S.P.Q.ORC - Pax Bochemannica - finishing the shields

I had decided to add the remaining two Noman shields to my S.P.Q.ORC Orcs and spent some time cleaning up the bare castings. With such large shields I think it is better to paint the shields separately rather than have the aggravation of trying to paint around them. 

In an attempt to make them easier to handle, I have attached two bamboo skewers to the metal bosses. I dipped the ends of the skewers into a small dab of superglue and then pressed the skewer into the hole where the boss is on the inside of the shield. I only used a small amount of superglue - knowing that this join would have to be broken when I had finished with the painting.

The shield was first spray painted with some cheap black spray paint and then given a coat of Chaos Black to cover any bits I had missed. You can also see how easy it is to handle these shields now that they are on the bamboo handles.

As with the earlier shield I drybrushed the boss with Chaos Black and Mithril Silver, and then a second drybrush of Mithril Silver for the highlights. These two shield have been modified with some slivers of plastic rod added to the square boss area.

This image shows the first of many Blood Red layers as I was trying for a very bright Red shield colour.

At this stage I was lucky enough to be given a set of the Flags of War Pax Bochemannica Shield transfers, See this link for details.

The instructions state that the transfers should be applied over a White basecoat. I was already well advanced with these two shields and thought that a White base could be painted onto the central areas of the shield.  This I did as you can see.

Here you see the first Flags of War transfer/decal cut ready for soaking in warm water. The shield design is very well drawn and I can confirm that the dimensions are exactly the right size for the large Noman Shields.

I used a new blade in my scalpel to cut out the central boss area.

The transfer applied. As you can see the white basecoated areas have come out well, but the darker areas have shown through - I should have heeded the instructions and painted the whole shield WHITE!

As I was so advanced with my painting I decided that I would paint the two remaining designs by hand rather than re-paint the areas white and re-apply the transfers.

This I did and I am just waiting for better weather before gloss varnishing (I do not like to varnish in cold or wet weather - and at the moment I have both).

Thank you to Dave Toone who sent me these transfers to test and with the exception of having to paint the shield white (which I did not do) I was very impressed with the quality and the way that they worked.

This is the end of the painting of these three test miniatures and I am sure I will paint up more - I'm just waiting for the official launch in December/January.

The HUGE shields are quite impressive, but cover a good third of the painted minis, so in future I might not take so much care and attention when painting the details under or behind the shields.

Tony