The penultimate LARP Event is fast approaching (well for the club I attend anyway). Which has made me realise that I haven’t posted anything for some time. Between the last post and this I’ve made a couple of items for my kit. The first one being a shield. This was the biggest project (in size anyway) that I have so far attempted. The basic design was based on a picture in Osprey books “Celtic Warrior” of a votive shield from the rather than a full sized one. Although there may be some evidence that full sized shields of this type did exist. (Andrew Brozyna on the webpage http://www.redrampant.com/roma/celtshields.html discusses where these votive offerings were found -figure e in the first picture).
The basic structure of the shield was two layers of thick foam with a thinner foam for the shield boss and a length of plastic pipe to form the handle. The most time consuming part of making the shield was making the molded “knotwork” hounds. This was a process of making two separate modeling clay masters (one for each version of the hounds, you need two so the knotwork runs properly) and then making a plaster mold of both. This done I made two
latex moldings from each mold. The back of the shield was easier as it was just made to look like wood. Not my best photographs but they give the general idea.
As well as the shield I’ve made an axe and a dagger. The dagger was made from an off cut of foam left over from when I made my sword. Using a sharp blade I carved it to give a flint or stone dagger appearence. The axe came about as I had an old length of pipe from an axe that I’d made a long time ago. I wanted to play around with carving foam a little more and so come up with the dog head design. I’m quite pleased with the results although my partner says it looks like Snoopy and my son maintains that it looks like a fire-breathing duck.
