Attaching Awards to Your Avatars

Introduction:
The Captain's personal profiles on the SGS Wiki and the personal avatars on our forums are our captains' portrayals of their characters. To award hard-working captains, the Squadron can give out 12 awards, 13 if we include the Order you recieve upon reaching the rank of Knight. Adding your awards to your avatars will not only display your medals and commendations, but display them as if your characters were wearing them. The regulations on this page, and the following tutorial, are made so that captains that wish to add the awards they've recieved to their portraits and avatars may learn how to do so.

Creating Avatars:

For the creation of avatars and your captain's page, read these articles:

Forum Avatars - How to have your forum avatar created.

How to take a portrait screenshot - How to get started with your portrait.

Captain's Profile FAQ - Excellent tutorial on how to set up your captain's page.

Medals:
When placing medals upon your captain's avatar, you should follow these rules:


 * Medals are placed on the top left corner of the left lapel on your uniform (or slightly below if the bearer also has medal bars, see "Medal Bars").
 * Give room for three medals in each row
 * The medals are placed in the order of their levels, lowest level to the left. PvP awards are placed before PvE awards.
 * When one row is full, the fourth medal should be placed with its ribbon behind the cross/coin of the first medal, making the fourth medal's cross/coin visible beneath the first medal's cross/coin.

Examples:



Your first medal is placed in top left corner of your left lapel.



If your next medal is a Military Cross, it takes the leftmost place as it is a PvP award while the Citation is a PvE award.



A Distinguished Service Cross, a second level PvP award, is placed to the right of the Military Cross because the DSC is a higher level award, but to the left of the Citation.



''A Naval Gold Medal, a second level PvE award, is placed to the right of the Citation because the GM is a higher level award. As it is the fourth medal, it is placed directly below the medal to the far left, with the coin visible.''



An example of adding medals to an avatar.

Medal Bars:

 * A medal bar have the same width as a regular medal.
 * Medal bars are placed in the centre of the left lapel on your uniform, above the medals.
 * Give room for three bars in a row.
 * The bars are placed in the order you recieved them.
 * When one row is full, the fourth bar is added to the end of the existing row, while the first bar is placed in the centre of a new row above the other bars.

Examples:



Three bars, the one you recieved last to the right.



Four bars, the one you recieved last is added to the right, the first you recieved is moved up to the centre of a second row.



''Four bars placed above two medals. The medals are moved slightly down to give room for the bars.''



An example of adding bars and medals to an avatar.

Commendations:

 * Shown as a rolled-up document held in the right hand
 * There will only be one document, though the colour of the seal will change according to the level of your commendation.
 * On avatars where the captain has crossed his arms over his chest, the rolled-up document should be placed in the hand that is most convenient, or in no hand at all.



A rolled-up Admiral's Commendation.



''An example of adding a Commendation to an avatar. Here a Governor's Commendation.''

The Order of St. Michael and St. George:
When you reach the rank of Knight in the Squadron, you become a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (KCMG). You are therefore allowed to wear the Badge and Star of the Order:


 * The Badge of a Knight Commander hangs from a red and blue ribbon worn around the neck.


 * The Star of a Knight Commander is eight-pointed and formed by two Maltese Crosses with the red cross of St George. In the centre of the star is a dark blue ring bearing the motto of the Order. It is worn pinned on the left lapel on the uniform, centered between the 4th an 5th buttonhole (or lower, if medals and bars take up too much space).



The Star of the Order.



The Badge of the Order, worn around the neck.



An example of adding the Badge and Star to an avatar.

Tutorial on How to Add Awards
Most of the graphics I have added here, especially the collars, works best on an avatar that is around 160x400 or 200x460. The following graphics could be used when adding awards:

The Star:




 * The first star works best on an avatar that has the left lapel almost dead-on.
 * The second star is slightly turned to the left, to better fit an avatar that has his right shoulder closest to the screen and the left lapel slightly curled.
 * The third star is the same as the second, only slightly smaller.
 * The rightmost star is the same as the first, only larger.

The Badge:




 * The first and the second badges are the same, only slightly different sizes.
 * The third is tilted to the left, in case the avatar's chest is facing to the left.

The Collar:




 * The top two are the "standard" collars to be used on avatars that are facing slightly to the right or left, respectively.
 * The third is better suited for an avatar that is facing almost dead-on.
 * The fourth is a slightly larger version of the second.

The Commendations:




 * All these commendations are too large and has to be resized before use.
 * The size depends on the size of the space between the avatar's thumb and fingers. (See example in Commendations above)

The Medals:




 * Your goal should be to have the medals look like they're hanging from the uniform in a natural way.
 * This is the hardest part of adding awards, as the lapel is very often tilted to one side of another, while the chest of the avatar isn't flat.
 * The method I found that answered best was to add the ribbons and the crosses/coins separately: First adding the ribbons and tilting/rotating/resizing them until they look fairly natural, then adding the crosses/coins, making it look like they're just hanging down from the ribbon.
 * To the left of the medals, I've added a pair of Military Crosses and a Citation that I've used on avatars, to give you an idea on the size and look.