- Guides
Paint yourself guidelines so that the symbol will end up roughly even and balanced. - Outline: Planning
Plan the border with some dots around the edges and tips. - Outline: Painting
Paint the outline to create the symbol. - Fill In
Paint inside the symbol to fill it in. - Fix Up
Use the background colour (Black in this case.) to clean up the shape of the symbol and remove the guidelines.
That's the main thing - create guides, an outline and fill it in.
[Top 2 pics] Now that you've basically got the symbol created, add a little shading and highlights to it while keeping the border clean. This mainly creates a little texture and depth so the icon isn't one solid colour.
[Rest of the pics]
After that, I paint the background and border.
The border is pretty straight forward as I base it with a dark grey, followed by a dark, then bright silver.
Mixed greys create the background of the tablet, just be careful not to paint over the symbol as you highlight and shade.
A note on when to paint the background
There are two ways to do this and neither are wrong. You can either paint the entire background first - highlights, shades and all, or paint the background second.Because this was just a flat open space, I opted to paint the symbol first, then work around it to paint the symbol after.
You may find that for something uneven like a banner or a cloak, it's easier to paint the background first. This'll give you an idea of how the symbol might flow over the surface.
I wasn't sure how I wanted to paint the smaller tablets, but I didn't want them to be boring. It occurred to me to paint them themed with the elements that would be represented in the King.
For these I basically just freehanded them. There are some more defined lines, which I started with (like above) then blended the rest.
Completed
Here's a big ol' close up of the Elemental King's belly in its finished state, showing off the smaller tablets and the larger army icon.
