Creating banners

[NoblesseChevaleresque]

I was just wondering, what tool do people use to make new banners?

Aurvandil has been needing a new banner now for a year, but any attempts I've made have been pretty poor (largely due to a lack of graphical skill on my part).

[Indirik]

GIMP is a popular one. It's a very powerful photo editor. It's also free/open source. If you prefer vector-based drawing tools, InkScape is also pretty decent, free/open source.

But without any artistic ability, you're probably going to have a hard time creating something decent. There may be members of the community willing to make one for you. Shenron was making quite a few for people. He quite, restarted, and has now quit again. But he has a wiki page with some of the stuff he's done that are available for use: http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/User:Shenron/Banners

You may be able to crib some ideas from the old Dwilight Realm Banner Competition entries: http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Contests/Dwilight_Realm_Banners/Submissions

[JPierreD]

The free version doesn't have many options, but the paid one is somewhat nicer:
http://inkwellideas.com/coat_of_arms/free-version/

[Geronus]

I was just wondering, what tool do people use to make new banners?

Aurvandil has been needing a new banner now for a year, but any attempts I've made have been pretty poor (largely due to a lack of graphical skill on my part).

Fury might be someone else to contact. For a while he was offering to do Family Crests for people that looked quite slick, so it wouldn't surprise me if he also has the tools and ability to do a new banner for you.

[Fury]

Yeah, sure.
I haven't refused anyone yet.
Just need the details.

[Ehndras]

I wonder if he'd be up to help with a design for my new religion... :-)

[Fury]

Hey, what's with the 3rd person? 
I'm right here. Have I said I needed details yet? 

[Zakilevo]

Hey, what's with the 3rd person? 
I'm right here. Have I said I needed details yet? 

Wait you make banners Fury? Can I ask one too?

[Fury]

Sure. First come (with the details) first served.

[Lionheart]

I used photoshop for OG

[Ehndras]

Hmm. I definitely need a banner for my religion...

I'd use my back tattoo design but it'd need to be shrunken down to fit the banner. :-| Its one of the final scenes in my old Fantasy novel where the religion stems from. Its a tall, white-stone, ruined tower (a phallic symbol of solidarity, purity and power, yet damaged by hardship and the passage of time) with two dragons - one blue and gold, the other black and red - (symbolizing the clash of dualism) of specific coloring spiraling up the tower opposite each other, emulating a strand of DNA, their wings stretched out with their maws open near the top, teeth sharp, as if they are threatening to swallow whole the eclipsed sun and moon floating above the tower's apex (symbolizing the dangers of either moral extreme and how harmony can only exist when there is balance betwixt the two. Should either extreme gain too much power then it will by nature destabilize the entire system and destroy everything in the process.)

The actual design is much more complex than that but effectively that's what I'd like my banner to be. Tower, dragons on either side, sun at the top. Doesn't need to be very detailed or anything.

[Penchant]

stuff

Sounds like an awesome banner.

[Ehndras]

:-) Even better tattoo! I'd like to paint it one day, too. Its *supposed* to be a massive landscape piece in which the Daimons and Angelis are fighting as allies for the first time in Human history, against the Skyborn (a Lovecraftian collective of alien monstrosities from another dimension who have their own gods and such) and other agents of the betrayers who sought to take the power of the Highest Divine for themselves and murder Apothos the Lightbringer, aka Pan-en, the concept-made-vessel that filters the world's life energy like an immortal battery. The tower is supposed to, ahem, tower over the ocean with much of the broken continent apparent (since in the previous Wintering, Hadrean the Destroyer was born from Alekh'thaeos betrayal and manipulation of Dragonkind, who pretty much grabbed the tower Kha'mael was fashioning from an asteroid and thrust it toward the planet in disgust of the demigod-led armies fighting like base pitiful beasts who dared to go against the will of the gods, resulting in an extinction event that annihilated much of the planet's life before the Highest Divine showed up and sort-of fixed the world enough to barely function.

Tldr; pissed off newborn God-Killer throws thin, pointy asteroid-sized spear and skewers planet, murdering a good 80% of the population of the entire world, annihilating the central continent and seat of the greatest empires, bringing countless races to the brink of extinction, and effectively ending the War of the Ascended (demigods riled up mortals and rebelled against the true gods) in one giant, angsty "!@#$ YOU!".

Anyway, you can read what I have posted so far in this thread:

http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,2639.msg63487.html#msg63487

I'm going to start working on the Wiki today and seeing what I can scrape up of my old Lore... A bloody decade I worked on that Fantasy novel and I lost everything because of an idiot thief who thought my bags had something value in them. I bet the !@#$%^& took one look at my crazy drawings and language and threw all my work away. Bah...

[Nerukou]

This is the one I used to make Myern's arms.

http://inkwellideas.com/coat_of_arms/

[Tom]

One general remark here: When making new banners, please make them in PNG format with transparent background. That will soon become the new official rule.