In preparation for the next Wars of the Roses encounter, I have been both making and buying a few extras. First up, I decided to look into getting some banners made for the relevant nobles. The Perry Miniatures boxed sets come with free banners in the form of a randomly inserted sheet (I got four boxes - and four identical sets of banners for Bosworth, naturally!) Although they were no good for what I was searching out, I did get a size template from them. I drew it out onto a sheet of decent-quality paper and then got to drawing and painting myself! The results:
Excuse the temporary stands on some of them, but the banners here are Lancastrian (l-r) Audley, Buckingham, Beaumont, Wiltshire, Shrewsbury & Exeter.
Yorkists here, with (l-r) Ferrers, York, March, Powys & Salisbury. It turns out the details of heraldry such as lions rampant, fleur-de-lis, etc. are nightmarishly hard to draw, but nonetheless a shapeless squiggle with the right colour is indistinguishable on a tabletop (always abide by the 'two-foot rule'!) The banners were drawn twice as mirror-images, cut out, folded over along the 'staff' side, then lightly glued on. Beyond making things, I have also bought a small addition in the form of a cannon, or 'Gonne' from Perry Miniatures.
A free word of advice, Perry Miniatures! - If you send out an order for a miniature in a small package, please don't place the parts in a small jewellery-style box! Otherwise my wife collects the post before I get home, convinces herself that I've bought her a surprise piece of jewellery as a present, then I'm stuck with the task later on of explaining how 'a large Culverin on a Burgundian-style carriage with four crewmen' actually counts as a thoughtful gift ("but this is better than a necklace dear, it has a practical purpose!") Nice work guys, thanks a bunch...
Craig,
ReplyDeleteI think hand-drawn flags have a charm all their own. Yours look great!
Did you use coloured markers or paint on the flags?
Did you seal them with anything after painting? After I touch up my flags and let them dry for a day or two, I put on a thin coat of a mix of water and white glue.
Nice job.
Your royalty check from the Perry's should be in the mail. Thanks to following your WOTR project I finally ordered a box of plastic figures. Time will tell if I like assembling them or not. Have you mixed the plastic Perrys with any other ranges? I was thinking Old Glory or Front Rank?
Jim
Hi Jim, thanks for the kind comments!
ReplyDeleteI pencilled in the flags on some decent paper myself, painted them with my usual model-painting acrylics and a small brush, then I used a fine technical drawing pen to outline & border the coloured areas - an adjustment which I think 'made' the banners!
Good luck with your own Perry collection! Personally I have only the Perry sets at the moment (although I was thinking of Front Rank for 'character' figures sometime in the future.) At the moment however the campaign is taking priority as I seem to have temporarily burned-out regarding painting!
Cheers,
Craig