One of the most iconic elements of the classic LEGO castle sets (1978-1997) would have to be the shields with their pad printed coat of arms designs, and whilst they are all pretty iconic designs, my first castle was 6073 Knight’s Castle so the original Black Falcons shield design is the OG as far as I am concerned.

As you might have seen in my previous posts I am currently working on a large display (hopefully for Brickvention 2021 if it is accepted) exploring everything I love about the castle theme, and as part of that I am hoping to refresh and update the designs of the Black Falcons. So far I have shown my revised name and emblem and my torso designs and today I am going to post my shield designs.

I started off my design process with the iconic ‘triangle’ shaped shields, creating the three versions that I have already shown in my Knights of the Black Falcon post (designs a-c) and from there I looked at other ways to explore the shield shape  but perhaps indicate some different sub-factions or units (designs d-h).

I want my units to feel related and yet have a variety of designs to feel more like a realistic army, rather than all units just carrying exactly the same shield.

Below you can see various shield variations that might be used to flesh out my units, I am envisaging that the tall (norman style) shields (I-P) will be used for different knights and that at least one of the round shields (Q-T) will be used by my crossbowmen.

So what do you think? Do the varied shield designs read enough like Black Falcons? Let me know what you think by commenting below.

My next post will be about the second faction that will feature in my display, the Forestmen.