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Does anyone have a resource I can look at or provide some advice on painting a banner? I've seen some beautifully painted warbanners in the Adepticon pic thread as well as on other models and I suspect most of these are pure free hand work. Can anyone tell me generally how should I approach painting a banner free hand, are there steps to take to practice, can I draw the outlines of the banner design onto the banner with a thin sharpie and then paint within the lines, are there ways to just copy banners that are already in the codex that can then be glued or stickered onto the banner?

By banner I mean the banners the sargeants are carrying on their backpacks or the ones that you can place on the Dreadnoughts or carried by a standard bearer model. Not life size banners like the ones Jawaballs does.

I haven't done any freehanding yet at all so any kind of hints, tips, tricks are welcome. Even pointing me to a website or blog is cool as I love to do reading for research on these things.

Thanks

I've just added a few new ones to my army, after doing a simple one a couple of years ago.

You can indeed print/copy designs in codices. My first one was photocopied from a codex. I then put a lamp under a glass table, and traced the design in pencil onto the piece of paper I was using for the banner, then painted over that. I prefer a mechanical pencil to a sharpie because i can make corrections and the lines are easily painted-over.

My current/newer ones I drew freehand first. I drew them/experimented with the size and proportion on a full-size piece of paper to start. Once I had a good size & rendering, I cut it out into a banner, with flaps extending from the top to go over the horizontal pole on said banner. I then painted the actual design over the lines. You can also add highlights and shading onto a banner like this, getting more depth. I mostly just paint the back one solid color, although edging it with a border or something can be a nice touch.