28mm DIY British Regimental Colours Tutorial

Hello everyone!

This week I've been working steadily in my off hours on the greatcoat-wearing Peninsular British which will form the core of the 1st Battalion, 4th (King's Own) Regiment of Foot. I finished the figures themselves last night, but when it came to doing the flags I thought I'd try something different for my 28mm figures, which require much bigger colours.

Now, there are some lovely flags out there that can be purchased from various manufacturers, undoubtedly saving much time in getting regiments ready for the table top, but I've never been able to justify buying something that I can (and like to) make myself for free. Inspired by this post from Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog, I set about creating my own flags from scratch, and I documented the results in form of a little tutorial.

Making Flags from Scratch

First things first, I found some suitable references of the King's and Regimental Colours for the 4th via the Internet.

On a piece of regular computer printer paper, I sketched out a rough layout of the flags. Based on measuring the flag poles my Ensigns are carrying, I determined that a 1 1/8 inch square flag would be perfect. I left a 1/8 inch space between the two "faces" of the flags; this will fold around the flagpole and allow the flag's faces to match up evenly.

I then blocked out both flags in the base color, a dark blue. I made sure to paint just a little outside of the lines on each side to make sure I didn't leave any white edges showing.

Next the white saltires and crosses were added over the top of the blue. again, the paint extends beyond my pencil lines.

Here the red saltires and crosses have been added over the white. Also, the 1/8 inch gap that separates each face has been blocked in in red.

Finally the fiddly bits have been painted in using a variety of colors: the King's garter in the center of each flag, and the King's Lions on the corners of the Regimental Colour. I chose not to add in the battle honors "Corunna" and "Peninsula" that the example at the top of the page shows so that I could potentially use this battalion for any action in the Peninsular War.

Both flags are carefully cut out, following the pencil lines from the initial sketch.

The backs of the flags are slathered in regular Elmer's glue and the banners are carefully wrapped around the poles, giving them a few bends to make them "blow in the breeze." Not all of the edges line up perfectly, leaving white lines of paper showing along the edges, here especially evident in the Regimental Colour on the left.

These white edges are touched up with paint of an appropriate color, and left to dry. At this stage I've seen others coat their flags in a bit of varnish to enhance durability, but I opted not to. The banners are now complete!

I hope this little tutorial might be useful for someone. I personally like painting my own flags, so maybe someone else out there as crazy (and as cheap!) as I am may get some mileage out of this technique.

Coming soon: Right now I'm waiting for the Gorilla superglue holding the 4th's command stand figures to their base to dry, which means I'll probably finish basing them sometime tomorrow afternoon. I'll post them whenever they're done.

Questions, comments and suggestions are always welcomed and appreciated. Thanks for looking!

-Chuck