Signature Banners / Virtual Ribbon Sets

Hello Forum Regulars,

Recently I began making virtual ribbon sets for forum members who have family members that are WWII veterans. They can be used in signature banners along with other insignia of the veteran's service. How you use them is up to you.

I am not a computer graphics professional but enjoy messing around with various projects. If any forum member would like a ribbon set or similar small graphic I would be glad to work with you, just send me a PM.

Completed banners and work-in-progress can be seen on my Profile in the Banners Album.


I'll also use this thread to gather peoples feedback. Feel free to voice your concern about the use of these signature banners.

If you spot errors in the graphics, please send me a PM to discuss.

 

I would also like to thank Earthican for my banner. I think it's a great way to honor our WWII vets.

 

A little clarification of what is available.

The signature banners use a very small ribbon size to fit within the 640 X 128 pixels set by the forum. Smaller banners are possible with small text but the ribbons do not re-size well. They lose much of the "ripple" effect. Samples of two banner sizes can be found in my Album "Banners".

Also available are "full size" ribbon sets that are not suitable for signature banners. Samples of these can be found in my Album "Ribbon Sets +". These might be suitable for web pages or other uses.

While I enjoy messing with the computer graphics, I really enjoy learning something new about the war though the individual stories of service.

 

As the recipient of a set of banners honoring my dear father, I'm very pleased and grateful. Thank you.

 

Thank you all for the kind words.


Besides a keen interest in honoring the veterans, I apparently have developed an obsession for pixel painting the branch colors used as trim or piping on the enlisted men's garrison caps. These are reflected in the vertical strips found on the sides of the signature banners.

Branch colors go back at least to the ACW where the NCO stripes of the the Infantry, Cavalry and Field Artillery are made in Light Blue, Yellow and Scarlet, respectively. Later the US Army extended this practice with branch color cords around the campaign hats (Smokey the Bear hats). During WWI when the US Army was persuaded to use steel helmets they also adopted the garrison cap based on a European style. The colored cord of the campaign hat was transferred by using branch color trim on the garrison cap.

The single color trim was quite easy to draw and had a nice look, however, the simple diagonal texture I used did not lend itself to a two color pattern. Since then I have tried to find satisfactory pixel patterns that would render reasonable facsimiles of the stitched trim in two colors.

In my Banners Album you can find two patterns for the two color trim. One has a braided look and the other uses a stitched stripe. Which pattern I use depends on the color combinations. Some color combinations look good in braid (Armor) and others look good in stitched stripes (Ordnance).

It seems the actual branch color trim could take on many variations depending on the manufacturer. I have found samples of at least three different styles. I do not use the third style because it does not seem to look right in any color combination yet attempted.

I also went back to the single color Cavalry Yellow and rendered it with a cord texture. I have mixed feeling about this look. Sometimes it looks like a cord but other times it looks like reptile skin.

For completeness I also have a company grade officers trim in silver thread.

I had no idea where this project would take me. I just thought the ribbons looked cool, almost real, when rendered with a simple pixel pattern (found on Wikipedia) and wanted to see if I could extend it by adding campaign bronze stars.

 

Earthican,

I told my dad about this. Unfortunately his eyesight is so bad he can't really see what you've done, he can just tell it is a green "splotch" on a page. But I described it to him. He said to tell you he wishes he could see it and thank you for making a virtual ribbon set for him because it means so much to me and my family and so it means so very much to him.

Clem

 

I think this is a wonderful thing that you do and I am trying to find stuff to get one for my father. Those look great and I read them every time I run into one because they are so interesting. Thank you for dressing up the forum with these works of art.

 

Thanks so much for the wonderful job on my signature banner honoring my grandfather. Earthican, you rock!

 

With some disappointment in myself, I am withdrawing my offer to make signature banners. I have several issues I cannot reconcile.

- With my design, I tried to be appropriate to the WWII era and fair to all arms and services. This was actually easier when the forum had restrictions on the size of the signature image. With no restrictions I am afraid of an ever expanding desire for insignia/badges and elaborate graphics.

- To be honest I am not happy with the base color I picked to represent the US Army. I now feel I should have gone with an olive-brown color (much like the new forum skin color). To me it appears to be a better match to the wool OD's and Ike Jacket.

- Oddly, with no restrictions on the size of the signature image, the forum also introduced a severe restriction on attachments and albums. Unless I start a new user ID or open an ImageShack account, I cannot post images to share.

I hope forum members will understand.

 

It is easy for me to say I understand, because you very kindly created one for me, which I appreciate immensely.

But I do think everyone will understand your reasons.