Exiled Dreams

[exileddreams]

Desired username: exileddreams

E-mail: sharlyshar@gmail.com

Site: I would like to have my site be for my online comic Exiled Dreams. It's a fantasy/adventure manga. ^^; There will be violence, but nothing extreme. No nudity, most likely. I'd give it a rating of around PG-13. I usually try to update my comic weekly.

Comic description: Three half-elf siblings, Jiro, Ivy, and Ren, find a strange young man unconscious outside their house one rainy night. At first they assume he is just a regular elf headed to the nearby town of Lakeview. It is not long, though, before strange things start happening; assassinations attempts, wild magic, and whisperings of the secrets of the gods...

I'm very bad a descriptions. x_X;;

You can see my comic here: http://www.drunkduck.com/Exiled_Dreams/

Please try to ignore the huge adds at the top of the site. They get in the way of the layout and I had to move the menu down because they were covering that as well. >_< It's part of the reason why I'm moving now...along with a billion other things. @_@

You can see more of my art here: http://crazysharly.deviantart.com/gallery/ or http://sharly.sheezyart.com/

Thanks!

Sharly

[pigeon-wing]

I had a dream about elves last night! :3 Anyway. I dig the art style, and I'm glad you know what you're doing with screentone and paneling. I've read what you have so far (that first page was a hooker! x3), and I'm interested in what'll happen next (what went 'kshnk'!? o.o). This doesn't seem like a project you'll be giving up on anytime soon :3

I've never used DrunkDuck, so I'm not sure if it's a template uploader; if it is, you'll probably want to stick a sample site up (on geocities or atspace or something) to show you can work with HTML. I'm not a hostee, but there's my 2 cents ^_^

[exileddreams]

Thanks, Pigeon-wing! <3 I'm very glad you like it. ^^

Drunkduck does have sort of a template uploader, but I did the layout myself. I do have a baisic knowlege of HTML...and anything I don't know I make my HTML-savvy friend do for me. XD But thanks for the suggestions. ^^

[fesworks]

Yes, it indeed looks well done and interesting. However, I have never heard of drunkduck... I used atspace.com. Good free site with 50MB space and lots of bandwidth with no ads and FTP support, only thing is that files cannot be bigger than 200kb. When I used it, I had to save some JPG images as 95% instead of 100% quality, but it still is the best free site out there with no ads, in my opinion. So if you don't get in here, I recommend looking to them as an option for you.

[frostings]

i agree with pigeon wing, the first 2 pages caught my attention. Great way to start. ^^
Yes atspace.com would be a good place to put up a sample of what you would have up on xepher.net when you get hosted.

It's currently really late for me, so i haven't gotten far on your comic, i'll check it out some more later on. Too bad there isn't an archive link so that i can see how many pages you have on this comic~ (or maybe the link is there... just that i can't seem to find it XD ) coz it seems the length of the comic is valued as it reflects the effort and determination. Though judging by the amount of traffic you have (counter) there's little question that the comic would be too short or that you would discontinue it anytime soon (as you have quite a fanbase :3). ^^  Artwise, it is quite nice (i especially like the background pic to the right).

@feswork: drunkduck is a free online comics webspace provider. As you can see, a big fat ad that fully disrupts the viewing pleasure of the creator as well as comic viewers. XD
Sidenote, for your images, you don't have to take up maximum file size for jpeg. Your type of images, with not much difference in tones, can be saved at 65-70% quality jpeg (up or down a little if there is too much pixelation) and still retain quite good quality (doesn't sacrifice much quality) with the advantage of a smaller file size (bringing it down from almost 200kb to around 50-60kb). It makes loading faster, which keeps the readers happy, as they don't kill off as many kbs. ^^

[exileddreams]

Thank you, Fesworks and Frostings! ^_^ I definitely don't plan on stopping any time soon with my comic. There's a little archive drop down thingy at the top of the comic pages, Frostings. It's a bit hard to see, though. ^^; I have around 20 pages up at the moment.

The suggestions are very helpful and will definitely try them out if things don't work out here. Also, thanks for the tips on images, Frostings.

[Munerift]

If you kept up with your dedication to the comic I would be very confidant in thinking you would make it with Xepher. I like the effort you put into every panel, and it seems like an intriguing story. 20 comics is a start, however I have a feeling we're going to need to see you work towards even more at a continual basis.

I get to crack my whip..! =P More more more! ^_^

[frostings]

@exileddreams: lol i totally did not see that long dropdown menu... that proves that either i was really sleepy or i'm getting blind @_______@"
Ah i was actually directing that more to fesworks than  for your images. hehe  but always find a good balance for quality and file size, that is all :3 hehe no problems.

[fesworks]

Yea, I always save close to 100% as possible. My comics used to be in pencil with the Gamma turned down to .30 from 1.00 (to darken), and then sharpened after a reszie. Distortion would happen a lot at a lower quality because there were so many lines. Now that I am inking and grayscalling, it might be a bit better with less and bolder lines.

but with this guy's comic, there seems to be too much detailing... so I guess some experimenting with saving %s would have to be done if that would be the case.

[exileddreams]

Oh duh. @_@ You couldn't see the archives, I couldn't see the @fesworks. XD Well, what you said was helpful. X3

[Munerift]

Actually, drawings can be squished down to around 70% without losing too much detail... =P

[exileddreams]

Actually, could cancel my application? I decided that it would be easier to use another host which I had used before since I knew how to use it better and wouldn't have to bug my friend a lot. ^^; Is that alright if I do that?

[Xepher]

No problem. Consider it cancelled.