Homemade Decals for my Macedonian Bronze Shields – Four Options

I’m planning on getting 465 Macedonian Phalangites, or more accurately men Armed in the Macedonian Fashion. And I want each unit of 15 figures to have a distinct shield design. So I’ve set out to make my own shield decals. In my preferred 15mm scale of figures, the decals have to fit shields that are about 8mm across. I’ve explored four options: (1) shrink my There are 24 shield designs in my Macedonian Bronze Shield Designs – The Balagan Collection down to 8mm; (2)

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How many phalagites was that?

I have big ambitions. No surprise I guess. I already have a lot of figures for the Macedonian Wars and I’m getting more. In total I want 31 Big Bases of troops Armed in the Macedonian Fashion. Each Big Base has 15 phalangite figures on it. That makes 465 Macedonian or Successor or Imitator Phalangites.

Based on the army lists in Philip Sabin’s Lost Battles, my ambitious breakdown is:
17 big bases of Macedonians with Bronze Shields
4 big bases of Pantodapoi with Bronze Shields
4 big bases of Seleucids with Silver Shields
6 big bases of Spartans with Bronze Shields

31 units.

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Why design my own decals

I’m thinking every unit/base will have a distinct shield pattern. I’ll only use one colour – something that simulates a pressed pattern on bronze (or silver). So I need 31 shield patterns in either bronze or to stand out against bronze.

There are commercial shield decals. My existing Seleucids use Veni Vidi Vici Shield transfers. These come in a variety of patterns each of which can be selected in a variety of colours. In fact my existing phalangites use a mix of patterns and colours on each base. Totally unhistorical. Sigh. You live and learn. So I’m going to have to strip the existing VVV decals and replace them with something more to my taste.

Then there shield stickers from Little Big Men Studios (currently being sold to Victrix Limited). Unfortunately I don’t like the idea of stickers and there are not enough distinct patterns.

So I’m making my own. There are 24 shield designs in my Macedonian Bronze Shield Designs – The Balagan Collection. That is a good start and I can always make more.

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The four options for size and colour

Now I just need to find out what will show up on a 8mm diameter bronze shield. I explored four options. Here is a mock up off shield B05 with a Torch. The full size original, then the four options when shrunk to decal size.

Option 1 Original Bronze: The original my Macedonian Bronze Shield Designs shrunk them to 8mm. At full size these are beautiful and distinctive. When shrunk to 8mm they all look the same. Hmmm. Disappointing. A bit of a “why did I bother moment”. But wait, I still have three other options.

Option 2 Bronze with Full Pattern: I removed the bronze background of the shield itself to just focus on the design. I kept the full pattern. The colour is a dark bronze. The ideas was the overall effect would be bronze on bronze but the dark pattern would show up. It doesn’t.

Option 3 Black with Full Pattern: Next I took option 2 and made the pattern black. These are lovely, but it seems too complicated when placed on 15mm figures and viewed at 1 metre.

Option 4: Black with Simplified Pattern: Finally I stayed with black but stripped out some of the details to emphasise the core pattern on each side.

Looking at the first 12 designs, this is what the four options look like.

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Observations and conclusions

I like Option 4. My older daughter (Dana) and a visiting mate also voted for option 4.

Dana actually said, “I don’t know why you care daddy. You should just paint a few squiggles and nobody will know the difference.” But I know what she really meant was “Option 4 really pops and you should go for it.”