It has occurred to me that perhaps I ought to show how I modify flag downloads from the standard square or rectangle into something more like a rhombus or parallelogram. I have found that rhomboidal paper flags 'drape' in much more realistic fashion once you fasten them to their wire pole.
Paul of '
Paul's Bods' having mentioned the
Grimsby Wargames Society's free download, I availed myself of their resource. Here is the first page of the House of Lancaster as it appears on site and when downloaded. Nicely coloured and shaded. Now, normally I don't bother with shading flags, figuring that they are self shading. But that depends upon how much trouble you take to obtain a realistic looking 'hang.' But since the shading is there, I'll take it. With thanks.
Here is the result of my attentions using the Microsoft 'Paint' software - a utility I have found very handy for wargame projects. You 'select' the shape of left-hand side, and skew it vertically at an angle of your choice. Then select the right hand side, and skew the same angle, but negative (actually, I generally do the right hand side first, but that's neither here nor there). Note that the images are skewed from the centre, not from the edge. So if you have left a narrow centre strip to accommodate looping around the wire flagstaff, select that and slide it into position. It's not easy to do it accurately (less when cataracts render one eye dysfunctional), but I don't worry overmuch about it. Any flaws can be touched up.
In the above, the top 4 flags were skewed 20 degrees, the next two 10 degrees, and the bottom, 15 degrees. The fourth row has one skewed 10 and the other 15 degrees. The choice is entirely arbitrary. and there is nothing against going as high as a 30 degree skew. More than that may involve unwelcome distortion, but I've never tested it.
Interesting. I never thought of doing that, but it makes sense. I may have to give it a try the next time I need to add some flags/banners to any of my figures. Thanks for sharing that!
ReplyDeleteNo problemo. I recall many aeons ago reading somewhere about making paper flags this way. Trying it out I was very impressed with the look. It used to be easier with hand drawn flags; you just rule out the flag shape and draw the design over it. My Napoleonic French flags, for example, are done this way.
ReplyDeleteBut downloadable flags are a lot better if the design is at all complicated or hard to render well drawn. It was only relatively recently I discovered how to modify the difficult to 'drape' oblong shape. Fortunately the process is pretty quick. The 10 flags about took not more than as many minutes to modify.
I did print out an unmodified pae, but that was to check them for size. So far as I am concerned, the size is fine for 20mm to 28mm figures.