Athenian Warband Shield Design

After all that Cold War Imagi-Nations it’s time to get back to Ancient Greece.

Arriving in the post in the next few days I should be receiving an amount of ‘transfer paper’ (also known as decal paper). This is for the construction of the images that shall grace my Athenian warband’s shields. This is due to the fact that, while there are many commercial available (and rather good) transfers, none of them fit my needs. All the examples available contain far too many variations. This is great if you’re creating an actual 6/5/4^th century Greek Hoplite force, not so great if you want a small unified mythological band or omilos. So I intend to design/create my own.

Now, the classical imagery for Athene would be the owl. I also happen to like the stylised Greek owls as well so no matter how cliché, it is my intended shield design. I have, however, never used transfer paper so this shall be an experiment in both methods of printing and seeing which design best works with said paper. My thinking is for something relatively simple and plain without some of the ornamentation seen with other designs. This allows for the shield to be instantly recognisable and means that if the printer isn’t of the best quality there’s less to detail to be produced.

Below there shall be a number of example that I am considering for said design. Any feedback is appreciated!

Tetradrachm showing the Owl of Athene.

1. A simple line drawing of the Owl of Athene

2. A more complex form, closer to that seen on the coin.

3. A more modern interpretation. I liked the curving line work.

Out of the the three images I think those most similar to number one shall be used for simplicity's sake. I do like the 'filled nature' nature of two however and feel that may work better as a shield design. If I have sufficient transfer paper I may attempt a test rune with one of each and apply it to some spare shields to get a real 'feel'. Some simple editing can be done depending on my findings.