I’ve had a number of favourable comments about my banners so I thought I’d put a simple ‘How Too’ up about them.
I use a template made some time ago so there are no photos for this stage. Once you have a template you can vary the size to suit.
To create your template choose a standard bearer who requires a reasonably large banner. Measure the depth against the banner pole and cut a strip of paper to this width. Fold paper in half and wrap around the pole pinching the two sides together as close to the pole as you can. Measure 5mm out from this pinch mark on both sides and draw a line. Fold or cut the paper to the size of banner you think looks best. You should end up with a strip of paper with a square/rectangle at each end that will be the banner and a piece in the middle to wrap around the pole.
Now measure what you have and transfer it to your preferred computer paint system. Draw a box, using the thinnest line you have available, on the LHS of the screen for one side of the banner then add to the right a box for the strip to go round the pole. Mark the halfway point on this strip at the top and bottom outside of the drawn box. Copy what you have already drawn; flip it over and use the halfway points to line it up to make the complete banner. This way everything should be symmetrical. The strip around the pole can be solid or you can cut out parts as I have done.
The optional fringing is a box the size of the banner face (cut and paste) with equally spaced lines along one side and the bottom, do a few and the cut and paste to keep consistent. My example is shown in black to make it clear but you should use a light colour to make painting easier.
When you are happy with this basic template resize the image by at least 200% - this will make creating the banner image so much easier.
The next photo is my working out drawing – I’ve added images of the real Rust coat of arms and the wasp used for the figure of Lieutenant Hornet to my template page. The coat of arms was very small so has lost a lot of it definition.
Because my print programme works in squares, like a mini MineCraft game, this banner is square to cut down the pixilate effect on the diagonal cross, this is also why the cross has straight lines rather than the wavy lines. Cut, copy, reverse, rotate etc. parts of the design to keep the symmetry and when one side is complete copy and reverse onto the other side. The 1st is just the text facility using a font that isn’t too pixilated. When happy with your design remove your workings and save. I have a picture viewer programme that will allow me to fade the colours and this is my next stage.
You will now have a large faded image of your banner – the image shown above is 800 pixels wide but is in fact over 2000 pixels wide. I now insert the image into a Word document and adjust the size – you will see a comment on the template that its width in Word is 11.03cm to print out the correct size. Display your word document at 100% and hold your standard bearer against the flag image and adjust its size until you’re happy – it may or may not equal the measurements taken at the start. In most programmes when you reduce the size of a picture they use the same size pixels and just use less of them merging colours, losing definition and pixelating edges. In Word it compresses the actual image and pixels so doing it this way gives smoother lines than if you had drawn at actual size. Print, cut out and paint. As you can see below it is evident by the wavy black lines that I’ve only painted one half so far. You can of course be lazy and not paint by missing out the fading and just print in full colour.
If you don’t want the fringing the flag is ready to be glued on to the figure. For the fringing cut out carefully with a knife or scissors going about 3mm into the banner shape except for near the corner where you have to be more careful not to cut the corner off. I then separate and bend out alternative pieces before painting. If you don’t they tend to stick together.
This is also the reason to extend the cut which I forgot to do on the first version and why the banner looks different in this view of completed parts. For the second attempt I alternated the colours in the fringe and added the checker pattern to pole strip as it looked a bit bare.
Stick the fringe part to one side of the banner with PVA and leave for 5 minutes to dry a little. Add glue to all the back of the banner and fix around the banner pole, pinching both sides together close to the pole and matching up both halves. To put folds in my flags I alternate brush handles as shown below and place a few books on top to give some pressure and then leave to dry fully. The folds may not be realistic but there’s little point in making banner if it’s not going to be seen.
Banners are flat so don’t need shading as such so you emphasize whatever you want and add shade and highlights to the ridges and furrows.
