Forum Index > General Discussion > The Sylestia Times - May 2019
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Grapejuice
Level 71
The Kind-Hearted
Joined: 1/8/2016
Threads: 155
Posts: 22,907
Posted: 5/31/2019 at 2:31 AM
Post #1
Grapejuice
Level 71
The Kind-Hearted
Joined: 1/8/2016
Threads: 155
Posts: 22,907
Posted: 5/31/2019 at 2:31 AM
Post #2
Spring Festival
May brought about the return of the spring festival, along with it were some old favourite games and a lot of new installments from shared gardens to new traits! So let us have a look over all the fun and games that occurred in the past month or so!
Shared Garden
A new installment to the Spring Festival the shared garden was certainly a success! Players could collect enchanted waters by defeating enemies around the zones then once enough were gathered they could go to the shared garden in Astryl's Meadow where 22 flowers are growing. Each flower corresponds to one species and by adding the water the flowers would grow. When enough water was added the flower would bloom and for 15 minutes or so an event based around that species would run, bringing in new enemies and an increased number of themed pets with lots of great loot and drops!
Some of these great drops and prizes were:
Once the event is over the flowers are reset and the community can once more work towards growing another event of the same species or a different species. We hope to see this come back next year or perhaps in other forms in the upcoming fests!
Forum Contests and Games Create a 3-vis Spring Pet
Pretty self-explanitory, visit the generator and design a 3 visible pet based on spring then submit it in the thread! One name will be drawn at random and that user gets their pet generated for them! Congratz to Junco for their Aeridini design!
Create an Edible Insect
Another returning game you have to make an edible insect, so using food at home you have to post pictures of you using that food to make some sort of insect or bug! There were some truly brilliant and creative designs this year congratulations to the winners!
1st Place
Create a Sylesti Easter Egg
Another fun way to test your creativity was through this little game, Players had to either use materials from home to make a sylestia themed Easter egg or create a digital drawing and/or design! Congratulations to the winners and well done to everyone who submitted something!
1st Place
2nd Place
3rd Place
Outdoor Scavenger Hunt
Another old game back for another round is the outdoor scavenger hunt. Yep thats right, you actually had to step outdoors to do this one. A fun refreshing game you go outside with a list of pictures you must obtain, full of fun exploration and some good old outdoor air it's always a blast. Congratulations to the winners, and hopefully everyone got some healthy sun from this!
Sylestia Scavenger Hunt
Finally the sylestia scavenger hunt, where we had to take screenshots or leave links to pets we'd collected from the fest, bosses we'd battled and defeated, and the number of eggs we found the maze. A fun way to explore all of the fests possibilities, congratulations to the winners!
New genes and Mutations
With this years spring fest came a lot of new mutations and genes. the ferrikki got 4 new traits
All species got the Spring Blossoms trait a gorgeous ringlet of branches with flowers on them circling the sylesti, and a wonderful addition to the trait roster of all species!
Qitari Mane Improvments
Finally we got some improvments to the qitari mane, bringing it up to code with the new art style. Like Fire Mane:
Luxurious Locks:
Icicle Mane:
and Nebula Mane:
May has been a busy, busy month for Krin and the team, with promises of many more updates (and upgrades to the wardrobe specifically) promised to come. So lets make sure to give a big thank you and wave of appreciation to the devs who work extremely hard to make this sight what it is! We'll see you next month for June's issue!
Edited By Grapejuice on 6/1/2019 at 4:26 PM.
Grapejuice
Level 71
The Kind-Hearted
Joined: 1/8/2016
Threads: 155
Posts: 22,907
Posted: 5/31/2019 at 2:31 AM
Post #3
A few links to check out when making designs are: Themed pet reference pages by Xavion
Comprehensive Guide to Themed Pets by Lavelle
Guide to Themed Pet Contests by Scathreoite
Hey all! So in this article of the Designer's we will be discussing where to get and find inspiration as well as a design made by me and Junco!
~ Inspiration ~
So when looking to make a design it's sometimes hard to find inspiration. For me I like to think of things that I find aesthetically pleasing and that have a good idea behind them. For example in the summer themed contests I looked up "Ocean fish" and found a photo of a Blue Tang fish, which inspired me to make a blue tang puff.
You can also look up color pallets, searching up something simple like "Sunset color pallets" that you can find many things to take inspiration from. For myself something I made is a google document with photos that I find pleasing that, when i'm at a loss, I got to to get an idea of something I would like to make a design!
~ Nature Designs ~
In this times issue me and Junco worked together in part to make two "Frozen Methane Bubbles" designs!
Junco is a very accomplished designer that has a long list of themes they created and were accepted by the admins.
Junco
Base Colors
You always need a solid base color when designing, and for me, it needs to be something the other colors can build on. For this design, the dark blue of the body represents the deep, dark waters from which the frozen bubbles rose.
Genes
The genes chosen all represent the bubbles at their various depths- to the human eye, the further down they are, the darker. G2 layers under G3, so it is a darker blue, and G1, which layers over the lighter stomach, is the lightest of all. White was too stark a color over the theme, and washed out a lot of the other colors, so both G1 and G3 are tinged slightly blue-grey to blend more seamlessly. Unfortunately, the eye color is barely visible in the Raptor Banding, due to how Leopard Gecko layers over it.
Mutations
he mutations chosen are all pointy, to represent both the icy nature of the theme and the mountains that were in the background of the picture used for inspiration. The wings here form the backdrop of the design, just as the mountains, a very purple mountains majesty affair, formed the backdrop of the photograph. The eye color chosen is a very light lilac, which was meant to go well with the Striped Moth Wings I initially intended to use, but I felt the Ice Wings fit better with the theme.
Critique Limor I'd suggest adding in a brighter blue as one pop colors, the design is lovely but most of the colors are quite muted and blend together well and having one color that really stands out could help the design shine. Overall though I cannot find much fault with the design and it's lovely.
Final Design
I beefed up on the purples in the design, and gave the blues a little more in the contrast department. I feel this gives the design a little more pop, a touch more pizzaz, a bit more bang for its buck. Cool colors are more of a challenge for me, and I ultimately took a bit of inspiration from Limor's design as well as the original picture to end up with this frosty lizard.
Limor
Base Colors
With most designs I like to work with lighter colors and for this design itself I chose a very pale blue, as the very pale almost white blue is very prominent. For the eye color I chose a brighter blue, which will show up in trait later and help with a pop. In c2 and c3 I went with darker colors, to get those nice deep blues we see in the photos.
Traits
For the traits I wanted to get some brighter blues, that will contrast from the very pale base colors. I ended up with seashell as the g1 trait as it pulls from the c3, which gets that lovely dark blue hue in it. In the g2 I chose an almost dark sky blue, that makes it a bit brighter but also doesn't make it seem to 'glowy'. In g3 I chose my brightest blue, to stand out against the other colors.
Mutations
For the mutations I chose some darker blues, to reflect the hues in the photo. In the m1 I chose a similar color of the g2, to tie the colors together. In the m2 I chose a darker color, which, when paired with the eye color, makes for a pretty gradient. In the m3 I changed it up and went with the brighter blue, closer to the eye color.
Critique Junco
It is difficult to find fault with your design. It's quite lovely! In the absence of anything immediately jarring, I would say that G3 gets a little lost. That's a shame, as Pollen Markings is my favorite Sylvorpa trait. However, the only way I was able to see to get G3 to really pop unfortunately darkened the entire design, and a lot of its initial appeal was its brightness.
Final Design
Taking Junco's advice I made the g3 a bit darker, but still left the color somewhat bright to keep the original 'glowly' effect that the design had. Overall I am happy with this design and think it's successful and shows the photo quite well.
--
Overall I hope you found this guide helpful! If you have any other questions ping me and i'll answer them next time about~ Remember also tell me if you'd be interested in being a part of the designing column as well!
Edited By Grapejuice on 8/31/2019 at 1:19 AM.
Grapejuice
Level 71
The Kind-Hearted
Joined: 1/8/2016
Threads: 155
Posts: 22,907
Posted: 5/31/2019 at 2:32 AM
Post #4
Grapejuice
Level 71
The Kind-Hearted
Joined: 1/8/2016
Threads: 155
Posts: 22,907
Posted: 5/31/2019 at 2:32 AM
Post #5
Mystery Guest
A guest article has been introduced to the times, here's Ebonyflicker to explain what she, Tori and Ley wrote about!
In this article, Ley, Tori, and I are each going to design a summery sylvorpa, as currently summer fest themes are open for submission. Hopefully, taking a look at our process can inspire others with their own vorpas. All of us are multiple-time theme designers that also have artistic backgrounds, so we tried to apply some color theory to these designs. ~Ebony
Ebonyflicker Sample Design: Ocean Shimmer Sylvorpa I decided to use a yellow/blue palette to simulate sunlight upon water for my design. Since I favor high saturated colors, I don't use photo references since they aren't as vibrant as I like.
I began by giving the vorpa two of my most commonly used vorpa traits, Alpine Newt and Seaweed Whirlwind. Then, I chose a couple warm-toned blues and yellows and arranged them on the vorpa, making sure that there was a difference in how dark/light adjacent colors were in comparison to each other.
I decided I wanted to incorporate the gradient of Water Dragon Wings into the design, and figured that Fairy Crowns accents were a good parallel to how the wings became ragged at the ends. I wasnt liking how haphazardly the yellow was placed.
In my opinion, high saturation colors are most prominent with summer, so I decided to completely saturate all my colors. I deliberately used a lemon yellow color, which is slightly greenish and made the fade to blue more natural. I made the top of the body darker versus the yellow underbelly to make the wings' and headdress' yellow accents stand out.
Tori Sample Design: Sunset Heat Wave Sylvorpa
We wanted to go with something warm-toned for a summer scheme, so a heat wave seemed suitable. While we named it after sunsets, we did not use a photo reference either, as they tend to be too all over the place for our liking.
Our first draft tends to be rather messy - we grab a few random traits and start working on getting the colours we want to use. We know we want a lot of warm tones - and we were originally thinking to mimic clay baking in the sun, so we knew we wanted a few colours to be close in value and hue.
Then we made a big jump - the dried clay look wasnt working for us, but we knew we could make something really pop with darker shades of purple instead. Something warm and akin to a sunset - with plenty of warm purples and oranges. We know we wanted plenty of fades, so we chose traits that did just that and tried to master a sunset-like look.
Then it was time to decide muts - and we already knew we wanted them to have highlights of a bright, bright yellow to compliment the purples. We chose traits that only have highlights of yellow for this purpose, setting the mut colours to a darker, cooler purple to add more complimenting colours and make it more like an encroaching night sky..
Ley Sample Design: Cloudless Skies Sylvorpa
I took my initial inspiration from the appearance of clear skies, and played with the saturation values to give it a summer feel.
The C3 wasnt working well with the body genes and the color distribution was off, so the C3 was changed to dark blue and the G1 was lightened. The Mantis Shrimp gene gives the body a good mid-blue value and creates a good bridge between the dark blue body and the light blue from Alpine Newt.
The off-white wasnt working in the mutations slots, so I did more color rebalancing. While the pale color provides more contrast in the M1 and M2 slot, it remained unbalanced and blended into the pale background. I eventually went with a bright blue to give the Encroaching Seaweed and Nereid Wings a nice gradient. The Seaweed Whirlwind mutations small orange lights provide accent points around the design and complement the G3.
Since blue and orange are complementary colors, they do well in making each other stand out. The orange and white were used as small highlights as to not overwhelm the blue tones, but still provide small focal points at various places.
Thank you to Limor and the rest of the Sylestia Times for allowing us to write this guest article!
Edited By Grapejuice on 5/31/2019 at 2:58 AM.
Grapejuice
Level 71
The Kind-Hearted
Joined: 1/8/2016
Threads: 155
Posts: 22,907
Posted: 5/31/2019 at 2:32 AM
Post #6
Hey folks! Welcome back to yet another edition of the Themed Pet Showcase! Spring Fest is upon us (and those stingy bosses are being quite stingy with the seed pouches...unfortunately for me :P) Of course I just had to show off a few of this fest's Themed Pets, especially since my new themed Lupora mission pet is giving me puppy eyes...literally.
Springshot, my Spring Tempest Lupora
Now I know I've done Aerindis before but right now they're popping up all over the fest zone and of course who can resist? Certainly not me! So here is SerenityEather on her Rose Arcanist Aeridini!
Me: What was your inspiration for the themed? SerentiyEather: The original name for the Theme was "Knight of the Rose," which I changed to align with the festival I submitted it to. The inspiration was a combination of a "red" rose bush (which is sort of pinkish red), and a Fae. The "Knight" part mostly being leather and wood for armor, because traditional fae (Elves, Fairies, ect) can't touch metal, because it burns them.
Me: Did you already know what you wanted it to look like before you even started designing? SerentiyEather: Yes. I knew exactly what I wanted. It took a bit, but I got the design exactly the way I wanted before I ever submitted it.
Me: How easy was it to create the themed? SerentiyEather: I knew the general color palette I wanted, so yes, the design was pretty easy.
Me: Did you expect to have your design chosen? SerentiyEather: No. After my Mountain King Ny'vene and Winter Tanuki Lupora, I didn't expect another design to be chosen. Particularly after seeing no familiar names in the new theme list at the beginning of the festival. Heck, I was dumbstruck when I saw my first design chosen, after... well, my first design contest was the week of love, 2015, soo... long time ago
Me: Anything else? Advice? SerentiyEather: Well... Make something that looks great, and hope for the best. I'm really not the best to ask for advice. I've made so many gorgeous designs that were never chosen, that last autumn was going to be my last design contest, and I was going to use whatever means I had to implement my own designs. Then, my MK was chosen.
I guess the best advice is to not give up? I still plan to implement designs that haven't been chosen as themes. Eventually.
A Rose Arcanist Aerindi
Wow, thanks Serenity!
So anyway.....back to spring fest! This year we've not just got the Shared Garden (which sprouts out a double chance for pets of a certain species that are themed to appear, plus all those special encounters that drop lovely thing) but the Egg Maze, both which can nab you plenty of themed pets. That's probably why I have no room in my stables...
Anyhow, just drilling the egg maze a few times can nab you not only themed pets, but eggies, avi items, and garden supplies! And by gardening, you can get MORE themed pets.
....I think I need to stop entering that egg maze....
A Wildflower Aeridini
Thanks for reading! If you have questions, want to be featured, want to nominate someone to get featured, or have something related to Themes to share, let me know through a PM. Happy Spring Fest everyone!
This was the last thing that the Sylestia Times staff saw after Orca turned in her article. She presumably went swimming in that giant lake in the center of the fest zone in another attempt to find a kelp theme that ran away from her. Her current fate is unknown as she hasn't appeared in about a week.
Edited By Grapejuice on 5/31/2019 at 3:03 AM.
Grapejuice
Level 71
The Kind-Hearted
Joined: 1/8/2016
Threads: 155
Posts: 22,907
Posted: 5/31/2019 at 3:05 AM
Post #7
Ask Sadie Written by Grapejuice & Sadie
As the only sylesti on our staff Sadie has the inside look on a sylesti's life, so feel free to send in questions for her to answer! Just PM any questions to Grapejuice, and in the next issue, Sadie will answer them with a sylesti's perspective!
"Aww man! No questions this month? Guess I'll see everyone next month."
Edited By Grapejuice on 8/31/2019 at 2:31 AM.
Grapejuice
Level 71
The Kind-Hearted
Joined: 1/8/2016
Threads: 155
Posts: 22,907
Posted: 5/31/2019 at 3:11 AM
Post #8
Hey all! In this player spotlight we will be spotlighting two players, an older involved player and a much newer player who has some thoughts on what it's like being a new player on the site (which many of us have forgotten about!)
Britters
Britters is a very involved player who was chosen as the player spotlight for her kindness. In the past (and now!) she is always super friendly and willing to help almost anyone out and, personally, she has helped me out quite a few times and given me several tags for free. She, in the past, also ran Sylestia's Greatest Designer Contest which was a fun activity many players enjoyed that, by the time this article is released, there should be another one of her contests out and running that me and her are running together! Overall Britt is a very friendly and caring person and is a great player who truly shows what 'sharing' and 'kindness' is!
1. What is your favorite thing about the community on Sylestia?
I think I just love how open and caring everyone is, and thats because I've never experienced anything like it on any other site. It seems to be a feeling shared by most other members which is what continues to help build this community into the incredible place that it is, and if I may add I think a lot of it has to do with what an awesome administrator Krinadon is and what he has created here is very unique and special.
2. What inspires you to help out other players?
Oh, thats an easy one. Ever since joining this site, and after getting over my nerves to start chatting with everyone, I have been on the receiving end of the most humbling generosity from other users. This has even extended outside of the site into the real world, since one of my close friends here on Sylestia gifted me their old laptop because I was without one. For this and many other gestures of kindness I'm always determined to pay it forward whenever and however I can.
3. Back when you ran Sylestia's Greatest Designer Contest what motivated you to run those?
I've never been much of a breeder here on Sylestia, and while I do my share of battling during festivals, I don't do a lot of grinding or things like the Arena. This meant that outside of special events and chatting with people I didn't really have much to /do/, and I'd seen small design contests run in the forums before but I thought to myself that it could be fun to do a really BIG one, with multiple rounds and eliminations. I was surprised it was such a big hit and I honestly miss running them, but we all know how life likes to get in the way of this things Tongue
4. Anything else?
Just a quick message to everyone who is a part of this community...thank you so much for all the years of amazing friendship and support. I look forward to many more years as part of this wonderful community.
For our second spotlight we have a newer player who only joined less then 20 days ago! Everyone welcome
Verl
Now my reasoning for deciding to interview Verl was they'e outgoingness on region chat. I had never seen them before and joined into conversation, which I found them to be quite friendly and determined to really get into the community of Sylestia. I was impressed as (from what I can remember!) they are much more successful then I was at that age in my account!
1. How are you enjoying Sylestia so far?
I'm having quite a bit of fun so far and still get to have a bit of excitement over 'oh that's a cool new thing' since I didn't poke around in the generator to see all the species and the markings/mutations they can have. Lets me be more excited over random encounters looking a little different and all.
2. Do you think you'll stick around on the site?
Probably! I'm trying to save up for that starter pack so I can have the items that'll help with breeding projects and the like down the line, since those seem cool. I'm mostly focused on the fighting side of the game at the moment but breeding seems fascinating.
3. What's your favorite thing so far?
I kind of like seeing the progression from the old style of the game to the current cleaned up fancy version, it's cool to see the history of the site even though I wasn't around for when it first came out!
The battle system is pretty interesting too. Though the leveling of moves seems very very slow so far hahaha.
4. What did you think about when making your starter pet?
I mostly just picked the species that looked the coolest to me and when from there. I'm a real sucker for black white and green so it took awhile to find a look I was happy with, since I was pretty sure future pets wouldn't be so generous with customization without some money to back it up xD Maybe he's a bit on the 'edgy' side but I like what I like!
5. How are you enjoying Spring Fest?
I'm glad I joined during it since it seems like the absolute best place to get levels, get gear, and find useful things people want to earn some money to get the things I want. The leaderboards were fun, and trying to grow all the different pets is going to be...interesting with my limited time but I'm trying!
6. Anything else?
Not really, I'm frightfully boring. Though if other sorts of fests are as fun as this one I'm really looking forward to a more fall theme.
Everyone keep an eye out in the July issue for a hopeful follow up interview planned with Verl if they are still active then! We will just see how they've changed and if any of their thoughts have changed by then!
Edited By Grapejuice on 5/31/2019 at 3:11 AM.
Grapejuice
Level 71
The Kind-Hearted
Joined: 1/8/2016
Threads: 155
Posts: 22,907
Posted: 5/31/2019 at 3:57 AM
Post #9
Thanks, everyone for your continued support of the times! There will be no ads this week due to some technical issues, but they will return next issue and you can still sign up for your own ad to be posted here. On another note, I would like to say that for all subscribers there will be a secondary ping coming either later today or tomorrow with an update on the times. We will be adding another article about the delay and continuation behind the fest so make sure you keep an eye out for that ping!
I hope you have a great day/evening and that this issue of the times helped or at least amused you!
~Grapejuice
Grapejuice
Level 71
The Kind-Hearted
Joined: 1/8/2016
Threads: 155
Posts: 22,907
Posted: 5/31/2019 at 3:59 AM
Post #10
This months issue of the times is officially out!
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