Paper Plate Warriors

ROMAN SOLDIER

Here’s a simple but effective way to create a ‘profile’ of an Ancient Roman or Greek soldier, or maybe a god or goddess. You just need a paper plate, a pair of scissors, some glue, and some reference photos to help.

For any making like this it helps to sketch out the basic shapes first . . . I’ve done this using the central circle embossed on the plate as a rough guide for the shape of the head. I’ve then carefully cut away three pieces to create the profile outline.

When I make models like this I always try to think about how I can incorporate the leftover pieces, what I call ‘pure making’ . . . so, in this case I have cut shapes from these three leftover pieces and used them to add details and different textural elements to the design.

You can see here how I’ve used some larger pieces to define elements of the helmet and also how I’ve used a hole-punch to create pieces that look like rivets, holding the metalwork together. It’s a fun way for children to ‘play’ with shapes and to try to be inventive about how they use all of the available materials.

I’ve painted this quite loosely, using some metallic paints as well as a few basic colours (just school water-based paints). I like to play with reflections, you can see how I’ve made the red of the ‘plume’ reflect in the top of the helmet, and I’ve also used white paint to add some sharper ‘highlights’ and black to add some much darker shadows.

GREEK WARRIOR

Here’s an Ancient Greek version too, based on the same principle but a slightly different design.

I like the fact that with this design you can clearly see exactly how the different parts of the plate get used. The basic helmet shape is easy to draw and follows the patterns of the plate, and although the face ‘profile’ is harder, with a few references images to work from I think most kids would give it a go. The nose is about half way down the side which helps, and it’s quite a stylised design. It might be worth doing an image search online for ‘warriors’ on Ancient Greek pottery, you’ll find lots of similar designs to work from.

I limited my palette when it came to painting this, I think that makes the patterns and textures show up more, so I stuck to just black, white, and gold paint. You could try different colours though, the orange and black pottery designs might offer a nice combination too.