Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I am currently making an Ultramarine army and I have been wondering about Battle standards. Do you have to paint each banner by hand or do they have transfers for them? I am new to the Wh40k modeling / painting side but I have been a fluff sponge for years

Because it is very hard to paint banners by hand you might wanna print out a transfer of a banner on decal paper and apply it to the banner, but you could do it either way.

There are really 2 types of banners out there:

Sculpted ones
Bare ones

The sculpted ones have detailed relief on them depicting whatever image they want, often a mural of some epic battle. The Grey Knights Terminator banner is an example of this.

Bare ones are exactly that. Bare "cloth" with no pictorial details on it. For those, most people freehand designs on them. A popular method is to sketch out the design in pencil and then paint over it.

For bare banners, you could certainly use decals, but some banners may be much bigger than any decals you'd want to use that GW makes. Banners from GW don't come with a dedicated decal sheet, as awesome as that would be.

My thanks to both of you

I have a few banners on my blog that you can print out and use for banners here: http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/p/resources.html
I've also got a tutorial showing how you can make your own if you want: http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2009/01/making-cardstock-banners-for-40k.html

I tip my hat to you good sir!