The Manipulation
Manipulating shadow energy has already been explained, but for this lesson I'll give a quick summary of what you can do to manipulate shadows into a shield. First, locate the shadows around you. Second, see and feel them moving to and around you. Third, know that they have formed the shield. Finally, just accept the fact that it is in place. You can also create a servitor to maintain it for you, that will be explained two lessons from this one.
Visualization
This is just to explain the senses used; feeling, hearing, tasting, seeing, and smelling your shadow shield. It should feel warm, a balance between hot and cold. It should smell scentless, but if you wish you may give it a scent that you like(I smell it as cherry blossoms). It shouldn't have a taste either, unless you also wish to give it one. It should sound like silence, but you can also give it a vibrational pulse if you'd like. And of course it should look grey, a balance between light and dark. Use all your senses and form the shield around you, solid yet crystalline(see-through). Know that by having the shield there you are safe.
Affect
A shadow based shield will protect you from anything meant to offset any balance or uses a chaos(or chaos subtype) based energy. You may have to spend some energy maintaining it, but that is what servitors are for.
Other Methods
Aside from the bubble shield you can visualize a skin tight outfit covering your entire body, a mirrored lifeform that changes shape as necessary to reflect the attacks back to where they came from, a pyramid, a cube, a dome(most popular for shielding an area or group rather then an individual), or just about anything you can think of. With each form there may be different affects, such as if it is deflective a pyramid would like send most attacks that are sent horizontally at an upward angle or a cube may send any that aren't sent in a straight line at the surface to an otherwise horizontal angle. It's really all according to how you choose to visualize your shield.
A Note on Servitors
Due to a couple complaints I'm going to add here as well as in the servitor lesson, when using a servitor to maintain your shield try to make sure the servitor is on the inside of the shield. That way they are protected as well.
