theme: otaku senshi
ah, a useful splash page, kudos. I like the AOL warning. This splash actually looks really nice to, good effort! Colour co-ordnation, yay! So far so good. Checking out the frames side, it takes way too long to load. The updates page does not load inside the frame, which defeats the purpose of having a frames page! fix that, eh?
So I'm off to the nonframes. It actually looks better over here, and the organization is very good. You might as well just stick to this kind of layout. The introduction confused me. It took a moment to realize this is a character speaking, and Meghan is the author. Clarify! The character list is way too long, organize them further, like a page for villians and a page for senshi, linked under the 'characters' heading. Why are there three dots after sign? that looks silly. make it the same as view. your disclaimer is funny. you really don't have to say 'this is the navigation' when it's pretty farkin' obvious. Everything opening in a new window is a pain in the ass.
Updates-who the heck reads a news archieve? keep that stuff all on one page, you're getting excessive. do you have an obsession with BRAR or something?
Shinzui-ack! the hair..add some shading to her collar, it looks like her body IS the hair, not the hair is behind her head. I love the circles! *cough* anyway. Profiles don't tell me dick about a person. You could read my profile and it wouldn't allow you to get to know me.
Kasai-her eyes are too far apart, she looks like a creepy munchkin. Again, love the fuku colours. The character is obviously underdeveloped. it looks like you said 'hey, i want a char. with a pet wolf!' and that's about it. pathetic. and I hate it when people spell stuff in stupid ways, like 'skie'.
Info-Karen means cute in jp? I rreeeaalllyy doubt that one. This page is crap. It doesn't tell me anything about the series, who these people are, it should be called 'little bits of junk about people who mean nothing to the reader'. You have a ton pages which could be condensed into FIVE pages. Plot, Character, Fanfiction, Fanart, Media. If you really want to tell me the one liners listed on this page, include it in the fanfiction and that's it. sheesh.
Animus Saga-this looked like two seperate links, which is why putting links inside a restricted table can suck sometimes. You can either change the layout to accostom the links, or just call the link 'saga'.
yes, the logo is indeed great. I don't like how this is organized. so it like this:
Text
Episode One
Episode Two
Comic
Ep. 1, Page 1 2 3
Doesn't that look so much better? Put the episode title at the top of the page linked, and that's it. The comic looks really good, but will take FOREVER to put in the whole fic. I guess you could highlight the most important parts of the fic with a comic. A suggestion, the bubble for 'i'm going where?' should be at the top, next to 'what?' cause I didnt read it until I scrolled down. So that messed up the dialogue a bit. ANYWAY!
Mini->.< If there is nothing to put here, don't link the text!! ARG!
Requested-Sailor Smurf? hahahah! This page is done really really well. Doesn't have anything to do with your characters, so you should make a seperate website for this kinda thing. Perfect organization, thumbs, etc.
My Art-This is a bit confusing because the layout is exactly the same as request. change that. Since not all of these pictures are of people involved in your story, it needs major changes. on this page, include only images of people in your saga. the others should be on a seperate site dedicated to your art. (i love the mom one, HA!)
Tutorials-Get off yer arse and finish the rest of these tutorials.
For Me-hey, you've got fanart of fan characters! that's pretty cool. YAY! the alt tags make this page look a lot neater.
mp3-your eps have music? well, these REALLY should be linked near the stories, so people can listen to them while reading. like,
Episode One
(listen to theme)
Winamp Oasis-what the hell is this? this page looks like crap and has nothing to do with anything. get rid of it!
Dress contest-most people would skip the big list, so put the final word and entries above the big list. you've got quite a lot of good entries, which surprises me. I hope you have a consolation prize for these people!
Name Game-despite it's simplicity, this is confising. Just state the purpose of the contest and then put up a form.
MB-make the rules thing shorter, it's so long I skipped reading it.
ML-bravenet has an ML service? neat.
CW-since creative writing is a seperate site, put it under the links section.
Reviews-*shrugs* yeah, pissing off a reviewer is never a good thing. I hate it when people say a reviewer is unprofessional. If you want me to be professional you have to PAY me. You really shouldn't look at a reviewer's style to determine whether you'll change something. Sure, it's nicer to hear "this layout needs work" vs. "this layout is crap" but they both mean you have to change your layout, so what's the difference?
Favs-I didnt notice this was under a links heading, so it confused me. Just make one big links page.
Link me-who the heck is going to use those huge banners?
About Me-put some spaced in between lines.
Overall...I've said everything I can in my review, so I won't repeat myself. I really hope you take my suggestions seriously.
Hmmmm... an otaku senshi site. There aren't as many of these babies as there used to be. I remember that these kind of sites are usually pagebuilder sites. Let's see if you know some HTML, shall we?
First off, I would like to suggest that you make a move to get hosted or find a new place to house your site. The angelfire popup ads crashed my computer a total of: :drum rolls: four times. That's right, four. Angelfire is the worst server I've ever seen. They throw in between three to ten popups per page.
The splash page is for the most part useful. I like how you actually consider the poor people out there whose browser can't support frames and make a tables version. :hands you some catnip: Here ya go!
Here are a few tips though: tables can be seen on all browsers, so putting that in the requirements isn't necessary. Second, I am on AOL right now doing my first run through on your site and I can see your frames perfectly. How do you know that it just isn't your version of AOL (if you have it) screwing up? How many people have actually e-mailed you whining about it not being viewable? That's what I thought, not very many... I suggest that you take that comment down unless it's competely true.
Truthfully, the layout was pretty bad. You could've done this without using frames and just sticking with the tables version alone. I found it to be way too plain and needs some improvement, something more to the eye. But hey, you do what you can do, right? Maybe this is all you know how to do, or all you have time to do. Moving along...
After going through your site from top to bottom, I would like to say one thing. :pulls out megaphone: DON'T PUT A LINK UP ON YOUR SITE IF THERE IS NOTHING THERE!!!! There were only two out of twelve profiles up. There is no reason to have so many empty pages. It was pretty annoying to keep clicking on all those links only to find out that the page was "Not open to the public yet". The stories weren't open to the public yet either, nor was the art page. If there is nothing there, don't put a link up. It's that simple.
In the frames version, some wierd thing kept happening. Whatever link I clicked on, it would go to the requests page. Then when I went back again on IE, it just stayed on the page that I was looking at instead of going on. Wierd. That has never happened to me before. I don't know if my connection was messed up or what...
All in all, your site was a great dissapointment. You make it look like you have a ton of content where you really don't at all. Most of your pages are not open to the public yet. I suggest that you either go on hiatus and put up all your content or take down the links that aren't up yet. It's not that hard to do, and if you don't have the time to do it, then maybe you shouldnt be running a site. Plain and simple.
Notes: I like donuts. I need a donut. I have nothing to put for my notes. How could you tell? Have a donut for me?
Crash Count: 0
Let's spare the inevitable rant, and get right to business!
- 1. A purposeful splash page. This is a good sign. I choose Frames. (Being a bit overbearing on the AOL thing, dearie?)
- 2. The layout is classy, I'll admit. Honestly, the double-colons tend to irritate me, but that's a personal rant. Since I've vowed not to give opinions on subjective works (Fanart, stories, et cetera), this is likely going to be a very short review.
- 3.....damn! I'm doing it again!
- News is self-explanitory.
- Characters: Let me rant to you for a moment about the wonderful little thing called Stats. Stats are bad. Stats are very bad. Stats are incredibly, hideously, horribly bad. I know next to nothing about your characters, except maybe their favorite food and hair color.
There are also some errors, like "Least Favorite Food" on the second profile hasn't been bolded to match the rest.
Only two profiles work. You can tell from some of the names (Iruka, Hebi, Yami), the basic idea, but meh. I can't review what I can't read.
- Stories. A summary would be a good idea. I'm not big on using HTML format for stories, as it's not only tedious, but causes formatting and compatibility problems. TXT is better, because anyone on any computer can read it. And it's much easier than having to use P and BR tags, not to mention the fact that you can indent.
- (To use TXT format, type the story up in Wordpad or Word, using Courier font. Set the wrap to six inches. Then, once you're finished, go through and hit RETURN at the end of every like that wraps. Save as a .TXT file, and then upload. It's a plain format, but everyone can see it and it's less tiresome than HTML, once you get used to it. It's also a standard for fanfiction sites, if I'm not mistaken)
Now, as far as style goes, you've got a lot of it. I really do like how this is written, save from the occasional lack of a comma. Granted, you do leap into emotions for the characters a bit too soon. I don't think Shinzui had seen enough of Tyvek to know if he was obnoxious, myself. Sure, a bit annoying at that point, but I'm not so sure about the obnoxious.
But, you've done a great job of trimming things down. A lot of fanfic authors make the mistake of cramming superfluous things into stories, which you've managed to avoid very nicely. Not to mention very narrowly avoiding the common self-insert traps that come with the fansenshi genre.
*phew* - Art is a bit slow-loading, even on my connection. The thumbnails are very well made, however, and I think it just might be better not to put them all on the same page.
- Soundtrack:....aaah! You pick image songs too! ^^'' Such a fun, fun habit, ne?
Creative writing is a different site, but I'll check it out once I finish this review.
Reviews....damn, I feel watched!
Links are nice, it all works. - Overall? The idea of fansenshi is a pretty token one, but you're getting very creative with it, and I like it. On matters of style, you're doing very nicely, even if you tend to skip commas. Commas are friendly.
Design ©
GAD
