Faction symbols and banners

[skeletor]

beer.... best idea ever.

Norwegian faction: longship sailing in beer

[GoreBag]

YES! Sailing RULES!

[Rodion Romanovich]

beer.... best idea ever.

Norwegian faction: longship sailing in beer

rofl!

It actually looks really good and definitely useable. If the beer isn't beer, it's an ocean at sunset. Also, a longship from the side like that is probably better to use than one from the front like I tried. It tends to get tricky to see what it is when resized to the smaller sizes. Great job!

[Krusader]

Nice banner for Norway.
Although red would suit better if I am to be pricky.

Good work!!

[ScionTheWorm]

beer.... best idea ever.

Norwegian faction: longship sailing in beer

Nice!! I really like the colors, maybe the faction color should be beer-brown!

I think that works better than from the front, I guess the only thing is that vikings should have their own "theme background"

[ScionTheWorm]

Ok when making the faction symbols I'll wrap the images inside some border around like it's common to do in mods. The images will still be somewhat steely and rust or wooden, but a little nicer and not so dark.

I thought of having a metal border around the steel ones, here you have gotten the idea already:
- Saxon
- Normans
- Holy roman empire
- France
- Byzantines
- Rus
- Rebels

Wood with painted motives, appropriate border around:
- Irish
- Scots
- Viking factions (could also be a leather-theme?)

Own background for the muslim factions, no idea yet here.
Own fancy background for Khazar
Own light background for papal states
Don't know about the others.

Will make a border around every one, and the border might have a trace of a secondary faction color if it looks nice. They will be somewhat photographic (if that's a word), but not so dark as I've posted already, and more detailed.
Of course less detailed for the smaller versions.

Agree? It would be nice to have some background suggestions for the ones I do not know yet, since I'm not that into the cultures.

My opinion on a good faction symbol is that it should alone make a person wanna play that faction

[Rodion Romanovich]

Ok when making the faction symbols I'll wrap the images inside some border around like it's common to do in mods. The images will still be somewhat steely and rust or wooden, but a little nicer and not so dark.

I thought of having a metal border around the steel ones, here you have gotten the idea already:
- Saxon
- Normans
- Holy roman empire
- France
- Byzantines
- Rus
- Rebels

Wood with painted motives, appropriate border around:
- Irish
- Scots
- Viking factions (could also be a leather-theme?)

Own background for the muslim factions, no idea yet here.
Own fancy background for Khazar
Own light background for papal states
Don't know about the others.

I think themes should be decided by what culture they'll have in-game, or alternatively by religion or by their real-life culture.

by religion:
- saxons, welsh, irish, scots, asturia, hre, france, lotharingia, papal states
- bulgars, byzantines
- magyars, swedish, norwegians, danes
- khazars
- rebels

by real-life culture:
- saxons, welsh
- irish, scots
- asturia
- hre, france, lotharingia, papal states
- bulgars, magyars
- khazar
- byzantines
- swedish, norwegians, danes
- rebels

Will make a border around every one, and the border might have a trace of a secondary faction color if it looks nice. They will be somewhat photographic (if that's a word), but not so dark as I've posted already, and more detailed.
Of course less detailed for the smaller versions.

I agree, sounds good.

My opinion on a good faction symbol is that it should alone make a person wanna play that faction

Yes

[ScionTheWorm]

I think themes should be decided by what culture they'll have in-game, or alternatively by religion or by their real-life culture.

by religion:
- saxons, welsh, irish, scots, asturia, hre, france, lotharingia, papal states
- bulgars, byzantines
- magyars, swedish, norwegians, danes
- khazars
- rebels

by real-life culture:
- saxons, welsh
- irish, scots
- asturia
- hre, france, lotharingia, papal states
- bulgars, magyars
- khazar
- byzantines
- swedish, norwegians, danes
- rebels

By religion would be very nice I think, but at the same time I feel papal states and irish should be very different in themes. Therefore I vote real-life culture.

[ScionTheWorm]

I think irish and scots should have their own unique theme.This is my first candidate. Quite thick borders, but it looks nice when shrinked to a smaller size (see thumbnail). Here it is in working-size and factionpresentation-on-forum size

[Rodion Romanovich]

Wow, that's impressive! I definitely think that's the way to go!

[ScionTheWorm]

edited away (ugly symbol)

[Ranika]

I very much like the Scot and Irish faction symbols. They do well both culturally and religiously; knotwork like that didn't exist until the Christian era, as it was used by Celtic monks to fill in book margins, so it works on both levels.

[ScionTheWorm]

puh... was afraid historical correctness was going to catch up with me..

[Ranika]

No, it's quite accurate enough. I like it, at least; knotwork was very big in the period (just look at the Book of Kells, Cycles of Dartmouth, Hanrahan's Lament, etc.).

[GoreBag]

Wow, I LOVE those icons! They must be kept.

[ScionTheWorm]

yes I find the saxon helmet extremely hard to do, almost impossible when it comes to colors and cartoonizing it a little. the problem now is mostly getting the other icons in the same style as the gaelic ones, the metal-shine I had before (bysantine saxon rebels) is for instance not near at all.

up the irons

[GoreBag]

The Welsh one is pretty groovy...the Saxon, I agree, isn't quite right, but is that marquee-, almost tapestry-style artwork around the border, or is it just rust? It's a nice touch, in any case.

I think the Saxon helmet has too much rust on it. it's the centrepiece of the image, and should reflect that; you'd think those Saxons would maintain the main image a little better than that, eh?

Overall, though, these improvement are coming in in leaps and bounds. I applaud your efforts and hope to see new icons soon.

[skeletor]

Wow, those are really great...

[ScionTheWorm]

Okay let's call the irish and scottish symbol finished and let me present my first candidate for norse factionsymbols.

[King Ragnar]

Looking very good

[Rodion Romanovich]

I agree, very nice work! The Rus should probably be in the same theme as Norway, Denmark and Sweden (I noticed now that I forgot them on the by-culture list above). Now that Sweden has an axe instead of thor's hammer, all of these motives are available to Rus (feel free to choose whichever you like most when you do the Rus symbol):
1. thor's hammer (perhaps with lighting bolts around?), maybe with snakes hugging the hammer (perhaps use a narrower version that the one I used before).
2. yggdrassil (in case you didn't know, it's the big world-tree, but I guess you knew that already)
3. some horse motif
or
4. this one:

[ScionTheWorm]

do you have another suggestion..? tried them all out, I didn't quite get it to work except for the horsemotive, but it's a little boring...

[skeletor]

You never seem to stop amaze me Scion

[Jarlabanke]

As the Rus became chrisians before most Scandinavians did I wouldn't suggest using a pagan symbol. You could try one looking something like a picture of a small fortified town, hinting at the viking name Gårdarike.

[ScionTheWorm]

I doubt I'll get a town fit into it and look good at the same time. Remember these are very large versions... but I agree, because I would accociate norse mythology with scandinavia regardless if it was the same in russia. I wouldn't feel well if mjøllnir was used. at the same time I've always thought a horse in the factionsymbol was boring... the nr 4. to legio I don't think looks good inside this little thing, though it looked ok when I tried it.

[Jarlabanke]

Was thinking about something along the lines of these seals used by towns in medieval times. http://www.worcestercitymuseums.org....th/13th102.htm
There are way better examples, but they don't seem to be on the net. However, as you see the point isn't getting the whole city, but a mere representation
And Kiev happens to have this quite famous gate:
http://www.hotels-kiev.com/gold_gate.htm
Otherwise you could use one of them Slavic helmets, they differed quite a bit in style from the ones usually associated with vikings.

[ScionTheWorm]

[GoreBag]

Those three icons kick ass. I don't have any other suggestions for the Rus icon, though...the medieval town idea was good, I thought, and you could always use a sword. Maybe a mailed fist or something? I can't think of anything particularly vikingish, sorry.

EDIT: And you just posted the helmet as I was typing this. Looks good.

[Jarlabanke]

Indeed it does.

[ScionTheWorm]

Allright some brainstorming now... I fooled around with this one for the papal states but I don't think its holy and perverse religious enough. If you have any ideas for papal states or other catholic factions, bring em on. I would like some appropriate latin writing around the border at least.

This is not finished and not a candidate.


btw the son of a gun is st peter