Flag Building Tutorial

I've posted a tutorial on how I build flags. Yet another resource. I've got links in the tutorial to the official site and it has some excellent tutorials, I've just tried to emphasize what I learned in the process of the last several months.

Maybe it helps a few people.

http://riversidemod.wordpress.com/2007/07/25/flag-development-for-potbs-what-ive-learned/

Does the Society have a Flag or Sail that is standard? Because the Society say could have a Sail Design, But leave the Flag to Differise each member to faimilies nationalities etc.

If you go to the the "Portal", there is a poll.

In general you can see that there is NO consensus. At least that is my impression - done without any statistical work

I'm thinking it will be something along the lines of suggested flags / sails appropriate for period and guild. IF we can get a number of flags and sail emblems approved, we might be able to have something more uniform but until then, you really can't do too much. I think we at least need a good handful of options for the various character types in the guild.

All of that is simply one members opinion.

Unless of course, we mandate that everyone MUST fly Dermid's flag!!

My personal preference would be a big HC logo on the sail with our own personal flags (see mine at left).

Also, I'd like to add to the tutorial a bit.

Using the screen layer blending with an opacity of about 50-60 seems to work well for the fabric texture, but doesn't get the lighter white areas. I usually apply it again with a multiply blending, which adds the texture to the white areas. The next thing is to add stains or discolorations with a multiply blending to make it look worn. You don't have to tatter the flag to make it look worn, but some fading and discoloration are good. I have some textures that I use for all of this. I'll post some of them below. You can use almost any image for these patterns as long as you either desaturate them or convert them to grayscale.

Yellowing stains, color running stains, fabric,








I used those to create these:

Those look good. I've have to play around with them.

That is good information. I was trying to be general and not too precise but I think that is good. Multiply is a nice overlay when combined with others even though on its own, I often think - "ahh no" but later it is good.

Have you submitted that flag or any of the others?

With respect to the sail, I started playing around with things yesterday, very briefly. If you go into the idea section and to the guild flag thread, there are some nice concepts done by Suzerain on lettering and type that I think I reference - if not they are on my blog or in one of Suzerain's posts here.

I agree that simple lettering might be the most robust option with customized flags. I guess that the lettering should show some texture and aging like the flags although I think if we are ONLY doing typed text, it should be pretty minimal and simplistic in comparison to the aging on full flags.

I have submitted all the flags except the two British ones. I tried those first to get a feel for flag making before I went ahead with the others.

I have only made one sail for my pimp pirate character. My hopes for our society is to have a big HC, or whatever symbol someone agrees upon, intertwined on the main sails of everyone in the guild and our own personal flags.

Back to to flag making, nothing is really precise when you are doing this stuff. Sure, you know you have to blend in some textures to give it some depth, but the amount is entirely up to you. I think the pirate flag with the sword stuck in it has 5 seperate textures applied to it, whereas the british flag in the middle only has 2.

Post links to your flags.

We should all vote for guild submissions.

Edit: Oh and I agree wholeheartedly with the simple letter insignia. I'm slowly working on something but I might have the least knowledge of the builders within the guild.

If you can come up with something, post away. You might be famous someday.