pages of white that are not there intentionally to serve any purpose to the story or art.

maa703: These are the makings of a great-looking comic, but alas, incomplete. At least the sketches are terrific. I do have one point of contention with the story: I feel that a mind as brilliant as Tink's, even being exclusively an engineer, would be able to figure out what megafauna meant. "flora & fauna" is not that uncommon a term.

Crafty-this is a good first entry! I think the story was nicely done and entertaining, it wasn't perfect, but it kept my attention. I think next time you battle it'd be a good idea to trim your page count and focus on having something a bit more refined. You don't have to go all out and ink or color, but some tighter line work would do your comics wonders.

maa703-you had some nice stuff going on in here but story wise I'm not sure what happened. I would like to see you take on a comic with a longer deadline after the tournament because there's some nice things in there, it's just clearly unfinished.

Crafty - Your comic had some cool scenes, but I wuld like to see something a little more polished next time. A few solid blacks would really help define the background.

Maa - I could see where you were going with this and found it to be very nicely stylized. Looking forward to a finished comic next time!

Crafty: As rough as your lifework is, you've got a nice character design look, especially the animals. You had the makings of a good story, with personal motivation/time travel/heartwarming help going on that just came off a little unclear. While you had a good amount of pages and some detailed lifework going on- even a few EPIC shots- the one thing that keeps this comic from greatness is the sketchiness of the lifework. The next step for you is to vary your widths and work some heavier blacks into your flow to give it some depth and separations.

Maa: Maaaaan, "what might have been..." there are the figments of greatness to that first page for its setting and the beautiful characters and compositions on the second but your lack of time keeps this from being more than a shade of great. I can't imagine how time consuming all that rendering is but with your story telling skills I'm sure you can produce top notch quality stuff without a time crunch. I'd love to see what you can do with time to develop all these threads you've set up here- I anxiously await your coming robot war.

Crafty: Quite rough but the story really drew me in and you brought out an impressive number of pages. You've got a good grasp of difficult animal anatomy and Whistla also looks great, works really well as a companion for your character.

maa: Your artwork looked amazing, particularly from that first frame I can picture how it would've come out with more time - keep practisin' on that time-management and hope to see more from you! The Companion Cube cameo was a nice touch

Unfinishedddddd, both of you. That's fine though, as not everyone is used to a one week comic. My advice for both of you is plan your comic according to what you can accomplish in your deadline. I'd rather see 5 developed pages than 10 sketchy ones.

Crafty: You had more plot than your opponent, and a good one. You developed both characters well and gave them both good screen time. Something I notice you do is you do a lot of side angles and profiles. It gave the flow of the comic a somewhat stale feel. It's something to work on, but practice variance of angles. I'm not entirely feeling the l337 in T.A.N.C's words, but that's your stylistic choice. I love your cave drawing pictograms though for Elswer. It's a nice comic in writing though, as I said. Just keep in mind how much time you have to work with in the future.

maaaaaa: If only you could have finished more. This is just the skeleton of it all. I can tell you know how form and angle works so well. It looks like you simply needed more time. Actually, I found good humor in your comic simply for a Cavewoman just kinda showing up and explaining what megafauna is. It's nice to know that someone is using bizarre portrayal of character for comedy. Seriously though, next fight, give yourself another week or two.

Everyone already critiqued these to all hell, so I won't say anything besides I enjoyed them!

Maa, if we battle someday, I'll make the battle deadline long enough so that you kick my butt easily.

Maa, love your art style. Good luck!

Not bad for a first week from either of you, but for your next battles I'd like to see both of you take more time to polish your pages. Both of these comics look very unfinished, and going further with them will give us a better idea of where you need to go to improve your work.

Not bad for a first week from either of you, but for your next battles I'd like to see both of you take more time to polish your pages. Both of these comics look very unfinished, and going further with them will give us a better idea of where you need to go to improve your work.

crafty - nice to see your first comic here! priority one is probably tightening up your penciling, and that means lots of drawing drawing drawing. it seems like you've got animals down pretty well, but you need to be drawing people with the same amount of dedication. a lot of your faces have a wonky feel to them, definitely something to keep working on. keep it up, i wanna see lots of improvement from you!

maa - it's pretty clear that you've got a lot of talent coming in here, now it's just a matter of working at speed, yes? that'll come with time and practice, so i'll comment on some production methods instead. seems like some pixels got away from you on the word bubble layers, as evidenced by the stray flecks hit by the orange stroke. on another note, head over to http://blambot.com and get yourself one of their free dialogue fonts; comic sans is not really a great looking typeface for comics, unfortunately.

anyhow, good stuff from both of yall, keep up the hard work!

Again, I'm just gonna agree with previous critiques here.

Maa703, what is that text on the top corner on page 3? As it stands, it's really distracting, especially considering exactly what letters are completely clear. It may have been a time constraint issue, but little things like that can completely break a piece, distracting the reader. A final quality control pass could've cleared that up - keep on it for next time!

Crafty;
Dang these pages are huge! Even full-screened on my monitor I had to scroll and read all over the place. The larger you make these things the more the audiences eye can wonder.It probably doesn't help that it's all done in pencil as well, which gives it really flat tones.

One thing that took too many pages to establish was whether or not they could understand what the other was saying. We see Elswér reacting quite clearly to what Tinc is saying. She says she messes up and so forth so I get the impression that they speak the same language. Then, whenever Elswér talks it's occasionally bordered by "<>"'s, a universal sign that it's in a different language and occasionally with pictographs (nice touch).

So I think the weakest part of your comic is easily the clarifying dialogue. Make it clear who is speaking/thinking. And if you use "<>"s, be consistent with them. If we associate them with 'other language' and then don't see them, we'll assume it's not in the other language.

I also think you should be careful of the language Elswér uses, you're not getting across the paleolithic setting with words like "juvenile"

It was brave of you to try and force such different characters and settings together, but you should remember you can take liberties with the characters. I'd rather have seen a full integration of Tinc into your setting then a time tear macguffin. Maybe a colonisation attempt, halted by the discovery of sapient life? Or making Tinc a member of the tribe with a bear called Tanc? The world is your playground.

Artistically, what I have to say has been said. Good work! Looking forward to more stuff from this setting. One final note though IS HOLY FUCK ELEVEN PAGES?! That is an impressive turnout for a weeks worth of art time. Do remember that you don't get points for quantity though, and we'd rather see 5 awesome pages of fantastictude then 40 pages of ok. You did well though! And I can appreciate how hard it is to tell a story in so few pages, which I must commend you on, actually. As You had a good solid character arc.


Maaaaaa073;
Oh man if this had been finished...

On the last page it looks like there is half a logo? Hidden by grey?

You've got a solid 3 page story here, and I'm thinking that may have taken you longer to write then you'd thought it would. But it's got a nice arc even though it's not got much depth. You introduce your character well, but you've used Elswér more like a spokesperson. You could exchange her with numerous other characters and you'd still have the same result.
This is tricky I know, as you only have a ref sheet and some notes to go off rather than a several comic backlog.  But we can still infer things about the character from those.

Overall, I was both amazed and disappointed and would love to see more work from you.

Crafty, I think your work is great. Your story is really strong, you just need to be careful of a scribbling hand because all the extra lines cloud the page in some places. I think a good solid inking job would really put this in the next level of good.

Maa, I liked your art style but it seems like time got the best of you here. Wish we could see the nice committed style from the first page throughout!

Crafty, work on your line work and your comics are going to be incredible! I am excited to see what you can pull off in the future.

And maa, you already know how to some serious craftsmanship, I guess it's time to pick up the pace next time.

Both comics were great for very different reasons, it was tough to vote.

Crafty: your story kept my attention though the whole thing(which for me is a miracle since i get side tracked easy)
you art could improve a bit, seemed rushed, unclean and all the unclosed lines. but overall the story pulled it together.

Maa: Your story was a bit jump and hard to follow, i had to re read before i kind got a zist of what was going on and it didnt hold me. The art is beautiful in that first page. i mean the amount of details in one thing is amazing, bu then it started to get really sketchy and rushed. i'd say more detail like that first page

Crafty: I really like Elswér character a lot, she's a very easy character for me to sympathise with and I like the language barrier you have put across for her towards other characters. I think you should search up the '180 degree rule' to keep constancy of shots (for which direction the character is walking in, facing, etc etc). You did well to produce 11 pages but there's quality over quantity! It'd be nice to have a sharper comic in your next battle.

Maa: Oh man isn't Tink just a cutie! It's a shame that your entry isn't very long but I can realise with that a style like yours it probably takes a lot of time. I love your dynamics and angles it's just a shame the comics still look liek a work-in-progress. Despite that your work still rocks!

Well done bros!

Crafty: Nice work, but your inking could use some "sharpening up".. Seems like a lot of unnecessary lines spread around, and different line weights would hurt either.. I liked the story

maa703: auch, your art promises so much more, it's a small let down that you didn't manage your time better.. the result would have been so much more impressive.. But I love your style, and hope we can see some more from you in the future!

I'm in the same boat Crafty, both on the oocing and rushing.  Time management kicks my butt again.  

GUGH. I am awful. Forgive me for the OOCing of your characters, maa703.

If my comic seems rushed...
That's because it is.
:'D

GOOD LUCK. I wanna see some radical robot action!!

I HAS AN IDEA! KINDA!

good luck crafty!  let's make this awesome!

Good luck you two! Two of my favorite entries duking it out in the first round!

I know and I love it. Good luck all!

Now this is just fucking silly.

Cavegirls and Robots, what a radical pairing!