Good stuff Mokuu!!

Mokuu: is there a specific reason why you use such font for narration?

Look.  I'm not going to vote on this, because I couldn't make it to the end of either of your comics.  But I will leave comments, so maybe next time you draw something I can read it.

Soulless, please lay off of the grays.  there's too much gray - and it looks liek you're using it to make up for your lack of backgrounds and details.   Look, it's ok to have blank backgrounds on panels here and there (Especially if the background plays no important part in telling the story) - but just filling vast expanses of space with gray - is far far worse.  Either put in more background, detail, texture, whatever - give it as much attention as you're giving your characters - or learn to manage negative space instead of just filling it with gray.


Mokuu, there's a few nice things I can say, your lines are nice and expressive - but otherwise - your backgrounds are KILLING me.  Look, whereas Soulless has an excess of gray - you seriously could use some here - there's no range of value in your work - it's black lines and tons and tons of white space - you should be aiming to make a comic, not a coloring book.   Otherwise your backgrounds are still - very plain.  A cloud or two in the sky would be ok.  Some SHADING on buildings and what not would go a long way too.

WRITING
Soulless and Mokuu: Do yourself a huge favor and read aloud everything you make your characters say.  Then, find someone else and make them say it aloud too.  If, afterward, you (and your sounding board) are still happy with the dialogue then run with it.  Phrases like "Have you learned something..." should not have responses like "I sure do."  Makes no sense. This will also help you idiot-proof your dialogue--if something you have written sounds dumb or silly or inappropriate when YOU say it aloud, then your character probably will sound dumb or silly or inappropriate, too.

Soulless: Your narrative was lost on me. It was difficult for me to follow the story on the first read-through, even after reading your character profile. I think you could have encapsulated all of that development in maybe one page and then picked up on page four with the discovery of Abrao (which is another page that suffered, but not because of writing).

ARTING
Soulless: I'd love to see you try shading with crosshatching or a brush. These massive fields of tiny dots don't seem to mesh well with your line work.  Speaking of line work, if you're using Photoshop, try setting your lineart layer to "Multiply" to get rid of all of the white and gray pixels that are clinging to your inks.
Also, page four is a bit muddy. I think you could go back to the drawing board on this one and illustrate the finding of Abrao and the evolution of Hanon's reaction to this discovery in a much more concrete manner.

Mokuu: Your inks for your figures are very dynamic and fluid. Anything with a straight line, however, seems much less so.  Use the same care and attention to detail for your inanimate objects that you do with your figures and you will have one sexy look overall. The best example of this is the missile launchers your "third party" is hauling around. On the first page it looks like he has drinking fountains for arms.

Mokuu, while they were harsh in their critiques they do have some good points. It is up to you whether or not you want to listen to a critique, but it's best to just ignore it if it really offends you instead of biting back.  I'm stepping in now in the event this gets really dramatic and will be watching the battle comments.

Look back at the language you used and tell me frankly if you would listen to anyone talking like that. Dunno about you but overly aggressive language isn't sign of good critique content.

Sorry Mokuu, but I joined because my friend did.
Maybe when I get a character submitted we can fight then

I'm hardly a spammer, but there's no point in dragging this out when you aren't receptive to critique at all.

Weird, i seem to remember seeing random new accounts spamming this spot yestarday while kevin was testing the comment box.

I'm agreeing with Sawbones here, but I'll take it one step further.

It was painful to read both comics. They reek of amateur (in the bad way) deviantart, written by highschool students who want to be cool.

Soulless, you need to start doing a bit of studying and tightening up your work. The screentones look sloppy in instances, and the lineart is very blurry at times. Your faces also change shape despite them being the same person. You also need to tighten up your writing; Right now it sounds like fanfiction. Sometimes, you don't even need a speech bubble and should let the images do the talking.

Mokuu, honestly, you need to drop that "I'm so super duper" thing with your character. The random memes mixed in along with the "fur fag" comments are unnecessary, pointless, and make your character seem childish and immature.  Your random pages of Posing with his face facing the viewer confirms that; it's all about him and everyone else gets the short end of the stick. Honestly, reading through it again, it was painful. Yaoi! Bukkake! Deviantart! You would punch someone in the face if you heard them talking like that in real life.

For both of you, I'd like to see some better writing, tighten up your work, learn how to draw things like hands or faces from other perspectives, as well as trying to capture the other character's feel instead of just writing about your own and slapping the other guy in there. It'd also be beneficial if you learned how to draw things in basic perspective, that will make your comics much stronger.

Good luck.

Believe me, i will

Riiiiiiiiiiiight. You have fun with that.

Dear Sawbone,

My Lawyer, Jack Thompson, describes your behavior as " Video Game influenced". You post rather aggressive comments which are CLEARLY taken from Gran Theft Auto or other violent Rockstar games. If another threat is issued, you will be taken to court for "Xbox live" type of threats and will be prosecuted in a court of law.

soulless - What were you trying to convey about Hanon? What element of character development are you progressing? I kind of got the feeling you were doing the 'heart grew by three sizes' Christmas Spirit! thing, but it didn't feel real. A lot of the writing was hammy (/I've never seen snow! So pure, yet so cold!/ Are you serious? Who says things like that?), and you went for the obvious every single time that option was on the table.

I second what everyone says about the tones, though I think the more important thing to be concerned with is your overall drawing ability. Regardless of what style you prefer, some grounding in traditional figure drawing would help. Even if you have to pull pictures out of magazines and draw those, try it. It will really help you understand the human form. You  need that sort of 'folder of knowledge' to rifle through when you're drawing original work.

Mokuu- It's obvious that you are the more professional of the two competitors. It's also very possible that you need to stay off of the chans. Sparing use of chanisms and other internet jokes can really bring spice to a comic, but you relied on it so heavily that I had to wonder if your work had any substance. Also, constant reference to Abrao as a 'fur fag', etc, etc, struck me as tasteless and irritating. It didn't make me want to punch the hefty guy in the face for saying it, I wanted to punch you in the face for having written it.

Your brushwork is above average and suggests that you have confidence in the craft. You also have a solid grasp of expressions. I would love it if your style were slightly less OMG CARTOONS but that's just a personal preference and not at all a reflection of your ability.

Soulless-Have you looked into grabbing Manga Studio? There are also better tones you can get for Photoshop, you just have to look for them. I think it would have looked a lot better to just do solid grays instead of the tones. Also be careful with coloring things like Hanon's hair, make sure you get them solidly colored because the gray lines in the hair look a little rough. I would still like to see you work on making your inking look more solid since it's still pretty scratchy but it's improving. This was a nice little comic, keep on working on improving dude!

Mokuu-You're still having some problems with your backgrounds, to me it looks kind of odd to have these very organic looking figures up against these stiff boring buildings. Try to make your backgrounds look as though they've been done by one artist. Story wise I had a hard time getting into this since it seemed to rely mostly on internet talk and one liners. Try to make your dialogue a little more convincing or maybe try doing a little more with your stories in the future. You're getting better with your inking but keep pushing it to get better

Soulless, I didn't quite get the split artist/writer thing with your personality, but that's okay. The story was really drull. I understand
it was some Christmas story between the two, but it lacked spark and I grew bored very quickly. The contrast in your tones were also
lacking since you used them ALL over the place. It became too busy and too grayed out. I suggest straying from using tones as your backgrounds continuously as well. Speaking of backgrounds, I would like to see you put more details into them. I see boxes and lines butnothing to define them. I think if you would've done that and spared the tones there, things would've POPPED a lot more. Also, a small note, look at folds in clothing more often.  Overall, you need some improvement and there is plenty of room for it!  I hope you continue. Good work!

Mokuu, I am not going to hesitate in critiquing you, whether or not you enjoy the pages you did or how short of time, etc.
Your exaggerated perspective/foreshortening gets a little too much at some points. I would start minimizing the use of it. You busted right into it on your first page and it makes something not dynamic and full of action... full of action when it shouldn't be needed. (someone walking..?) Save it for someone getting upper cutted or kicked. I would also watch the anatomy when you DO use this technique of yours. Now, your brush strokes are simply awesome. They're very clean and full of good contrast. You don't seem to have any problem with backgrounds.  Storywise, it wasn't very entertaining. I didn't understand who and why they were all there. Okay, someone is going after someone and the other person gets involved? There's no body to the story at all.

Also, I would like to advise you to not single out a certain Void fighter. I find it in bad form to even put that in there.

Good work on submitting fully though and good luck to you both.

My Lawyer instructs me to tell you that no animals were harmed during this quick production. He swears it on Uve Boll's promise not to do a live action Contra movie.

Mokuu: Whoa, what the fu- Page 3, Panel 2. Did Cannons Bandanna Booms just splattered Phill with a giant rock?

Soulless, im definitely keeping that fur coat XD reminds me of the old Christmas specials on tv, are you using Manga studio 4.0?

Kuro, good hesitation, i dont particularly like this one, 10 pages, short deadline, inked with a brush pen, work interference, its worst than the previous one, we all know it, no need to waste your internet time clarifying the obvious, instead go check this out and have a blast:

http://www.screwattack.com/Random/WeAccept
 
http://www.screwattack.com/Random/WeAccept2

Superman dance time.

soulless, is hanon some sort of joint entry by an artist & a writer? are the admins cool with that? because i thought it generally was kind of frowned upon in the past. otherwise this was ok. a bit slow & dragging. the tones really murdered it though. next time try to use them a bit more sparingly & try to transition between them better, as sometimes the seams really stuck out in what you gave us this time around.

i hesitate to even comment on yours mokuu, given the fact you're on the fragile side & take every crit as a personal attack. it's not like you actually listen to anybody anyway. one thing though: was there a 4th wall breaking joke about 'no extensions' when you actually had to go & ask for an extension?!

soulless_sanctuary has requested an extension, deadline extended by 1 week

yayxxorz

Yes, absolutely good luck to you both.

I'll make sure to see this battle when ready - good luck to both of you XD