"New 40mm ECW needs a flag..." Topic

I am looking for flags for my new 40mm ECW project.

Why not paint one up from scratch. I've done all mine for my 25mm army and you could choose a really simple design like having the field all one colour with no St George's cross or devices!

Find any one of the many examples online from sites like Ian Croxall's WarFlag, download and take it to a program like Paint and then modify it as you see fit. If you use an inkjet printer be sure to spray the finished product with a "fixer" before gluing on with diluted white glue. While the glue dries, shape it to your heart's content, when dry it stays that way.

You can do the entire flag in color in Paint, or do the basic design and touch up with real paint after its set, or use the computer to change the design to a black & white template and then color with art markers or watercolor washes. One tip, on the computer make your flag oversize and then when you print it out, let the printer scale it down by percentage (usually in your print options menu), you retain more of the detail because the printer doesn't change the resolution, just scales it.

Here's an almost finished flag that I did for a German TYW unit in 15mm, think what the detail would look like in 40mm. The squares behind the flag are 4mm X 4mm for an idea of size. The computer original was twice this size and I scaled it to 50% in printing.

picture

picture

Here's some variations on a standard for William III's Dutch Blue Guards in 1688 from a blog I post on

link

And here's Ian's WarFlag site, just in case you didn't have it already

warflag.com

I do all of my work with the computer in unshaded, solid colors, spray with Krylon Artists Sealer, glue, mount and shape, then after its dry I drybrush slight shading to complement the "furls" that I put into the shape (and to do any touch up required around the edges). All you have to lose by trying is a little computer time and a couple sheets of paper. Speaking of which, I do my test prints on regular copy paper, but my final prints are done on 100% cotton stationer's paper, better texture and slightly thicker.

Bill

If you go to the Victory Without Quarter (see earlier on this forum) site he has a page of excellent flags suitably shaded you could copy and print out at the scale you need.

The problems that I have with the pre-textured flags are that (a) the texturing isn't always necessary depending on how you mold or furl the flag, natural lighting does it for you, and (b) often it doesn't match from one side to the other which looks odd when you do mold or furl it.

Unless you just glue it on and let it stand out flat, any pre-shading or texturing should be mirrored (or reversed if you prefer the term) from one side to the other, highs offsetting lows, so that you can mold the flag to fit the pattern. Much more effective to mold a solid color and then lightly highlight or shade if desired, IMHO.

You can download a textured flag and change it to a solid, but this is very time-consuming as the texturing is bit-mapped (or pixelated) and can't be covered with a simple "fill" usually. It can be done, but usually requires using the "paintbrush" function and working in smaller blocks of color to change it. That's one of the reasons I like Ian Croxall's WSS flag set so much, he offers the same flags with or without texturing. Individual tastes and preferences vary, so I wish more artists would follow Ian's lead on this.

Bill