"Painting Shields" Topic

I've decided to NOT glue first for this project so there's no point in trying to talk me out of it.

That said, for those who routinely paint shields separately, what do you use to hold them? A small nailhead nestled in the boss? Flat on a board then flipped to paint the other side?

What else? If it helps, these are Viking style shields – all round, nearly all with wooden planks – only a few are covered.

I have done well over 100 round GB shields all on the figure. (Viking, Saxon, Dark Age Warriors) I would try a piece of double sided tape on the top part of your of the fingers on your off hand. This way you can do up to three shields at the same time. TIG

Stick a blob of blue tack on the back of the shield. Insert a cocktail stick or match stick in to the blue tack. You can hold the stick and paint the shield easily, very useful for spinning the shield to get at other areas as well. Use a bit of polystyrene to stick the cocktail sticks in as the shields dry and keep them upright.

+1 tigrifsgt, except I stick them on wood.

I stick a line of them on a piece of cardboard just using some blue tac. I'll paint and wash the back then flip and do the front shield designs. Granted most of my designs are pretty simple. Then after sticking hem on the figure I'll touch up any edges as needed although this is infrequent. The blue tack keeps them elevated enough for edges. Curved shields are a bit more of a pain but this is easily overcome by just using more blue tack to elevate them a bit more. I think I've painted close to 300 shields in the last 6 months using this method and have been pretty happy with it. I did at one time use the cocktail stick method but found it a bit more fiddily having to pick up each shield individually to paint it.

What about for spray priming? I don't want to spray into my hands three at a time. Laying them out on a lolly stick sounds good, but then I have to flip them for a second pass on the reverse?

I guess I really should invest in blue tack – no residue right? In America, will Loctite Fun-Tak behave similarly?

I second cooldude, blue tac.

I think any of that tacky stuff should be fine. I use the Elmer's as well and works great with no residue. For priming I just lay them on my priming board, prime, let dry, flip and prime again. Then attach to my cardboard.

I super glue a toothpick (one end nipped so it's flat) to the inside. When complete I pop them off and, if i need to, clean up the attachment point with an xacto and paint. I try to put the toothpick in a spot the attachment would be less visible. So far no difference can be seen. I've had less luck with tacky poster stuff and the toothpick gives me a really solid handle. I also stick them in floral foam as a work tray.

Two sided carpet tape stuck to a stick. Put the shields on the tape.

Make sure you get the cheap carpet tape though and not the good stuff, as the good stuff holds too well and leaves residue.

Front face down , then spray paint a brown primer , turn over then spray paint black primer if I'm going to be painting them or white primer if I'm going to be using the LBMS transfers.

I usually don't have to do anything else to the back of the shield as it's brown and you don't really see it, or I'll just put a few light brown lines there so as to simulate a sort of planking thing.

I am working on some 60mm plastic Viking Figures, being pressed into service as Frost Giants, for my fantasy games. They have molded shields, so I went with symbols printed on my color laser printer. I used regular 20# paper. I cut them out, then I used Mod Podge to attach them to the plastic shield on the figures, decoupage style. This makes their designs easy to apply, no painting required, except to color around the symbols.

They look good enough to game with, at arm's length: GEtGW standard. I will do this with my 25-28mm Humans, and Humanoids, as well. I suck at painting shield designs, and I typically have units with 20+ figures, so this speeds things up, dramatically. Did this, already, with a unit of Hobgoblins: printed out the shield design I made with MS Paint, using PVA Glue to attach the paper cut-outs, as I hadn't played with Mod Podge much, at that point in time. Worked nicely. Followed that up with The Dip, and done. YMMV. Cheers!

I printed out a bunch of shields on white cardstock, glued it to brown paper, cut them out and glued them to the figures. The original shield were too thick. link

williamb, brilliant technique on the shields. I doubt it would be possible to tell how you did the shields, at arm's length. I can use this technique… Cheers! And, thank you!

I have been using this technique for above 8 years and find it quite useful especially for transfers.

After undercoating, I roll a piece of blu tac then place the shield on a paddle pop stick with about 6 others upside down. Then paint the rear of the shield in brown, do the planks. Let dry, then flip over to do the front.

I then paint block them in the background colours, then wash, highlight then either paint the design or put on the transfer.

Cheers
Matt