Rank Insignia and Uniforms Thread

How would an Eastasian rank system work?

considering Eastasia is for all intent and purpose an enlarged China, it could be based on the collar insignias formaly used by the PLA:
http://www.uniforminsignia.org/?option=com_insigniasearch&Itemid=53&result=1339

What about the banner system? Could that be integrated into the army?
http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Terms/baqi.html
I first read how Eastasia had an “Obliteration of Self” ideology, I concluded it must have been Japanese annexation of China and Korea, not the other way round. Orwell might had Kamikaze death squads in mind when he said this. (But yet, “Obliteration of Self” also reminded me of Neo-Confucian “conserving principles of the heaven and extinguishing human desire.” thing. )

Orwell wrote the book in 1948, when Japanese Empire was still not a distant memory, and China was still in chaos.

So you might want to look at IJA ranks.

But if you are looking for something more traditional, the East Asian tradition was to use coloring to denote ranks.
http://t.www.uniforminsignia.org/?option=com_insigniasearch&Itemid=53&result=3737

In Late-Qing reforms, in accordance with tradition, red was used for general officers, blue field officers , white company officers.

For myself, I was interested to see a modernized Mandarin Square system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_square#Military
 

Deleted member 108228

I first read how Eastasia had an “Obliteration of Self” ideology, I concluded it must have been Japanese annexation of China and Korea, not the other way round. Orwell might had Kamikaze death squads in mind when he said this. (But yet, “Obliteration of Self” also reminded me of Neo-Confucian “conserving principles of the heaven and extinguishing human desire.” thing. )

Orwell wrote the book in 1948, when Japanese Empire was still not a distant memory, and China was still in chaos.

So you might want to look at IJA ranks.

But if you are looking for something more traditional, the East Asian tradition was to use coloring to denote ranks.
http://t.www.uniforminsignia.org/?option=com_insigniasearch&Itemid=53&result=3737

In Late-Qing reforms, in accordance with tradition, red was used for general officers, blue field officers , white company officers.

For myself, I was interested to see a modernized Mandarin Square system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_square#Military

Thank you for your input. I might start making a system based on a combination of these ideas.
 
What program is used to make all of this stuff, I don't know what it is, and I like to use it myself.
Whatever graphics editor you prefer. They're just PNG images. In this particular case, the templates were originally created by a Deviant Art user called Tounushi as far as I can tell, but all his images are literally just PNG pixel art. PNG is one of the reliable image formats, it uses lossless compression. So unlike JPG, the image doesn't degrade over time. But the file is still much smaller than the ancient bitmap (BMP) format.

As to software, literally anything that can handle PNG. From as simple as Paint up to much more complex packages like Photoshop, GIMP and Illustrator. Anything that can handle "layers" is best as you can take an existing image and add new elements in their own transparent layer on top, so that you can rejig things until you really like the layout without having to constantly redraw the base image each time. Then compress all the layers back together to save as PNG (because it can have only one layer).
 
Five%20nations_zpsldmyufdy.png

This is so cool! How did you make that? Do you have more?
 
zealots2.png


From WMIT 2.0. The Zealots are the private security forces that work for the AFC Church. They do things like protecting "Servants of Christ" (people the Church bestows its protection upon), the Reverend-Colonel (Anti-Pope), and the Tobias Institute (for paranormal and Christian magick research).

Cobbled from stuff throughout the thread. Feel free to use any parts I created, like the kepi, if you like them.
 
How do you guys make these uniforms? Like, where do you go to get these templates? Please, any solid link or anything like that would be appreciated.
 
This is based on an idea that MovingtargeT posted on April 20. The idea was that the Confederate States Air Force was made up largely of cavalry personnel, and picked up a lot of cavalry traditions.

This is not meant to fit in with Marc Pasquin's timeline, or the Chrononauts timeline of my other posts.

In this timeline, the CSAF broke off from the army, and went way out of their way to emphasize their cavalry traditions. Enlisted rank names are a mixture of British cavalry tradition, and revived CSA insignia. British horse units traditionally avoided the title of "sergeant", because a sergeant comes from a word meaning "servant", so instead they use "Corporal of Air". The uniform also romanticized the CSA's 19th century history. Their uniforms revert to old 19th century conventions that had gone by the wayside. While the army was wearing olive green uniforms, low-visibility chevrons, the air force was wearing Confederate gray with cavalry yellow insignia and an old-fashioned yellow stripe down the leg. The army had begun following international conventions of reserving stars for general ranks, but the air force used stars for field officers. The on-base uniform included a slouch hat with a plume and spurs (for members who earned them in combat or through other means), and the dress uniform requires all NCOs and officers carry sabers.

There were some attempts to make the officer rank names more modern and systematic, but colonels were unwilling to give up their proud southern rank name. General officers wear the 19th century general officer insignia, with propellers to mark ranks higher than Brigade General. Some northerners comment that the officer rank patch worn on both lapels looks like a slice of pizza, but the Confederates were largely unaware of that food at the time.

Legal disclaimer: Most elements of the uniform, and enlisted insignia, and face are largely copied and pasted from tounushifan.deviantart.com. The original artist gave permission to use those images for any use. I drew a lot of the other insignia while looking at images made by other people.

View attachment 287729

How did you make that? It looks pretty good.
 
I managed to read this before the thread went down, so I worked on the uniforms using an image by Tounushifan that explicitly said we can use it however we want if we attribute it.

The scenario is that the South wins the Civil War, but a second war between the states breaks out at the same time as the OTL Spanish American War. My Union uniforms are pretty much the same as OTL uniforms from 1898, with some tweaks to make them more distinct from the CSA. I went away from Tounushifan's template a bit on the USA enlisted man, because I consider brown pants and shoulder straps to be more iconic of the Spanish American War.

My solution to the Confederate General Problem was to say that Brigadier Generals use three stars in a wreath, and all higher level generals add pins that correspond to their branch. In this example, that is one pair of crossed sabers.

What do you think of the uniforms? Yes, I am double posting here and on Chrononauts - The Flip Side. I'm looking for different kinds of feedback in the two places, so I hope that's okay.

Am liking these ones too. Where did you make these? What program?
 
What's gimp used for? Well I guess I'll find out. Thank you.

What about those templates that people use for uniforms specifically? I see them all the time. What is that program?

gimp is an imaging program that uses layers.

the base image is not a program. some people just reuse the same "mannequin" as base image.

if you need one, you can use this:

manikin.jpg
 
Whatever graphics editor you prefer. They're just PNG images. In this particular case, the templates were originally created by a Deviant Art user called Tounushi as far as I can tell, but all his images are literally just PNG pixel art. PNG is one of the reliable image formats, it uses lossless compression. So unlike JPG, the image doesn't degrade over time. But the file is still much smaller than the ancient bitmap (BMP) format.

As to software, literally anything that can handle PNG. From as simple as Paint up to much more complex packages like Photoshop, GIMP and Illustrator. Anything that can handle "layers" is best as you can take an existing image and add new elements in their own transparent layer on top, so that you can rejig things until you really like the layout without having to constantly redraw the base image each time. Then compress all the layers back together to save as PNG (because it can have only one layer).

How do you get this format?
 
Uniforms from Harry Turtledove's TL-191 "Southern Victory" Book Series:

These were all done by an artist in DeviantArt --->>> https://www.deviantart.com/finerskydiver

Quebecois Uniform: 1930s-1940s

hJb58Gh.png


^^^ --- Without insignia. Consists of French-style uniform, German stahlhelm, and US webbing.

k1xo7ch.png


^^^ --- Uniform with insignia. White, based off French insignia.

Confederate States Army and Freedom Party: 1941-1944

h2NxLuVg.png


^^^ --- Far-left --- CS Army uniform. Center and far-right ---Freedom Party Guardsmen uniform.
 
Uniforms from Harry Turtledove's TL-191 "Southern Victory" Book Series:

These were all done by an artist in DeviantArt --->>> https://www.deviantart.com/finerskydiver

Quebecois Uniform: 1930s-1940s

kinda weird to use french uniform and insignia considering that:

- Quebec is a US puppet state in that timeline and France is an enemy of the US
- modern style french uniforms and insignia were adopted long after canada was conquered by the british so that they were never worn by anyone in what is now modern day Quebec.
- lastly, and a lot of people seem not to grasp this, quebecois are not french, do not consider themselves french and are not considered french by other francophones. The idea of an independent Quebec adopting french uniforms and insignias makes as much sense as New England declaring independence from the US tomorrow and then adopting british uniforms
 
kinda weird to use french uniform and insignia considering that:

- Quebec is a US puppet state in that timeline and France is an enemy of the US
- modern style french uniforms and insignia were adopted long after canada was conquered by the british so that they were never worn by anyone in what is now modern day Quebec.
- lastly, and a lot of people seem not to grasp this, quebecois are not french, do not consider themselves french and are not considered french by other francophones. The idea of an independent Quebec adopting french uniforms and insignias makes as much sense as New England declaring independence from the US tomorrow and then adopting british uniforms
-In the thread we had convene that Quebec was not really a puppet state per se since it didn't entered the war against the CSA or anyone else, it only send 30 or 40 thousand soldiers to help patrol Canada at US demand. So it had some latitude in its relation to the US.
-Obviously, but we imagined that Quebec would not want to wear British or US uniform either and French uniform kit would have been pretty cheap.
-Of course, this is why the uniform are pretty much the only French part (the insignias were added by Alterwright and I admit it make little sense), the only other option beside US uniform would have been a completely original model. We imagined that the nationalist government would not like to use US uniform since they wanted to have an ''independant'' image, not being seen as a ''french-USA''.
EDIT: they still use the US Stahlhelm and probably the US springfield, so its not like they adopted exactly the French uniform and arms.
 
kinda weird to use french uniform and insignia considering that:

- Quebec is a US puppet state in that timeline and France is an enemy of the US
- modern style french uniforms and insignia were adopted long after canada was conquered by the british so that they were never worn by anyone in what is now modern day Quebec.
- lastly, and a lot of people seem not to grasp this, quebecois are not french, do not consider themselves french and are not considered french by other francophones. The idea of an independent Quebec adopting french uniforms and insignias makes as much sense as New England declaring independence from the US tomorrow and then adopting british uniforms

Well, its a concept. Fan content, done for fun, usually is by nature and this is no exception. I quite like how this turned out personally, but of course if you have your own ideas on a Quebecois uniform, I'd be more than happy to hear what you have in mind :)
 
Top