Oculama

You told a great story this round.
The only issue is that your version of Music is, for all intents and purposes an entirely different character from the one presented to you.
Your presentation of her as a capoeira expert to mirror her dancer background is interesting, but not enough to cover for the fact that this jaded fighter is nothing like the upbeat and oblivious character Shen has been showing us for the rest of the tournament.
It feels like the story came first and you hamfistedly wrenched your opponents' character out of place to fit it.

Excellent work! Especially showing how Music reacts to her illusion being shattered and to her first real kill. Can't wait to see where she goes next.
Sturka is also amazingly on character. His professionalism and demeanor is on full display, and I like how you incorporated his dislike of being touched.
Again, Music's complete obliviousness until the very last second is very on brand, and her genuine panic upon realizing the nature of her situation feels genuine, as does her guilt surrounding the closest thing to an actual kill she's gotten so far.

I really loved the interactions between Music and Sturka! Music's unawareness to the situation and Sturka's coldness melting a bit was really fun. Music fighting with her ballet slippers and only coming out on top because of an errant bullet was a nice touch. I've really enjoyed Music's progression as she's learned more about the Death Game and assuming it's 'just tv'. I'm a big fan of your color choices, and definitely want to see more of your work in the future!

Sturka's past really has been creeping on him a lot, huh? The monochromatic style you've been doing is absolutely wonderful, and the shift into blue added a ton of variety. Your willingness to let Sturka change so much visually is *such* an interesting choice, and I think it's paying off a lot here. So far he's definitely felt like the Bad Guy, at least compared to all of the contestants he's met so far. Including Wave into Music's backstory is really inspired, considering how much chemistry they had in the last entry.

Good oblivious feelings gone 0_0
I think the gimmick of Music unwittingly making her way through this death tourney coming to a screeching halt was a great choice this round. Its wild that to cope with how bad this is all going down, she motivates herself to action by trying to reinforce this is part of the game. The gravity of the situation, and her mounting panic that this situation is calling for lethal action for her own sake and her grappling with that in real time was alot to juggle, but I think you pulled it off. That hollow attempt at STILL trying to gaslight herself in the end with "I didnt kill him" is so small and somber. Poor Music.
Your colors and use of them to convey the intensity, mood and eventual grisly end of Sturka was really fantastic to see page to page. Your rendering of the water was really pretty to see and its clear you were (literally!) in your element. Your unconventional, almost psychadelic color palate is a great holdover from your last battle with everyone's departed hobo. Similar, but stylistically different tack, which is no mean feat. Really really good round for Music. I really wanna know where she goes from here.

Its not easy to lean into the 'guess I'm the bad guy' theming of a characters development and still keep the love of the reader and lemme tell you, I think this comic has drawn a line in the sand for those of us uncertain if we should be rooting for this assassin or not. Since waking up in this game, this man has ruined so many women's lives, and we've been there to follow every transgression. What's wild is that we haven't seen regret, shame, guilt or any manner of justification or restitution. In some ways Sturka is doubling down and in others he's just trying to make it through this death game alive. Its a bold narrative move, even more when you leave the reader gazing at the bullet hole in Music's face *knowing* she was justified after being robbed of so much but she isn't a killer. I think for some the honorable thing to do would be for Sturka to lay down his life, but this comic really sends a realist message that when the chips are down and the pressures on, every living thing shares one selfish directive-surviving. and he is doing just that.

Oh Music, we're really in it now...

Great work delivering both on the humor we've been enjoying with Music's DT comics so far as well as showing your talent with spinning a truly tense and finely-choreographed action sequence. Additional kudos for stringing those bits of storytelling together into a really entertaining whole, and smoothly (if abruptly) taking the reader from one to the other.

Music's optimism is definitely one of her biggest appeals to her character, both in addition to and as an aspect of her equally charming and amusing naivete. Her immediately assuming (correctly, to be fair) that Wave had still wanted to see her AND that he was somehow still alive and tasked with finding her, despite the context of a death game (even if she didn't believe it was real yet) inherently suggesting he had been eliminated, was really sweet and, as with so much that happens to her, broke my heart a little bit.

Something you do in this comic (now that Music has to, well...face the music, re: her current situation, is that you keep the outcomes feeling pretty reasonably believable with respect to the characters' relative skill levels with dealing death. It feels like a completely desperate fight for her, but one were she believably exploits her opponent's weaknesses, gets the upper hand through stealth and (in some sense) familiarity with the materials she's been dealt, and ultimately wins due to a combination of favorable circumstances and pure luck. It helps this feel like a grounded follow-up to Music sort of blindly good-lucking it through the first two rounds without even realizing her situation.

And speaking of grounded, you've show great judgement as a writer shifting the larger tournament arc for Music toward having to face her situation at this point in the games. That's not to say I don't have the utmost confidence you could have kept the gag going strong through the finale and beyond if you had been so inclined, but I respect the way you've executed (hehe) the shift here.

Her reaction feels really, truly human and understandable, not just as a real person's reaction, but as *her* reaction, having to deal with the sudden understanding that everything she's dealt with over the past three rounds has had a real human price to it. The combination of shock, denial, guilt, and sheer terror you pack into that last page is nothing short of gutting, and you deserve tremendous praise for it.

(because it has to be remarked on, the "get ballarina'ed" line was sublime, both for putting a genuinely funny line into a panel that still maintains every bit of the tension the moment deserves, but also because it really does sound like a line I'd expect someone who is FREAKING OUT about their situation to blurt out in panic/ the rush of adrenaline).

I loved the choice of the pool room as a setting for the climax. There's something about a hotel pool (similar to school pools, I think) that has such menace, imho. You rendered the lighting in the pool room magnificently, and it pulls double duty for the strip by lending plausibility to Music's (ultimately) successful ambush, and straight-up mood setting.

The colored portions overall had a lovely vibrance to them, even when the action moves to the darker rooms. it made me think of the neon-highlight aesthetic you see (and that I love) in movies like Hotel Artemis or Gunpowder Milkshake.

One final note is I think you killed it (hehe x2) with Sturka's appearance and character. Really nailed the "reluctant killer who's gonna kill you anyways" character, and I got CHILLS from the face you have him making at the top of page 6 for that very reason.

(Your faces for Music were also excellent across the whole range of emotion, especially as they serve all the points I really liked that I mention above).

(On that note, I like that, despite my expectation being that Sturka would get electrocuted by the falling light (I should have registered it was OFF, he is instead crushed by it. A good reminder for all of us that water ain't soft or a reliable buffer).

Excellent third round comic; thank you for sharing Music with us so far, and letting us enjoy her highs and lows as the tournament has unfolded. This was really one of those rounds where you wish one OC or the other didn't have to die, because they're just so incredibly enjoyable to read, and in Music's case, you genuinely do feel for the her. Looking forward to what the future brings for her either way!

You're feeding us a lot of great stuff in this round, and really making use of your skills with flashbacks on the writing side, and mood-setting with light on the illustration side.

I honestly feel like I can never gush enough about your skill with depicting light. These warehouse scenes (both inside and outside the joint) absolutely convey the sort of tense noir dreariness the locale is famous for across all manner of visual media.

Beyond the lighting there's a lot of illustration touches in the scenery that I loved. The line-streak rain on page one looked terrific, and I like how you were able to use the line-rain technique to show the rain coming in through the doorway as well. On the exterior shot of the building, I was really happy to see the mist/steam effect of water evaporating off of the ground. A really cool touch that went miles in setting the stage.

The faces here are pretty terrific. Music's hate for Sturka is SO CLEAR the reader can pick up on it before we even get a lick of dialogue stating as much outright. And for Sturka's part, the whole ass-journey he goes on starting with Music pulling the gun on him to him having fully turned the situation on her? Really good stuff. You do a knockout job showing the killer inside get to work.

The flashback, while also a great bit of depth-crafting for Music, let you show off a larger range of expressions that themselves look great but more importantly (imo) make an emotional contrast to the hate and (on Sturka's side) resignation that darkens the warehouse scenes. You convey such unmixed joy on Music and Wave's faces that the narration (while absolutely giving us good content) doesn't even need to be there for to make the reader believe in the affection they have (had :( ) for each other, and the genuine nature of the love between them. Music's look of absolute terror and grief at the end of the flashback also gives us a great emotional pivot to be brought, as readers, back into the present action.

(The faces of the dead are no less wonderfully rendered throughout the comic. I probably stared at the final shot of Music for a full minute on my first read through. Absolutely haunting stuff.)

I'm a huge fan of your decision to show off Music's martial prowess, and I appreciated the decision to make her competency a martial art that was forced to move in disguise as a form of dance from the early years following its creation. It's a nice little nod to Music breaking out a skill that very plausibly she would have, but that hasn't at all been germane to the action of comics so far. All in all it added a really great dimension to the choreography of the comic, and you show off some pretty slick combat angles in the process (page 3, panel 2 is maybe my favorite of the whole comic, showing both her prowess and nicely illustrating how she's disoriented Sturka without having to state it outright).

That knockout on page 4 alone has so much going on I feel like I could praise it for days. The foreshortening and motion blur on Music. The solidness of the impact, without any need for onomatopoeia. The little bits of debrisand rainwater and blood filling the negative space around them. A+ page.

The last two rounds directly connecting Sturka to his opponent have had a really compelling feel to them. Combined with the creepy surrealness of his first opponent, your DT plot for Sturka is starting to feel like a real sinner in purgatory type of story, with every chapter forcing him to confront another part of his past and his misdeeds (whether they should be viewed as such or not). I'll be really interested to see where it can go if you get a shot at the final round!

It's been also nice to see such thought given to your opponent's in this Death Games space. They're never just opponents, but fully human, and individual. elements of the death game. You've such a knack for making your opponents one of the most interesting parts, not just of your comic for a given round, but for the round as a whole.

AWESOME job overall. Thank you so much for making and sharing, as always.

The mood is set so well by the colors, bringing each scene to life. That palette really made the comic feel more complete and engaging when the action was going, and as a fitting end to Sturka, at the long end of a warpath against weaker gals in tough situations, having them come to their own end by the gun they shot into the wonderful death in the pool (Real Nice Water BTW) was a great end!

Of the two, both of you doing the "Who was behind the gun" bit, i feel like it fits sturka a lot more in this depiction and it only calls back to a previous round that isnt touched upon all too much! My vote goes to Music :3

Art work, draftsmanship and overall presentation is absolutely top work, but where i see this comic going off course is in 2 areas

1) I feel like Music knowing capoeira would be a fun twist and would make sense for her character, but her knowing it enough to get a real jump on Sturka and being as spiteful as she is in this comic, it just does not feel like Music- not to me at least. Something about how she is so willing to kill and ready where as every appearance of Music in each and every comic is "This woman would forget to know how to breathe and does not know where she is" really puts a bit of a hamper on this round and how much I'd buy into the premise of the round. I just really couldn't buy into this one.
2) While i personally enjoyed the narration bits interlaced with more moody set pieces to bring a good atmosphere to the comic, it can equally slow down the pacing and make an otherwise good scene feel bland. At times it feels like some of the actions being described were just on the screen in the art.

Shen - your storytelling shines in this round! Using Sturka to tie up loose ends from the previous arc feels seamless, as if meticulously planned. The color palette on the colored pages is striking, perfectly amplifying the mood of each scene. While Music didn’t directly kill Sturka, unlike her past opponents, witnessing Sturka's demise adds a compelling layer to her arc. Her reaction to the weight of her situation is portrayed with raw, believable emotion, and I really felt bad for her. Fantastic work!

Eric - Really digging your backstories for each contender in this tournament and this one did not disappoint! I love how you use these to not only get us invested in your opponent's characters but also get to know Sturka at the same time. Music using Capoeira as a fighting technique brought me all the way back to Tekken 3, playing as Eddie Gordo. It's quite hard to nail that movement in a static medium like a comic but you masterfully captured its fluid motion. Your crisp, clean inks are, as always, jaw-dropping, elevating every panel. That final move was brilliantly clever! I genuinely thought Music had the upper hand. Stellar work, as always!

A strong showing with a strong page count! A little rough that unfortunately due to conflicts it's half uncolored. Your pages you did get to color have some really well picked mood lighting and shades. I particularly enjoyed the indoor pool colors a lot! There are a lot of dynamic panel layouts which I like!! Particularly in your action scenes, but I feel that you might be putting too many panels per page it gives your pacing a bit of a claustrophobic feel, don't be afraid to give us a few pages with only a handful of panels, let the reader breath!

I love the concept that music has been clueless the entire death games that she's in a death game, and of course sturka would be the big reveal, but I felt the plot overall has lacked a bit of stakes or danger and even here with the big reveal she escapes with nary but a scratch on the cheek. I don't worry for Music and I want too, its death games!

You've executed a ton of great scenarios and scenes, I love the pool scene and the getting of her dance shoes, but I notice that nearly all your shots are extremely zoomed in and mostly head on angles. You do really good at showing us solid establishing shots, but don't be afraid to pull out your mental camera or give us some more dynamic angles!

Solid showing! Love the drama, Sturka's been through a heck of a lot this go around huh? As always I really enjoy the color difference between the flashbacks and current time, is an very good delineation for the reader. I do feel your pages could be a bit smaller on upload, they're so large that reading them smoothly becomes a touch of an issue and even hinders pacing a bit.

The story is excellently executed, I really feel for Music and I love the tie in of Wave, it feels very genuine. Sturka ruins everything he touches, including the bright light of a girl who should be happy. I felt more pages could have perhaps been dedicated to Music's bubbly personality before wave was killed, but I still grasped the concept.

I feel the same critique I gave Animeshen also applies here in that much of the comic is very zoomed in and could use a few more pulled out shots, you provide some and your action is still very well driven, but I would have liked to see a few more shots of combat that were less so close up. Also while I understand you were both strapped for time, I feel that this could really do with one more final establishing shot at the end to give the readers a break from being so zoomed in.

Fantastic work on this Shen! Oh do i wish you had like 1 extra day and got that entire thing coloured, all those coloured pages are beautiful. Loved the palette that you were working with. Specifically the blue and pink you used for the pool scenes very nice. Wild to see Music finally gets to learn what shes really in, it's a tragic story and shes got such an airhead personality that its really entertaining to see her just dits around until the severity of the situation hits. Which is probably my one complaint about the comic. I didn't think the death worked as well. I'm not too sure how Sturka died, Maybe if he was closer to the surface of the water but it seemed like he was pretty low and in my opinion not that believable of a death. Which took away a bit from the comic but honestly not alot. was just a bit of a personal thing, just wanted that moment to hit as hard as the rest of the ending. Really good job though, was fantastic.

Sturka continues his run of misogyny. Great work on this Eric oh boy oh boy, That second panel on the 3rd page really sells ALOT of this comic for me. while the kick to the head itself doesn't have as much weight in the action itself that follow up panel showing what sturka sees brings it all back. Probably one of my favourite panels in this entire oct, god it was perfect. If theres anything I got against this comic is that it ends a bit fast, I feel like theres another page right after the ending or right before the ending to give it a bit more time to breathe and really sit in. I feel like you had something like that in your past comics which is why it sticks out more for me in this one. but from what you included I think you did a phenomenal job. Love that youre sticking to violence and excited to see what happens now that Sturka has a gun from the get go.

I always love when you get to color, your choices are always so solid! And I felt so bad for Music, she's too much of a sweetheart and naïve for this death game -weep-! Though that angle has been working for her well so far this whole game, and seeing her remorse for Stukra's death really sold me on her. Would love to see some more from you so keep up the good work Shen!

Love how consistent you've been this whole tourney! Small teeny tiny nitpick, in the first panel, the bricks don't match up to the perspective, maybe keep a lil eye out for that in future works. Music's character did throw me off a bit, seeing how she wasn't her normal bubbly self, though it was good to see the efforts from at least one of Shen's opponents and see Music get drawn. Nicely done, my guy!

This is why I don't go swimming in hotel pools, that and my brother had a few disgusting secrets to tell me after working at a hotel. I think you win most brutal death so far! It's making my face cringe just thinking about it! I'm a big fan of creative deaths in these sorts of things so you won some extra points from me in that department. I think I know which line you're taking about that you mentioned before but honestly what made me laugh was the "Rarr" sound effect when Music jumps out. The only thing I think that stuck out as weird to me was having Sturka's hair be so pink at the beginning. I dunno why but it was kinda distracting to me.

I was originally skeptical of your use of narration but I think you've settled into the concept well at this point. You've done a pretty good job of building off your story so far while keeping enough of it in the dark to make me want to keep reading to see what will happen next. I liked how you killed two birds with one stone by having Music be the one who shot at Sturka while also making Music no longer an easy target. Great assessment and handling of that situation! The one nitpick I have is that Sturka's line at the end was a little confusing but that might be a skill issue on my end.