Hello guys,

I have decided to start a new topic, where I post all my updates in Sikaron. Instead of posting a new topic for each new chapter, and clogging Castle World with numerous updates.

Sound good?

I hope so.

Also, I will start with an update, that book 2 now has 4 complete chapters up and running. You can find these new chapters here.

Sound good?

I hope so.

I would also like to apoligize to Maedhros because he was hoping this book was going to include more background of the characters. I'm sorry but the book was already written and ready to go when you told me this. I will compensate however, you'll see.

Sound good?

Hehe.

Anyway, enjoy the new chapters, and if you're looking for updates to my website, you can come to this topic. Oh, please feel free to complain and comment my story.

Thank you for your time.

;)

It all sounds very good ;-). I try to announce all my new chapters on one thread as well, so people can find news and updates to my story easier. Although I personally don't mind how you announce new chapters, I can also agree that this method is probally better for reducing "post-clutter".

And I read the latest two chapters of Sikaron - very cool - a lot of great action and some good villains. I have a feeling Conner will end up being the main bad guy... although I think we've found out who has been trying to kill Boldon from chapter 1. ;-)

I can't believe how weak Graynar is on a boat - sea-sickness is a killer... :-)

You did that part very well - I really got the idea that Graynar was struggling just to stand, much less fight.

Great chapters, and a good read.

I´ll forgive you ;)

Seriously though, you don´t need to apologize for not using my hints...but I havbe a feeling you weren´t serious there :P

Sounds good ;) (:knight:)

Here comes an update.



Chapter 18 shipwreck is online now. Also my dad's webagehas been added to my links page, please check it out.

I hope you enjoy my dad's webpage and my new chapter. If you have comments and criticism please tell me.

Thanks for your time. ;)

Wow Graynar! I like your new chapter! Also, your dad's webpage is well done. I'm amazed at his paintings :o :blink:

Cool Graynar!

I'm know I'm getting hooked on this new story because I was pretty excited to see that you've published another one...! Didn't have a chance to read it yet, but that teaser pic you have there looks very very cool.

Your dad is pretty talented too - his paintings remind me of upstate new york (it's all forests, lakes and small mountains)... it looks very good. Now I know why your such a good illustrator... looks like it all runs in the family ~

Good work as always, it´s really nice to sea a castle story at sea. I must say that the Scorpion ship looked really good, especially considering the fact that you don´t own any classic pirate hulls (or well, maybe you do but I assume you don´t since you didn´t use any...)

Thanks for the comments guys. :D

Quill Master wrote:

Hehe, indeed. Though I'm not very good at painting myself. :P

Maedhros wrote:

Only one from the renegade runner. But I don't have the sails any more. Ah, what a great ship it was, only it didn't include an anchor or steering wheel for some reason.

A small update: I have the pictures for the next 2 chapters done, now I need to edit them, so expect some new chapters soon.

Until next time. ;)

Oh no a double post! :D

Chapters 20, and 21 are up and running!

The story page.



Yay!

Please tell me what you think of them. ;)

Right now, I have only had time to read up through chapter eighteen, and I might have more time later. I think I'm finding that I like book one better than book two... I also particularly dislike swearing. I noticed that two of the characters swore in chapter eighteen... Some of the backgrounds looked a little choppy, or rushed, I'm not exactly sure, but I like the effects you used for fireballs. As for the story, there were several places where you misspelled words, or put comas in the wrong places, or didn't put them there at all. I think I would like it a lot better if you proofread the chapters before publishing, or do you already?

Well Nick, you defintley topped Mr.Delish in terms of criticism. ;)
I don't think you know him so I'll stop there.

I am a bit disapointed with Geocities. It doesn't have a spell check, but I suppose I could have used a dictionary, which I did a few times. I would use microsoft word and send the text to my webpage, but Geocities doesn't allow that, so I'm pretty much free handing the text. Which I see you disaprove. Also I have always been a bad speller, which I see you also noticed. I apoligize, I didn't know you took my story so seriously. I enjoy making stories, with effects and what not, however, book 2 had many more imported backgrounds than book 1. After doing all that computer generation I often got a bit lazy. I was still pleased with the results, but there were several pictures I'd like to burn.

I'm sorry about the swearing, I didn't think there was that many. I don't use the really bad ones ever though, but Shadow would tell me, all swears are really bad. ;)

Nick wrote:

I suppose you wrote that to make me feel better?

Choppy is a nice way of putting it. Chapter 16 was probally the worst. Yellow skies. :angry: I should redo that chapter.

I see.

I apoligize again Nick, seeing how disgusted you are. Don't know what I should do other than fix my many stupid mistakes. Or is the damage beyond repair.

Well I'm off, thanks for the criticism, I see I deserved this. It was long over due.

I really have no idea how you can dislike swearing in a story... Maybe you shouldn´t use curses when you speak normally (though I have a reputation of being quite foulmouthed :P) but in a story you can´t pick on them. They are there because the characters use them. What´s the big deal? If the characters shouldn´t be allowed to swear they shouldn´t kill or what not either, should they?

Can´t you copy it from word?

Hey hey, cool down. He didn´t pointlessly flame your story, even if it was a bit harsh it was still constructive criticism, you shouldn´t feel bad.

Deserve? Deserve???

Calm down, Graynar. Your story is far from bad. You may not write like Tolkien or do photoediting like Fry_Slayer but it´s still good. There is no damage beyond repair or stupid mistakes. Don´t get carried away like that.

Phew, now I have appeased my sense of justice and conscience (yes, I have a conscience ;)) now I´m off to read the new chapters. Comments will come soon.

The mighty words of wisdom of Maedhros never cease to amaze me. ;)

Maedhros wrote:

Believe me wise one, I have tried. I will look into some more. ;)

See you all soon.

Sweetness. Those two chapters were really cool.

I think they are among my favourites so far, seeing Graynar die was really good. Well, it looks like he´s going to be fine but it still added a lot of suspense and drama to the battle. (I would have let him die though but that´s a different matter ;))

I also think your writing has improved overall, this was a pleasure to read :)

Keep up the good work!

Ack! A spoiler by Maedhros! No mind... I know Graynar cannot truly die... ;)

With CW filled with Red X's, I haven't had the chance to do much of anything but fiddle around with photoshop and the admin panel here, but I was very happy to see more work coming out from Sikaron - it is truly a joy for me to read...I hope to cover them in the next few days.

Other than that, nothing to add to Maedhros's wise words - other than a reminder to everyone about the CW Creed.

Oops....sorry :huh:

I won´t do it again :rolleyes:

heh heh heh... no no - it's no major problem - actually, it's made me more curious to see what Graynar has written in his latest chapters... sounds like things are going from bad to worse for the heros. ;)

Hey, how do you know for sure Graynar doesn't die still? ;)

Hehe, just wait until book 3. What am saying! I haven't even written the whole thing yet.

Should I give a spolier? ;)

YES! :horn:

As with Shadow... I won't complain B)

That would be the ultimate evil... to make it seem as if he should make it and then kill him :D :D :D

But I have a feeling he will survive as Graynar is your username just about everywhere ;)

Hehe, we'll see. ;)

Here's a small chunk of a new scene, this may not be the final version but it ought to be intresting:


"Ray Willzar, Azaron Protogar, you have been released from the Zone of Cronosar, as delcared by lord Fargo." said the man, and he disappered as quickly as he had appeared.
"Released!" said Azaron smiling without control.
"We are to live again!"
"Impossible!" said Ray Willzar, "How can we be free? Why?"

"Who cares! We're free!" shouted Azaron as the two men were lacked into a glowing portal.

"Why did you free them Fargo?" said Delvano.
"You will see. The pawns are moving into their positions. Soon my plan will unfold, and Sikaron will be mine!"



Enjoy!

Neat.... do we see the ultimate evil schemer there per chance? ;)

Oh yes, muhawhawhawhaw! Oop sorry about that, practising my evil laugh. ;)

LOL... that is funny. Looks good man - surely if you were to give a teaser, that is a very good one - I thought Azaron was a dead man! ;) I must confess, you have me curious... first about how he came back, and second on who is the new evil plotter...

Good stuff!

EDIT>> I just finished your latest chapters... it's good stuff - I especially enjoy the fact that it's all at sea - I think your story is the first castle story to have so much "naval action" in the medieval setting - very cool.

The photo editing is good - I can tell you are becoming more and more familiar with GIMP. The following pics were especially cool to see:



I'm a bit confused about the part referring to his son and the gift of the shield to become the king of Sikaron... although that might be because there was a big gap between when I read the beginning chapters and these. What exactly is going on there?

I finished reading the new chapters.

The effects were especially neat, the best of them being the picks underwater. Also, I believe I know of a way to fix your somewhat choppy backgrounds. I don't know exactly how you edit them, but if you use some sort of clone brush, you could try lowering the hardness, if that is an option. I have GIMP on my computer, but I never use it, so I don't know much about it.

As for the spelling, I found few words that were misspelled. Most of the gramatical errors were forgetting to put comas where they should be, which isn't too bad.

If I may say so, you seem to be going through bad guys awful fast... are you sure you have enough left? ;)

Some parts seemed a bit rushed, such as when Graynar, well... erm... "died." I do not believe you would let him really die, since he is the hero of Sikaron. Still, it wouldn't be the end of the world if he did.

I find is amazingly surprising that you can't copy text from MS word and past it in Yahoo! Sitebuilder. I have expiremented with sitbuilder in the past, and have never tried doing that, but I'm sure you can.

As for the swearing, I do not believe any of it is right, even if that is what the character might say in reality.

I can still not understand this.... What could possibly be wrong with swearing characters? I think most of the characters in Graynar´s story have done much worse things than swearing (killing, crippling, causing general mayhem etc)...

But I think we should stop this argument here, we clearly have different views so let´s not get unfreindly :)

PS I´m afraid I have to warn you for my story when it comes out, not that I use unnecesarry swearing but it´s probably worse than Sikaron ;)

Ah you guys caught me in peak updating time.

About the swearing, I never though it took away that much from the site. Forgive, I will no longer use it. I see where Maedhros is going-what is worse-swearing of violence?

Nick wrote:

bout the choppyness, go back to book 1 and you'll see way less computer generated backgrounds. GIMP doesn't help much when it comes to removing backgrounds cleanly, so I use MS paint to white out the backgrounds. I paste the opaque picture on my water background of fill the white area in with color. Then I copy the edited picture, and paste it in GIMP, and add the final touches like clouds and what not. I don't know if you edit pictures with MS paint, but try removing a background-cutting around the figures and buildings and tell me its easy. It takes me a long time, and mistakes are often made, If I had photoshop like Maedhros(who did a wicked job on a pic some time ago) I'd be happy.

QM wrote:

Basically, after Sikaron lost both kings it had no leadership because the kings had no children. Hurokol and company were going to Vazanay to give the gift(the magical shield) to the king of Vazanay(king Vander) as a gift for his son to beocome Sikaron's new king. Almost like a trade. Probally not realistic, but the story is fantasy.

Does that clear that up for you Qull Master? Hurokol went to Howler's Gulag to retrieve the gift.

PHEW!

Nick wrote:

There will always be bad guys in this stroy. Plus one of the old villians from book 1 will be returning so you can look forward to that. Don't worry-I have plenty more villians to pull out of my LEGO bin. ;)

Nick wrote:

If you ever find out, please inform me. I can paste it into a header topic, but the text appears way at the top of the page and can not be moved. Also it doesn't appear on the page when I'm editing it. <_<

QW wrote:

I though Hordesman had some naval stuff in his comic. :unsure:



Well now I'm tired of typing, back to finish that update I was working on.
Sorry about the spelling errors above I'm too tired to fix them right now.

EDIT: Finished my update: The new characters of book 2 are in the character archives.

http://www.geocities.com/dead2eat/characters.html?200530

You don't have to tell me what you think of thier descriptions, though I must admit, some of them surprized me too. :D

There is actually nothing bad with swearing. People express themselves as they should do in real life. Take Arden, for example; he overuses the word "bloody" because of two reasons;

-Its a medieval swearing
-It is not the worst word, else I guess brickshelf's moderators wouldnt let it through.

Of course, its also for some comical relief (Bloody Clone-brick)

I dont personally swear much, just when Im pissed off. Of course, we swedes does not take english swearings seriously, the english release of the movie "Kopps" did not include a scene in which a kid and a policeman duel in the coolest sentence to use the F-word... (atleast so the rumor says)

To some extent, I dont care if people dont like my story, my story is made out from my mind and I would never let people take too much control over it.
Blood & gore is much worse than any swearing I think, not to get political or anything, but I do think the idea of "swearings are worse than a room covered in brain" is a sort of all-time american moral panic.

Oh, I wouldnt call the viking scene a naval battle, actually, I think Sikaron is first with that. :)

The Hordesman wrote:

Hehe, actually I just read bits of that scene. Too bad all those things the Vikings said were in Swedish. ;)

Just another small update. I'm thinking of renaming book 2. Oringinaly it was going to be as long as it is now. But if I want all the books to be the same length I'm going to have to change the name of book 2. Because Conner isn't that important enough to have him named after book 2, if I'm adding new chapters with differen't things in it.

I'm going to be spending more time on the upcoming books, for one thing-school, and the second, I want to try taking better pictures with my camera. So I probably won't be updating in this thread for a while, and I bet you guys were getting a tired from posting in here. ;)

Well, I'm off. I look forward to seeing some more chapters from you guys. ;)

Oh... I don´t know if you should be happy or not to not understand it :P

And you will see some stuff from me pretty soon (er...a month-something).... at least I´m getting close... :D just need to get some money....

I looked at the characters page... actually pretty good. I did noticed this:

I think we all know who that is.

By the way, speaking of sea battles, I was planning one in my story... before I read yours, Graynar. Mine will involve larger ships, and in many ways will be different from yours.

Hey Nick,

I know that you were disapointed with book 2, so I'm going to try to improve the next new chapters. That means I may not be updating as fast, and I have to say, I have fixed the choppy photo editing in these three new chapters(not yet posted). I do hope I can at least make you smile this time. ;)

And my intro cartoon is online. You can view that on my main page. :)

Nick wrote:

Hehe, just wait and see.

Yes, a horrible double post.

A tiny update; Book 3 is nearly finished, and should be online soon. Here are the chapters. Be warned these names may change, but you get the idea. ;)

Book 3, Vazanay in danger

Chapter 22: Fargo and Delvano...
Chapter 23: Vazanay in danger...
Chapter 24: Revival amongst war...
Chapter 25: The siege of Hartayon...
Chapter 26: The battle of Hartayon fields...
Chapter 27: King no more...
Chapter 28: Father verse Son...
Chapter 29: Hurokol's Sacrifice

Please tell me what you think. ;)

Cool! I can't wait to see them! Keep us informed!

I have read the latest chapters of your story and I must say that they are wonderful ecpecially with Graynar "dieing".

Hey thanks for the comments.

BJ wrote:

I suppose that was wonderfull. ;)

My my... A lot has happened while I've been gone.

In my opinion, book two was a bit short, wouldn't you say? I mean short as in not very long compared to book one. As for the chapter names of book three, they look especially interesting. Here's a little tip: Don't try to have more than three action sequences in a story, unless it's very, very long. I find that having one near the beggining, at the middle, and at the end is a good way to do it. (Not to mention that almost every action movie you can watch is like this) There is one thing I am wondering: How do you add backgrounds in paint? I have never tried, and never need to, but I am still curious as to how you do it.

EDIT

What exactly do you mean by this? I went to the main page, but didn't see anything like that...

Nick wrote:

Oh sorry, the animated movies were on the mainpage, before I moved them to my creations page on Maedhros advice. ;)

Get your photo of your LEGO. Erase the areas you wish to replace with a background, so now your picture has the LEGO objects cut out sort of speak, or on a blue screen movie makers use. Copy the pic of the LEGO and go to the image tool browser on ms paint. Click it and select Draw Opaque. This will remove the white area around the LEGO pic you selected. Now move that picture and place it on top of the background you have chosen. Then select the LEGO picture and the background all at once. Copy that pic and put it in GIMP and save. Don't save it as JPG image on ms paint because it ruins the picture's quality.

Hope that sums it up. ;)

I do say. But I don't think it matters too much.

That is difficult to do when writing an action packed chapter. suppose you are excluding minor fights and skirmishes? Just the major conflicts and climax battles right?

Well I hope this doesn't ruin the book for you.