Hi all! I have updated the group rules on several points, namely regarding the submissions of deer-fauns/satyrs, TEF chars and unicorns/kirns, as well as submissions to faves, and submissions of hunted/wounded/dying/dead deer. Hope these updates will clarify things a bit more, since some members were a bit confused by it: [link] And again, if anyone has any questions regarding anything in the rules, or is unsure which folder to submit to (every folder page has a desc in the comments of what belongs there), or if your image is suitable for the group, please don't hesitate to ask! And if anyone has a complaint, please note us rather than post about it on the main page of the group. We always try our best to resolve any issues peaceably, respectfully and fairly for everyone involved, but ranting and trolling on the main page is not the proper way to address a complaint.

Also, occasionally an image of an antelope/goat/sheep-horned "deer" or faun/satyr may accidentally be approved to the group rather than declined; these are subsequently removed from the group (sometimes immediately, and sometimes as soon as we notice them later), but they still will show up in our members'/watchers' inboxes regardless, and we apologize for that. If you see an image in your inbox that obviously doesn't belong in the group, click on it to see if it still has the group icon under it. If not, it has already been removed, and if so, please let us know so that we can remove it, in case it accidentally slipped by us. Also, if anyone notices that an image which has been submitted to the group is of stolen, traced or copied art/photography, please tell us! We don't allow any such images in the group, even if they are of deer.

Thanks,
~SD

So I and a few other staff members have been discussing the possibility of a secret santa for The Divine Cervine. We would love to know what you guys think! I will help orchestrate things, but I may need a helper if this goes ahead.

So. Secret Santa for this year. Yay or Nay?

Hey all! The deadline for the TDC contest (hosted by *LaJolly) is almost up, and only two entries have been submitted! You guys have a chance at winning $100 (extra Christmas money!), so why not submit something?? You know you want to! And *Marlimoo is also hosting a contest, which ends Dec 18th: [link]

Also, I wanted to share a good quote from this recent news article:

"Make a suggestion!
As a member of a group, you have the utmost right to make a suggestion for your group. It never hurts to ask so if there’s something you’d like to see changed in a group; just ask and see what the response is. However, make sure that your suggestion will not only benefit yourself, but most of the entire group as well.

Like the name implies, a group is made up of a GROUP of people and a member is just one of many. I think it’s fair to say that many group admins try to make as many people as possible happy. No admin is going to, and nor should they, go out of their way to make a single member happy. It’s not fair to the rest of the members."

So if there's anything you guys would like to see implemented here, please give us feedback; we'd love to hear from you! Unless you troll us (which has happened), we don't bite, and we take every member's suggestion into careful consideration of what's best, most practical and most fair for the entire group.

In other news, we now have a "WIPs, Sketches & Scraps" folder, so please submit your sketchy works to that one from now on. Also the Traditional and Digital folders are just getting too full, so we may have to break those down into sub-folders as well, perhaps "Deer Creatures" and "Deer People"? Again, suggestions on this are much appreciated.

Also, being that we have over 1,000 members now (yay!), we DO get a lot of submissions to this group, so potential members might wish to take note of this prior to joining. Thankfully, only 84 people have left, and new members are joining every day, so I think we're still doing pretty good in that respect.

Lastly, I would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to the co-founders for doing such a wonderful job in keeping this group running smoothly, and to our contributors for submitting so many beautiful works, and all the rest of you members for your continued contributions and support; we wouldn't be much of a group without you!

Take care and Happy Holidays, all!
~SD

Hello TDC group! *LaJolly (Laura) is currently directing a short film for her production class at California State University Chico. The short film is centered around two characters conceptualized by *thalia-is-crazy...

The first character is a young girl with the body of a deer (aka deertaur): [link]

The second character is a young boy with the body of a horse (aka centaur): [link]

The two meet up and after a mild misunderstanding and go on to have a short adventure, exploring the forest. More details can be found in the script they have written. Here is a link to the most recent version of it: [link]

With this contest, Laura is looking to inspire and motivate her group members to continue their amazing work. To do this, she is offering a $100 prize to the piece of art she and her team finds to be the most motivating, inspirational, touching and/or moving. They are accepting any type of artwork except for writing of any sort; they're looking specifically for images that directly correlate to the story. Sorry to all you writers out there!

So with that said, be creative! Go for it! The deadline for this project is around the middle of December, and please submit any artwork for it to the "Contests" folder only. If you have any questions, please email her at laura.j.jolly@gmail.com or email another member of her group. You can find all they have for the project at: [link]

Thanks so much, and hope to see what you all can do! <3

~SD

P.S. For any new members of the group, the Group Rules/Info can be found here: [link]

Hi all, I just wanted to put out a few reminders for everyone, particularly since we have several new members now and more are joining all the time (yay!)...

You don't have to join us to submit an image here (whether its your image or someone else's); all deviations have a "submit to group" link under the image, so you only need to click on that and submit it to the proper folder, or you can suggest the image to the group as a Fave, but we prefer submissions to group folders rather than to Faves (more on that below). But if you do join the group, please place the group icon (or a text link) somewhere on your user page (in a journal header/fooder or a widget), and help us spread the word that we're here so that other deer fans on DA can find us!

We only allow ONE submission per member per day (mods are allowed more), and it must be of a deer (of any species of Cervidae, which includes wapiti, moose and caribou) in either feral or anthro form, or a "deer-like" creature/person, or obviously deer-related in some way. By "deer-like" we mean: deer-taurs/fauns, perytons and wendigos, the Tariaksuq, the Sianach, the Zlatarog, Hiiden Hirvi, antlered kirins/qilins and other deer-based unicorns, tree-antlered deer, deer-based hippogryphs, deer-dragons/chimeras, jackalopes and wolpertingers--antlered, not horned, AND having hooves as well--and various mythical/hybrid, antlered creatures and people--like Herne/Cernunnos, etc., so long as they have other deer features/aspects than antlers alone. And acceptable fan art would be that of: The Endless Forest, Fire Bringer/Rannoch, Bambi, Rudolph, Stantler, Shikijika, Mebukijika, Shikamaru, Tony Tony Chopper, Keiki, Masamune/Blackstar/Soul Eater, Mime Deer, Mini-moose, Rutt & Tuke, HTF Lumpy, Niko, Elliot, etc. If you want to submit images from a comic that features deer, please only submit the specific images from the comic that show deer in them.

A note regarding deer-fauns/satyrs, TEF chars and unicorns/kirins: Fauns and satyrs must have antlers--or none, if does, unless they are antlered does--they can't have goat-type horns, since that makes them look too similar to goat-fauns. Also, they must have other obvious deer-aspects/features as well, like deer ears, deer tail, and hooves (fawn spots are optional) and not just antlers alone. Any TEF chars that have deer bodies but the horns of goat, sheep, antelope or bulls will not be accepted; however, fanciful, stylized antlers are ok. As for unicorns, they must be deer-bodied and their horn cannot be antelope-like (narwhal tusk-like horns are okay, since those cannot be confused with antelope horns), and kirins must have an antler rather than a ox-type horn. For more info on all this, please go here: [link]

Regarding submissions of dead deer: We are somewhat flexible on the matter, but what we really don't want are photos of hunters posing with their dead, bloody trophies, or really gory drawings of dead deer being eaten/mutilated by various carnivores/monsters. Yes, we know they're "prey animals" (in that they're naturally preyed upon by other wild creatures), but they have the same right to life as any animal, and here we choose to celebrate the elegance of living deer! Art that depicts a hunt in progress, of a predator or hunter stalking an alert and fleeing deer, or even a sad pic of a wounded deer dying or dead is acceptable; but we want to avoid the excessively gory stuff, and also photos of really messy road kill or rotting carcasses found in the woods. Taxidermy animals and skulls/bones are ok, so long as they are artfully photographed and suitable for anatomical references (close-up shots of bodyparts, interesting and unusual angles, etc.). Deer deserve respect and honor, even when being hunted and killed, and even in death, they can be beautiful and graceful, whether it is a natural death (a hard winter), or that caused by a predator/hunter, and if your image reflects that theme, then it's ok to submit. Also, "undead"/zombie and mutant deer are acceptable, as long as they aren't excessively gory. If you're unsure if your image is acceptable, just ask us.

Your submission needs to be clearly viewable, it must be original work, and it must be of some quality; no overly-blurry, dark, grainy, webcam-type photos, please! Even cell phones can take decent photos in proper light, and any photo (including photos of drawings) can be sharpened and improved by free, downloadable software made for this purpose, such as GIMP.

Please submit your image into the proper folder!!! (So many times we mods have to move them to the correct one!) The folders are: Traditional Art, Digital Art, Photography, Photomanips, Artisan Crafts, Writings/Comics/Logos/Ads/Etc., TDC Contests/Secret Santa, Ref Sheets/IDs/Conbadges and Icons/Animations/Adoptables/Stamps/Etc. (The last folder is mainly for misc. odds and ends that don't really fit anywhere else.) Simply click on the suitable folder on the Main Page, and then click the button at the top of the folder page which says "Submit to this folder". Click that, and you will have the choice to "Submit a new deviation" (if you've never uploaded the pic before) or "Contribute an existing deviation" (if the pic is already in your gallery). Make your choice, then click "Ok", and one of the mods will approve it; it's that easy! Also, please do not submit any images to the Featured folder; that is only for group mods to feature certain images in (aka "mod's choice", which will be changed daily). The Faves folder is reserved for submissions that have expired, because the artist never approved nor declined it, and also for submissions from galleries which have been abandoned. Artists should not submit their own work to Faves.

If you place your deviation "in storage" after it has been submitted to this group (either to faves or folders), then it will be deleted from this group, and you will have to resubmit it here if you later take it out of storage. Also, if your deviation is in the group's faves and is later submitted to a group folder, it will be removed from the faves, as it can't be in both places at once (and we would much rather have it in a folder than in the faves!).

Please note that ONLY deer will be allowed in this group, not antelope or other ungulates. We love them too, of course, but we just want to focus on deer and deer-like creatures here (again, refer to above list for what we consider "deer-like"). Our affiliate groups #UnderratedUngulates, #Bovidae and #Those-With-Even-Toes are more suitable for submitting your antelope and other ungulate pics to.

Of course, common social rules apply to this group as well, so needless to say, if any member is trolling others, insulting the mods, making any kind of ruckus or misbehavior, or repeatedly ignores the submission rules, they will be banned from the group. And if anyone has a complaint, please note us rather than post about it on the main page of the group. We always try our best to resolve any issues peaceably, respectfully and fairly for everyone involved, but ranting and trolling on the main page is not the proper way to address a complaint.

We are also taking PayPal donations to upgrade TDC to a super-group; please note me if you would like to help out in any way!

To potential affiliates: we are currently only accepting affiliates that either have something to do with deer/ungulates or with forest-dwelling wildlife art/illustration in general (let us know if you have such a group!). Also, we will not be posting blogs about features and contests from other groups unless it pertains to deer/deer-like creatures in general, same as the links we've posted in our "Affiliates & Links" section below (again, if you have a good link suggestion, please let us know!).

Lastly, please don't forget that we have a chat/RPG forum for the group over here: [link] , and also see ~parrotsnpineapple's post regarding the TDC Secret Santa exchange: [link]

Thanks, all!
~SD

P.S. And once again, all the credit for our lovely group icon goes to *Lizkay, who made it from her gorgeous animation: [link]