Activities 103: Graphics
The Dark Jedi Brotherhood (DJB) has attracted a growing community of artists who support one another, contribute extensively to the club and drive one of our primary member activities and competition types – graphics and multimedia. If you love creating art or you're curious to learn more, you’ll find the DJB always has a host of graphics and multimedia competitions available to test your skills, spark inspiration or give you an excuse to try something new!
Competing in Graphics/Multimedia Competitions
Most art generated in the Brotherhood is created for competitions. A typical competition will present you with a prompt, theme or topic and instructions on what they’d like you to create. Most graphic competitions will accept traditional or digital artwork of any style, though some may ask you to try out a particular style or approach.
You’ll find a number of competitions that focus on the character(s) you create in the Brotherhood, which can help bring different aspects of your character to life. Other competitions may explore various fictional plots related to your unit or the Brotherhood at large or let you play in the broader sandbox of the Star Wars universe.
Some competition organizers will even include submitted artwork, with permission, in official capacities like unit art or wiki pages. The image shown here, for example, was created by Bale Andros – it earned him a first place entry in a vendetta graphics competition that asked members to depict a scene from the war fiction.
Examples of graphics competitions you might find being run in the Brotherhood include:
- Depicting a city or space scene described by a prompt
- Designing Star Wars vehicles, starships, weapons or armor
- Creating a logo for a fictional organization or storefront
- Mapping out a warzone or blueprinting a space platform
- Drawing your character in their vacation beach garb
- Advertising your character’s services with business cards
- Disseminating misinformation through propaganda posters or video campaigns
- Storytelling through comic-book panels
- Crafting or building physical objects
… and much more!
Finding Graphics/Multimedia Competitions
Ready to find the right graphics or multimedia competition for you? Read on!
Competitions Page
The competitions page on the DJB website lists every competition currently running, as well as upcoming competitions and finished competitions. You’ll find this page under the Main menu on the website.
The default page lists all currently running, short-duration competitions that are relevant to you, including the title, status, running time, target audience (entire DJB or specific units), organizer and type of each competition. You should also check the Long-running/Series tab to get a complete view of all active competitions. To narrow your visible options to art competitions, try clicking the filter icon in the top right. Under Limit Competition Type, select the checkboxes next to Design and Graphics/Multimedia.
Once you’ve found a competition you like, click on its name, read over the prompt and instructions, and click the Subscribe button at the bottom. This will let the organizer know you’re interested in competing and add the competition to your Administration page to help you remember to submit before the deadline.
You can also use this tool to view completed competitions from the Finished tab. This can be helpful to see how similar graphics or multimedia competitions have been run, and it also gives you a chance to view the entries of members who elected to make them public.
News Page and Reports
Even if you’re not actively searching for graphics competitions, you’ll often find them announced on the homepage of the club website. These announcements are typically included in unit reports from your Clan, House or Battleteam, or they may be announced by the Herald or another Dark Council member if they are larger, Brotherhood-wide events.
You’re also likely to receive unit reports via email, so be sure to read those for updates and competition announcements.
#art-chat
The next best place to hear about upcoming or current art competitions is in the #art-chat channel on Discord! If you’re not familiar with Discord, check out our course on it and join our server.
Graphics Competition Difficulty Classes
Graphics and multimedia competitions are the only types of competition in the DJB that can be categorized by difficulty class. This categorization is NOT intended to dissuade anyone from competing in any class, but it is designed to give those members of lower skill level the ability to compete for placements without being overshadowed by their peers. Difficulty classes will also modify the amount of society points gained from placements in graphics and multimedia competitions.
Easy difficulty: Competitions set to Easy difficulty generally require low effort and low time investment. They should have simple prompts and inclusive rules with the expectation that a new artist can achieve reasonable results. These prompts can allow members to draw with stick figures and rudimentary sketches, though a minimum amount of effort should still be visible. Competitions that provide premade assets such as 3D models, doll makers, or a pre-existing line art for coloring all fall under Easy difficulty. If you are looking to make your competition simple, fun, and accessible, select this difficulty. Easy difficulty is the baseline for competitions, rewarding 4 Clusters and a multiplier of 1 for points granted towards Society ranks.
Regular difficulty: Competitions set to Regular difficulty generally require moderate effort and a reasonable time investment. Participants will benefit from a rudimentary understanding of anatomy, proportions, perspective, and color theory. These prompts may require more detail and creativity. If you wish your competition to offer a reasonable challenge and more leeway for creativity, select Regular difficulty. Intermediate difficulty rewards 6 Clusters of Graphite and a multiplier of 1.25 for points granted towards Society ranks.
Advanced difficulty: Advanced difficulty competition should be challenging even for a seasoned artist, requiring a high level of effort and time investment. This includes more complex prompts such as drawing a fully-realized piece including color, foreground, and background elements, or creating a multi-panel comic strip. It may require a high level of creativity such as inventing/designing entirely new creatures or spaceships. If you wish to give participants a major challenge and yield complex results, select Advanced difficulty. Advanced difficulty rewards 8 Clusters of Graphite and a multiplier of 1.5 for points granted towards Society ranks.
Again, no matter your skill level, feel free to participate in any competition! These classes are primarily designed to help you decide what level of challenge you’d like to take on and to provide enough variety to match the differing skills and talents of our art community.
Grading Criteria
Before you submit your work, it’s a good idea to review both the participation requirements outlined in the competition description as well as the criteria that will be used to grade the entries for placement.
Most graphics and multimedia competitions will use the Graphics Grading Rubric, which evaluates an entry on the following four weighted criteria:
- Adherence to theme (accounts for 25% of the score)
- Technique (accounts for 35% of the score)
- Visual effort/detail (accounts for 30% of the score)
- Personal artistic preference of the judge (accounts for 10% of the score)
View the Graphics Grading Rubric to understand what is meant by each criterion.
Not all graphics and multimedia competitions will grade based on this rubric, but they will all include specific details on how entries will be graded.
Submitting Your Work
When you’re ready to submit your work, return to the competition page. If you subscribed to the competition, you’ll find a link under the Subscribed Competitions section of your Administration page. If not, return to the competitions page and find it there.
Every graphics competition should list acceptable file formats in the description – typically these will be .png, .jpg or .gif formats, but you should always check to be sure you’ve saved your work in an appropriate format.
If you’ve not already subscribed to the competition, you’ll have to click Subscribe to see the options to attach your file and submit your entry. From there, you’ll simply click Browse under the Upload file box and select the file you created for the competition. Alternatively, you can drag and drop a file into this box.
The Submission text field beneath the upload area is not required, but it may be used to make relevant notes about your entry to the organizer. This might include details on how you created the piece, information on any sources/reference used and/or any warnings about the content of the artwork (see notes on plagiarism and discretion below).
A Note on Plagiarism & Cheating
Unless otherwise and explicitly indicated by a particular competition, all artwork submitted for graphics and multimedia competitions should be your own original work. Some competitions do allow for the work of others to be incorporated in your submission, but you must ensure you give appropriate credit to the real author or identify and disclose the sections of the work that are not original.
You should disclose any sources in the text field submission box beneath where you attach your artwork. If you don’t know the original author, at least provide a link to the source(s) you used. If you do not take this step, competition organizers will assume you are asserting that every part of your submission is your own original work. If this is not the case and you fail to disclose your source(s), your entry will be considered plagiarism, and you may be charged by the Chamber of Justice.
Plagiarism is a violation of the Covenant that governs member conduct and rights in the DJB. Plagiarizing a competition entry is also typically considered an act of cheating – a separate charge that can carry serious consequences. When in doubt, cite your source!
It should also be noted that you may only use a created piece of art for one competition. Unauthorized use of the same submission in two separate competitions is considered a form of cheating, so be sure you create an original entry for every competition.
A Note on Discretion
As a club that includes minors, the Dark Jedi Brotherhood has adopted a website content policy designed to keep the rights and protections of those members in mind. While you are free to create and submit art that involves mature subject matter, we ask that if the content is more explicit or graphic than official Star Wars media, that you opt out of publishing your submission. To do that, simply uncheck the Visibility checkbox before you submit.
Because your submission will still be viewed by the competition organizer, you should also discuss any content in your submission that could be objectionable, inappropriate or triggering with the competition organizer(s) before submitting your entry.
Rewards for Graphics/Multimedia Competitions
Rewards for competing in regular graphics and multimedia competitions can range from Clusters of Graphite for participation to Crescent competition medals for placement. Placing in a vendetta can earn you Gold, Silver and Bronze Novae, respectively. The comic shown here earned V'yr Vorsa a Gold Nova for winning first place in a XKCD comic-style graphics competition in GJW XIV.
In addition to medals, members of the Shroud Syndicate, the Brotherhood’s fictional criminal organization led by the Herald, will earn points toward society ranks that come with prestige and exclusive possessions. To learn more about the Shroud Syndicate, take their Shadow Academy society course.
Check out the links below for more details on how each of these rewards are earned.
Resources for Artists
Finally, we’ve compiled a small list of free resources and tools that you may find useful as an artist.
GIMP - GIMP is a free image editor that runs on most operating systems.
Paint.NET - Paint.NET is a photo and image editor that runs on PCs operating Windows.
Krita - Krita is a free raster graphics editor you can use for digital painting that runs on most operating systems.
YouTube Tutorials - YouTube has a wealth of helpful tutorials for artists of every stroke – so don’t forget to look here if you’d like to learn a new technique.
#art-chat - Get support, encouragement, inspiration, tips and feedback from fellow artists on the DB’s Discord server!
Next Steps
After you complete the exam, put your knowledge to use and participate in a graphics or multimedia competition!
Image Credits
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