Northern Fire
A tribute to my friendly neighbors up north.
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Why Northern Fire
? The Fire
represents Canada's strength as a nation and (more importantly) the Canadians as a people, yet their warmth and the fact that in Canada people actually care about their neighbors. Hats off!
I've been wanting to make this wallpaper for weeks, and I nailed it. The maple leaf is from my yard (and a mere 4.5cm long!) - I scanned it in using the family Astra 600S scanner (with the lid raised by tinker-toys to keep the poor little leaf from getting squashed!) I'm told it's even the wrong kind of maple leaf, but I think it conveys the idea.
While the maple leaf is scanned, the rest of it was done by me, using The GIMP. Much of it is merely random flame renders, but I spent quite a while picking them out by hand. The canvas texture was made using GIMP's Video distort filter in 3x3 mode.
Why is the file so huge, you ask? It has many detailed lines, and the quality loss is noticable even at 90% quality. The download time may be longer, but you're getting a better image.
Ironically, certain Americans did not even recognize this as Canada's flag, possibly due to the maple leaf mixup. Get with the program - everyone else did! ;) A few Canadians have emailed me saying that they really like the image. Thanks for your support!