New Banner Project: Alabama CAGE Match!

Hey folks, my next full sized banner project is a custom one for the Alabama CAGE match.

Information about the Alabama CAGE match can be found HERE. But in short it is a member of a growing community of elite gaming GTs that focus on producing a "State Champion".  Feast of Blades is pioneering the concept by offering a huge invitational GT where the state champs from all over the country meet to duke it out for the ultimate title. It would be cool if the Alabama winner could go to Feast of Blades and parade in this banner!

So what am I doing?  I am working with the boys from Alabama to create their custom image.

First they wanted to base their banner on the Alabama State Flag:

The Alabama State Flag is a white field with a red X. This screams Death Company! So they chose the Blood Angels banner here to start:

It's a perfect way to begin!  This sets a good idea for me to go on visually.

From here we talked about content and I gave some advice. Through our back and forth we arrived at something like this:

These guys made my job easy!

I am replacing the angled arrow in the bottom right with a yellow thunder hammer because, well, obviously the Alabama state bird is the Yellow Hammer!  Instead of Blood Angels it will say Alabama CAGE Match.  I will do some appropriate scrolling below, with little empty name slots for winners.  I don't know what I will write in the large central scroll. I will either go with something inspirational from GW canon, or I will check out the Alabama history books and see if I can find a snippet from a Civil War battle or something.  I'm not sold on the blood drops though.  I think I may look for something more appropriate for these guys.

So step one for me is to get the banner made.  Unfortunately, I had told the guys I hoped I would get the banner done by the end of November, and I did not get the banner in my hands until Friday December 9.  Some times shit happens!  Believe me, finding reliable people to work for you is the hardest part of business.  But the fault is partly mine, I did not communicate my desires to the seamstress well enough, and it took a long time to get this one done. Mostly because the bottom was different from any banner she has done before.  It took forever to get that going.

So, here is the banner all sewn:

I need to break out an iron!  And one of the kids in my room wiped their grubby hands on it on the way out the door... oh the dangers of mixing work and play.

I learned from experience not to use pure white fabric. I did a Templars banner some time ago on pure white, and it picked up every bit of dust and dirt within 10 feet of it.  So I suggested an off white color.

Next step?  I need to draw the image on the banner, after I iron it of course.  From here it should go pretty quick. I just need to get it sketched out on the fabric and paint!

More on that next time!

So check out the Alabama CAGE Match and if you live in Alabama, get yourself to one of the events.

Jawaballs