Posts have been few and far between lately. This matches my output as summer has been in full swing. Work, my daughter's annual summer visit and HEAT have been the number one culprits but taking step by step photos of the shields as they progressed was the order of the month to get us to this point. I have completed the basic artwork of the three shields with weathering, damage and application of a few arrows saved for last.
Both shield designs are from the Dura Europas find and depict a war god motif. A different technique of building the design was used on each shield to see what would work best for future shields. All work is done in oil paints as always.
A base of Deep Cadmium Red with Mars Black stippled into the bottom half as a shadow tone. This provides the basic color canvas to begin the design. The outer edge is stitched leather and will be saved for last.
Mars Brown and Titanium White mixture used to create the figure's outline.
Yellow Ochre and Titanium White to create the cape outline. A lighter tone was used for hair.
Titanium White was applied for the horse. Note that every tone is applied with a tiny separation between colors to indicate an outline but with less contrast than a pure black outline.
Titanium White added to earlier mix was used to highlight the cape. Burnt Sienna was used to flesh out the muscle tone and create a more traditional period artwork appearance to the figure.
The horse was fleshed out a bit more and details added all around. Final highlights and shadows added, now on to the second shield that was painted at the same time.
The same idea for the base, Chrome Green Deep base color with a bit of Yellow Ochre up top and Mars Black below to create highlight and shadow tones. This was all done wet on wet with a stippled effect to create random patching of color.
Mars Brown was used to create a base outline for the entire figure.
Mars Brown and Titanium White mixture used to create base tone for flesh areas.
Medium Cadmium Yellow, Titanium White and a touch of Yellow Ochre used for shield, tunic and halo. Golden Ochre used for cloak.
Orange was used on the trim, Medium Cad. Red for the stripes and shield designs, Chrome Green for the sleeve and tunic edge. Burnt Sienna was used for legs. This artwork was simpler than the previous in technique. A final outline in Black to pull it all together.
These shields were painted in the field and were not intended as fine art pieces. They were good but they still needed to be used for their intended purpose. Weathering and battle damage will pull everything together. I'm getting close to completion.
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