Design a Set of Shields

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Documents Setup

We start off with a new web document 600px by 600px. Draw 10 guides. Place one every 100px both horizontally and vertically. Then make sure to set up your grid set up for 1px increments and turn Snap To Grid on, which is View > Snap to Grid or (Shift + Command/Ctrl + Quotes). Now we are going to draw one half of nine shields. You can see from the image below on the right that this is a really simple drawing task. Play around with it. try some different shapes to see what kind of shields you can come up with.

We can do this next step one row at a time. Grab the first one and go to Object > Transform > Reflect. In the Window set the Axis: Vertical and hit Copy.

After dragging that row over and lining up both sides we will combine the shapes to make one shield graphic. With both halves selected click Merge in the Pathfinder Palette.

After repeating this process on all the graphics we will have nine shields.

Pick one of your shields to use for the next half of the tutorial where we will add color, depth, and style to the graphic. I chose the center shield from above. Copy the shield.

Set up Our Primary Shapes and Layers

Create a new document 200px by 200px. And paste your shield into the center of your Artboard. Make sure you are placing each of the shapes we create on their own Layer. This will make it easier to edit as we move through this tutorial. Name this first Layer Sides. Select your shield and Scale it. Go to Object > Transform > Scale. The settings I used are in the image below. Yours may vary. Hit Copy. Now set the fill color of your copy to a dark gray. Name this layer Inside Shadow.

Your image should now look like the one on the left. Repeat this process for the next layer. In the Scale Window I used a Uniform setting of scale 94 percent. Then I manually made some adjustments with the Direct Select Tool (See image below on the right). Name this layer Inside.

Adding In Layers for Outer Edges

We made our main shapes and what will become our main shadow, but we also need outer edge highlights if we want this Shield to have a professional look.

Breaking Up the Sides

Having different independent shapes for our shield's sides will allow us to color each piece of the side with a distinct gradient. Select the Side and the Inner Shapes. Copy (Command/Ctrl + C) them and paste in Front (Command/Ctrl + F). Now in the Pathfinder Palette click Divide, as shown below on the left. Then select the new Inner Shape and Delete it.

Now we are going to usee the pen tool and draw lines that overlap our sides. We are only concerned with the parts shown in the picture below. Where the red circles are. The other parts are not going to be cut, but rather remain solid shapes.

On the left is an image of the lines we need to draw. Now select all the lines and our new Side shape and click Divide in the Pathfinder Palette. After doing this there will be some lines on the inside to clean up by deleting them.

Coloring in Our Shield

Now that we have the main parts of our shield designed we can color it in. Lets choose a color palette first. I decided to color the Inner part of the shield in a range from blue to dark purple. And the edges are colored bright yellow to light brown. This will emulate a gold color.

First I selected the Inner part of the shield and created a Linear Gradient that goes from blue to dark purple and set at Angle: -60. Then I selected the edges and made a Linear Gradient that goes from light brown to bright yellow. Shown below on the left are the more complicated gradients. On the left I created a gradient for the outer edge. On the right shows how the gradient was set up for the inner edge.

Adding Some Highlights

We are going to add some highlights to the Inner shield. It will also give it that cross section look that some shields have. Select the Inner shield. Copy and Paste in Front. Now grab the Delete Anchor Point Tool (Minus Sign). Delete the anchor points for the right side of the shield. Then grab the Direct Select Tool (A) and manually pull the handles into the points until you get a straight edge (see the image below).

Next we draw a circle that is about the size show in the image below on the left. Copy the Inner shield and Paste in Front. Select both the circle and the copy of Inner shield and hit Divide in the Pathfinder Palette, like we have done earlier in this tutorial. You will have three shapes. Delete the top part of the circle. Delete the bottom part of the shield. And then you are left with the new top part of the Inner shield. Give that an Opacity of 10 percent. And just for some extra variation give it a Gradient from White to Purple. The final results are on the right.

Using Your Shield Graphics

Now we have a shiny professional shield for our final results. You could certainly use the shields you created above for other projects as well. The reasons for making multiple shields was to have some variety to choose from for this tutorial and some left over stock for your future projects. It also shows you how quick it is to make this kind of graphic.

Let me know if there are any questions in the comments below. If you use the shield for a project put a link in the comments as well. I'd like to see how this tutorial helped you. Thanks.