exiern

The financial situation of Exiern (Part 2)

A lot can happen between scheduling a post and the following day (hence how there's going to be not one but two posts related to Neese in the minutes following this one) and hence at least part of the post I scheduled yesterday is going to be out of date given news I learned this morning.

Anyway, moving on and trying to keep things as concise as possible (two things I fail at on a regular basis):

For many months (and probably well over a year now), Exiern has cost around $1400 US/...

The financial situation of Exiern (Part 1)

So this is the last of this run of posts that will be going up before we take a break.

The TL;DR version is that Exiern costs more to make than it earns and that's what Scott had to give it over to me. If it broke even or more, chances are he'd have been much more likely to keep it and we wouldn't be having this conversation. Well not exactly anyway.

So that's what we're going to talk about today.

Exiern has for a long time now mostly oscillated between $350 and $400 US for ...

Re-examining our Patreon tiers (Part 2)

We're definitely going to be doing more posts on upgrading the Patreon tiers in future after collating as much data as we can and it will be an ongoing work in progress.

But for now, we can at least start a discussion about the Patreon going ahead with a few ideas and observations to begin with. 

We'll be wrapping up this run of posts on the behind the scenes of Exiern tomorrow with a post about the overall financial situation of Exiern and where we could from there before ta...

Re-examining our Patreon tiers (Part 1)

Lots of people including many webcomics creators are currently trying to help us. This is leading to us discussing the income and expenditures of Exiern.

But first we're going to cover the Patreon content specifically today - its present state (Part 1) and tomorrow - where to go with it (Part 2). 

Finally we'll be covering the overall financial situation on the 31st of March 2021 before wrapping up this phase of the behind the scenes posts.

Jaycee Knight of 2021-03-29 04:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post

The Oncoming Train

Advance preview of this coming Monday's page for patrons on Patreon!

Story by Scott T. Hicken

Art by Studio Katsumi

Dark Reflections: Chaos Page 75 - Special Guest Startle

This is the page that was first published on TG Comics on the 25th of March 2021 when they published the month's pages on their site:

(Please note, the site is NSFW due to some of the content there.)

https://tgcomics.com/tgc/comics/dark-reflections-chaos/

The other pages were already up from earlier in the month when published weekly every Wednesday this March. 2021-03-28 04:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post

Broadsword 5

Hot off the press after adding text from Scott in the US!

Art by Studio Katsumi

Second update this month!

No more waiting almost five years (by us) for a new page of Exiern's retelling of how it all began!

Turns out that Annual Membership wasn't such a good idea. Here's why but never mind, here's my much better idea!

As I've mentioned, I'm still learning the ropes about Patreon and in this case, I really should have clicked the button for enabling annual membership first before writing that post because it would have both given me information about it as well as not initiating it without an "are you sure?" before committing.

So I've actually found why I shouldn't do it:

https://support.patreon.com/hc/en...

Annual subscriptions and writing to every patron on Patreon.

Patreon has this option I haven't switched on here yet but you might have seen offered elsewhere where a patron can pay for a year upfront and there's a discount offered. 

Now I'm not really actively seeking out such a thing from any patrons as Exiern runs at quite a loss and has done for a while now. I make up the difference each month (yes, there'll be a post about income, expenditures and the deficit soon - fun!).

So, actually it works out better for me with the payments b...

Loading times of Exiern pages on the website.

OK, the plan is that I'm going to try and cover as many important maintenance related posts between now and the end of the month (but probably around 48 hours between each post).

Definitely want to try as much feedback as we can so we can try and fix as much of it as possible as quickly as possible.

So it has come to our attention from many different sources that the load times for the main Exiern website leaves a lot to be desired.

So, first question, what are people's expe...

A Brief History of Exiern:Dark Reflections Part 2

So where were we? Right, got it. Drowemos had a particular idea originally about Dark Reflections but it did end up drifting just a bit due to the artistic interpretation of the characters and the environs leading to things looked just a bit more modern. 

Not originally intended but Drowemos rolled with it (I have to admit, I actually liked the artistic deviations from the original version of Exiern). So what we ended up with was more parallel tracking (or even quantum entanglement...

A Brief History of Exiern:Dark Reflections Part 1

Well, it's going to be brief by necessity because I don't know all that much to be honest but I'll do my best.

Quick public service announcement before I start, more announcements about the future coming up over the next week.

If anyone's planning to downsize their Patreon pledge or even cancel it before the end of the month, I'm hoping you'll be able to hold off until those announcements at the very least. If you could drop me a line first before committing to going ahead, even b...

Exiern archives should now be fully updated.

Remembered we hadn't quite finished the job a few months ago but it should be done now (just spent the last few hours uploading the remaining Filler Pages and Chapter 29). Please let us know if you spot anything we've missed.

Since the transfer to archive.exiern.com and then to the present location Exiern is stored, all up I've probably spent several days all up with Scott having to reupload the images, this is about the third time we've done this now.

Not looking forward to the n...

The Battle (Uncensored)

Art by Studio Katsumi

Interpreted from the written directions of Scott T. Hicken.

Needless to say, the version of this image going up on Monday won't be quite the same as this - namely Panel Four.

Anyone else wonder what the T stands for? I might have been told? (Can't remember.) 

I did go with Tiberius at least once. Guesses in the comments below, I guess it'll keep us occupied until next week!

The Dark Web - So what does everyone think of Dark Reflections (both of them!) ... ?

So as everyone may be aware, we have not one but two Dark Reflections stories at:

http://zen.darkreflections.live/

and

http://chaos.darkreflections.live/

There's also loads of concept art and future things on the horizon under the Gallery section of the archive here.

2021-03-16 05:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post

About NSFW material and Patreon feeds

So, following on from the previous post, I know that sometimes in the past an image was attached to a post as a file instead of displayed in the post if there was possible NSFW content.

However, reviewing the feed lately, it looks like it's always been a bit hit and miss. Even if it wasn't, what we might think is NSFW and what the workplace thinks is NSFW can be two not entirely congruent things even when we err on the side of caution.

Trust me, I entirely sympathise given my desk...

On NSFW posts and public service announcements in general ...

OK, so a heads up that there's going to be a number of text updates about what's going on with the logistics sides of things with the production of Exiern including overhauling as much as possible as well as the realities of the funding sides of things but before we launch into all of that (it'll be over subsequent future updates in the days ahead), just a head's up about the nature of the content.

I went to set up the latest Exiern page (Last Request) in its public version form to rele...

Exiern Victoria's Secret Edition (Uncensored Version)

Well, as you can see, the speech balloons here are much more relaxed than the public version. That is what you're concentrating on, right?

Anyway, this was another page I found in storage which had a couple of versions and we're finally getting to share with you now. We hope you enjoy this blast from the past!

As stated on the previous post of the public version of this image, it's highly likely that Shipeng Lee illustrated this one and that Drowemos wrote it.

Or Chemiclord....

Exiern Victoria's Secret Edition (Public Version)

As previously, I've been finding all sorts of things in the files I was given access to prior to being handed the whole of Exiern (in theory). Up to now, I've been trying (and failing) to work out where exactly this was supposed to fit into the scheme of things.

The files were named by the date of production (as opposed to actual publication) and from what I have found by searching through them (it's not just one cloud storage site I had to examine), is that this page was labelled the 2...

Neese 46

Artwork by Luis XIII (formerly Antipus)

Story and lettering by Scott T. Hicken

Earlier pages are on the previous Patreon posts and were orginally posted between December 1st 2014 and November 30th 2018.

We strongly recommend using the reposting of the original pages that we've just done over the original postings of Pages 1-41 as they're both all in focus and now all in the correct order (which is always helpful for best following the story so far!).

We apologise for b...

Last Request (Uncensored Version)

Monday's page early and uncut for Patrons!

Art by Studio Katsumi

Script and lettering by Scott T. Hicken

Neese 45

Artwork by Luis XIII (formerly Antipus)

Story and lettering by Scott T. Hicken

Earlier pages are on the previous Patreon posts and were originally posted between December 1st 2014 and November 30th 2018.

We strongly recommend using the reposting of the original pages that we've just done over the original postings of Pages 1-41 as they're both all in focus and now all in the correct order (which is always helpful for best following the story so far!).

We apologise for ...

Neese 44

Artwork by Luis XIII (formerly Antipus)

Story and lettering by Scott T. Hicken

Earlier pages are on the previous Patreon posts and were originally posted between December 1st 2014 and November 30th 2018.

We strongly recommend using the reposting of the original pages that we've just done over the original postings of Pages 1-41 as they're both all in focus and now all in the correct order (which is always helpful for best following the story so far!).

We apologise for ...

Neese 43

Artwork by Luis XIII (formerly Antipus)

Story and lettering by Scott T. Hicken

Earlier pages are on the previous Patreon posts and were originally posted between December 1st 2014 and November 30th 2018.

We strongly recommend using the reposting of the original pages that we've just done over the original postings of Pages 1-41 as they're both all in focus and now all in the correct order (which is always helpful for best following the story so far!).

I think I worked ...

Neese 42

Who forgot Neese was a thing?

I helped Scott find a replacement artist for Shipeng Lee when he left being Exiern's main artist and when that fell through, I managed to get Marshall Reeves to take over long-term. Before that, since I'd first made contact with Sean Harrington, he was able to help out with bridging the pages between the two long-term artists.

However, because the initial replacement ultimately couldn't complete those pages at all, that led to Marshall skipping beyond...

Neese 22-41 (Art by Marshall Reeves)

So, once upon a time back in December of 2014 (yes, it's been a while!), a story started set in Neese (called Neese as it happens) on the $5 Patreon tier featuring characters that first appeared here:

http://exiern.com/comic/a-tough-market/

Pages 1-6 are available in the earlier Patreon post that went up less than 5 minutes ago.

Pages 7-16 are available now at the $1 tier in the post pre...

Neese 17-21 (Art by Sean Harrington)

So, once upon a time back in December of 2014 (yes, it's been a while!), a story started set in Neese (called Neese as it happens) on the $5 Patreon tier featuring characters that first appeared here:

http://exiern.com/comic/a-tough-market/

Pages 1-6 are available in the earlier Patreon post that went up less than 5 minutes ago.

Pages 7-16 are available now at the $1 tier in the post pre...

Neese 7-16 (Art by Shipeng Lee)

So, once upon a time back in December of 2014 (yes, it's been a while!), a story started set in Neese (called Neese as it happens) on the $5 Patreon tier featuring characters that first appeared here:

http://exiern.com/comic/a-tough-market/

Pages 1-6 are available in the earlier Patreon post that went up just before this one.

For anyone wanting to read all the existing pages (41 and coun...

Neese 1-6 (Art by Shipeng Lee)

So, once upon a time back in December of 2014 (yes, it's been a while!), a story started set in Neese (called Neese as it happens) on the $5 Patreon tier featuring characters that first appeared here:

http://exiern.com/comic/a-tough-market/

Anyway, both for those who haven't read it yet as well as our hope to get more to read it, we're releasing the opening scene as a teaser free for everyone ...

If at first you don't succeed ...

Just for anyone who's interested, it's not like we didn't try to get Broadsword up and running past Page 3 in the past almost five years. Here's the sum total of all the previous attempts (and how far they got) to either a) continue past Page 3 or b) start again from scratch.

We don't know how fast we're going to update Broadsword going ahead (our artists have a lot of different Exiern projects ongoing at any given time), suffice to say it will be faster than one new p...