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So I was wondering what people thought of custom national flags as opposed to using ones already created by real-life (that is, Earth) nations. Is it generally a good idea? And for those who have created one, what was your inspiration and design process?

I created mine when I joined NS about 3 years ago...I didn't want to use one of the defaults, I wanted one that was unique to my nation. I don't really have any skills in graphics, I just used Paint and made heavy use of the circle and star paint brushes.

I also used Paint for my first one. I googled a lion emblem, pasted it on paint, and drew a simple flag around it.

Eventually I got tired of the flag, and simply replaced it with the rastafari flag, altered by some artist to include the Lion of Judah.

I used Paint.net for my one, but my current one is done by Stir.
And well I just wanted to have a wolf and a Heart on it, the colour came just because.
And I didn't want to use the real one, cause it didn't feel right for me.

Well, for my nation here in Wintreath I also used MS Paint. I took a poster for The Stoic Club in Earthbound, cut off the middle portion, found the font that was used to make the poster (I had to search for & download it) typed "CLUB STOIC" and The Stoic Club's motto "WHERE FEELING NOTHING IS THE ONLY WAY OF LIFE" onto it via a text box and called it a flag.

That was quite some time ago though. I use GIMP 2.8 now in conjunction with Lucidpress to make my flags now. For example, the big graphic in my signature was created by taking 3 pieces of clip art (the globe, hands and shadowy figure) which were resized appropritately, changing the backgrounds to alpha (transparent) in GIMP and putting them together on top of an outer space wallpaper in Lucidpress. Then it was just a matter of typing out the letters in Lucidpress and downloading the finished product. As my understanding of GIMP's advanced functions grows so to does my ability to create better images.

Minus the letters, the image in my signature is actually used as a flag for a couple of my other nations. I've received several compliments on it.

Consider it another compliment then! I love it!

Uh, @Laurentus, I can't seem to find your flag... because I think your nation has ceased to exist D:

I ended up creating a flag but I haven't used it yet. Maybe I should now that I see more and more nations using the flag of the Åland Islands.
I had my brother teach me how to use a cracked version of Photoshop CS6, but it probably would've been easier in MSPaint.

I ended up modeling it after a Nordic flag because firstly, I like the Nordic countries and secondly, this whole region gives me a Scandinavian vibe. I reversed the colours of the Danish flag and added a crest of a red fox (Clifta's national animal) in the middle of the cross.

Oh, I should have mentioned it was my main nation. I have a bazillion puppets. Laurentian Offspring Island is my Wintreath puppet, which I'll go revive shortly.

This is my main nation.

Nice flag! So a quick unrelated question: do you happen to serve as both citizen/Riksråd member of Wintreath and New Hyperion Ambassador to Wintreath, seeing as how you're the NH delegate on your main?

Yeah, I'm serving on the OH here, as well as the Riksråd, but I'm the Chancellor in New Hyperion, which is our second-in-command. I'm currently also the only person on this cabinet who also serves on another region's.

Wow, @Stir did a wonderful job on your flag, @VidiLune.

I'm also liking @Laurentus 's flag.

Nice, your guys' flags are pretty good, considering most of you used Paint.

For my flag, I didn't want to use an already existing flag because I wanted mine to be different and original. I created mine in GIMP as Paint proved to be too difficult for me to get anything I liked (Who'd figure Paint would be too difficult?). My nation is created as my sort of ideal nation (at least as is possible in NS), so I tried to show some of my ideals in my flag.

My flag is blue with a grey stripe on the bottom third partly because I just like the two colors, but also because blue often represents intelligence, freedom, and peace, and grey represents the grey area between black and white, where I try to keep most of my opinions. Having just a bottom stripe I felt was satisfyingly different from the more common three stripes.

The trefoil knot I stumbled upon when trying to find a central symbol for the flag. I chose it because to me it represented balance (from the number 3), the interconnection of everybody and everything, plus it came up under "symbols for wisdom" in Google Images (My nation's motto is "Peace Through Wisdom" in Latin...or at least Google Translate says it is). Having a third of the knot a different color from the rest was just something I also saw on Google Images and liked.

The whole thing looks sort of futuristic, which I also like. The flag itself is quite simple, but I'm proud of it.

Well, for @VidiLune, she'd already done the flag and all I did was even it out and clean it up.

For me, I wanted a custom flag to go with Plumia's lore, so I spent a few hours messing around in Illustrator until I got what I wanted.

The colors, as well as the numbers of feathers in each row have symbolic relevance to the nation itself but I don't remember if I've written it down anywhere yet...

[Edit: I should note I'm a graphic design student on top of having done drawing and illustration for a really long time, so I'm not great at explaining my creative process since for me it more or less just ~happens~...oof.]

I suppose it's about time I actually uploaded the flag I was talking about. It's on my nation page right now.

I made my flag in paint... though it looks pretty terrible without the ripple effect

I also made the flags for the nations: The Pantheon of Gods Limitless Wealth and cutefayce .

None of those ones my nations, each flag made to the specifications of their owners

Anyway as you can see I make due, I mainly use Paint.net instead of MS paint to do these I find it has a lot more useful features, like layers and transparency, that really go a long way in helping with making graphics in general. 

While I may lack in talent, I do always really enjoy making graphics like this and especially the flags!

I suppose it's about time I actually uploaded the flag I was talking about. It's on my nation page right now.

I really like it!

And it really does evoke the Scandinavian vibe you were going for, but it also sort of hints at a very medieval theme

Anyway, yeah, I always love to see people make their own flags, I feel it makes nations more personal and their's... that being said I don't mind if you stick to the default or get someone else to do your flag, hell I did a bunch of flags for other people as it is, so I really can't complain about that

All in all I think the flags are cool and fun and always like checking them out.