Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Medieval Adventures => Topic started by: plessiez on 04 July 2025, 12:20:13 AM
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Hi all, I'm starting a thread to share photos of some finished projects and work in progress of current ones.
During COVID I bought two large armies of lovely Crusaders and Saracens figures from Legio Heroica, the owner of who was sadly since passed.
I made very little progress on these for the first couple of years apart from getting all the shields done but this last couple of months I've finally pulled my finger out and got them completed.
I designed the shields in simple 3d editing software with embossed and recessed detail to make free hand painting them a bit easier. I think it was worth the effort because the shields are doing most of the heavy lifting in this army. They don't look like much from the back, but I'll get a nice view when they rout towards me.
Here's the first 4 elements of Crusader knights.
(https://images.paintinglittlemen.com/2025/07/03/knights_1_1200.png)
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They look really good - a nice splash of colour on the shields and helmets!
Do tell more about what you did with the shields, it sounds a very interesting approach.
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I don't usually post just to "congratulate" but these are outstanding. I think the shields superb. I don't have your software skills so will stick to shield decals!
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They look superb. That is a clever approach to the shields.
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Those are excellent. Legio H. miniatures will be missed. Those were beautiful cast.
To be clear the shields are 3D printed items? Really good work.
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Thanks for the kind words everyone, much appreciated. Here's the rest of the knights and the Templars. I'm saving the Hospitallers to paint last as I figure black is going to be a whole lot easier than white.
(https://images.paintinglittlemen.com/2025/07/03/knights_2_1200.png)
(https://images.paintinglittlemen.com/2025/07/03/knights_3_1200.png)
(https://images.paintinglittlemen.com/2025/07/03/templars_1200.png)
Sadly, my cunning plan of using 0.8mm styrene rod for the spears has resulted in one breakage per game so far so I may come to regret that decision.
On the plus side they're undefeated in two outings!
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@LouieN, @fred - you asked for a bit more info on the shields.
First I designed them in Tinkercad which is a very simple 3d editing program that runs in a browser. You can't use it for complex sculpting, but it's great for primitive shapes. Each shield is basically a base shape with either a pattern of thin rectangles recessed into it (for checks. diamonds, stripes etc) or with a device raised on it (like a cross). I did a mix with and without bosses and basically matched the size and mix of shields that actually came provided with the figures.
(https://images.paintinglittlemen.com/2025/07/08/tinkercad_shields.png)
After this I used ZBrush which is a much more complex bit of software that I barely know how to use to give them a very slight curve. TBH I'm not sure this is really even noticeable. Then I grouped them into "sprues" to print. Obviously, being this small, they have to be printed with a resin printer.
(https://images.paintinglittlemen.com/2025/07/08/rendered_shields.png)
Then I painted them on their sprues. I actually ended up painting almost all the shields before I even tackled any of the miniatures.
(https://images.paintinglittlemen.com/2025/07/08/shields_sprue.jpg)
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Those shields are indeed pretty cool. You could even sell them.
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Amazing work!
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Those shields are a very good concept, that you have created, and then painted very nicely! Not sure I have seen this done before, and for this era of shields it is probably easier to paint (with a template) than they would be to create with decals.
I agree that these could well be sold.