Roman Shield Freehand
I will use this article to describe the process of drawing a Roman shield for 54mm miniatures. I won’t be going into the process of painting the basic colours of the shield, just concentrating rather on the freehand itself.
I found the design that I liked on the internet. I planned to recreate that design with minor changes. The first step was to draw the basic shape with a graphite pen.
Then, using a darkest shade follow the lines drawn by pen to make the basic shapes. Once, done, fill those shapes with the same paint.
Check your reference and correct if need be.
Afterwards, using the ligher shade begin drawing smaller shapes within the darker areas to get the contours of your design.
Start by drawing the simplest shapes so your hand picks up the motions subconsciously finish with the more complex (wings). Watch out that your shapes (wings for instance) have the same number of elements (feathers).
Next layer was the first highlight. Similar to the previous step, start drawing the simplest shapes.
When you finish with this step, check if you are happy with the depth of your freehand. I wasn’t so I continued with the work.
Using a wash, I added further shadows simulating and accentuating the curvature of the shield.
In the end, I added the final highlights.
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