Posts: 8,310 Location: Montreal,Quebec,Canada
Thu 16 Jun, 2005 2:26 pm
Looks great to me at least as artwork not meant to be historically accurate: Perfectly fine as a phantasy piece.
A metal rim might be nice. As to satisfaction with this
shield I guess it depends on what you want it to be !
If one makes a shield for actual use in regular practice with sword and shield one might make something very easily repairable and disposable with a simple to repaint design if one wishes to give it a bit of style.
What you seem to have is a purely decorative piece that is marginally usable maybe once and much too attractive to risk damage.
I can also see one making an extremely well decorated shield that would be fully functional and sturdy that could be used in real ( Historically ) or simulated combat but where one would use the above practice shields to keep this one in as new condition. ( Could be used, but wouldn't be used in a modern context. Historically highly decorative pieces would be used with little concern about damage in a real battle I think. )
Structuraly I would want a strong boss and metal rim ( The metal rim maybe covered with rawhide: Don't know if this was actually done, the point being to get the strenght of the metal reinforced edge plus the gripping effect of the rawhide rim to catch the edge of an opponents sword putting it out of action for a short time. )
Also a strong fabric or leather covering, unless it was an all metal 16th century Rondache or Target.