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I am making some battle standards for by KOW army using some fine pieces of cloth and am (relatively) pleased with how they are coming along. I wanted to make them look like they are tattered at the bottom but am uncertain how to do this.
If I cut a zig zag line along the bottom I am concerned that the cuts will look too neat. If I actually fray the coth then I am concerned that it will draw attention to the larger threadsize (which I think is one of the main issues for working with cloth due to the scaling). Does anyone have any suggestions in relation to this?

I was also keen to make the banners look stained. I have pre-soaked them in diluted PVA (which has stiffened them nicely, made them easier to paint and made the threads less noticable) however this has reduced their absorbency somewhat so I don’t know whether putting some muddy water on them would work. Any thoughts?

I've never tried this, and it may be too late if you've already PVAd them, but I wonder how burning the bottom would go?

I would start out with multiple unpainted pieces of cloth for each standard that you plan to make. You can then choose the best one to move forward to painting.

Fray and "distress" them with sandpaper, scissors, a dremel with a sandpaper bit etc. Make some holes with a nail etc.

Then come in with a cigarette lighter and just hover in and out around the edges of your tatters. Any small threads that have separated will be the first to ignite and melt. You may even get some charred brown leaching up into the rest of the banner which would look cool.

Paint your standards next as you don't want to waste time on this when the whole thing catches fire by accident.

Once you have it tattered and painted, I would use weathering powder instead of any wet mixture like a wash. Because it is basically fine dust, it's going to give it a fine color filter that you can grind in with your finger or just dust on gently with a fine brush and then blow off. Seal with a matte varnish.

I have never done this but that's what I would try if I was restricting it to cloth over paper.

normally I'd say soak them in tea leaves to age but since you sealed it I'm not sure it'd work, you might have to go with a wash as you mention.

My question for you is, what did you use for the cloth, I would like to make some banners from cloth and curious what you used to make yours out of.