Herald report #10: Merry Christmas to all...

2015/12/25, 10:43 PM, Herald - The Council

Introduction

...now you're all gonna die!!!!

No, I'm kidding. That's just a lyric from the feature song ;)

Welcome to the 10th Herald report, the 8th day of the Herald's Christmas Special and my fav holiday. (No snow, though :[ )

Read on. I'm sure you'll find something nice ;)

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They're talkin' bout - the night Santa went crazy

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Herald's Holiday Special Day 8!

Weapons:

Item 1: Synergy DL-44 Carbine rifle

An extended version of the classic DL-44 blaster pistol with a wider barrel. For all you bounty hunters that love style and durability. Available to all JM4 and above.

Item 2: Blastech T-21 light repeating blaster

Remember those clunky but efficient (not in the hands of Stormtroopers!) weapons from the original trilogy? Yeah, here they are, ready for a test run. The T-21 is available to anyone EQ1 and above.

Item 3: "Prominence" lightsaber

Made by: Selika Roh

Another saber from Slagar's workshop. For anyone liking the "classic look". Available at EQ1 and above for all Force Users.

Item 4: Electrostaff

Remember the Magna guard droids Grievous used to help him fight Jedi because he was a big wuss? Yeah, they wielded this or something close to it. The electrostaff is available to all Non-Force Users ranks EQ1 and above.

Item 4: New custom weapons available!

We're releasing new Custom Weapon templates for you guys. Both the F-11D and the SE-44C blasters from Episode 7 will become available to you in 2016. We hope you enjoy them

Robes

Item 6: "Infinity" Armored uniform

Made by: Seyda Norith

Some of you may recognize this armored uniform, so of you may not (the name is a hint :P). Either way it is available to everyone at EQ1. Very proud of Seyda for handling this one.

Item 7: "Medic" robes

Made by: Lu'aisha Gresee and Selika Roh

The winner of this years Halloween special, Lu'aisha Gresee (the cutom robes she won are presented lower), presented the Staff with a very cool design for medic robes, or a medic uniform if you will. I think it looks brilliant. Available to everyone and JM4 and above.

Item 8: "Commander" robes

The final robes of the final day of the final HSH are the Commander robes. Available in Light and Dark styles and 72 different combinations, they should be enough for any Jedi or Dark Jedi out there.

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They're talkin' bout - the night Santa went crazy

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Herald's Holiday Special stats and the future

Stats and such

That's it, kids!

The Special is over, but now we get to talk numbers and we get to talk about the future.

First let's get the boring stuff out of the way.

This year's HSH featured all of 39 items across 8 days. Slagar was the most active, which isn't to say that the other's weren't. Both Rhiann (Emily) and Seyda helped out and created some brilliant robes that you will love for years to come. Esca, likewise, added to our collection with his items. The whole team huddled and provided whatever time they had available. I'm extremely proud of every one of them, no matter how much they contributed.

That said it's time to reveal how many total images we released this Special...drumroll...one thousand five hundred and seventy nine. Yes, you read right. 1579 images were released for your enjoyment. Biggest HSH so far and the last one. But more on that later.

I'd like to thank some more people for making this happen:

James, for one. Without his uploading abilities we'd still be uploading Day 1 :P
Muz, for his invaluable blaster templates without which we'd likely be hard pressed to get this done in a speedy fashion
Arvalis, aka Kaz, who provided some much needed inspiration through his sketches
Gresee who provided a brilliant robe design
Rian Taldrya who provided one of his brilliant sabers for one f the releases

The future

This was the last Herald Style Hanukkah event (and will be replaced by the Holiday Special) of this size. Why? It's just very stressful on the staff. So we tried extra hard for a few months to give you guys something baller and epic to close this chapter and open a new one.

So what does this mean for the future? Well certainly not fewer releases, just more frequent.

I have a plan in development which I will present to the GM and DGM which will allow us, the Staff, to maintain fairly frequent and stress-free releases of new robes and weapons. More on that in the next report, though.

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Broke his back for some milk and cookies

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Warbanners, Custom Weapons and Requests

Let’s start with:

Custom Weapons

From left to right we have:

By Arcia:

Lexiconus' coral saber
Tekk's E-11 blaster rifle
Terran's dual wielding combo
Ernor's unstable blade
Shi Long's dual wielding combo

Warbanners

By Selika:

Braecen Kaeth
Lexiconus Qor
Kyo Akumu
Putra
Qyreia Arronen
Anubis
Tyron Kesh
Lonewolf
Strask Rurra'bek
Marcus Kiriyu
Solas Night-Thorn
Farrin Xies
Aiden Lee
Alethia Archenksova
Saskuatcha
Ondur Lkaetur
Areticus Altainatus
Kharoc Garrlan
DarkHawk
Xenna Azara
Ernordeth Puer-Irae
Rex Silverthorn
Nero Inferni
Aexod Burgoo

By Vyr:

Ophelia Delacroix

Graphics Requests

By Selika:

Darkblade Bladedark
Darkblade
Scion Tarentae
Kelly Mendes
Tistito "Tisto" Kingang
Nathan Deciarus
Eiko
Taranae Rhode
Edgar Drachen

Avatars

None

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Sounds to me like he was tired of gettin' gypped

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There’s a Form for that

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:

Ask the Herald

Chib asks: #AsktheHerald will there ever be species specific robes?

Probably not, unless they're custom. There are just too man near-humans to do that, unfortunately.

Sa asks: #AsktheHerald if you wasn't a tree we could set on fire what species would you be?

A tree you couldn't :P

Probably Mirialan.

Chib asks: #AsktheHerald Mesa wantin' tah earn a custom robe. Howsa can mesa do dat?

Yousa win da competishans.

Mar asks: #AskTheHerald are you going to follow a specific training regimen daily and keep going until your hair falls out?

100 Push-ups 100 Sit-ups 100 Squats Run 10 km

HERO!!! :P

Monty asks: #asktheherald #treefamilytree

Working on my wiki page as we speak. i'll have something for you next report ;)

Archenksov asks: #asktheherald Do you think these robes make me look fat?

No, not at all. lies blatantly

Mar asks: #AskTheHerald are all your designs drink-fueled. If not - why not?

Usually not. :P I don't drink as often or as much as previous Heralds :P

Esca asks: #AskTheHerald - Any updates on the possible graphics cluster/society, given the larger interest in the field over the past year?

Not yet. I'll start more serious brainstorming on that in 2016. 2015 was hectic. Stay tuned....

Atty asks: #AsktheHerald lots of people are new to the commission process when they go to get some character art finally out check out the artists linked in your reports. Any advice to those starting? Steps to take or words of caution? Encouragement for if they don't hear back? Etc

For starters set up a budget. If you don't know how much you can afford, you'll just overspend. Find at least 3 artists you think you like, look at their art and decide which one you like most, within your price range. Then check out their gallery to 1 year ago, approx. Anything after that is old stuff and you won't be getting that style because the artists has evolved already. After you've done that, assuming they're open for commissions, just contact them via e-mail or deviantart Note. A simple "Hello, I'm interested but this is my first commission, can you please help me?" will be enough.

You want references. Textual descriptions are good, but what your really need is visual descriptors. Such as this one: CLICK!

These kinds of references easily show your commissioner what you want and how they can achieve it. even simpler references, like linking some images and telling them what you want usually help. Talk to the artist, that's the most important and don't be afraid to tell them that the design they made isn't what you wanted, but also make sure you gave them ample images and descriptions to draw off of.

You will see below the result of the reference I showed you above.

Turel asks: #AsktheHerald, What will the Herald office focus on, project-wise, in the new year?

Lots of DC stuff, lots of releases and an initial suggestion for the Art society.

Mar asks: #AskTheHerald is there a way for members who arent graphically talented to help you out? (i give great back rubs)

You can come up with suggestions for future robes, or try and take up some gfx program or other to train in it. Eventually you'll help us out if we notice ;)

Liam asks: #AsktheHerald What's the Herald's stance on saber/blaster combination weapons, like Ezra Bridger uses in Rebels?

The nature of Ezra's weapon leads me to say "No" because it is a very very unique weapon. However this topic will be discussed for Possessions in the future, I imagine, so stay tuned. The Voice has a big say in stuff like this as well.

Esca asks: #AskTheHerald - Any plans to create a gallery of custom sabers and robes? We had one years ago for sabers.

It's on our list, yes. James and I have some ideas already.

Erno asks: #asktheherald will the possessions tab contain graphics of everything you own or a list with a link that will that be on the wiki?

All the items will have their own pages and lists that will link to those pages, including gfx for each.

Mirus asks: #AskTheHerald is Synergy a canon DB company? I'm curious.

Yes, very DB canon.

Wally asks: #AskTheHerald If you had to make a playlist for Vorsa, what would the first 3 songs be?

I changed it slightly from my reply in TG.

Miracle of Sound - Carry all as one
Sabaton - Resist and Bite
Sabaton - Art of War

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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 Alexandra Jury who has already completed commissions for several of our members. Check out her devArt page for info:

Closing word

was hectic, stressful and tough. But it was also fun as hell. :P

That's all for this report, and this year, folks. I wish you the merriest of Christmases and a very happy New Year. I'll see you some time in January.

See you Space Cowboys!

EDIT: Final note. The Herald's staff is on vacation until the 5th of January. Any requests we have pending will wait a bit longer. Thanks for understanding folks ;)