Thursday, February 28, 2008

Shield Designs for Celtic and Germanic units

The Celts; when I set about designing my Celtic army I started by trowelling through hundreds of reference books and pictures from the Internet. Once I had a taste of the style and motifs involved I set about designing some of my own. I have included some of them here, hoping they may help other people in painting up units of the same type.

For the Celtic Patterns I stuck to very organic shapes and lines, almost plant like, the Art nouveau of it's time. Below them can be seen simple tunic patterns and checks. All these designs are just fiction of course but they do give a very Celtic feel to the shield, but most important, they are easy to paint. Painting my own shields I needed designs that were simple and wouldn't take up too much time. mixing and combining elements from these designs can lead to hundreds of variants. Also by changing the colours, even more possibilities can be achieved.
The Germans; For the Germanic shields I went for a more brutal approach than with the Celts. These patterns are bold statements with big thick dark colours and motifs, giving them a more geometric feel with straight lines and shapes. If there are any curves, they are thick and less plant like than those of the Celts. Also the background colours on these shields will be very plain, being just browns and other dark, muted colours.
I hope these designs help in some way. Being Ancient history, designs and motifs have not really survived to this day, giving a huge chance for the imagination to fill in the gaps. Have fun with it is what I say....enjoy.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

thanks mate, these were cool.

Celtic Warriors said...

Wow, that's exactly what I'm looking for to use on my figures! Something not to complex, but true to the feel of the ancient Celts & Germans. That's great work and thanks for taking the time to share your shield designs.

Anonymous said...

Dude, I used one of these patterns for the paint job on my SCA shield. It looks hella badass. KUDOS!

Doug Welch said...

Secundus, thanks for doing this crucial homework so I don't have to. These blazons all look pretty legit by my sources (Osprey books, anything by Angus McB). Having previously fielded Celts with nifty transfers I was a bit handicapped when I got the BTD 64 pack and couldn't find transfers, so now I am doing the time consuming work of painting 64 tiny shields. If it weren't for your patterns, I'd still be tearing out my hair instead of painting shields!

Monty said...

Thank you! I have 2 Galatian units to paint and I'll be using your research for reference!