Introduction

I hope you guys are doing well on this spectacular Christmas eve. I’ll get right down to the report, though, since I have eating and socializing to do :P

Welcome to the second Herald’s Holiday Special! Today we release some cool new items for you guys to enjoy, including some Rogue One, The Force Awakens, and Battlefront 3 items.

Check it out below and enjoy your Holiday cheer :D

Table of Contents

• Fiction Update
• Herald’s Holiday Special releases
• Magistrate position open
• Policy changes
• Important Links
• Ask the Herald

Fiction update

This time around I decided to feature Team Token Real Girl (G.I.R.L.s unite!), of which I am a part, and our efforts in the current Celebration RO event. Enjoy the read and further updates.

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Godless Matron Deck 17, The Gauntlet Twelve hours ago

The turbolift door opened up, bringing much-needed light into the dark, damp, and dusty durasteel corridors. A hooded figure stepped out and scurried as fast as he could through the debris-filled interior of the massive ship, towards his destination. Keelan Vars, the Matron’s security chief and wayward Sentinel spy, made sure he wasn’t followed, and yet he searched his surroundings like a paranoid Hutt. This part of the Gauntlet — what the crew called the most dangerous of all areas on the Matron — looked even older and more deteriorated than the rest, and it was dusty enough that he had to wear a breath mask to breathe normally.

Swiftly, but silently he prowled; made a right, a left, and repeated the pattern several times until he finally found the door he was looking for. Hidden in the deepest part of the most dangerous area of the ship, it would have been chance alone if any interlopers had happened upon it. The door displayed no markings and seemed to be barred with several old droids and other unremarkable debris. A leather boot hastily pushed all that aside as two strong hands forced the door open. Walking into the small room, he saw that the consoles were still covered with dust-ridden plastic coverings. The miniature holoprojector sitting on the main console seemed no worse for wear either. All of his equipment was waiting just as he had left it.

Read more…

Herald’s Holiday Special releases

This time of year we give you guys some extra items to play with. Here tehy are. The Herald staff hopes you enjoy.

Weapons:

Item 1: Power hammer - Available for JM4+

Made by: Arcia Cortel

Item 2: Tian Di lightsaber - Available for EQ2+

Made by: Solas Night-Thorn

Item 3: LPA NN-14 Blaster Pistol - Available for JM4+

Made by: Rian Taldrya

Item 4: K-16 Bryar Pistol - Available for JM4+

Made by: Rian Taldrya

Robes

Item 5: Guardian robes - Available to all JM4+

Made by: Zehsaa Hysh

Item 6: Shoretrooper armor - Available to all EQ1+

The Herald's staff hopes you enjoy the new goodies :D

Magistrate position open

Solas Night-Thorn has done a great job in the last year that he was Magistrate. I would like to thank him for his contributions and his dedication.

That said, we are now looking for a new magistrate so officially...

Magistrate to the Herald applications are open

This time around we’re focusing less on your abilities as an artist — though they are most certainly welcome — and more on your administrative skills and your ideas. Read below.

Applicants should be able to carry out the following:

• Must be willing to run and grade several graphics competitions per month
• Must be knowledgeable about the policies on Clusters of Graphite
• Must know the Herald Competition Approval Guidelines
• Should be willing and able to give ideas for comps and run them independently
• Active presence in the Art channel is a bonus
• Some knowledge of graphics is required

Applications are open until January 31st 2017

Policy changes

New custom request forms

Esca has touched up on this in his earlier Preator post.

To recap:

We have changed the way you guys requisition custom graphics. The process is fairly simple and intuitive. You’ll find the forms on your admin panel, in the same place you found the old ones. You can request any of the available graphics.

Once you send up a request, it will show up in our system (and on Telegram as well) but it will also remain on your request page. You will see your full request, including who among us is working on it and when it is due.

I’d like to thank James Entar for his epic work on these request forms. They make our lives easier. :)

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Unit and leader graphics requests changes

Main wiki article

From now on this policy has a wiki page listing all the rights and restrictions. The changes implemented are as follows:

Rights of the leaders

Leaders who may request unit and leader graphics requests:

• Any leader holding a position of Aedile and above in Clan or House units may request report graphics or logos for their units

• Any Dark Councillors may request report graphics, logos, and rolling banners

• Any Tribunes may request report graphics, logos, and rolling banners (only for special events)

• Any Society Leaders may request report graphics, logos, and rolling banners (only for special events)

Limits

• Any one leader may request only one set of graphics once in their term

• Any one position may request on one set of graphics every 6 months

• Logos for Houses may be changed only with permission from the Consul

• Logos for Clans may only be changed by the Consul with permission from the Grand Master and Herald

Herald survey - reminder!

Everyone loves surveys! Not really, but this one is necessary.

We've created a survey that you can fill in and, hopefully, influence what way future graphics in the Club move forward. We're looking for honest opinions, so type in anything you can think of that you consider important.

• Click here for the survey

Warbanners, Custom Robes, Custom Weapons and Requests

Let’s start with:

Custom Weapons

By Zehsaa:

• Shadow Nighthunter’s dual hilts
• Jorm’s lightsaber
• Junazee’s lightsaber

By Rian:

• Tasha’s hilt
• Korroth’s lightsaber
• Skar’s lightsaber

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Custom Robes

By Zehsaa:

• Marick’s robes

By Vyr:

• Atra’s robes

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Warbanners

by Rian:

• Xolarin
• Dek Ironius II
• Tebbo Jensen
• Lexiconus Qor
• Kadrol Hauen
• Justinios Drake
• Ranarr Kul
• Dreith Droheden
• Nariah
• DarkHawk
• Uji Tameike
• Revak Kur
• Chris Winchester

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Graphics Requests

By Rian:

• Raiju Kang

Ask the Herald

Featured Question

Atty asked: #AskTheHerald given the year is coming to a close, what are you most proud of you/your staff/the art community for, and what's your biggest hope for 2017?

Good one. I'm most proud of my team, in general, mostly because they're badasses and do everything i ask without hesitation. If they don't know how to do something, they'll find away. I'm also quite proud that we, in the Art channel, managed to collectively push the Clusters out. That's a huge step towards recognizing art and gfx as something more than an occasional comp for an event. I'm really hoping we expand on that in 2017.

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Archenksov asked: #AskTheHerald Who did Morgan catch under the mistletoe?

Celevon would be appropriate I guess :P

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Riku asks: #asktheherald can we have festive Santa Robes next year?

Maybe as a joke, but certainly not as a serious robe :P

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Lexic asks: #AsktheHerald Do you have the time to touch up or improve the lightsabers in the selector? Can we expect more Saberstaves?

1. Not really. I'll be reviewing them, however, and removing some of the unpopular ones altogether some time in the future.

2. Yes, that is something we're looking at doing, including many of the common weapons available in Possessions.

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Turel asks: #AsktheHerald Are you or the Herald staff planning on doing more streaming sessions and/or instructional videos to help aspiring DB artists in 2017?

We are, though they will likely come in the form of Shadow Academy exams. As it stands our time for active, regular streaming is very limited. Also there are timezones involved so for what I've seen so far, very few people join my streams unles sthey're late at night, my time.

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Nero asks: #asktheherald any tips for getting good gradients?

Use the ones on the Herald wiki page. Otherwise take a reference photo of a pipe, use Gradient Layer Style on 50% opacity on it, and just copy it.

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Andrelious asks: #asktheherald Do you feel the creation of the Cluster of Graphite has increased the amount of people doing graphics?

I believe it has, to a degree. It was never meant to be a one-shot solution, though. I think this community has achieved more through simple critiques and comments, but the Cluster does help us along.

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Mako asks: #asktheherald any advise on adapting from traditional forms of art such as pencils, paints, and pens to a digital format

Buy a tablet, pretty much, and keep drawing. You'll get used to it, don't worry. It's not that big of a deal. But when you do get used to it, you'll create magic. I would also suggest using programs like GIMP. Raster programs that allow you to draw and paint easily. My top picks for drawing programs are Manga Studio and Photoshop, though, with SAI coming in close 3rd.

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Tisto asks: #AskTheHerald What does Morgan do for Life Day?

Life day sweater, hot tea, warm hearth, and the book "1001 ways to talk to cretins" :P

Commission artists and Artist Feature

Every report I will present an artist from various sites on the internet that do commission work. You can directly contact them through their contacts on these pages:

This time it's: mkw-no-ossan. Check out their devArt page for info and enjoy the art.

Important Links

Herald Policies and important links

• Herald Policies Category

• Heral Competition Approval Guidelines

• Herald Requisition Limit

There’s a Form for that

• Complaints

DB Art Community Telegram Group

If you’re interested in joining the TG group and sharing your art, be sure to click the image below:

Closing

That’s it for now, folks. This is your friendly neighborhood Herald, signing out.

See you, space cowboys!

Featured Song