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What would you call these and what should i put on them (writing and symbol wise)?

Top one is a name plate. Either leave it blank or name your marine.

Bottom one is a Purity Seal. Add some small squiggly lines to it to give the impression of scripture being written all over it.

Thank you sir!

Yeah it's a motto plate at the top, a skull and motto on the leg, which is an award given to marines, and the bottom is a purity seal, a prayer sheet fixed with wax onto a marine's armour.

I give both tiny thin squiggly lines to suggest written script.

black squiggles

black squiggles

black squiggles

I've never seen more than that and it would be tough to do on such a small surface

If you are going to use words rather than squiggles, use a pen, not paintbrush, it will be way easier.

 Stormphoenix wrote:
If you are going to use words rather than squiggles, use a pen, not paintbrush, it will be way easier.

That totally depends on the painter. I am in no way a professional painter but I can get a line much, much finer with brush than I ever could with a pen. Also, use a black-brown color when making any lettering (real or squiggles), it looks so much better than a pure black.

 Stormphoenix wrote:
If you are going to use words rather than squiggles, use a pen, not paintbrush, it will be way easier.

May give this a try, what kind of pen do you use? like a sharpie fine tip or just regular pen?

I use Pilot fineline pens, I'm unsure if they exist in the US.

Sakura Pigma Micron pens work really well. they come in very very fine sizes and are fairly inexpensive. You do have to hold them at jus the right angle though or they wont write.

I used to be a micron pen fan, but I'm now firmly in scooty's camp.

while the pen is hands-down faster, I get better-looking results using a fine detail brush and a bit of acrylic retarder. plus, I can make my squiggles in whatever colors I want. this lets me do fun stuff like illuminated lettering (e.g., large, red first letter followed by black squiggles). more work, but it takes your detail work up a level.

Micron pens come in a few different colors, varl, including red. Just sayin'...

I do agree that the inks are a touch stark compared to thinned paint, but for the average painter the increased speed and control of Micron squiggles make them well worth trying out, at the very least.

As far as the achievable thinness of the lines is concerned, I'm never sure when people claim that brushes are hands-down superior whether they have magic monomolecular-tipped brushes and rock-steady hands or they just can't figure out markers. With a light enough touch, you can get a line no thicker than a human hair, by appearance, out of a 005 (even up to an 02, but it gets trickier as size increases, obviously). Ink flow can sometimes be problematic, but I find that keeping a scrap of paper handy to draw out the reserves from a seemingly dry tip helps immensely.