Chaos Banner!

 As part of my chaos army in the on-going Call of the Crown painting challenge, I decided to finally tackle my favorite chaos banner from the Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness book.

Some quick background. When I first began a chaos army back when I started in WHFB 20+ years ago, I tried to recreate this banner.  It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good, and eventually I lost it. 

Now, I was determined to finally try again, but also terrified to try and tackle it. I was really afraid I would screw it up.  But over the past few years, I learned some basic tips and approaches for free-handing banners and it has really made approaching banners much less daunting.

Here's a few pictures throughout the stages. 

First, trace it out with a sketch using pencil. it helps to draw very light "guide lines" down the center and halfway point vertical and horizontal.  Then, use a micro artists ink pen, trace over the pencil in black. 

Then start filling in the main colors.  This is regular printer paper.  Make sure to thin down your paints.  Also, I painted the back of the banner first (all black) so that I didn't mess up the completed work when flipping it over. I learned that the hard way.

You can see the artist's pen in this picture. Not too expensive, I picked them up at A.C. Moore (or Michael's art supply store, i forget).   I began filling in the rest of the colors here.  Try to work from the background "layer" forward.  

Here's the completed banner.  I also used the micro pen to write in the text on the scroll. 

...And here's the side-by-side.  I might still go back and add some thin rope (probably sewing thread). 

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with my recreation.  The flames were definitely the hardest part.  I really love the ridiculously large size of the banner from the Oldhammer era.  It looks awesome on the battlefield.  This Chaos army and my orcs and goblins will definitely have lots of unnecessarily large banners.