"28mm Cloth Colours for British Infantry?" Topic

How durable are cloth colours, and how does one protect them?

I would like to purchase cloth colours for the 45th, Nottinghamshire Regiment of Foot, the Sherwood Foresters, to use with 28mm Victrix plastic Peninsular British, in action as during the French surprise attack by the 16eme Leger, 3 battalions, on the eve of Talavera de la Reina.

I want to have one (or both) of the colour officers holding the flag, mostly "furled" in the crook or elbow of this left arm, while holding a pistol with his right (perhaps the other with drawn sword). I don't think I can manage this with paper colours.

Does anyone make such a set of colours?

GdeP

A cloth flag on a wargame figure will cause FAR more problems than it solves. Trust me.

When you glue the flag together, put in the furles while the glue is still wet. Use a toothpick to wrap the flag without "creasing" the paper.

Maverick Models produce fabric flags.
You have to seal them with a 50/50 PVA/water mix before use. When dry apply neat PVA, I leave them for a few minutes before fixing into place. Tweezers help squeezing the two sides toy. Leave it for a short while for the glue to start to go off, then you can start putting folds in.

I've only used them on 15mm figures, so can't comment on how artistic you can get the folds.

You will find it difficult with full flags of any type.

The problem stems from the material (paper / cloth) being several times thicker than the figure scale would make it – you are probably looking at flags made from one thickness of finest tissue paper for that (and even that might be too thick). Consequently, the 'folds and bends' you want are pretty much impossible to achieve without removing big chunks of the flag and hiding the removal with 'cover-up' folds. This is just a thought, I don't know anyone who actually does this.

To do what you want, your best bet would be to sculpt the furled flag with putty (Green Stuff / Milliput) onto the figure then paint what can be seen by hand. If you are a good sculptor and excellent painter it's not impossible to achieve spectacular results that way. I'm pretty good at both, and with a very simple flag I could do it – but, British flags are far from simple so I wouldn't even attempt it.

To see my skill level, here's a flat flag I did some time ago:

link

I don't think there is another way to get what you want to look right – and it's the reason no one does what you want to do using printed paper / cloth flags.

Unless you go the sculpt and paint method, or experiment with 'chunk of flag removal', I think you are going to have to settle for 'on the fly' flags like everyone else. Or you might try trying to print the flag onto very thin tissue (If you could do this, I reckon you would only need to print one side as the ink would go right though to the other – bet you would need a bloody good flat bed printer though.

Thanks, all. I will probably look for a way to leave the flags open, held by one hand, possibly on the officers' shoulder just where the flag begins.

GdeP

Ray – just saw this, Have you thought about using metal foil? Thin lead or brass sheet. Another option may be to try and make something with very thin sheet plastic. Boiling the sheet and then try folding it.