Knight colouring page

A knight in plate armour with the visor closed, a plain shield in one arm and a raised sword in the other.

A knight stands facing the viewer in full plate armour. The visor is closed and no face is visible: the helmet is a smooth rounded shell with a single dark slot across it, and a plume of three broad feathers rises from the top. The armour is drawn as a small number of large plates rather than as fine detail — two rounded shoulder pieces, a chest plate, upper and lower arm sections, a skirt of overlapping bands, knee pieces and boots. A tall shield with a completely plain centre panel is held on one arm, and a long straight sword is raised in the other hand.

The shield is the biggest empty area anywhere on this sheet and it is empty on purpose. There is no emblem, no lettering and no device on it, so it is a blank panel with a wide border and it will take whatever anybody puts there. Quartering it into four colours, giving it a single bold field, or drawing a device of your own into it are all things this sheet was left open for.

The armour is best treated as one material with many facets. Choosing a single grey or silver and then varying the pressure plate by plate — lighter on the chest and the shoulders that face you, darker on the arms and the skirt bands that turn away — makes the figure look metallic without any second colour. A flat single-tone fill across every plate makes it look like a suit of clothes instead.

The plume is the one part of the drawing with a soft edge, and it is the natural place for a strong colour against all that grey. Its three feathers are separate closed shapes, so they can be one colour or three, and their combined area is small enough that even a very loud choice is not going to unbalance the sheet.

The visor slot is already filled dark on the page. That is the single darkest mark on the drawing and it is what makes the helmet read as closed rather than as an empty shape. Nothing needs to be added to it, and it also gives you a reference: any colour darker than the slot will pull the eye away from the head, which is where you probably want it to stay.

The sword is one long narrow lane with a crossguard and a round pommel. Leaving the blade white and colouring only the crossguard and the grip is what makes steel look like steel on white paper, and it is faster than filling it. If the blade is coloured, keeping a strip of white down one edge does the same job and takes one extra decision.

A little of the vocabulary is drawn here. The hinged plate covering the face is the visor, and the slot cut across it for seeing through is a sight. The overlapping bands at the waist are a fauld, made in strips so that the wearer can bend, which is why they are drawn as separate bands rather than as one solid piece — every place in this drawing where the armour is drawn in strips is a place a real suit had to move.

Print at actual size on plain A4 paper. The sword and the plume are the two shapes a smaller print thins out. Heavier card is worth using if markers are the plan, mainly because the shield is a large flat field and a marker will show through it. Cut out along the outline and the knight comes away with the shield and the raised sword attached, which makes an awkward but very recognisable silhouette for a window.

Published 29 August 2026Updated 29 August 2026615 words