Round 1 Results!

ROUND 2 HERE

After a long overdue wait, the results for round 1 are in! The winners are Team Windfallen!
Also, critiques! Nice and long and detailed!

MrAthens
Team Andromeda: Your entry has excellent flow right from the start, and your characters have some pretty natural dialogue. I really wished you guys had not made the ships outlines in dark blue agains the black because I seriously cannot see them. then suddenly page 6 and BOOM style shift and color and space clarity! I’m not that upset the shift happened, but I am upset that the action cut off on page 7! It was looking so promising. I want you guys to at least finish something, if at all possible. I also suggest that for pages 1-5 that you work on making sure your characters exaggerate their emotions, body language, and expressions so they are a bit more clear and obvious to the reader. Otherwise, excellent start, wish there was more.

Team Windfallen: I dig your guy’s linework, it is very crisp and clean, with a particular take toward details. There are a couple hiccups here and there in terms of pacing, and the beginning felt like it progressed too quickly and choppily. Once the race began, it flowed pretty well, and the entry felt solid. the only hiccups I felt there were was when you guys switched to Team Andromeda - It was a little confusing at first - perhaps a text box denoting what ship we are on would help fix that. I enjoyed that you guys finished up with the mini arc you guys have planned - it really helps to make me want more and see how you will fare in the second round with two members down for the count! Good work all of you!

Winner: Team Windfallen!
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TheMortonator
Team Andromeda:
Alright, first thing is first. Unfortunately, that first thing would be a pesky missing “E” from Satellite on the tops of your first five pages. While I tend not to notice spelling errors as much, this one stood particularly far out there. Sometimes when you copy and paste a delete key or another is pressed by accident at some point, be sure to watch for that in the future.
Also with the first five pages there is clearly a much simpler and cheaper style at play. That’s not necessarily bad as it can let you quickly create exposition. It is fairly clean and easy to read and it focuses on the characters which is effective. However, there are a few things that could easily tighten up there. There’s a bit much white space on some pages making me want for some random objects though not really a full background, just the impression of a background. And on page four a lot of focus is on a map which we see as literally nothing. It would have been nice to treat the map as a point of interest similar to the rather nice characters. I also felt Tahj felt a little too plain in these pages. A shirt with more details or his uniform might have been less distracting. Tahj did provide me some amusement in the final panel on page five by how effective not drawing part of him while walking out a door came out. That proved a pretty good idea.
Page Five also transitioned well into Page Six. It’s risky having a comic in two styles and it did feel like dropping into a different comic for a second. However, that was alliterated both by the timing and the mirroring of the ships. It was a good place to chance because the mood and act had just shifted. The ships in the tops of both Five and Six are from the same angle and in roughly enough the same place so that it mentally transitions you. I don’t know that it was intentional, but it definitely came out clever.
And then what can I say about Page Six and Seven? Well, for starters they were gorgeous. The color choice is still minimal, but drop dead sexy. It came out beautifully with the more mono-tone majority. It showed a lot of movement and energy. Merokosart really gave us the best space scenes of both entries in my opinion.
Dialog wise, it was not bad though could use some polish. Some of it felt a little bit Sci-Fi standard, but they each showed some personalities regardless. I do feel like it would have been easier to judge if we had gotten to see the payoff. A lot of the conversation revolved around the twist, and yet we didn’t get to reach that point and tension which I found myself regretting.

Team Windfall:
This is by far the more constant entry. Art was really good. Though, some of the exaggerated faces felt out of place compared to the rest. The dialog made me start to care a lot for these characters. The banter also had a pretty strong effect everywhere. In fact, the hat was a big improvement. Thank you Ai.
The big problem with this entry, for me, was that Team Andromeda was ignorable. They provided some resistance, but those disappeared far too quickly. It felt more like the occasional cameo than an arch. There was the B.A. moment with Ai, but it felt more like showing off than a payoff. Pacing would have definitely helped as well as some give and take. I personally am totally fine with one side getting crushed, but I still want to see a journey to that and I want it to take me by surprise or have a nice drawn out set up. In the future I would try to think about persistent problems or flaws.
Similarly, the blushing moment felt a little out of place with the timing. It could have worked better during prep or a lull, but it instead creates a lull while the space scenes are telling me action is still the order of the day.
Working on pacing and showing your opponent’s personality off would really help here. I didn’t buy that Tahj would just yell instead of getting more driven to break through and I’m disappointed that went nowhere.

My Vote: Team Windfall by having a finished entry.
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ZippyFerret
Team Andromeda

The entry starts off mildly confusing. Based on their poses, I thought Sword Dude and Sash Dude (Things on Their Back Club) were taking a leak in the first panel. Then in the second panel it appeared that they had either finished doing their business or had not been peeing at all, and also there was suddenly a third character, hereby dubbed Awesome Hair and Headset Person. The pause in dialogue in the second panel gave the impression that there was an important moment happening, or that third person was really awe-inspiring, but the third panel didn’t seem to support the important/awe-inspiring tone of the second panel (but now I think Sword Dude’s name is Luke).

The dialogue throughout for the first five pages has a lot of great character interaction that told me about the crew’s relationships with eachother, but the characters were mostly drawn from the waist or shoulders up, and almost always from a straight-on camera angle, and in very regularly rectangular panels, so the overall feel was a bit monotonous. Body language was rarely used, and expressions were only communicated through subtle eyebrow placements and mouth shape changes, making the characters seem robotic, unfortunately. Where body language was used though, such as when Tahj (I figured out his name!) pointed at Sash Dude with a spoon (it took me a minute to realize it was him since he suddenly had a thing covering one eye), it was pretty effective.

The two references to Deb (“Not happening. Deb’s staying.”, “We might need Deb”) made me interested in Deb and who/what they are and why they’re so important, and why Tahj is invested in Deb’s staying-or-going-ness.

The radical style change in the last two posted pages was really jarring. I almost thought I had somehow ended up on the opposing team’s entry. More than one lineartist on the same entry is always a tricky thing to pull off.

The sixth page started the action with the classic and effective “countdown and expressive-in-moment-character-face-card” technique. The seventh page continues the action in a very clear manner: the team’s ship’s advantage is speed, so when in the first ship panel, the ships are matching speeds, Tahj is surprised; Awesome Hair and Headset’s dialogue panel is nicely segued into and in the corresponding ship panel, the Windfall is shown ahead of their opponent’s ship. The page ends with Sword Dude Luke telling Sash Dude “Allan” to open fire and Tahj to do whatever it is he does (an exciting mystery I would’ve loved to know the answer to in-comic). Unfortunately, the entry ends before the race does.

The ships do not give the illusion of movement, rather they seem to be trading places in stationary space. So while the action is clear, it is not particularly exciting. The characters’ facial expressions are very good and their designs are all wonderfully unique, but they are also almost exclusively looked at from an almost-straight on camera view which only shows their faces and shoulders, leaving no room for body language and character actions. “Sash Dude” Allan’s frame and Awesome Hair’s second frame would particularly benefit from showing more of their bodies to reveal their actions/emotion.

Some advice I would give to this team:

In an OCT round, the stipulations/requirements/theme of the round is the most important thing to address in the entry, so in this case, the race is the most important. Pre-race and post-race events are fun, interesting, and can add a lot to an entry’s overall quality and pacing, but they are ultimately extras. In the future, try to focus on finishing the race portion and then work on the pre- and post-race segments. If it all possible, build your characters and plots during the race, through the action! Also, don’t be afraid of legs or crazy, dynamic angles. Faces can only show so much! But great job, and I wish you guys could’ve finished ‘cause I was interested in the story you were starting!


Windfallen

The entry starts off right off the bat with the race about to begin, but takes the time to have a shot of the full crew, very clearly showing me the n00by reader all the characters that belong to the ship I’m supposed to be cheering for in this entry. So I know that Apparently a Doctor Dude (aka Doc), Baldy with Ripped Sleeves, Crazy Freckles, and Bandana. The transition from Bandana’s “ready to get started?” to Baldy’s “No worries, Doc,” was a little jarring, as was Doc going from standing to either sitting down or getting up from a seat, but I assume there was supposed to be a slight time lapse between the last two panels.

The second page’s race start doesn’t have much “oopph” behind it, likely because the ships aren’t given much page space (although the wing appearing to come out of the panel is a nice touch), and there is little illusion of motion (speed lines or blurring would help make it look like the ships are actually moving). The transition from the dark background of space to the plain white of the rest of the comic is jarring too, and makes the top left corner seem “heavy”. The lack of background in the first two ship interior panels might’ve contributed to why I wasn’t sure where “Crazy Freckles” Ai had walked to, but I assume they were still in the helm-area.

The tiny map showing the completion of the race was a handy tool, but it probably took up more page space than necessary. The interaction between Doc and Bandana was cute, although in their apparently-romance frame, it was odd that their shoulders in their face shots didn’t match with the positions their arms were in. The sudden transition from the spacemine explosion from Doc/Bandana to the Hat Master formerly known as Baldy was odd, as was the style and mood change in page 4. Hat Master’s expression seemed unfeeling and bored when they reported that everything was normal. The first panel was much more dynamic and filled with energy and power though.

If I hadn’t read the opposing entry first, I might’ve been a little uneasy about the identity of the characters on the fifth page, like maybe Tahj was some previously-unseen fifth crewmember, but then Sword Dude mentioned “Windfall” being on sensors, do I guess that cleared things up. Pages 5 and 6 could’ve been merged though; a full page dedicated to a one-shot character (in terms of the entry)’s failed hacking attempt gives it a lot of undue emphasis (if there is supposed to be some other consequences to Tahj’s hacking, at least the panels showing Tahj sleeping/getting woken up could be scrapped, as amusing as they are).

On the seventh page, a transition panel or something of the like between the Aurora crew and Hat Master would do wonders. Even though I know what each crew looks like, as the panels stand, it seems like for a brief moment they are all on the same ship or at least very close to eachother. Perhaps instead of showing Hat Master, the fourth panel could show the Aurora drafting off the Windfall. The speech bubble panel breaks in the last part of the page aren’t the clearest things either, especially since the speech bubbles are outlined in fuzzy grey instead of a darker, more striking shade.

Ai’s sniper rifle was badass. The long middle panel on page 9 showed some great motion with the spiraling trail and the simple but effective speed lines. Ai’s hair might’ve done better to agree with motion if it were following the ship’s draft of being pushed evenly behind them to emphasize the blast of the bullet.

Page 10’s disorienting camera angles really made it feel like the Aurora had been hit heavily, and the characters’ expression and body language really impressed their anger and the feeling of defeat. There wasn’t much acknowlgement of victory on part of the Windfall’s crew, which might’ve been nice, even though Ai went and passed out. The cliffhanger was exciting and attention-grabbing though.


Some advice for this team:

Transitions are very important! The flow of a comic is upset if scenes switch between groups of characters or between ship action and crew members too quickly. If a scene between characters who aren’t doing anything relevant to the race/other tournament-related event ends, a transition can be as simple as a line of dialogue saying “I wonder what’s going on with the race/whatever.” And if a character is speaking, they don’t necessarily have to be shown in the panel, especially if their words are meant to emphasize another character or a situation.


Advice for both teams:

Working in a team and keeping a consistent art style can be difficult, but an entry really benefits from feeling cohesive, like it belongs together. One way to do this is to divide the lineart workload not by pages, but by jobs, ie one person draws characters, another does ship interiors, another does ships, or whatever. Differences between how the characters are drawn and how the ships are drawn aren’t as jarring or noticeable as a radical change in the appearance and expressive styles of the characters. Sweet job with interspersing the action and the character moments.

I give the win to the Windfall team for a complete story, a more full range of emotions, camera angles and poses that really drove the plot and characterization home, and a few really badass action moments.