Printing the Colours
As I mentioned back in Post 43, I thought that blogging under the heading ‘Autumn Colours’ might spur me on to produce my own printed paper flags. I worked on some designs and produced an Austrian 1804 and an 1806 flag, each with a variety of shadings. The basis for the designs were that infantry flags should be 10mm and cavalry flags (a tidily) 5mm wide at the flagstaff. This meant, of course, that the flags would be very small and I didn’t expect a huge amount of detail to be crystal clear. I began by scanning a design, producing a reverse side, and then creating a central area with nail heads wide enough to accommodate the flagpole, which of course had to be oversize at this scale. I added shading and the printed results achieved the distinct Austrian yellow flag colour I was looking for complete with a shaded look. I didn’t think the shading should be too subtle at this scale in case it fudged the actual features of the flags. Although I was quite happy if the printing turned out somewhat smudgy – so long as it gave the flags a kind of painted look – I still thought I should try to improve the print quality by increasing the dots-per-inch of the origin design; although this would mean beginning the design process all over again. And also, unfortunately, that my 10mm standard bearers would almost certainly remain flagless with the coming of Winter.
POST 51
51
