Completed WAS and SYW Austrian flags

Here's the first couple of flagsheets for the Austrian army from the WAS and early SYW, I'm planning 10 regiments for my Austrian army so will be painting another sheet before moving on to the, but first I'll be working on some Landsknecht and Savoy flags. The price for these printed on premium quality paper is £6 per sheet plus postage of a £1 for the UK, £1.48 Europe and £2.48 the rest of the world. I'll also be selling these flags individually please
email me on petesflags@yahoo.com  if anyone's interested in obtaining any of these. Apologies in advance for the for the poor pics.

War of the Austrian Succession and Seven Years War Flags

 I recently picked up the Summerfield book on the Austrian infantry and he proposes that flags from the time of Leopold I may have been used  however I'm not tempted to paint any of these. What's certain there is a lot of unknowns around the flags from this time and flags appear to have been used until they were captured or wore out. So with this in mind here's another pair of flags dating from the reign of Charles VI and likely to have been used in the WAS and early SYW, the coat of arms are dated 1737.

History and uniforms magazine

Massimo Predonzani the author of several books and articles on Italian history put me on to this new E-zine which can be downloaded for free at this address:    http://www.historyanduniforms.com/ subsequent magazines will cost around 3.5 euros. It's well worth a look and the article on the Venetians in the 1680's was pretty motivational. Massimo tells me the next volume will contain an article on the Battle of Agnadello which having read Massimo's previous work should prove a useful addition to anyone's library.

cheers Pete

War Austrian Succession and Early SYW flags

Here's a couple of  flags from the reign of Charles VI, similar and even earlier  flags are likely to have been carried in the WAS and into the SYW. The coat of arms are dated 1737 as I reasoned newer flags would as long as nothing adverse happened to them would have been carried longer.  cheers Pete

WAS Savoy flags 2

Here's the second flag for Savoy, do much for having a break on drawing eagles.  I'm going to do a bit more wok on the field of this flag as I'm not too happy on how it looks  following it being scanned. The figure is a Hungarian from Front Rank; I think I need to get my hands on a couple of  the correct figures.

 

Savoy Regiment Piedmont War of Austrian Succession WAS

I painted this flag to get a break from drawing Hapsburg Eagle's which is proving to be a bit of a task. There's a lot of colourful flags and easy on the eye flags for Savoy in the WAS so will do a few more of these as I go along. The colonel's flag for the Piedmont Regt will be next and I'll have to have a go at the Guard's Regt's flag as it's a topper.

cheers Pete

More Austrian SYW flags

Here's another couple of completed flags for the Austrians taken from a print by Knotel

 

15mm Austrian SYW

15mm Eureka Austrian's carrying  the second completed SYW flag

Close up of the flag; the lighting's pretty crappy on this pic and the flags is a lot 'greener' in the flesh

Seven Years War Austrian

Hungarian Regimental flag

Hungarian Colonel's Colour

Due to personal circumstances it's been a while since I posted anything on here however here's the beginnings of my SYW flags that will eventually cover the Austrian's and Russians. at the outset of the war the Austrian flags appear to have several variations on a basic theme and as the war progressed the flags became pretty standardised. I'll be focusing on the earlier flags as there's more variety. The figures in the pics are by Front Rank however my armies will be in 15mm and I just need to decide whether to go for Eureka or Blue Moon. There'll be more WOR and Burgundian's soon and the Landsknecht flags are getting a revamp.

cheers Pete

Step by step guide to putting together Inkjet Printed Cloth Flags

Hi here's a brief guide to putting together cloth flags. Firstly there's two golden rules and these are be patient and keep your hands clean. 

The image above is not hand painted and has been borrowed from Google and other  quartering the flag and some black lines to emphasis the quartering and the addition  of some colour to fill the two halves of the flag  where it wraps around the pole it's unaltered. However I have made  a schoolboy error and forgot to reverse the obverse of the flag. 

The Cloth sheets come with an inkjet friendly coating on one side of the sheet. The flag above has been printed on a standard Inkjet Desktop Printer using the Dark, High Quality and Gloss Photo settings  and having the paper set at gloss photo paper.

In short due to the highly absorbent nature of the cloth you need to get plenty of ink onto the sheet. Once printed leave the flag to dry for at least 30 mins as the image is prone to scratching  whilst it is drying, this is especially true of the sheets that come with a backing sheet adhered to them.

After the sheet has dried give the flag one or two very light coats of spray varnish, Humbrol or Plasticode clear are ideal for this, then leave the flag to dry , an hour is ideal.  NB don't use brush on varnish as this will cause the image to bleed. 

Paint the reverse with white acrylic paint, leave to dry

putting the cloth flags together I find Pritt stick or similar the best to use, just cut the flag out with a sharp craft knife and straight edge (a blunt one will tear and stretch the sheet) then fold the flag in half. Apply the glue to one side of the unprinted image and leave for a couple of minutes to get tacky. 

stick together using a light source; usually the window, to line it up. finally leave the flag to dry and once it has you can shape it, see below:

Paint the edges of the flag to match the field as there's nothing worse that bits of white showing on a finished flag. At this stage it's worth running a bit of paint up edge where the flag is wrapped around the pole as due to the nature of the weave of the cloth the printable coating can crack when stressed; painting this area also helps to highlight and gives a quality touch to the finished flag.

The finished cloth flag: D'Este family from around 1450.

print your own cloth flags

hi, I've managed to source some inkjet printer friendly cloth that 's a doddle to use without having any technical knowhow so I'll be starting to sell blank sheets so people can print their own flags from their own designs. To illustrate this the flag illustrated have not been hand painted  but taken from google and manipulated slightly.  The design has been taken from this excellent site of Italian re-enactors.http://www.famaleonis.com/ please have a look the gallery  images are superb.

Hi, I've placed the printable cloth up for sale on Ebay  for th eprice of 33 for one sheet, £13:00 for five and £25  for 10 sheets, here's the link to my listings if anyone's interested: petesflags 

Renaissance figures

Here's a couple of pics that two of my customer's have sent me of their figures with my flags. both sets are rather splendid the first is Cesare Borgia by Jim Clarke, I think Jim's done an excellent job on these old Redoubt figures and am looking forward to more images from this army as Jim works his way through it.

Burgundian standard bearer by Ken Pearce; I really like the way this horse has been painted and love the clean and vivid colours Ken has achieved on this Perry figure.

Sir Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk

I've pressed the gentlemen pensioners into service once more to carry the standard of Sir Charles Brandon  Duke of Suffolk. This completes the sheet I've been working on for Henry VIII.

Close up view of the flag

Henry VIII flag sheet

Henry VIII's Gentleman Pensioners

Here's an alternative flag for the Gentleman Pensioners which was a depiction of st. George and the dragon on a green field with a white and green border. The pictures aren't the best as due to the bizarre weather here in Sunderland today  I can't get the lighting right; i'll take some better pics when the lighting's better, cheers Pete 

Wars of the Roses Yorkist Flags

I've finally finished my first set of Yorkist flags and placed them up on Ebay; hopefully there will be many more to come over the next few months. Cheers Pete 

Thirty Years War Swedish flags

Hi, when I first started making flags a friend asked me to complete a set of flags for the  Swedes and Imperialists, however I was never entirely happy with them so haven't sold them for a couple of years. Recently my interest in the TYW has been resurfaced so I've started 'dolling' a few of my old flags up by getting rid of the conjectural ones and repainting some of the originals. This is the first effort which is a company flag of Baner's Regiment which was a German 'black'  regiment; referring to the flags they carried  in the service of Sweden in the  early 1630's against the army of Tilly.