Introduction

Greetings ladies and germs! Time for another Herald report filled with graphical goodness and, this time, new toys to play with. Let's get into it.

Table of Contents

• Announcements
• June 2018 release
• In Closing

Announcements

Piercing the Difficulty Shroud

The big announcement policy wise that's taken place recently is the launch of the Shroud Syndicate, aka the Graphics Society. Vyr covered this at length in his DGM report, as it was much something that he created through force of will and hours and hours of work by him and his staff. Coming in at the tail end of it, it was really quite impressive to see what went in to making it a reality. The biggest change on a day-to-day level is with the inclusion of new difficulty levels for graphics competitions which modify the cluster awards given out. There has been some confusion, as we knew there would be, with the new difficulty system. I'd direct everyone to the Herald Competition Guidelines to take a look at the official policy write ups for each level, but I'd also like to include some commentary that Vyr posted in art chat on Telegram on a specific issue:

There are two keywords you should remember when thinking about difficulty: prompt and quality. Prompt is king, quality is queen.

The prompt should be clear and deliberate. It handles WHAT and HOW you are creating. Difficulty should be chosen based on what the prompt requires. It handles TIME INVESTED as well as QUALITY REQUIRED to PLACE. I bold these words deliberately. So within any given prompt you can choose the difficulty that fits what you want the participants to do. The Herald can help you choose if you're unsure.

As a final note, yes you can participate in ANY graphics competition regardless of skill, time invested or difficulty, but you should understand that if you match the prompt but not the quality, you might not win. That said, participation in any comp is always valid as long as it follows the prompt set in said comp (remember, you still get participation even if your entry is Invalid). Disqualifications (DQ) only ever happen if there is foul play, the entry was wrongly sibmitted (like submitting a blank image, for example) or there is something sinister at work. I've never Disqualified an entry based on (lack of) quality and no one else should either.

The most important takeaway is that difficulty levels are not intended, nor should they ever be used, to prevent a person from participating in a competition. If somebody enters an Advanced level competition with stick figures, as long as they follow the prompt they are meeting the competition requirements and therefore are valid participants.

Quarterly Release Schedule

In the past, Herald content releases have been scheduled every other month. Just given the issues of shortages of inspiration coupled with not wanting the staff to be constantly working on or thinking about the next release, I've made the decision to officially move to a quarterly release date schedule. The release months will be March, June, September, and December. And, hey, it's June right now...

June 2018 Release

Once I'd made my decision to have our next Herald release take place at the beginning of June, I realized that there was going to be a fairly big Star Wars event taking place only a week before. Of course, I'm talking about the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story. As such, we realized we had a great opportunity to do a Solo themed release that could happen nearly day and date with the film's release, and so the staff and I jumped at the chance. Working with what little pre-release information there was out there about props, coupled with the Solo guide book that released last Friday, we set about quickly putting together a release that would represent Han, Qi'ra, Beckett, Lando, and even Enfys Nest. Sorry, no glow-bats in these release, this one's devoted to the underbelly of the Star Wars universe!

Weapons

Item 1: BlasTech DG-29 Blaster Pistol - Available for JM4+

Made by: Selika

Item 2: BlasTech RSKF-44 Blaster Pistol - Available for JM4+

Made by: Selika

Item 3: Monlitzer S-195 Blaster Pistol - Available for JM4+

Made by: Ozosi

Item 4: Electroripper - Available for EQ1+

Made by: Selika

Robes

Item 5: Mudtrooper Armor - Available for JM4+

Made by: Maximus

Item 6: Gambler robes - Available for JM3+

Made by: Ozosi

Item 7: Rogue robes - Available for JM3+

Made by: Kasula

Note: These should be available on the site some time within the next 24 hours or so.

Warbanners, Custom Robes, Custom Weapons and Requests

Custom Weapons

By Ozosi:

• Ruana Suoh
• Alara Deathbane
• Edema R'uh-Kalinor
• Tisto Kingang
• Kordath Bleu
• Kul'tak Drol

By Maximus:

• Mauro Wynter
• Kylex
• Silent

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Custom Robes

By Maximus:

• Benevolent Taldrya Whiner

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Warbanners

By Jono:

• Celevon Edraven Erinos
• Grot
• Zul Zorrander
• Takagari "DarkHawk" KogaRyu
• Gen Solari
• Mauro Wynter
• Magik
• Nijalah
• Lo-Kain Vamielaga
• Jason Hunter
• Quejo
• Joe Durham

By Vyr:

• Wrathus
• Kylex
• Luna Okami

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Graphics Requests

By Selika:

• Justinios Drake
• Dacien Victae
• James Lucius Entar
• Morgan B. Sorenn
• Tasha'Vel Versea

There’s a Form for that

• Complaints
• Herald FAQ

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:

In Closing

As the title implies, the job of Herald is one that relies on a team of talented, motivated individuals. I wanted to send a special thanks to all the members of the staff for the work they did on this release, and the time in which they did it. I'd been kicking around ideas for a release theme for June for most of the month of April before finally realizing that Solo was the obvious theme choice just before the 1st of May. My staff did a truly remarkable job at putting together a full release slate in less than a month, so let them know how well they've been doing if you see them around!