4 January 2024: Everything happens of its own accord

While researching cavalry standards for the English Civil War, I found a book I've been searching for since I lost my own copy in the early 90s.

Terence Wise's Airfix Magazine Guide 24: American Civil War (1977) was my main go-to ruleset after Donald Featherstone's seminal Wargames (1962). This little booklet was the main inspiration behind many of solo ACW games and even my late 90s solo campaign. 

Now I have a very good quality PDF copy. By that I mean everything is legible, both text and imaging. Found it both by luck and persistence. Good luck finding yours.

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As for the ECW cavalry standards, I should bite the bullet and simply purchase Steve Archibald's excellent reference titles (there are two in the series I believe). It will save me on time wasting. As one blogsite reviewer pointed out (among others no doubt), they're an excellent source of information on various ECW flags because the book is all illustrations. 

Instead, I am spending time doing needless research with no real clue where to look. The best source are the original sources but accessing them requires jumping through various hoops that I'm not prepared to undertake. My usual lazy man's approach of searching online comes with severe limitations and often relies more on luck than any basic research skills. I vainly persist however.

Started on my own range of copies of the excellent range of ECW standards last night based on those already available commercially. Reasons: (1) I don't appreciate watermarks on my flags, (2) As commercial entites they cost which, again, I protest because it's pretty obvious that anyone can recreate these product freely, and (3) following on from (2) I like being creative. 

There are discrepancies between same flag identities having different colours or devices. Inital guess for this is that they're earlier and later versions. Units shifted around, were reorganised, received new commanders, new postings, and so on. No mind; they give me the luxury of choice. 

Below is an example showing my progress so far in recreating my own ECW flags graphically. This is my copy of Sir John Gell's Regiment of Foot # 2 based on the Flag of War website item. 

The base template for all Foot flags - background - was created in MS Paint (I love my old tools). Getting the folds and shading has been hit and miss but sufficient as an experiment. The actual final designs may go solely 2D in look. Or not. I've done multiple colours - black, white, blue, green, purple, yellow. Next, I've added the St George Cross in the upper left corner to complete the template. The subsequent company flags cater for variants (depending on devices used). For the example above I simply added two inverted 5-point stars and voila!

The cavalry cornets have also been given similar treatment to the infantry standards - a base flag colour background and then adding the various choices of flag trim before applying the numerous devices and emblems. 

 

The example above is based on an actual Parliament unit whose name eludes me at the moment. This is one of the companies. The source I am using has Latin mottos but I can't decipher or distinguish properly because the image I working with as source is so tiny. Needless to say, there is loads of further work needed to improve to finish status - sizing, placements, designs, etc. 

The entire flag group as a whole is only at the start stage. At least a start has been made. Cheers.

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Addendum: 

Instruction on How to create basic and simple double-sided flags using MS Paint.

To get the double sided flag look is really simple. I use the convenience and familiarity of the old MS Paint (Win7/8/10) instead of the latest MS Paint (Win11). It is still the best for basic 2D designs.

STEP 1: Start with your design (by choice I always start with the flagpole side on the left as you're looking at the design). Next, and pretty important step, copy design by keying in Select All (Ctrl + A shortcut) then Copy (Ctrl + C).

STEP 2: Next, expand the canvas (background) area by selecting the handle on the right side of the canvas to stretch your canvas to double the size of your original design as shown below. Be careful of selecting the canvas resizing handle and not the design handle otherwise you will have a very distorted and very stretched out looking image.

I have coloured the expanded area light blue for visual reference; by default it is white. Add a little extra gap for the flagpole (as seen below in the final image).

The copying step now comes into play as you now finish your design. 

1. Paste (Ctrl + V). The copied image will superimpose itself over the original (you will see handles of the superimposed image: don't touch) in the top left corner by default. Next I use the right arrow key (>) for simple precision sake in moving the new image to its new position on the far right of the canvas. If you have a good eye and steady hand you can select the image and slide it manually. But I have wobbly hands and a wandering eye. 
2. Next, paste a second copy atop the original. Use the Flip horizontal tool to reverse the design without moving the second copy. It should look like the above image. 
3. I tidy up by using the Fill tool to colour in the background which in this example is your base Green colour of this flag design. Or whatever source material tells you.

Voila! You now have a double-sided 2D image of the flag.

NOTE: This is my approach to creating simple double-sided 2D flags using MS Paint. Very basic but quick. You will, no doubt, find a more convenient or quicker approach. There are a plethora of other more suitable graphical design programs, preferably those that generate vector designs as opposed to the pixelated effect that I use a la MS Paint. You're really spoiled for choice. I recommend going with what you're comfortable using.

The graphical devices (the cloud, the sword and arm, and the scroll banners) created in the above example were all done using the various Shapes and Brushes tools. And the Flag folds was created using the Spray Paint Brush tool (widest setting and fast runs) along with excellent shades generated using the Colour swatch tool to break up the plain and flat 2D background. Not ideal or perfect but sufficient for my needs; at least there is no Watermark.