Katawa Shoujo Forums

Over a year ago I made a set of flags for the KS characters and posted 'em in the Fun With Photoshop thread. I wasn't really happy with most of them, so now I'm going back and improving or redoing some of them. I won't bother posting unmodified old ones until I've at least experimented with them, to make sure I'm posting final versions this time. The old ones are here.

I have no idea how to use vector graphics software like Inkscape and can't draw either, so these will mostly be constructed with simple shapes created through convoluted means in Photoshop. Other software used include a triangle calculator on the Internet.

So far the only ones I've worked on have been Shizune's and Hanako's flags; Shizune's flag has had no changes, while Hanako's has been flipped horizontally and the color (yes, one of them) has been made even more subdued to look like something you would see on the side of a camouflaged military aircraft. I have however created vertical standards for them, which took a lot longer than it looks because of all the experimenting with shapes that I did.

I realize these first two are really dark; the rest of them will be much lighter. Also not all of them will have an accompanying vertical standard or seal; in fact most of them probably won't.


(clickable thumbnails!!)

Shizune:


Vertical Standard:


Seal:




Hanako:


Vertical Standard:


Seal:

Rin:


Vertical Standard:


Seal:

Hahaha, fan art really goes strange ways sometimes.
But it's an interesting idea.

Shizune says(signs?), "there is no rust on this fine automobile!"

I'd happily vector these if you need me to. Been meaning to fire up old Inkscape for a while.

Warwick wrote:I'd happily vector these if you need me to. Been meaning to fire up old Inkscape for a while.

You can do whatever you want with them. I also won't mind if you take a shot at making your own and posting them here.

It may take a while for me to make new flags for all the characters since I need to think of a unique and meaningful design,* transfer it to a pixelly medium, and be satisfied with the result. Oftentimes my ideas don't work out, either because of conflicting geometries or because I don't have the means or skill to execute it. I've already trashed complete redesigns for Hisao, Lilly, and Emi.

*"Meaning" being a subjective concept, of course.

I'm sure this thread will still be on the front page even if it takes me six months though.


In between the botched projects however, I did experiment with the Misha flag and determined that all I really want or need to do with it is make it thirteen stripes instead of eight. That makes it even less original, but at least it's consistent!

My issue's that I don't really have any ideas when it comes to designs. Flags aren't particularly my forte, and heraldry takes ages to research at times and require detail for some of the more complex stuff.

Flags often don't follow heraldic rules and I'd sooner break a rule than give up on a decent design. Knowledge of heraldry isn't really useful in coming up with original flags anyway -- it's usually only relevant when considering coats of arms.

The main issue with designing a flag is trying to come up with something sufficiently complex and unique without overindulging in flashy shit, since realistically speaking flags are restricted to a handful of solid colors and simple shapes (not counting coats of arms). Then on the other side you could literally make a flag out of nothing but a black field and nobody would question that it's a flag, but there's no challenge to it and the artistic value is questionable -- hell, if I were an even lazier person I'd make that Lilly's flag.

One guideline I read on some vexilography club's website was that in pretty much any case, flags should never have more than 4 prominent colors.

And on that note, I'm finally putting up a flag with four colors in it.

Lilly:


Vertical Standard:


Seal:


The yellow strip reads "qui pro domina satou sequitur" in Braille. The original was apparently bad Latin anyway, so I just went ahead and made it worse. The idea here, of course, is that Justitia is blind, and so is Lilly, so they should totally have sex or something. As for "who pursues for Lady Satou," those would be Lillyfags.

Also I put five points under the eye 'cause Hanako's flag has a five-pointed star, which I originally put in because it was based on a design element of Lilly's old crappy flag.

As an aside, most flags of the world are displayed vertically by rotating clockwise 90 degrees and flipping horizontally. Some flags however have elements that should always be oriented a certain way (such as words or coats of arms), and so far only Rin's flag has not had a vertical standard that's different from the horizontal one. Here I had to flip the Braille horizontally to keep it "readable," while rotating the eye was an aesthetic consideration.

Ooh. This is really, really, really cool. Keep em coming! Can't wait to see Hanako's. :p

Fono wrote:Ooh. This is really, really, really cool. Keep em coming! Can't wait to see Hanako's. :p

Hanako's is at the top already. Right under Shizune's.

Arias wrote:

Fono wrote:Ooh. This is really, really, really cool. Keep em coming! Can't wait to see Hanako's. :p

Hanako's is at the top already. Right under Shizune's.

It seems my camouflage idea worked too well.


alternatively: thatsthejoke.jpg

I realize that I pay about as little attention as possible to anything when I post at five in the morning. >.>

Sorry, didn't make myself clear. I meant that alternatively to flags, I could've considered a coat of arms, as that's something I've at least done some research in. And after giving myself a night to turn things over in my head, I have some banner ideas that I might mock up given the time.

EDIT: And I did! Click on the thumbnails for full size! (And correct alpha transparency...)

Shizune


Shizune's was in my mind the most well fleshed out, as I pretty much settled on what I wanted to do before I fell asleep. I sorta stole the the star of dominance idea from Caesius, but I used a different design. I thought that Caesius' design was a little too intimidating (ha!) and am very happy with how mine turned out. It invokes the imagery of a Maltese Cross, which is was a happy coincidence. I combined the star with strong upward lines that signify ascension and ambition.


Misha


Misha's gave me a devil of a time. At first I wanted a variation of Shizune's with a stronger chevron motif (I love chevrons, btw) to signify how she supports Shizune's efforts. However, that sorta fell through when I wanted to try to somehow incorporate her drills, as well. I at first tried a spiraling vortex with a similar upward draw, but I just couldn't get it to work right. After finishing Hanako's banner I came back to this and all of a sudden realized I could just use the bottom pinions of the banner to invoke her drills and mirror Shizune's star on the top. And thus this... thing was born. In contrast to Shizune's sharp edges I decided to emphasize Misha's *ahem* curves.


Hanako


Hanako's is still very much a work in progress. I'm not satisfied with this version. Again, I stole the star idea for Caesius, but I don't really intend on keeping it. The joke's rather obvious with how I colored the banner. That much was all that I really had in my head before starting. The original idea was the split coloring with three gold bands running down it, but it felt empty. I messed around with adding a book to it, but then it started to feel really busy. I have yet to find a good balance. I even tried stealing Caesius' eye idea (since Hanako and Lilly are going to share elements, anyway), toying with an asymmetric circle that would represent an eye, even hiding it partially behind my book emblem, but I dropped it and threw a star on it out of laziness for the moment.

More are on the way. I actually had a rather solid idea for Emi, too, and I only just remembered it. I'll try to finish it before the night is out.


EDIT2: Emi's is done



Okay, so it wasn't as awesome as I expected. I wanted to try for some more diagonal lines in the banners, and who better than Emi? It's my own take on the racing stripes motif. I sampled the little corner from Emi's hair beads, since her hair turned out unexpectedly pink. The other bands are poplar green, sampled from her eyes. It took a hell of a lot of tweaking between the gray of the banner and the green of the stripes to make sure they didn't clash too badly.