Good day gentlemen. 
I'm a newcomer to the hobby and I'm having problems with painting banners. My freehand is horrible and thus I'm amazed with yours. In these days I only paint a black background and a yellow cross (Averland 
), but I want to paint awesome banners like you guys. Would you mind giving me some tips? How do I improve my freehand? Is there another technique than freehand? Wich one do you use?
Good bye 
Well, I am not an authority or anything, but heres my two cents. First am convinced you do not need to be an artist to make perfectly fine freehand, there are some works here that might well be called works of art, but even if you do not aspire to that level it can look splendid on the battlefield.
Personally I need a design to base my banners on, its never an exact copy what I want to make, it could be a combo of several designs or parts of designs, or just as inspiration. But since I have no formal training what so ever it really helps with proportions and such. So I print the design(s) I will base mine on or display it on the Ipad and keep it close when I paint for guidance. The actual painting I do basically as I paint my models, I start with a dark base and highlight my way up, same colours, same technique really. Having painted minis for ages really does helps since you do get a good sense of where the highlights/shades should be. I usually start by sketching the whole design on the banner first to make sure it fits properly before I start on any details. I think probably some people will be a bit more thorough and actually sketch the design on paper first, but I never tried that actually. So just get into it and test.
