Thursday 21 February 2008

Flags and heraldry: clipart and free software

A few people have mentioned that they'd like flag templates and I have considered doing some. The only problem is time! Any time I spend doing flags will be time I don't have for doing uniform templates. I don't really have any easy way of finding out if there is sufficient demand to justify diversifying production at the Tippelbruder shop...

Anyway, one suggestion I have for those who would like to do their own flags fairly easily is to download Inkscape from http://www.inkscape.org, learn the basics of this interesting and free vector graphics program and then acquire some of the wide range of free .svg heraldry clipart from e.g. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:SVG_coat_of_arms_elements (explore the links on this site for a very wide variety of clipart). It is far easier to manipulate and re-use elements in vector drawings than bitmap ones, and the quality of the image does not diminish when it is magnified (unlike the pixellation that happens when enlarging bitmaps). The final product can be exported as e.g. a png file for easy colouring in Paint or some more advanced painting program at as high a resolution as you desire.

6 comments:

  1. Much more SVG via the SVG links resource http://svg.startpagina.nl

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  2. Thanks, Stelt. That's a very useful link! :-)

    David.

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  3. I'll wait a bit before trying the SVG software, but thanks for the wiki heraldric clip art. And I'll have to see about stelt's link too. Thanks, guys.

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  4. ...thanks for the tips - I get a lot of flags at Warflag.com but not all the regiments I want to paint are represented...

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  5. Thanks David for all of your work! I think these flags have great potential and I intend on using them!

    The Haggis

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  6. Thank you, The Haggis! :-)

    David.

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