Hello all, I am an historical figure modeler and my latest project is a legionary (90-110 AD). I often see shield designs on miniatures depicted with a lot of details such as highlights, shading and perfect symmetry. My assumption has been that each legionnaire painted his own shield. Right or wrong? If I am right then should the shield designs not vary drastically in how well they were drawn/painted based on individual artistic talent? Finally is there a site which shows various shield designs?
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Okay. We don't know that much designs from the period you mention, and what we know if of columns etc, so it's an sort of artist impression of the real thing. There has been found nicely painted shield in Dura, and such, but those designs are far more difficult than a simple soldier could do. I think these were painted in the fabrica.
Also, the artist in roman times were very very good, so i would gues they would do it perfect.
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There were shield painters in the Roman legions (according to Davies), and there have also been metal decorations found that are thought to have been on shields.
I suggest you look at Mike Bishop's drawings for real examples of equipment:
http://romanmilitaryequipment.co.uk/figures.htm
The illustration of the legionary I did on there was to his and Jon Coulston's specs for the period you describe (Dacian Wars).
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Quote:There were shield painters in the Roman legions (according to Davies), and there have also been metal decorations found that are thought to have been on shields.
I hat thought this as well. If the "immunes" were around to do all of the other skilled chores in support of the armies (masons, armorers, smiths, etc.), why not ones to keep the pretties looking pretty. Painting shields, vexilla, etc. would likely have been tasked to a talented artist from amongst the troops.
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I agree- if everything else looked nice, an amateur-painted shield would really stand out. Given that only painted examples we have of Roman shields (from Dura Europos) are quite well-done, it certainly seems the case that talented people did the decorating. The sample size is miniscule, certainly, but it's all we have at present...
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But then both(or were there more) scuta from there were painted nicely, so either dura was a lucky base in a million, or it has to be a good possibility,
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There are 4 or 5 actually, including some that are fragmentary and yeah, since they're all quite nice, it's unlikely that we just happen to find the few that are so good :wink:
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