This was fun to build. I had never built a shield before this. Trust me when I say it's alot bigger and heavier than it seems in the above picture. Overall, it's about 3.5 feet long and about 2.5 feet wide. I had originally wanted it to be closer to 4.5 feet long and about 3 feet wide, but as I got to this point while building it, just before paint, as I was fastening down all of those bolts (there's about 58 or so, not including the one's you cannot see and the one's I broke off when tightening them-- didn't know I was that strong), I came to the conclusion that 25 or so pounds was heavy enough. Yes, that's right. I weighed it. *grin* And no, I hadn't planned for it to be that heavy. I did a test run one day, and walked around the house with it strapped to my left arm and shoulder. I came to the conclusion that, because of it's weight, it was just too dangerous to wear to the Comic-Con along with my sword in 2005. If someone were to run into me, which they are prone and almost guaranteed to do, not only would they have potentially gotten hurt, but I could have gotten injured as well, and I can't have either of those happen. Needless to say, this shield ended up staying home, and has not left the house since it was built. Eventually I'll build another one that's even bigger and lighter. But until then, I'll keep this as a reminder of how things sometimes don't turn out the way you were expecting them to.