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Hello, recently i have purchased an empire battalion and i'm using banner for my halbardiers. Banner itself is totally empty so i will have to freehand it. I've never done any freehand and I'd like to get some advice and ideas (I have absolutely no idea to put on the banner) from more experienced painter. BTW my army is Stirland ( green/yellow ).

Be sure you do the background first, first and foremost. Either a split down the middle scheme on it, or even a quarter split scheme (two small squares on top and two on the bottom).

A good trick i've found is try to draw your idea on a small piece of paper so you can get a feel for what you want and you can see how well it translates.

Given that the current Elector Count of Stirland is a guy named Graf Alberich Haupt-Anderssen, or the "Hawk of Wurtbad," I would suggest trying to do a hawk of some sort on the banner. Something simple or as complicated as you think you can manage.

On sculpted banners that are totally flat a really good trick is (if you want to do anything more complex than a simple geometric shape) to print an outline decal on clear film, apply it, and then just colour it in. This gives the freehand look with the precision of the decal and lets you pull off far more complex designs easily.

Find a banner design, scene, picture from the web that you like. Save it as a BMP. Open it in paint and shrink it down to a size that fits your banner. Test print to make sure your printer can handle the level of detail in that small of a picture.
When you've gotten the designs you like, import them onto a WORD Doc (2 images per banner, image reversed...you will see why) and make sure the word doc is A4 sized.
Now, go to any Hobby store and buy the Testors decal kit. They are under 10$. They come in either clear or white. Get the clear. The sheets are A4 sized.
Print your banner WORD Doc onto the decal sheet. DO NOT TOUCH THE PRINT.
Unlike paper the ink will lay on top of the decal sheet rather than absorb into the paper. Let this dry for an hour or 2.
Spray the sheet lightly with clear varnish. Let dry. Spray a second coat of clear. This locks the ink image together.
Cut and trim the decal as close as possible.
Paint your banner whatever color the cloth will be. Apply the decal carefully (they will be pretty delicate compared to typical GW/model decals). Once set use Micro-Sol/Micro-set to fix the decal and dissolve some of the varnish topcoat. Afix the reversed image decal to the other side of the banner (now it looks like a real banner where you paint one side and the paint bleeds through the other side and creates a reverse image).
Once dry spray with varnish to lock the decal to the banner and mask the edge lines of the decal.
Some examples I did:
IG Squad SGTs with Samurai Shasimono banners (each squad has a unique clan symbol).

A Land Raider with Kanji writings.


I made the vehicle banners the same way...just printed them on paper and cut out, bent a 1/6" plastic rod 90 degrees, and glued the banner on. They are removable since I use then to mark Hull Points on the tanks.