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(Version 1.0.1 – 31 January 2005)
Introduction So you want to make your own shields? Mine aren't good enough for you, eh? Well, I think I'll go and sulk in the corner in a fit of despondency. Alternatively, I could tell you how to do it. :) This tutorial is intended to reveal the basics of building a shield for Midnight/MU. It will cover simple things like preparing the background and detail designs, applying edges and trim and finally shading your masterpiece to give it a little depth. No artistic talent is required as I will be using clipart and basic shapes and quite frankly, it is a talent I am not blessed with myself.
Requirements Well, a graphics program would help. In fact this is the one and only pre-requisite. (oh, and an Internet connection, but without one of those you wouldn't be reading this, right?) So that anyone can follow the tutorial, I will be using the Gimp which is free and available for all the major platforms and operating systems. Adobe Photoshop or Jasc PaintShop Pro will do just as well if you are more familiar with them. Optionally, if you wish to create your own shield templates, detail designs or even work at different resolutions, you may want a vector drawing program such as Inkscape which is free and cross-platform as well. Better known alternatives like CorelDraw or Adobe Illustrator are fine too. I won't be covering vector drawing here as it can be a complex subject and is essentially beyond the scope of this tutorial.
Resources You can always draw everything yourself, of course, but if you're anything like me you'll want to avoid doing so at all costs. This is where clipart comes in. You can use any clipart you want, free or commercial, or even bits ripped from other graphics, but you should pay attention to artistic copyrights when doing so. One good resource for copyright free heraldric clipart is James Wolf's Heraldry Clipart Collection. A selection of my own templates is available here.
Preparation Right, let's get down to business, shall we? The first thing you need to decide is what the shield should look like. For this tutorial, we will have a “shape C” shield with red/gold quarters as the background and a black Antelope Rampant as the design. We will also add a black edge to the shield to enhance definition. You will note that the design does not comply with heraldry rules – which state that you should never have colour (in this case sable or black) on a colour background (the scarlet or red). I will show a compliant version of the shield when we're done. The Antelope Rampant image is here and the shield template I have chosen is here. The first thing to note is that the clipart size is too big and the colour is white. The image will have to be prepared for use in the shield. Time to fire up the Gimp. |
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(Note to Windows users: The Gimp does not use |
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Fig 1 |
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Use the File->Open dialogue (Fig 1) to open the Antelope Rampant image you downloaded earlier. You should end up with something like Fig 2. |
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Fig 2 |
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Note that the image is a GIF using an indexed palette. We want to work in RGB, so we need to change the mode. On the image pull-down menus, choose Image->Mode->RGB. You will note the mode of the image shown on the title bar has changed to RGB. Next, we need to get rid of the white background from the antelope image, as we only want the antelope itself. The best way to do this is to highlight the excess area in a neutral colour we won't be using within the image. I tend to use magenta (Red = 255, Green = 0, Blue = 255 or simply 255,0,255). |
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Fig 3 |
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Make sure you have magenta as your foreground colour (Fig 3 - you change the colour by clicking on the coloured square) and then using the Fill tool (that's the tilted bucket icon) fill the background with the neutral colour. Make sure you also fill in the bits the original fill may have missed, in this case around the inside of the mouth and the base of the horns (Fig 4). |
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Fig 4 |
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From the image pull-down menus, choose Select->By Colour and click anywhere in the neutral background to select it. Then choose Select->Invert to select everything except the background. Next, choose Edit->Copy and Edit->Paste as New which should give you Fig 5. This is a more reliable method of separating the wanted section than selecting the neutral colour and cutting it. |
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Fig 5 |
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Now that we have a nice antelope image on a transparent background, it is time to save it. Note that by default the Gimp uses the file extension to determine the file format used in saving. In this case we will call the file "antelope_rampant.png". We can then close the workspaces in the Gimp, ready for the next stage. |
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Making the shield Time to start work on the shield proper, so let's load in the template image. Once this is done, it is a good time to save the file as “s_antelope.psd”, giving us the work environment (Fig 6). It is also time to make sure that the layers dialogue (Fig 7) is visible. If this is not already open, choose Dialogues->Layers from the image pull-down menus. |
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Fig 6 |
Fig 7 |
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Now we need to rename the “Background” layer to “Template”, and create new layers for the edge, detail, shading and the two colours that make up the background, then arrange them as in Fig 8. |
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Fig 8 |
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Use the Fill tool to fill the Edge layer with black (0,0,0) and the Background Colour 1 layer with red (255,0,0). Then, with the Backgound Colour 1 layer selected, use the image pull-down menus to Edit->Copy and Edit->Paste as New to create a separate copy of the red layer. Fill this copy with yellow (255,255,0) then using the image pull-down menus Image->Scale Image to open the Scale dialogue. In the Interpolation field, select “Cubic”. The the field showing “px” change it to show “%”, then change the value in the height field to 50.0. Pressing enter should force the width field to change to 50.0 as well, then pressing Ok will shrink the yellow rectangle to a quarter of its original size. Use the image pull-down menus on this image to Edit->Copy and then return to the original image, selecting the Background Colour 2 layer. Use Edit->Paste to copy the yellow quarter to this layer and place it in the top left hand corner, then repeat and paste another quarter in the bottom right hand corner. Your layers should now look as in Fig 9 and your image – with all layers visible – like the one in Fig 10. |
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Fig 9 |
Fig 10 |
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Then select the Template layer and create a copy of it, after which leave only this new layer and the two Background Colour layers visible, as in Fig 11. |
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Fig 11 |
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Use Image->Merge Visible Layers to merge the three layers into one, then Select->By Colour and click on the magenta area to select the mask. Next, use Edit->Cut to remove the masked area leaving a shield shape in yellow and red quarters. Now select Layer->Scale Layer and change the width in the dialog window from 173 to 158 pixels. Set interpolation to cubic and click OK. Use Layer->Layer to Image Size to adjust the layer dimensions back to the original while retaining the reduced image. In the Layers window, set the Edge and Template layers as visible, so your layers and image should look as in Figures 12 and 13. |
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Fig 12 |
Fig 13 |
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Lastly in this part, it's time to prepare the shading. Use the Layers dialogue to select the Shading layer and make this layer visible. (Make sure the layer is selected because it is possible to make the layer visible without selecting it) Using the Gradient Tool – which is found immediately to the right of the Fill Tool we've been using earlier – select the “Rounded Edge” gradient and the settings seen in Fig 14. Apply the gradient to the later by making a roughly horizontal stroke from left to right, tilting it slightly upwards to get the effect is Fig 15. Note that you can keep using the “Undo” option to keep applying the gradient until you get it right. |
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Fig 14 |
Fig 15 |
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Now reduce the transparency of the Shading layer to 40% (I normally use 30%, but 40% works better here). You should be able to see the final shield taking shape at this stage, so it may be an idea to save the file at this stage, but leave it open. |
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Adding the detail Open the previously saved antelope_rampant.png file and use Select->All and Select->Float to select the actual antelope from the background. Then use Tools-> Colour Tools->Colorise and set saturation to 0 and lightness to 80 to get a while image with light grey detail (this step is not needed for this particular shield, but it is particularly useful when you want to develop a silver or gold device for the shield). Use Filters->Colours->Colourify and set the custom colour to black or a very dark grey. Click OK – the antelope should now be a dark colour. It's clear that the antelope is too big for the shield, so use the Image->Scale Image option to halve the dimensions. This is just an approximation as you can fix the proper size later. Now use Edit->Copy to copy the image to the clipboard. Make the s_antelope.psd image active and select the Detail layer, not forgetting to make it visible. Use Edit->Paste to copy the antelope to this layer. You will again note that the antelope is a little too large, so scale down the layer by 15 pixels and move the antelope so that it is centered on the shield rather than the work area. When you have something resembling Fig 16 save the s_antelope.psd file again. The shield design and build stage is now complete. |
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Fig 16 |
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The finishing touches With all the layers visible, select Image->Merge Visible Layers to flatten the image, then Select->By Colour and click on the magenta. As before, use Edit->Cut to remove the masked area and leave the shield standing free at last. The shading has dulled the colours a little, so using Tools->Colour Tools->Brightness-Contrast tweak the contrast and brightness until you are happy with the result (Fig 17). |
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Fig 17 |
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The M/MU shields have a maximum size of 48x56, so it's time to shrink our masterpiece to fit. Select Image->Scale Image to open up the dialogue and unlink the aspect ratio. Then select a width of 48, a height of 56 and set the interpolation to “Cubic”, as in Fig 18. |
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Fig 18 |
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Click OK and the shield will be resized. This may result in extra blurring, so select Filters->Enhance->Sharpen and set the value to 30 before clicking OK. Save the file as “s_antelope.png” and the job is finally done.
NOTE: The Gimp determines which file format to save in by the extension you give to the file name. Thus, if you try to save an image as “s_antelope.png” instead of “s_antelope.psd” the Gimp will attempt to flatten it first. Take care with the file extensions.
Epilogue I said earlier that the design wasn't very correct in heraldic terms. Here is a more acceptable version.
I leave it as an exercise for the budding smith to find a way of achieving this. |
