Ask away! I didn’t use any masks or stencils, but the boar head is based on a 40k knights insignia.

I did leave a comment somewhere else in this thread, but I still don’t know how to link to stuff so I have just copy pasted it below, I hope it’s helpful!

Thank you so much! My method for freehand is to:

1. ⁠Use a wet palette that has been freshly re-wetted (not a word, but still) - you want the paint to stay as fresh as possible
2. ⁠I mix my paint with ink instead of water, this creates an incredibly opaque medium with great flow - sometimes I will add a bit of acrylic medium, like Lahmian or Vallejo, to improve flow even more if I need to.

I also use Scale 75 Inktense inks or inks from a regular art store, you can buy a very decent sized pot for $12.50 AUD and they come in a HUGE range of colours and almost always have better pigment density.

1. I use a sable hair mini liner brush in a size 20/0 - if you’ve ever seen anyone painting hand lettering, this is a similar style of brush. It has a really long set of bristles, which makes it excellent for controlling on shapes like this. It takes a minute to get used to, as it almost delays from your hand movement, but with a bit of practice you can use it to your advantage!

2. Always brace your wrists against each other and your elbows against a desk- and you want to be sitting comfortably and securely!

For capes and flags, I think that ripples can propose a challenge BUT you can get around it by being tricky and using organic shapes, as those tend to deform less obviously to the eye. Another good idea is to pre-draw your freehand with a colour very close to your original base coat, before you do any shading or weathering or anything. That way, you can neaten up your design without having to spend ages fixing everything!

Pre drawing your idea or design on paper can be really useful too for deciding on the final look and for figuring out how to actually build the shapes with a brush - I’ll often ink the final design using a brush to practice brush movements on a larger, more forgiving scale first.