Flag making

david53 · Post by **david53** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 6:27 pm

You'll all be glad to note or not I have just finished some infantry flags has tried sticking foil on the paper first and then allowing to dry and sticking the flag together as normal. Once dry seems to make a lot of difference, once bent the flags seem to hold their shape.

Dave.

deadtorius · Post by **deadtorius** » Sun Aug 22, 2010 11:31 pm

I have used paper flags where you skip the foil, use watered down white glue brushed on to the back of the flag and then the flag is folded on the pole. You can can now bend the flag how you like and when the glue dries it will hold the bent shape, if your flag pole is a nice straight wire you can also slip it off to switch flags for a given stand if you need to sub them in for a different army later.

hood_mick · Post by **hood_mick** » Mon Aug 23, 2010 8:56 am

All you have to do to make them keep there shape is to use a coat or two of a polyurethane varnish on them. In effect making them plastic.

david53 · Post by **david53** » Mon Aug 23, 2010 10:26 am

hood_mick wrote:All you have to do to make them keep there shape is to use a coat or two of a polyurethane varnish on them. In effect making them plastic.

Thanks for that

david53 · Post by **david53** » Mon Aug 23, 2010 10:26 am

deadtorius wrote:I have used paper flags where you skip the foil, use watered down white glue brushed on to the back of the flag and then the flag is folded on the pole. You can can now bend the flag how you like and when the glue dries it will hold the bent shape, if your flag pole is a nice straight wire you can also slip it off to switch flags for a given stand if you need to sub them in for a different army later.

Thanks for that

deadtorius · Post by **deadtorius** » Tue Aug 24, 2010 1:38 pm

I have also had luck scanning flags from a book, resize them, then use MS paint to remove the colours and print them off as black and white. I then painted them with artist acrylics, they look pretty nice when they are done and its easier to fill in the lines then try to freehand the design unless you are very artistically talented.

One advantage of this is if your flag is the same on both sides you only need 1 side pictured, copy the image flip it then line it up with the other side of the flag. Resize it and once you have the master flag you can just copy that image how every many times you need it.
I did an army of Austrians for my Napoleonics that way, but their flags were different images on both sides so had to copy both sides then put them together and make the master sheet that got printed off. Really helps if your flag has lots of black on it