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Creating an awesome heraldic shields

Submitted by Legofreak on Sat, 08/27/2005 - 15:39.
MCN How-To Article

Ok, you gotta know that working in MS Paint isn't easy right? You've tried it, you think it sucks, makes things too bumpy lookin'? Hopefully this will change your mind.

To start with – I always work large. Here I have taken Anthony Sava's Shield template - it is the basis of all of my shields.
Tri Shield (Anthony Sava)
Oval Shield (Anthony Sava)

Now we need a really cool idea.
Hm – I have a couple of written blazons from an article on the Presidents of the U.S.A, and their coats of arms.

How about – John Adams (1735-1826)
Arms: Gules six crosses crosslet fitchee argent 3, 2 and 1, on a chief or 3 pellets, on the center one a fleur-de-lis and on the other two a lion passant guardant.
(For information on Heraldic Basics, please see this article. http://www.classic-castle.com/howto/articles/Heraldry/BasicHeraldry.html )

I have created 41 different blank shields, with simple patterns, following heraldic principles[02].

The one I used for this template is Bars
but I erased the lower lines, leaving a chief
From the blazon the key parts are “ Gules… on a chief or ” a red background and a yellow chief. For me I use a basic palette of heraldic colors, but I change them if I want to have different shades

Now to add the pellets, which are solid black circles.
Then I bring in six crosses crosslet fitchee argent 3, 2 and 1 . This means that we will place the three of the six in the first line, two in the second line, and one in the last line, so we get an inverted triangle pattern.
My template for the cross fitchee is too big; it is designed to be the center of a shield, not one of six[06]. So I am redoing it to make it smaller.

For the sake of simplicity however, I am going to forego the use of the fleur-de-lis and the lions passant guardant. After the shield is shrunk down to a usable size, these details will become so small as to render them virtually useless. Don't forget we are working with a finished size of a centimeter and a half. And if I want to use this shield on a torso later, like the Black Falcons do, then it will be even smaller !

So – We have a finished shield that looks like this:

07

The next step is printing. I just use MS Word, but I am pretty sure that just about any word processing program has similar features.
I insert a picture into the desktop.

Notice how large it is. That sucker's huge man. Resize it to 1.5 cm wide, (if you are using a program with the defaults in ..um .. not metric, try .57 inches instead.) from here I also put the picture in front of the text, so I can move it anywhere on the page
Now, I just copy and paste the pic and make an army's worth of shields.

I hate to waste paper, and I happen to be working on another project – So I will be showing some other shields, torsos, flags etc. They are all made the same way anyway.

From here I send it to the printers. I have a very bad printer at home, but fortunately my mother has a really really nice inkjet printer. I think laser would look even better, but you work with what you have right?

I have a special ream of heavy paper, designed for inkjets that I keep at her place specifically for Lego. What a great Mom huh? In fact – you should call your mother right now. And clean your room while you are at it.

Anyway – I get the sheet back and it looks like this.


I cut the shield out, and using a glue stick cover up an old Fright Knight shield.
And here is a new knight with a finished shield;
I think his name should be Sir John.
How about you?
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